With F1 2020 and F1 2021, successful and very popular racing hits have recently been delivered, both of which were convincing in the test with colleagues from the PC games. But after being taken over by Electronic Arts and the widely criticized F1 22, Codemasters first has to win back the trust of the fans. Instead of virtual Rolex watches and other in-game gadgets, this time the focus is on elements that are intended to enhance the heart of the racing series. In focus: tough racing. Developer Codemasters and publisher Electronic Arts are bringing back F1 2021’s popular “Braking Point” story mode.
What else F1 23 has to offer is explained in the PCGH Performance Brief. This is a “light” technology test that clarifies all important questions without escalating with hundreds of benchmarks and thousands of text characters. In the future, this format will always be used when there are a particularly large number of projects in a week – we’d rather give you a crisp impression than none at all. How do you like the idea? We’re happy about every Feedback!
F1 23: content and requirements
For those who don’t remember: In F1 2021, an almost six-hour racing story was staged that picks up on the hype of the Netflix show “Drive to Survive”. The fictional story revolves around the British youngster Aiden Jackson, who, as a Formula 2 driver, makes the big leap into the premier class. Once there, he not only has to deal with the competitors from the other teams, but also with teammate Casper Akkerman. With F1 23 the story should now be continued. Here you are once again relying on Aiden Jackson, who together with Devon Butler (“Antagonist” in F1 2019 and 2021) forms the driver pairing of the fictional racing team Konnersports Racing Team. The still quite young group definitely wants to compete with the current sizes of Formula 1. According to Codemasters, we can expect “a multitude of new characters”, including the newly established driver Callie Mayer, but also fresh rivalries and many racing challenges.
Probably the biggest criticism of the Codemasters F1 series is the atypical behavior of the cars in slow corners and the lack of traction at low speeds. Here, too, promises of improvement. In this way, three key areas are to be addressed: the basic acceleration, the braking process and cornering. The underbodies of the F1 cars have also been modified, which is intended to enhance the often unrealistic driving behavior. For more information on F1 23 gameplay, check out our colleagues at PC Games.
Graphic comparison F1 20 to F1 23 – Circuit: Spain
The system requirements for F1 23 are moderate – at least in the case of “normal” graphics without ray tracing. Modern ray tracing places higher demands on both the processor and the graphics card. Similarly if you want to play F1 23 in VR. We will immediately clarify in the CPU and GPU benchmarks to what extent the information corresponds to reality.
| Minimal hardware | Recommended hardware | |
|---|---|---|
| hard disk | 80GB, SSD recommended | 80GB, SSD recommended |
| random access memory | 8GB of RAM | 16GB of RAM |
| graphic card | GTX 1050 Ti or RX 470 | Ray tracing: RTX 2060 or RX 6700 XT | VR: GTX 1660 Ti or RX 590 | GTX 1660 Ti or RX 590 | Ray tracing: RTX 3070 or RX 6800 | VR: RTX 2070 or RX 6700 XT |
| processor | Intel Core i3-2130 or AMD FX 4300 | VR: Intel Core i5-9600k or AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | Intel Core i5 9600K or AMD Ryzen 5 2600X |
| Internet | Broadband needed | Broadband needed |
| Windows | Windows 10 64-bit (Version 21H1 or higher) | Windows 10 64-bit (Version 21H1 or higher) |
F1 23: Benchmark of all routes
It’s a cherished PCGH tradition to use the built-in benchmark function to run through all tracks in Codemasters games. 26 locations around the world are waiting to be explored in F1 23. The following benchmark reveals which of the PCs demands the most. The weather conditions are set to “dry” because some effects (such as shadows) are not displayed when it rains. Consequently, our graphics card benchmarks will once again take place in Azerbaijan.
F1 23: All 26 routes tested (Geforce RTX 4090, UHD, TAA) Source: PC Games Hardware
Technically, F1 23 offers plenty of goodies for PC gamers. Above all, ray tracing should be mentioned, which can be switched on individually in the form of several effects – shadows, reflections, shading and lighting. Of course, this upgrade comes at a cost in performance, but it brings F1 23 a tiny bit closer to photorealism. So that it doesn’t jerk excessively, you can activate a variety of upsampling processes. In addition to the game’s own method, which can be upgraded using Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS), you can choose between AMD FSR 2, Intel XeSS and Nvidia DLSS.
Owners of a Geforce RTX 4000 can also use Frame Generation (part of DLSS 3) – theoretically, because this switch is permanently grayed out in the previously available version 1.4 of F1 23. The new integration of the raytracing efficiency feature SER (Shader Execution Reordering) is also still functional. We have informed EA about these teething problems and hope for a patch soon that will fix both problems. Incidentally, you can also enjoy the entire game in VR mode, but then you have to provide more powerful hardware than in “normal” mode. This mode is PC exclusive.
