Just a note for those people that need an easy test method for their GPU for suitability with Zwift.
Download Superposition Benchmark and run it with the correct screen resolution for your monitor or TV.
Alternatively if you are new to Zwift and do not yet have an account you can just run the trial:
This will show how your GPU works.
It’s important to remember that a hyper-powerful new GPU might run Zwift in most basic detail if Zwift doesn’t yet have a profile for it, so the benchmark results alone are not the final word.
Or look it up on TrainerDX, and check the GPU table to see which profile it gets
Depends on how deep you want to get into the tech side of things. You can tune the GPU within the Nvidia App, it changes the end result. I did a before and after and it made quite a difference.
So many factors influence the actual result of your set-up, I would recommend testing your own actual system becasue at the end of the day that’s all that matters.
The majority of peoples problems on here is because they don’t use adequate hardware to run Zwift properly to the point the whole thing crashes. Its a game, it may not be a AAA title but it still takes massive grunt to run it if you want the ultimate Zwift experience.
Zwift is a simple game, the graphics look like Vice City era, any modern hardware should be able to run it if it doesn’t it’s a bug/bad optimisation
It looks simple, but cranking it up that actually takes a fair bit of power to run despite the cartoon look, especially if you tweak up some of the settings in the config file.
Maybe one day Zwift might get a new graphics engine. There was fondo.cc that had some amazing graphics, particularly the lighting (especially casting through the trees and with a bit of haze/fog) and shadows, also the road imperfections, twigs over the edge of the road.
And to think it was on an engine that should be able to adapt/scale to all sorts of devices from lower end to higher end.
As far as I know it all went very quiet, I haven’t seen anything else from that project, shame. Some folks apparently got to test it. That quality with the rest that Zwift does well would be amazing, as much as people want the graphics to remain 2017 style in Zwift (but run on ever more powerful machines).
I was running it on an old 2010 Mac Pro that was retired from work duties.
It had an ancient Xeon X5690 GPU, 64GB RAM (DDR3 ECC) and a fairly middle of the road Radeon RX6600XT GPU. That’s hardly massive grunt but it ran faultlessly at 4K Ultra. That was always a solid machine when it was used for work duties.
Now I use a M4 Pro Mac Mini, a tiny little thing it also does 4K ultra, didn’t cost the earth either.
With GPU and RAM costs these days - you really don’t need to spec something massive, just as long as it’s well put together, doesn’t overheat, good PSU, etc.
Try upping the fps to match that of what an LG C5 OLED can deliver.
The biggest problem is you don’t know what you are actually missing until you get a 4K setup running 120fps.
Things appear that were totally missing in 1080p.
Oh I have a 4K setup that runs very well, but the difference between that and a lower detail isn’t that important given the cartoon style graphics.
I quite like the cartoon graphics, its the actual other riders that make Zwift what it is.
I’m not interested in ultra realistic “Video” type graphics, thats out there already.
Zwift was smart, it enabled users to run the software on a very wide variety of devices, even my 12 year old PC was running 1080p at 30fps.
If you want to pay for a high end gaming PC, you get high end graphics its that simple.
Well I have been using exercise software for years and unfortunately its looks “Simple” and then you go out and get a GPU that cannot handle it. RowPro looked like something out of the 1980’s and the GPU used to fall over. Zwift is far from simple, when you run it in 4K you realise how far away from simple it really is. Until the lighting, reflections, shadows and the Neon lighting really kick in you will quickly change your mind.
Where in 3D cycling apps? Which ones?
There aren’t that many.
And for all this love of unrealistic graphics, when bike shadows disappear there is an outrage.