Dickson, I currently have a Nvidia GT 720 in my current desktop computer, do you see any visual difference between what you were using and the GTX 960? I am thinking of upgrading but I want to hear from others that there is a noticeable visual improvement.
I suspect both are pretty nice to use with Zwift.
I was tracking your question (and even know a thing or two about GPU setups), I was just wondering if you can see any visual difference (shading, texturing, anti-alias effects) between your new GPU and your old one. I am also considering a GTX 960 but I want to know if there is any fundamental visual difference between my current GPU and one such as the GTX 960.
I don’t have any issues so far (no dropped frames), keep me posted on your experiences with the GTX 960
A GT 720 has relatively little processing power compared to a GTX 960…I’d guess a 960 is probably 10x faster. As such it’ll have more graphics features turned on within Zwift…more trees and plants, nicer lighting, higher resolution textures and models, and smoother frame rate.
Chuck, Dickson’s last game session ran at a smooth 60 frames per second on the “high” graphics setting. Your last average was 26 frames per second on “medium”.
Medium has worse shadows, no sun rays beaming through the trees, no headlight at night, and half the trees/plants, as well as worse reflections on the water. High is a huge step up.
Dickson, in the next update I’ll bump the GTX 960 up to “ultra” settings…I think it’ll handle it.
@Jon, thanks for the insights on performance. Looks like it is time for a GTX 960. Is there a way locally to change my settings from ‘medium’ to ‘high’ or is that just a function of the graphics card I am using? You also have answered the headlight question that I see on the forum - sounds like it is a function of the graphics card this is being used.
ordered a GTX 960 … 
Chuck, congrats on the order. I love my 970, and the 960 is right up there with it. There’s not really an official supported way to change which config you use right now, other than upgrading your card.
Dickson, we’ve been collecting a bit of performance info so we know how Zwift runs on various pieces of hardware so that we can start out with nice default settings for everybody. Eventually we’ll expose many of the settings (resolution and full screen mode being the first two) - in fact we’ve already started sketching out the UI for that.
I want to upgrade my system to get hi res gameplay.
Based on hardware you get a setting I read.
I use a Lenovo Yoga 2, Core i3 4020 cpu with integrated Intel HD 4400 gpu.
What should I get? And is it useful to upgrade?
Dickson, thanks for the 960 details. This will be helpful when my arrives hopefully tomorrow.
Hi Onno,
Any integrated graphics will never quite be up-to-snuff to get ultra or high settings. You can find a list of our minimum, recommended, and extreme settings on our website here: http://zwift.com/what-is-it#specs
But you’ll need a pretty beefy system to get up there. We’ve had a lot of luck with Dell’s Alienware Alpha which is a tiny desktop system that produces some great results for around $550. Of course you need to provide the keyboard, mouse, and monitor (or television).
The system I have at home is a Desktop system similar to Jon’s: a 4GHz i7-4790k with 16gb of RAM and an Nvidia GTX 970 Superclocked. That’s already pretty ridiculous
Thanks, I’ve seen the hardware specs, of course. Although Zwift runs fine on my laptop, I’d like to have a system that runs Zwift fully detailed at ultra wide hd resolution 
To get the most out of my hardware I’ve read on this forum a fast single videocard is recommended (sli/crossfire not needed)
What about the cpu? How important is the single thread performance of a cpu? (is the game multi-threads optimized)
And which resolutions does Zwift support? Currently and in the future. If ultra wide hd won’t be supported a large hd tv is maybe a better option instead of a ultra wide hd monitor.
I’m no gamer since Zwift. So now I’m searching for some hardware which suits my Zwift needs
Got the GTX 960 video card (EVGA) and installed it today, I had to upgrade the BIOS on my Dell computer in order to use the video card (that took a while to figure out). The upgrade in performance is visually spectacular - double the trees, sunlight streaking, headlight at night on the bike …
Onno, the GPU is by far the #1 item that dictates how nice your Zwift experience will be. Pretty much any Intel “core” processor will be fine for Zwift, even just dual core is fine.
The “premium” experience would be an i7 and a GTX980, but an i5 with a GTX 960 is probably a much more affordable close runner up.
Re: the 960, I just added it to our recognized cards list so it’ll be bumped up from 720p to 1080p when the next update goes live. Full HD!
Ok thanks.
In another topic there’s a reference to the benchmark of Passmark (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/)
Is the G3D Mark a good indication of the details you get in Zwift?
For example:
Geforce GTX 960, 5864 points, 1920x1080 high details
Geforce GTX 460, 2663 points, 1920x1080 low details
Intel HD 4400, 538 points, 1280x720, low details
Can you tell me which score will get a … resolution and … detail level?
Or an indication?
@Jon, I am looking forward to 1080p using my GTX 960 video card.