The Long Drive

The Long Drive is the strangest hardware story in our benchmark library. On paper it looks like a game that should run on a toaster: a 2019 indie driving simulation from indie developer Genesz, built on Unity, with flat-shaded desert, one battered car, and a horizon of nothing. In practice, across 3,725 measured CPU and GPU combinations in our database, the average system records 80 FPS at 1080p Ultra, 53 FPS at 1440p Ultra, and 29 FPS at 4K Ultra. The fastest combinations reach 432 FPS at 1080p Low; the slowest crawl at 21 FPS at 1080p Ultra. A twenty-fold spread in a game this visually simple tells you the real story: The Long Drive's performance has little to do with how it looks and everything to do with what the engine simulates underneath, and that makes it a more interesting hardware test than its screenshots suggest.

A small game with a real CPU appetite

The Long Drive runs on Unity, and it behaves like a Unity game of its era: it leans hard on one or two processor threads, which means clock speed and cache matter far more than core count. Three workloads define it. The first is procedural generation. The desert is endless because the game builds it ahead of you as you drive, streaming in terrain chunks, buildings, and loot spawns continuously. That generation is CPU work, and it is the main reason the game can hitch on any system, even one averaging well over 100 FPS. The second workload is physics. The Long Drive simulates the car in pieces (engine, wheels, suspension, individual doors) and then fills the world with loose, persistent physics objects: fuel cans, bottles, food, cargo, and the occasional homicidal rabbit. Every one of those objects is a simulation cost, and the cost lives on the processor. The third is draw distance. The appeal of the game is seeing a strange tower or wreck from a mile away, and the engine pays for that view in draw calls, again mostly on the CPU.

The consequence is that The Long Drive at 1080p is primarily a CPU test wearing a driving game's clothes. The GPU only starts earning its keep as resolution climbs. Memory is the quieter third factor: the game itself is not a RAM hog by modern standards, but long sessions accumulate state, and 8 GB systems will feel it. 16 GB in dual channel is the comfortable baseline, and because this engine feeds on memory bandwidth almost as much as capacity, a dual-channel DDR5 kit measurably steadies frame pacing on newer platforms.

1080p: an 80 FPS average with a warning label

At 1920x1080 Ultra, the 80 FPS database average is good news for most players. A sensible mid-range gaming PC build, meaning a modern six-core processor and a mid-tier graphics card, sits at or above that mark, which puts a 144Hz monitor within easy reach and makes the game feel the way it should: smooth, lazy, and hypnotic at speed. The number needs its asterisk, though. The measured floor at 1080p Ultra is 21 FPS, and that figure comes from real systems, not a lab curiosity. Weak quad-cores, single-channel memory, and older entry cards combine badly with an engine that wants per-thread muscle, and systems built that way land in the 20 to 40 FPS band regardless of what the average says.

The ceiling tells the opposite story. The fastest measured combinations reach 432 FPS at 1080p Low, which confirms that at this resolution the graphics card is almost never the wall. When a strong CPU is in place, the engine has headroom to spare. That is why the right 1080p question for The Long Drive is not "what GPU" but "what CPU". A 240Hz monitor is a realistic target in this game at reduced settings with a fast processor, one of the few indie titles where we can say that honestly. Just expect the journey to be punctuated by brief generation stutters no matter how much hardware you throw at it. That hitch is the engine building the next stretch of desert, and it happens to everyone.

1440p and 4K: where the GPU finally gets a vote

The 1440p Ultra average of 53 FPS marks the point where the graphics card starts sharing the constraint. The drop from 80 to 53 FPS, roughly a third, is steeper than a purely CPU-bound game would show, and it means balanced builds hold up well here while GPU-weak builds start to sag. A mid-range card behind a decent six-core still clears 60 FPS with minor settings trims, which makes 1440p the sweet spot for this game: the flat desert art actually benefits from the extra sharpness, and the hardware cost stays sane.

