Forza Horizon 5 PC Optimization Guide

The long-awaited Forza Horizon 5 has finally arrived on PC, and we cannot wait to shred rubber across its gorgeous Mexican sandbox. Before you begin, we recommend optimizing your game’s graphics to best suit your PC’s hardware. Striking the perfect balance between stunning visuals and high frame rates makes for a more immersive racing experience, so taking the time to tweak some video settings before diving in is a small price to pay.

SSDs generate shorter load times compared to their HDD counterparts. Installing the game on either a SATA or NVME drive will noticeably cut down on Forza Horizon’s rather lengthy loading screens.

NVME SSDs are an incredibly fast storage alternative compared to traditional hard disk drives.

Before you even start up the game, it’s important to download the latest NVIDIA graphics drivers for your compatible GPU. At the time of writing this article, version 496.49 is the most up-to-date one available.

Note: If you don’t have the latest driver installed, the game will let you know before letting you proceed. If you don’t wish to update, you can choose to skip the process.

We use the GeForce Experience software tool to quickly and easily install new drivers using its Express Install option.

Forza Horizon 5 has an in-game graphics optimizer that’s designed to test your hardware and offer recommendations for visual settings. It does not take long to complete, and you can still tweak graphics options after it’s done.

1. On the startup screen, select Options

2. Navigate down to GRAPHICS in the SETTINGS menu

3. At the top, select START BENCHMARK MODE

4. Give the game time to load the test race

5. Once the loading screen concludes, a racing simulation will play

6. After a minute or so, the game will display your BENCHMARK RESULTS

7. If you are happy with the suggested visual settings, select Continue

8. If not, you can further tweak your settings by selecting Video Options

The i5-8400 continues to pull through! We knew you could do it, little guy.

The in-game optimizer seems to target around 60 FPS, so some options may need to be changed to reach higher frame rates. One way to quickly increase performance is by turning off ray-tracing. It appears to be on by default for compatible cards.

A notable complaint early PC gamers experienced with Forza Horizon 5 is a pop-up window that mentions the game is suffering from “low streaming bandwidth.” It’s something we’ve experienced ourselves during testing. Additionally, some users have encountered poor framerate issues and noticeable texture pop-in while driving across Mexico.

At this time, there has been no update or official recognition from the developers regarding the bandwidth issue, but they have recognized the texture pop-in problem. Some users online have offered some tips and tricks that worked for them in order to combat these issues, including:

- Turning off VSYNC in the game’s graphics settings

- Rolling back NVIDIA drivers to version 496.13

- Moving the game to an SSD not associated with their OS installation

- Prioritizing the game in the task manager while it’s running

- Turning off conflicting anti-virus software like Sophos

Some fixes have seemed to work for some but not others. Harmless changes, like adjusting VSYNC settings, are easy to test. However, we do not recommend disabling important software or other risky fixed recommended by users online without exhausting other options or waiting until an official patch is released.

To stay up-to-date on issues their team is aware of, check out their Forza Support Twitter page.

We hope that this guide helps make for a seamless racing experience on PC. No matter the settings you choose, the game still looks phenomenal in motion, and we cannot wait to keep playing! Lastly, we hope the game’s developers will address the low bandwidth issue and other performance problems plaguing some players at launch.