MotoGP 18 has just been released on the PC. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, MotoGP 18 comes with better AI, bike physics, a new collision system, a scalable damage system and tire management system. As such, it’s time now to benchmark it and see how it performs on the PC platform.

For this PC Performance Analysis, we used an Intel i7 4930K (overclocked at 4.2Ghz) with 8GB RAM, AMD’s Radeon RX580 and RX Vega 64, NVIDIA’s GTX980Ti and GTX690, Windows 10 64-bit and the latest version of the GeForce and Catalyst drivers. NVIDIA has not included any SLI profile for this game, meaning that our GTX690 performed similarly to a single GTX680.

Milestone has added a few graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of anti-aliasing, textures, anisotropic filtering, shadows, reflections, ambient occlusion, focal length, motion blur, bloom, lens flares and particles. There are also options for the framerate (the game supports uncapped framerate) and for resolution scaling.

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In order to find out how the game performs on a variety of CPUs, we simulated a dual-core and a quad-core CPU. And we are happy to report that even a dual-core CPU (without Hyper Threading) can run this latest bike racing game with constant 60fps. MotoGP 18 does not require a high-end CPU in order to be enjoyed, something that will undoubtedly please a lot of PC fans.

Similarly to its modest CPU requirements, the game can run with constant 60fps on a variety of graphics cards on Ultra settings at 1080p. Our GTX980Ti, AMD Radeon RX580 and Radeon RX Vega 64 had no trouble at all running the game with more than 60fps. For our GPU benchmarks we used a replay with almost all the bikes appearing on screen. Consider this a stress test as the game runs faster while playing it.

As said, MotoGP 18 is powered by Unreal Engine 4; an engine that favours NVIDIA’s GPUs over AMD’s GPUs. As such, we are not surprised by the minimal performance differences between the GTX980Ti and the Radeon RX Vega 64. Still, and as you’d expect, AMD’s graphics card is faster than the GTX980Ti in pretty much all resolutions.

Graphics wise, MotoGP 18 is pleasing to the eye but it did not wow us. I don’t know if we’re approaching diminishing returns in racing games this gen, but MotoGP 18 feels like a slightly better – visually – version of MotoGP 17. Basically, it feels similar to the minimal graphical jump we’re witnessing in other racing and sports games too, like for example the Pro Evolution Soccer and the FIFA series. It looks better, but it does not display anything particularly impressive. Perhaps the most memorable thing is its new cool rain drop effects, however, we’ve seen that in other titles too.

All in all, and while the game does not look particularly impressive, it runs incredibly well on the PC platform. MotoGP 18 does not require a high-end CPU and owners of GPUs equivalent to a Radeon RX 580 will be able to run the game with more than 60fps on Ultra settings at 1080p. And even though the game requires a controller in order to be fully enjoyed, it supports keyboard and displays proper on-screen keyboard indicators.

Enjoy!