At 4K Ultra the average falls to 29 FPS, and the scaling from 1440p is close to the raw pixel ratio. That is the signature of a GPU-bound game, which is what The Long Drive becomes at 4K. The honest advice: 4K in this game is a luxury purchase. The art style gains less from pixel density than almost any AAA title, and the best graphics card for The Long Drive at 4K is an upper-tier card whose power will be mostly invisible next to a good 1440p experience. If you are set on 4K, use resolution scaling or driver-level upscaling, because native 4K Ultra is the one place this little game will genuinely punish your hardware.

Recommended settings: our tested configuration

The Long Drive's options menu is sparse, which makes each choice matter more. Draw distance is the first lever to pull if your frame rate dips while driving fast: it directly reduces the generation and draw-call load on the CPU, and trimming it one or two notches costs little because the desert is mostly empty anyway. Shadow quality is the main GPU-side cost worth cutting; the game's hard desert light reads fine at medium. Texture quality can stay high even on cards with modest VRAM, since the game's texture work is simple and cheap. Anti-aliasing is worth keeping at 1440p and below because distant objects shimmer badly without it.

There is no native DLSS in a Unity indie of this size, so upscaling means driver-level FSR, a lowered render scale, or a third-party frame tool. At 1440p and 4K these recover real performance for a modest softness that suits the art. Two more recommendations from our data: cap your frame rate 10 to 15 percent below your system's ceiling to smooth the generation hitches, and install the game on an NVMe SSD. Storage speed does not raise average FPS here, but it shortens the stalls when new chunks load, and load times on a hard drive are long enough to notice.

What hardware do you need?

Entry level (older quad-core, 8 GB RAM, older entry card): 1080p Low at 30 to 60 FPS, matching the bottom of our measured range. Playable, and the game's slow pace forgives a lot, but expect the 21 FPS floor to visit during generation spikes. Single-channel memory is the silent killer in this tier; adding a second stick is the cheapest fix in PC gaming.

Mid-range (modern six-core, 16 GB dual-channel, mid-tier GPU): 1080p Ultra at or above the 80 FPS average, 1440p tuned at 60-plus. This is the correct target for the game and where the experience stops depending on luck.

High-end (fast eight-core or X3D, 16 to 32 GB, strong GPU): 1080p at 150 FPS and beyond, 1440p Ultra at 90 to 120. This is 144Hz and 240Hz territory, and the large-cache processors show their usual strength in CPU-bound engines by holding steadier minimums during generation spikes.

Flagship: 4K Ultra at 60 to 90 FPS with scaling, or max-refresh 1440p with the best frame pacing the engine allows. Spending beyond this tier buys you nothing the game can use; the engine, not your hardware, sets the final ceiling.

Laptop playability

The Long Drive is one of the more laptop-friendly games in our library, with conditions. Modern integrated graphics handle 1080p at low to medium settings well enough for a relaxed session, which makes this a genuine travel game in a way most of our benchmark subjects are not. Any gaming laptop from the last five years runs it at high refresh at 1080p. The two laptop cautions are the usual ones. Thin-and-light machines with single-channel or soldered low-power memory give up the bandwidth this engine likes, and long drives on battery-saver profiles will throttle the CPU exactly when the game needs per-thread speed. Plug in, pick a balanced power profile, and even modest hardware delivers the full experience.

Streaming and content creation

The Long Drive is quietly one of the best streaming games of its generation, because its comedy is emergent: the physics disasters, the rabbit attacks, the slow-motion breakdowns miles from anywhere. The good news for a streaming setup is that the game leaves resources on the table. A hardware encoder, NVENC on GeForce or AMF on Radeon, produces a clean 1080p60 broadcast for a cost you will not measure, and on a modern eight-core CPU even x264 at a medium preset is viable, which is rarely true in our library. The one caution is the generation hitch: a brief stutter mid-drive looks worse on stream than it feels in game, so the frame-rate cap advice above doubles as broadcast advice. For creators cutting footage afterward, the game's long uneventful stretches mean heavy editing timelines, and this is one case where the same fast storage and memory advice that helps the game also speeds up the video editing side of the workflow.

