Editor’s be aware: Treatment Leisure offered a PC copy of FBC Firebreak, and Nvidia shared one unit every of its Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Version (12GB) and Inno3D GeForce RTX 5070 12GB Twin X2 OC to IGN India for this efficiency evaluate.
Finland-based recreation developer and writer, Treatment Leisure, simply launched its newest recreation, FBC: Firebreak. Based mostly within the Management universe, the sport’s story occurs six years after Management. The developer first introduced the sport in 2021. Firebreak is the primary multiplayer title that the developer has launched, and in contrast to most multiplayer video games, it follows a pay-to-play mannequin.
Whereas the sport presently has ‘Combined’ consumer scores on Steam, Treatment has already introduced plans to treatment the scenario to hopefully make it a greater expertise. On the identical time, the sport does function the most recent applied sciences like Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR upscaling, Ray Tracing, Nvidia Body Era, and extra (extra of this in a bit). As well as, the sport can even doubtless supply us a glimpse of what we will anticipate from upcoming Treatment video games like Management 2 and past when it comes to graphics and efficiency.
FBC Firebreak PC Necessities
Contemplating the sport makes use of a GPU-driven render pipeline with heavy reliance on options like world illumination, the general {hardware} necessities of FBC Firebreak are heavy.
Firebreakers, the FBC: Firebreak minimal and really helpful PC system necessities are out.
See you on June seventeenth within the Oldest Home. #FBCFirebreak pic.twitter.com/yCLoN8VIBl
— Treatment Leisure (@remedygames) June 3, 2025
Northlight Recreation Engine
The upper {hardware} necessities are just like these of Alan Wake 2, which launched in 2023. It is because, like earlier video games from Treatment Leisure, Firebreak makes use of the Northlight Engine. Northlight, Treatment’s in-house recreation engine, was created to higher help the narrative and story-driven video games the developer is understood for. It helps cutting-edge options like world illumination, physics-based rendering, ray tracing, PhysX-based physics library, and extra. As talked about above, a part of its options, resembling world illumination and ray tracing, make it extra graphically demanding than a comparable multiplayer recreation.
FBC Firebreak PC Benchmark Setup
As with previous recreation efficiency evaluations, I used my AM4-based gaming PC to judge how FBC Firebreak fares on considerably older {hardware}. It’s price noting that in case you plan to run the sport on a contemporary (AM5 for AMD and LGA 1851 for Intel) platform with DDR5, you’re going to get significantly better outcomes.
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (72MB cache, 16 cores, 32 threads, 3.5 GHz base clock velocity and as much as 4.7 GHz increase velocity) |
|---|---|
| GPU | -Inno3D GeForce RTX 5070 Twin X2 OC (12GB GDDR7 VRAM) -Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Version (12GB GDDR6X VRAM) |
| Reminiscence | Corsair Vengeance RGB Professional 32GB (2x 16GB) DDR4 3600MT/s |
| CPU Cooler | DeepCool AK620 Twin Tower CPU Air Cooler |
| Storage | Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB (OS) Samsung 870 EVO 4TB (Recreation) |
| Motherboard | Asus ROG Strix X570-E Gaming |
| Energy Provide | Corsair RM1000x (2024) – 1000 Watt 80 PLUS Gold Licensed Absolutely Modular PSU |
Recapping the rationale for utilizing a 5-year-old CPU, this efficiency evaluate is supposed to emulate the real-world state of affairs of players usually utilizing older CPUs or taking time between PC upgrades.
For settings, I used 1080p graphics decision with every part set to “Excessive” for the standard, with V-Sync and Movement Blur off. Past this, I used the “On + Increase” choice each time potential for Nvidia Reflex. As a part of our efficiency evaluations, I used CapFrameX to document all of the checks throughout varied mixtures for Nvidia DLAA, DLSS, and Ray Tracing (Excessive preset).
Not like most video games, FBC Firebreak clearly highlights the decision the sport will render while you swap between DLAA and varied high quality presets of DLSS. This doubtless ends in gamers questioning whether it is ok or assuming that this isn’t practically ok in comparison with different video games, the place this data isn’t available.
FBC Firebreak Performance Evaluation
On condition that there aren’t any TAA or TSR modes accessible in Firebreak, we instantly began with DLAA to check the efficiency between the considerably outdated, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Version and the most recent, Inno3D GeForce RTX 5070 Twin X2 OC. Each the GPUs function 12GB VRAM (though GDDR6X vs GDDR7). So, any type of efficiency distinction between the 2 will probably be enhancements from the Ada Lovelace structure (used for GeForce RTX 4000 collection) to the Blackwell structure (used for GeForce RTX 5000 collection) and variations within the VRAM used.
| Upscaling and Body Era settings | RTX 4070 (12GB) | RTX 5070 (12GB) | ||||
| Avg FPS | Avg 1% Lows | Avg 0.1% Lows | Avg FPS | Avg 1% Lows | Avg 0.1% Lows | |
| Nvidia DLAA | 74.3 | 32.5 | 17.2 | 88.1 | 41.4 | 30.5 |
| Nvidia DLAA + Ray Tracing | 39.8 | 20.4 | 10.3 | 43.2 | 23.1 | 16.5 |
Evaluating each the GPUs, we get an 18 % enchancment from 4070 to the 5070 in common DLAA and an 8.5 % enchancment whereas including Ray Tracing to the combination. The spectacular half is the 27.8 % enchancment in common 1 % lows in 5070 in comparison with 4070. Speaking about DLAA with Ray Tracing, whereas the distinction decreases, RTX 5070 remains to be higher than RTX 4070.
