UE4 does not support real time cube map generation for reflections by default. It's evident that CM had to implement planar reflection instead, which is the worst possible way of handling reflection in modern games, as it's super heavy on CPU performance. Looks and runs worse than Dirt Rally 2.

Holy shit dude, thanks a million for putting your time in this investigation! I'm rocking a 7950x3d and a 4090, and my fps increased from around ~170 to ~230 with only turning this setting to ultra low! The rest is on Ultra still. I know, 180 is already high, but with my setup I expected more, and here it is 😁 I couldn't care less about car reflections, I never see them sitting inside the car 🎉

Just did a fast try and this did a mayor difference for me! Playing on a 8700k and 2080ti at 1440p I went from 58fps to 112fps. Big thanks! Graphic settings most at high, some at ulta.

Brilliant. That explains how I run the game without issues from the beginning. I always kept the car reflections at ultra low when playing coz I use front camera all the time.

Great work finding this! I was getting terrible FPS when travelling through the built up areas of Rally Mediterraneo, and this made a huge difference. It's amazing how this game can tax a 7800X3D, 32GB DDR5 RAM and a 4090 😅

I love the method you used here to, as you've so eloquently put it: "isolate'' the problem. On this personal note, I would if I could love and only live my life that way. Learning through myself as it were, which is possible just takes a lot of time.

Great video, thanks for the investigation and sharing!

Awesome video! Thanks for digging into it and sharing.

Thanks for the vid..this will help me for sure

iRacing has 2 different graphic settings. 1 for racing, and one for replay only. This is where you crank up the showroom looks, but you race at performance settings for high FPS!

This is great info thanks. Just got WRC and just stuck everything on ultra in 4k. Going to have a play about and check the fps. Im playing with a wheel and pedals and use the cockpit view so car reflections dont really matter as much with that view anyway

Ultimate setting...epic 😄

Cool. Every little tip on this game is great to know. I have a RTX-3080TI and now testing the VR update. I will implement this change in my WRC and see how it goes. May I ask which program or app you are using to measure the FPS? Thanks for the video and tip. Take care.

made this game playable at high graphics on 1080p with a damn rx 6600! thanks so much!

hi!!thanks for video!!i notice that in 4k even used FSR in my 7900xtx not have 60fps!!i do down shadow option to hight and now i'm ok even better fps!!i will try care reflection too to have smooth experience in this game!!thanks that always have new things in chanel!!have fun

Nice find..thank you.

I don't even know why the car reflexions need to be so demanding in the first place. Rally cars literally never have fancy reflective paint jobs (unlike regular road cars with metallic paint), not to mention how covered in dust they tend to get even on the cleanest of tarmac stages. If you like the ethereal look, sure, go for Ultra car reflexions, but otherwise, if you want the realistic look, really do bring this down a few pegs.

Did Codemasters actually implement planar reflections instead of real time cube maps? You might as well do ray traced reflections on the car only. Kinda like in Forza Horizon 5. It might actually be cheaper on the CPU.

Dynamic Objects from Ultra to Medium gives you a lot of FPS too, i think even more than Car Reflections.

Thanks for this! i realized some days ago this game existed, as i have EA Play Pro decided to check and was surprised of how bad it looks and how bad it peforms on my 14900K + RTX 4090 + DDR5 compared to all other heavy games i run smooth, honestly don't know what they wanted to do? it looks worse than Dirt Rally 2 inmo...

Great video! I have 1080ti on triple screens and I have 60-75 FPS on all ultra low settings. And I have a lot of rocks/trees popping 15m in front of my car. Not good

Your a true gent 👍

Good spot, imagine playing this game using cockpit or bonnet cam and with reflections on ultra when you'll never notice it.

That is INSANE. This is like path tracing cost level of performance for a 4090 if I'm not mistaken, and it's only the reflections so probably even more costly. Crazy. Also something that worries me is that studios are starting to really prioritize visuals over gameplay. I dropped Alan Wake half way through for that reason (Epic resolved my library issue so I went ahead and got it), it got extremely stale (for my tastes at least) which sucks cause the atmosphere is insanely good. I can say the same about Lotf, after multiple NG+ playthroughs you realize the mechanics are just shallow for a souls game and there's no real challenge, bosses have basic movesets with no mix ups to keep you on your toes and their solution was to just buff the hp. Prolonging already easy fights doesn't make them any harder, they nailed the general idea but they failed to grasp the details of what makes souls games captivating and challenging. Lies of P is the perfect example of a soulslike done right. For me it's up there with Sekiro with Fromsoft level quality combat, lore and mechanics but of course that's my subjective opinion. I'm sure others would argue against it based on their experience. I even liked it more than Elden Ring... Please don't kill me lmao. Awesome stuff as usual man 🤘

And I don't use chase cam so reflections mean nothing to me. I also turn off mirrors and set crowds to low. Everything else is Ultra.