Common problems and fixes

Random hitching while driving fast, on any hardware: procedural chunk generation on the CPU. Lower draw distance, cap frame rate below your ceiling, and make sure the game is on an SSD. No hardware eliminates it entirely; you are smoothing it, not curing it.

Great GPU, mediocre FPS: the classic The Long Drive complaint, and the answer is the engine's single-thread appetite. A stronger processor helps more than any graphics card swap at 1080p. Check background applications too, since a browser eating a core matters in a game that leans on two threads.

Session that degrades over hours: long play sessions accumulate world state. Restarting the game every few hours restores frame pacing, and 16 GB of RAM keeps the decline gradual instead of cliff-like.

Car or objects launching into the sky: that is the physics engine, not your hardware. It has done this on every PC ever built. Consider it a feature with a body count.

Long loads and pop-in on older systems: mechanical drive territory. Moving the game to even a budget NVMe SSD is the single biggest quality-of-life improvement this game supports.

Upgrade priorities for The Long Drive

If your system falls short, the upgrade order for this game is clear and slightly unusual. First, the processor: per-thread speed and cache are what the engine starves for at 1080p, and a CPU upgrade outperforms everything else for players chasing high refresh. Second, memory: 16 GB in dual channel, and dual-channel DDR5 on a new platform, because the bandwidth feeds the generation and physics work directly. Third, storage: a fast SSD smooths streaming and kills the load times, cheaply. The graphics card comes fourth, and it only climbs the list if your target is 1440p high-refresh or 4K, the one place the averages show a real GPU wall. Most wasted money in this game comes from buying that order backwards, starting with a card the engine will never fully use at 1080p.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Is The Long Drive CPU or GPU intensive?

A: CPU at 1080p, GPU at 4K. The 80 FPS 1080p average with a 432 FPS ceiling shows the card is rarely the wall at low resolution, while the 29 FPS 4K average shows exactly where the GPU takes over.

Q: Why does The Long Drive stutter on my high-end PC?

A: Procedural generation. The engine builds the desert ahead of you as you drive, and that work hitches every system occasionally. Capping frame rate and lowering draw distance smooths it; no hardware removes it completely.

Q: Can I play The Long Drive on integrated graphics or a basic laptop?

A: Yes, one of the few games in our database where we say that comfortably. Modern iGPUs handle 1080p low to medium. The 21 FPS measured floor mostly comes from old quad-cores with single-channel memory, not from modest graphics alone.

Q: What GPU should I buy for The Long Drive at 1440p?

A: A current mid-range card behind a decent six-core CPU holds 60-plus FPS with light settings trims. Spending past the upper mid-range only pays off at 4K, where the average drops to 29 FPS and the GPU becomes the constraint.

Q: Does The Long Drive support DLSS or FSR?

A: No native DLSS; it is a small Unity indie. Use driver-level FSR, render scaling, or a third-party tool at 1440p and 4K. The simple art style hides upscaling softness unusually well.

Q: How much RAM does The Long Drive need?

A: 16 GB in dual channel is the comfortable baseline. The game runs on 8 GB, but long sessions degrade and generation hitches worsen. Bandwidth matters as much as capacity here.

To summarize: The Long Drive in 2026

Seven years after release, The Long Drive remains what it has always been: a cult object, a streaming comedy engine, and a stealth hardware test. The community keeps it alive, the developer kept updating it long after anyone had to, including co-op multiplayer support years after launch, and its measured profile in our database is a tidy summary of how Unity-era indies actually behave: an 80 FPS 1080p average that flatters weak GPUs, a 21 FPS floor that punishes weak CPUs and thin memory configurations, and a 29 FPS 4K average that reminds you the graphics card always gets the last word at high resolution. The practical verdict is simple. Build or buy balanced, weight your budget toward the processor and memory, keep 1440p as the sweet spot, and do not spend flagship money on a game that cannot show it. Do that, and The Long Drive delivers one of the most distinctive experiences on PC at high refresh on hardware you probably already own, which for a game about maintaining a dying car in an infinite desert feels exactly right.