These images I’m relying to here would probably answer your question, though I suspect the difference would be even bigger in your scenario as the interior has a lot more elements that would be positively affected by RTGI.
I had cartoon turned on in reshade. It probably wonked the image a bit. I adjusted with tonemap/hdr. There is a big difference to the cars interior with raytracing turned on/off (interior is dark with raytracing on).
As for pregame images it’s possible the game was recorded on a $10000 screen. Also changes are often made between pre-release and release on many things including graphics.
I don’t have a great eye for graphical minutiae. To me good graphics are high resolution textures and no sharp corners. Most everything looks good in 4k. I usually don’t bother with anisotropic. The graphics in this look great to me.
How expensive the screen is makes no difference. A screenshot is just the data that’s about to be sent to the screen, not a literal photo? Idk what you mean with that.
As for the interior being darker. The raytracing used here is literally as simple as, the closer a surface is to another surface, the darker it gets. That’s literally it. Every reflective surface in that car is still just reflecting the sky.
You may not know what the differences are, that’s why this forum is full of comparisons. If you don’t care about the differences, fair enough, but they’re there.
And as for things changing during development and differences from prerelease being unavoidable, a few points:
A. The very first thing we were shown for this game were the graphics. The entire first year of marketing after seeing gameplay was 99% about how great the graphics looked, how the raytraced reflections made such a difference, how forward plus lighting allowed for a ton of light sources overlapping each other, etc. All shown off in ‘in game footage’ trailers. Basically all of this was cut back by launch day without any acknowledgement. If it wasn’t stable, it shouldn’t have been a selling point.
B. To this day Turn 10 advertise major updates, blog posts, and product placement deals, with pictures using advanced raytracing features, dense grass, etc.
C. Half the cutbacks to the game involve things like RT reflection distance, culling interiors from reflections, grass density, etc, that can all be reintroduced with a simple toggle that the devs refuse to provide while the complex stuff like RTGI still needs polish but there’s been no acknowledgement since launch about its existance.
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If I drive a car on a sunny day it isn’t that dark inside the car. Or maybe it is and my eyes adjust. But no I’m looking out the windshield into the brightness so it isn’t that dark. I don’t need a flashlight to use the stereo. (off topic but ray tracing in the car seems meh)
If A B and C are all true then maybe they used $10000 dollar software to enhance the images 
I tell you what though if this game was open to modding there would probably be mods for nice fluffy rugs of grass, brighter interiors, don’t know if much can be done about high end ray tracing but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone came up with hardware busting real life lighting.
But maybe the graphics aren’t as good as they should be. The problem is there are so many problems. The join multiplayer bug that won’t let you join unless you hit backspoace instead of choose car. The lack of sense of speed that requires fiddling around with aspect ratios and camera lens so you can actually judge braking and corners properly instead of just memorizing a turn by doing it over and over ad infinitum. Some say the base ffb isn’t that good. The suspension has been questioned. The ai doesn’t drive their cars like they own them or might face insurance settlements. The penalties are often questionable. Cars in multiplayer aren’t forced onto some form of wet tire in rain conditions so if you use sport tires and are in a rain lobby good luck with the first turn. It’s a pretty big pile for a turn left/turn right/gas/break on plain tarmac race game. A lot of this stuff should be minor or solved and the spotlight on things like graphics. But lo you are in a Mussolini paradigm trying to get one of many things, many of those things which shouldn’t even be things probably.
The interior is too dark because all they’re using raytracing for is to darken anything close to anything else. That’s my point. It’s a far cry from the raytraced reflections and RTGI they use in marketing.
Did you see the posts in this thread that I replied to, for your benefit? The ones with the comparison of the interior with RTGI on and off? Everything you just said implies that you did not.
RTGI, grass density, etc, can be modded in. The tech is there in the game files, it’s just left unused. The problem is that modding it in is kinda buggy and completely broken in a fair amount of scenarios, but it’s enough to prove that it’s really not that stupidly unoptimized as you think it is. It also doesn’t bring back changes made to tracks like light placement and range, large scale clutter, texture and shader quality, etc.
On a 4070, which is pretty high spec admittedly, I can target 1440p 60fps with RTGI. The consoles promised RTGI during replays, presumably at 30fps, which isn’t entirely unreasonable. Either way, it’s unacceptable to market a game with features it doesn’t have, whether or not they’re technically possible.
The game does have a lot of issues, but none of them will be solved by pointing the finger at another. This isn’t the most important, but it is the most blatant issue because it’s in your face for so much of the marketing material. If they kept releasing trailers containing cutting edge AI racing closely, I’d have the same problem with that. There’s a difference between the game missing a feature, and that feature being advertised anyway.