In the examples I actually prefer how Low looks LOL.... ultra is too glowy... Thanks for saving my FPS!

You need to try Ancelle and Moissiere in Monte Carlo, this two stages really kill fps, its incredible. I'm running 3440x1440 monitor, with 2700x and 3070ti, i think CPU has poor cache to this GPU, but its working around 30-40% and GPU at 60-70% usage, and it drops some stutter.

car reflection in this game is broken, but no can't wath when this setting is lover like HIGH...

thank you sir

Turn mirrors off for another fps boost. There use to be a time when Ultra settings was used for screen shots etc, now everybody expects every game to run at max settings.

How much (fps) is hybrid with boost and without boost?.

Hey so it seems also some other settings are broken. DLSS gives better FPS on Quality than performance - Antialiasing makes no difference to FPS. These two things i find particularly weird. Care to test if you have the same experience?

THX alot.

It‘s not only car reflections but also shadows. Those two settings are very CPU limited.

That's interesting, I'm running a Ryzen 5 5600X and my CPU usage stays at less than 70% the whole time, averaging 50. my 4060ti is near max load tho and I can only get 60fps on Ultra everything (including car reflections) and it went up to 100 when i turned everything to high. Still no change in CPU

Yeah, I'm getting similiar framerate @ 1440p on my 6800XT. You can go to the bumper car to get your fps even higher as well!

Hello bro! I tried here some fixes and this game is really impossible to play with an acceptable fps. Terrible optimized!!!

I found this myself a few weeks back by trial and error. I'm running a rtx 3080 and a neo 57" dual 4k screen. Car reflections and mirrors I have turned to ultra low and I am using dlss performance to get 100fps. Compromises were made...

I always play in cockpit view so car reflections are not even seen.

You are doing $deity's work. Thank you!!!

Hmm, I have 6800XT + 5950X. Do you think it would be worth to do a side-grade to a 5800X3D? I should be able to sell 5950X to cover 5800X3D so it's not a problem with money. I sometimes compile the linux kernel and stuff, but my PC will be going into simracing rig, and I wonder if 5800X3D wouldn't be better for this game ond other simracing titles. I'm on linux btw.

Thank you so much... I went from 70-75 FPS with Ultra 1440p settings to a whopping 110-120 fps with my RX 6900XT... This was soooo needed... that extra smoothness in the motion of the screen helps you drive so much better with even less mistakes...

In my opinion the car looks better on low compared to ultra!

Any fixes for the studder? Tried the race dept ini fix, no difference. 4090, 12900k, 32gigs - 100+fps

I would love someone making a graphical comparison between DR1 and EA WRC.

I wish you could turn off reflections period. Even at Ultra Low there's crazy windshield reflections if you use the onboard camera. (IE, you can see the lights of your RPM leds reflect.) It's just extremely distracting and if it's costing that much performance. Chuck it in the bin.

Nothing special- Ultra setting is probably refreshing cubemaps every frame, but 'High' is the same cube map but every 2nd or 3rd frame. It's normal!

🙏

Hey, you know what would be nice? VR support..

planar reflections :/

Putting shadows from ultra to high makes huge difference for me

I’m still having problems. My pc specs are: R7 5800X 4070ti 32RAM DDR4 NMVE SSD Gen 4 3440x1440 I have 40/60 in the most of the stages. I tried everything. I have always the same framerate. In low, in ultra. Car reflex off, on. Everything. I have only problems in this game. For example, Cyberpunk runs for me PERFECTLY. I don’t how to do…

the side by side test has only 10% - 20% gain in frames. And that is normal from ultra to low. I think you choose a very heavy spot at the begining of your video. Thats maybe the reason why you drive forward and backward at the begining....to hold this spot.

Last update notes says this info

This only made about 5 fps difference for me with a 3080 and 9900K, It might be something to do with your system.

tl;dw: turn down car reflections

the graphics looks to depressing, Metro Exodus like

Why your CPU is so hot?

Great Video but il never purchase another Ea game again, This game is an unfinished mess and I feel I was completely ripped off.

I can not double fps on ps5 🤦🏼🤦🏼🤦🏼 and game is stuttering 😢😢😢

This reminds me alot the reflections that Cubic Mapping had in Colin McRae Rally 2.0. However performance is garbage in this game, even more whit Nvidia Cards. EAvil is on a good track to kill the next Studio, Codemasters.

Most disappointing game in a while for me 😢

some "masters" of code. NOT.

I disagree. FPS is important in a racing game, but not much more than 60 is ever necessary. I'd say what is more important is the stability of said frame rate. Consistency. Unfortunately no matter the settings there seems to be tons of traversal and shader compilation stutter, even after the first couple of patches.