Horizon Zero Dawn is a 2017 open-world game developed by Guerrilla Games. Originally released on PS4, the game takes players to an oddly primitive future where humans live in small tribes, and modern cityscapes have been lost to time. Aloy, a brave woman with impressive archery skills, must navigate dangerous lands as she searches for the answers to her origins. Standing in her path are scheming cultists and massive robot dinosaurs intent on destroying anything that moves.

The game found success on PS4 and was eventually ported to PC in August 2020. With a beefy enough computer, graphics can be cranked up far beyond what consoles can offer, making PC arguably the best place to play the stellar title. Horizon Zero Dawn just got better on PC thanks to patch 1.11 which adds Nvidia DLSS support. Through Nvidia's upscaling technology, players will be able to experience the game with better visual quality without sacrificing performance.

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What is Nvidia DLSS?

Call of Duty Warzone DLSS Aim

DLSS stands for Deep Learning Super Sampling. It works by using AI rendering technology to increase graphical performance. The result is that compatible graphics cards can produce image quality that is comparable to an image produced at native resolution, with only a fraction of the pixels being rendered. To take advantage of DLSS, players need to own the right Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics card, such as the RTX 30 series and the RTX 20 series.

Games that have implemented DLSS have seen dramatic gains in visual fidelity without tanking performance. According to Nvidia, players with an RTX 3080 can expect a whopping 91% boost in performance when using DLSS in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Cyberpunk 2077 receives a 233% boost in performance with DLSS turned on, and Watch Dogs: Legions gets a 100% boost. Even games that are not graphics-intense can benefit from Nvidia DLSS. Fortnite, for instance, receives a 293% performance boost when DLSS is turned on, while Minecraft with raytracing receives a 180% boost.

Horizon Zero Dawn and DLSS

Horizon Zero Dawn thunderjaw and aloy

The latest Horizon Zero Dawn patch comes with some welcome performance updates for the game, including improvements to the shader management system. Because of this, gamers with higher spec PCs can expect shorter loading times. The main attraction of the update, however, is the inclusion of DLSS support. According to Nvidia, gamers can expect up to a 50% performance boost. Hence, players will be able to squeeze out some extra frames-per-second while still enjoying Horizon Zero Dawn at the best visual quality possible.

To better understand what kind of performance gains gamers can expect, it would be useful to compare Horizon Zero Dawn to other graphically intense AAA games. Red Dead Redemption 2, for instance, receives a 45% performance boost. This allows all players with GeForce RTX graphics cards to play RDR2 at max settings at 1920x1080 at over 60 FPS. Those lucky enough to own an RTX 3070 can enjoy the game at over 60 FPS at 3840x2160.

With its rolling meadows, photorealistic skies, and obsessively detailed natural environments, it is hard for players to not have their breath taken away by some of the sights Horizon Zero Dawn has to offer. Now that DLSS has been thrown into the mix, it is impossible to not stop every few moments to just drink in the view or get the perfect shot in photo mode.

The inclusion of DLSS spells good news for the future of Horizon games on PC. Horizon Forbidden West, the highly anticipated sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn, is set to release in early 2022. Although Guerrilla Games has yet to announce a PC port of the game, it is hard to believe that the studio would give up all the knowledge and experience it has learned from Horizon Zero Dawn's port. The studio's continued support of the PC port of Horizon Zero Dawn illustrates that PC is a platform Guerrilla Games takes seriously and is willing to invest time and effort into.

Horizon Zero Dawn is available now on PC and PS4.

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