The real-life Formula 1 has had to adapt to the global conditions over the past two years, delaying the massive rule changes until 2022. However, changing things on the go is much easier for the real F1 than it is for the developers of the game series. F1 2020 launched during a condensed real season with many canceled races and new venues that didn’t make it into the game. For F1 2021 though, Codemasters seems to be much better equipped to deal with these uncertainties for the current season.
The F1 2021 game is not a drastic change over last year’s game by any means, at least not in terms of gameplay. But, what it does add is something that many fans have been wanting for quite a while now. The little story snippet at the start of F1 2019 career mode was a highlight for many and Codemasters expanded on that with F1 2020. With the latest game though, Codemasters has decided to go all-in and turn it into its own fully-fledged story mode called the Braking Point.
Braking Point is a new story mode for F1 2021
Braking Point is a full narrative experience, much like the Journey mode in FIFA. You have a pre-written character that steps into the F1 paddock as a rookie next to an experienced driver. The story mode focuses on your journey that includes controversy, drama, and some very exciting racing. In addition to Braking Point, F1 2021 also expands upon the My Team career mode that was introduced last year with some nifty changes. Smaller tweaks and improvements to the driving model have also been made.
Having said that, arguably the most positive change coming to the franchise this time around is how ready Codemasters is for the season. We’ve already had some races canceled in the real-life season this year, to be replaced by newer venues. However, rather than not seeing those newer tracks in the game at all, Codemasters is already working to release them as a future patch, without any additional charges.
F1 2021 also suffers from the buggy game-launch syndrome
F1 games from Codemasters have a relatively decent reputation for launching in a stable state as compared to the rest of the industry. This is due to the fact that yearly sports games like F1 2021 are not that much different from their predecessors at their core. However, despite this improved stability as compared to most other games, the Formula 1 series is still not impervious to being buggy and unstable at times.
Since it is a new game, F1 2021 also suffers from the same issues that most new games have. Players have been reporting multiple glitches and bugs within F1 2021 that not only break the game at times but are also permanently bogging down performance on capable hardware. According to our amalgamation of reports, F1 2021 suffers from performance issues like abnormally low FPS, frame drops, random stutters, freezes, and even hard crashes at times.
Thankfully, there are a few things that you can tweak with your system and the game settings that can minimize the impact of these issues and make your gameplay experience much smoother than it is now. So, here are a few tricks that can fix the performance issues that you’re facing while playing F1 2021.
1. F1 2021 System Requirements:
F1 2021 is a modern AAA game by every definition of the notion. It has incredible visuals, physics systems, and sound design which all contribute to it being a rather demanding game. However, since it is still a cross-gen game, there are some liberties that Codemasters could take with F1 2021 in order to make it accessible to a lot more people. Therefore, while the ceiling for graphical fidelity is higher than last year’s game thanks to new inclusions like raytracing, the floor remains the same. Not only that but if you could run an F1 game from 4 years ago on your system, you should have no problem running this game either.
With that said, if you’re teetering on the edge of whether the game is supposed to be playable on your system or not, you should check the official system requirements. A lot of times even the minimum requirements that are given for a game online are not good enough for a smooth experience. However, with their official requirements, Codemasters has done a good job of delivering accurate PC specifications needed to have a smooth and enjoyable experience. So, here are the minimum and recommended required system specifications for F1 2021:
Minimum System Requirements:
- Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit (Version 1709) | For Ray Tracing: Windows 10 64-bit (Version 2004)
- Processor: Intel Core i3-2130 or AMD FX 4300
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GTX 950 or AMD R9 280 | For Ray Tracing: GeForce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6700 XT
- DirectX: Version 12
- HDD Space: 80 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
Recommended System Requirements:
- Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit (Version 1709) | For Ray Tracing: Windows 10 64-bit (Version 2004)
- Processor: Intel Core i5 9600K or AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti or AMD RX 590 | For Ray Tracing: GeForce RTX 3070 or Radeon RX 6800
- DirectX: Version 12
- HDD Space: 80 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
As is evident from the system requirements given above, the F1 2021 game is still relatively demanding, even at the low end. However, you’re probably going to need something better than the minimum requirements if you wish to have a good experience while playing a game that’s as fast-paced and reflex-reliant as F1 2021. In addition to that, the introduction of raytracing to the mix has also increased the ceiling for the game, meaning that you need an NVIDIA RTX 3070 (which is impossible to get at retail right now) to get the optimal experience.
2. Optimal Graphics Settings for F1 2021:
Before we start making changes to system settings and graphics card settings, we need to make sure that the in-game settings for F1 2021 are not too ambitious for your system. We have tested a plethora of different machines running the game and have found the optimal settings that offer good performance while also not sacrificing visuals too much.
As with every other game, F1 2021 also has some graphical settings that can be very taxing on your hardware but do not improve the visual fidelity of the game enough to justify them. Turning these settings down can give a much-needed FPS boost and the reduction in visual quality is not noticeable, especially at high speeds.
With that said, these are not the be-all and end-all of graphics settings as different machines will always be better suited to different settings. However, these settings offer a good starting point for everyone with a moderately powerful gaming PC. In addition to that, we found that the recommended default settings that the game automatically assigns during the initial launch are wildly inaccurate and can result in performance inconsistencies. Nevertheless, here are the optimal settings for F1 2021 that can hopefully improve your performance:
Best Visual Settings for F1 2021:
- Lighting Quality: We advise you to set this at either Medium or High since lighting is one of the strongest aspects of F1 2021 and it doesn’t have a massive impact on performance.
- Post Process: Set this setting at Medium or Low since post-processing filters are not actually that important in terms of adding to the visual quality and can still affect performance.
- Shadows: Change the Shadow Quality to Low as it is one of the most taxing settings for your system and you don’t notice it much while moving at breakneck speeds.
- Particles: Turn Particle Quality up to High or Medium since it adds to the dramatic racing and isn’t that power-hungry.
- Crowd: Turn the crowd all the way to Low.
- Mirrors: Set Mirrors to either Medium or High as they significantly impact visual quality while playing the game.
- Car Helmet and Reflections: Set this at Medium since it is important for graphics but also results in performance dips at higher settings.
- Weather Effects: Set Weather Effects to High as they can really make the game come alive.
- Skidmarks: Set Skidmarks to Medium as they’re not super noticeable while racing.
- Ground Cover: Set Ground Cover to Low or Medium.
- Ambient Occlusion: Change this setting to Medium or High as good Ambient Occlusion can really change the vibe of a scene and make the game look more lively.
- SSR: Set Screen Space Reflections to High as they don’t impact performance much.
- Texture Streaming: Set this to Medium or High as this is singlehandedly one of the main contributors to the visual fidelity of F1 2021.
- Anisotropic Filtering: Crank Anisotropic Filtering all the way up to either 8x or 16x.
- Anti-Aliasing: This is always taxing for hardware but it is also essential for a great-looking game. Set this to TAA or FidelityFX Upscaling/TAA.
- Raytraced Shadows: Turn these off
- Raytraced Reflections: Enable these if you have an RTX 3000 series graphics card.