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It does look a little better with RTGI enabled, it’s not game changing, but it does improve the aesthetics a bit. I only target 4k/60 fps, so I turn it on. If your machine can’t handle 60fps I can recommend using Lossless scaling, a program that adds frame generation to any game very easily. It’s $10 on steam and works awesome, it can add 1, 2 or 3 extra frames, depending on needs.
Personally never saw the point in frame gen. Input response is more important than visual fluidity imo, but aren’t there ways to get dlss frame gen working in motorsport if you did want it? That’s usually much higher quality, assuming you have an RTX card, but if you didn’t then I wouldn’t recommend RTGI anyway.
As for the difference being minor, yeah, and it’s not really usable at all in certain conditions either. It’s all a result of just forcing a setting on that’s not really supported anymore. The very first comparisons on this thread are much more significant because the game at that point was designed with it in mind.
A prime example being the road surfaces are currently hard coded to be excluded from raytracing and only get SSR, but enabling RTGI disables SSR. The materials and reflections of asphalt was a huge improvement in promo material, especially in the wet.
I’ve tried the FG mods with my 3090 and they cause the menu and other elements to go crazy at times, with Lossless scaling none of the issues are present, that’s why I suggested it. If you cap the game at 77fps you can use it to get a solid 144fps, if you cap the game at 60fps you can get 120fps, it’s pretty sweet tbh. Very minimal input added as well.I’m running RTGI/4k/200% scaling capped at 30fps getting 60 with lossless, love it!
I just don’t believe in more graphical improvements. There are issues present from day one reported by the community multiple times and they are still there after 12 updates. Also this applies to content. Basically they will only release tracks and drift or drag mode and that’s it IMO. I just can’t get my head around how a company like T10 with so many people working for them can’t show solid results like adding new LMP1 hypercars or more gt4 or gt3 cars like in real life racing or new features to photo mode. They are working so slow 
. The lack of attention to detail is huge…
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Even now, the graphics are still terrible and look like a game from 10 years ago.
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More importantly IMO - they refuse to acknowledge the misleading marketing and continue to use promo material that doesn’t match the game.
Nor are they acknowledging the litany of visual bugs or prioritizing fixing them.
They just continue to release the drip fed content that nobody wants, nobody needs, while ignoring the elephant in the room.
Heads up directors at Forza:
I’m going to note down your names and make sure not to buy any titles that any of you are involved in going forwards - not a morsel of accountability from the very people paid to be accountable.
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This is something I am starting to have an issue with. Light doesnt seem to exist on medium and low render targets. I’ve been running high & ultra, but turning other areas of the game down, just to get a brighter scene in cockpit.
Nah guys, if they wouldn’t care at all they wouldn’t remove the visual target code leftovers (AFAIK they did it with the last update, right? From what I heard, ever since the last update and/or after DF’s ‘visual target mod’ video they either removed the lines from the code, or deactivated the effects of modded configs entirely, so people who previously got it working suddenly had it all stopped working, right?) - because if they wouldn’t care at all, they wouldn’t do anything to it. But since they actually did smth it means either they’re cooking some groundbreaking visual update… or they simply do not want the players to tamper with visual settings so that only they could post bu11sh0ts for false marketing purposes, and make sure noone else could ever possibly upgrade the visual quality of the game in any way…
Yeah…
UPD: “An error occurred: Sorry, you can’t post the word ‘bu11sh0ts’; it’s not allowed.” (letters changed into numbers to pass the filter, og message had the word untouched)
Oh wow. Bruh. Now that’s just pathetic.
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I don’t believe in groundbreaking visuals. The game will not improve. If it was to improve they already had to say something about it. 2D rims will stay for sure already got confirmation that it will not change so … Forget the graphics man they will not improve it. They will focus only on adding recycled tracks and “new” cars and that’s it. This game will have ray tracing improved when next gen Xbox releases trust me, on series x it will stay like this. There are visuals problems from day one that are not fixed and a year have passed…
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Has anyone watched this ? God dang FM5 looks like the new game on these shots. What were T10 thinking 
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That game was a masterpiece. We are going through some really depressing times in Forza history.
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Not really.
I’m reminded of when GTA San Andreas came out and GTA fans were negative towards it, that it was lousy compared to Vice City. IV came out and suddenly San Andreas became the best in the series. V came out and still San Andreas was best, despite it being so popular that it’s been released across three generations and massive numbers of players continue playing it daily.
Don’t forget how universally FM5 was hated and criticized. Nothing has changed with gamers. Its very possible that five or ten years from now players will fondly look back on FM2023 for Its greatness.
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Tale as old as time, the newest game in a series is always the worse, until another game comes out and then it’s the best.
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Far from it. FM5 was when they started gutting so much out of the series.
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