Positive, the 0.1 % lows on common are 60.1 % greater with 5070 than the 4070 (throughout Ray tracing on the “Excessive” preset), however going from 10.3 fps to 16.5 fps remains to be unplayable in a fast-paced multiplayer recreation whereas preventing waves of ‘The Hiss’.
The GPU energy consumption and proportion of GPU utilization considerably give us a glimpse on the outcomes, being barely CPU-bottlenecked. For the Inno3D GeForce RTX 5070 Twin X2 OC, GPU utilization is round 73 %, with the typical GPU Busy time at 8.7ms and 71 levels Celsius because the GPU temperature whereas utilizing 188W energy. In distinction, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Version GPU noticed 80 % GPU utilization, 11ms GPU Busy time, and 73 levels Celsius GPU temperature with 170W energy.
It’s price noting that GPU utilisation (together with GPU Busy time and GPU Busy time deviation) isn’t a sure-shot, 100% approach to inform if a PC gaming setup is GPU or CPU restricted. That is doubtless as a result of beneath sure circumstances, a system may be each CPU and GPU-limited in the identical recreation, mere seconds aside, primarily based on what’s on the display. Nevertheless, these do spotlight that issues may be barely higher.
Nvidia DLSS 4 and Body Era and Evaluation
| Upscaling and Body Era settings | RTX 4070 (12GB) | RTX 5070 (12GB) | ||||
| Avg FPS | Avg 1% Lows | Avg 0.1% Lows | Avg FPS | Avg 1% Lows | Avg 0.1% Lows | |
| Nvidia DLSS Extremely Performance | 99 | 47.8 | 24.1 | 107.6 | 53.9 | 34.4 |
| Nvidia DLSS Balanced | 94 | 39.5 | 18.1 | 97.8 | 46.3 | 29.6 |
| Nvidia DLSS High quality | 86.5 | 36.3 | 17.5 | 92.3 | 46.1 | 31.1 |
| Nvidia DLAA | 135.8 | 36 | 21 | 143 | 37.4 | 26.1 |
| Nvidia DLSS Extremely Performance + Body Era (2x) | 169.7 | 46.1 | 27.9 | 190.8 | 50.8 | 33.2 |
| Nvidia DLSS Balanced + Body Era (2x) | 169.1 | 35.4 | 13.3 | 179.2 | 45.9 | 23.8 |
| Nvidia DLSS High quality + Body Era (2x) | 151.3 | 30.6 | 10.3 | 177.9 | 48.4 | 33.6 |
| Nvidia DLAA + Body Era (2x) | 128.5 | 34.2 | 19.6 | 149.5 | 39 | 25.9 |
| Nvidia DLSS Extremely Performance + Ray Tracing | 77.5 | 38.1 | 19 | 98.2 | 52.9 | 35.7 |
| Nvidia DLSS Balanced + Ray Tracing | 60.7 | 27 | 15 | 77.8 | 38 | 26 |
| Nvidia DLSS High quality + Ray Tracing | 55.9 | 27 | 18.6 | 67.3 | 35.1 | 25.1 |
| Nvidia DLAA + Ray Tracing | 34.8 | 19.5 | 14.1 | 43.2 | 23.1 | 16.5 |
Whilst you can see all of the numbers above, the TLDR, easy model of this desk is that the Inno3D GeForce RTX 5070 Twin X2 OC GPU is unsurprisingly sooner than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Version GPU. This enchancment ranges wherever from 3.88 % to 226 % higher. However, do not be swayed by this large vary as a result of that prime quantity is within the common of 0.1 % lows, the place the FPS went from 10.3 on the 4070 to 33.6 on the 5070 GPU.
Throughout all these benchmarks with completely different settings, 5070 was 13.20 % sooner than 4070 in common FPS, 25.08 % sooner in 1 % lows, and 64.81 % sooner in 0.1 % lows.
On the identical time, we additionally seen some glitches with the ray-tracing outcomes and needed to re-run the benchmarks a number of occasions to eradicate inaccurate outcomes. These behaviours spotlight that whereas the Northlight recreation engine is spectacular, Treatment can nonetheless work on enhancing it to be extra strong.
The Verdict
Whereas this efficiency evaluation doesn’t reveal something out of the atypical, it does define how a forward-looking recreation engine like Northlight can have positives and negatives. On the constructive aspect, FBC Firebreak helps all the most recent graphics applied sciences to supply a visually spectacular expertise within the Management universe. Visually, I didn’t have something to complain about aside from some minor bugs, however the recreation remains to be a piece in progress.
Relating to the unfavourable aspect, not a lot has modified relating to how tough and demanding Northlight may be. We first noticed this with Alan Wake 2, and issues have repeated themselves to some extent with Firebreak. Even with most issues working as meant, over-information may cause pointless efficiency anxiousness amongst players, together with some odd efficiency bugs. So, Treatment has some approach to go together with Firebreak and much more in relation to doubtless future video games with the identical engine.