Forza Horizon 5 Best Graphics Settings

Forza Horizon 5 Guides | July 20, 2022 | By

Forza Horizon 5 Graphics Settings – This guide will show you the best graphics settings for Forza Horizon 5 for low-end gaming PCs. You will have a smoother experience in-game, and it might also help you eliminate various performance issues if you are having any, of course.

Before we start, If you are a medium-high end user with a decent GPU. You can just max out the game. Just skip to the last portion of this article, where I have shown a video of Forza Horizon 5 running on a RTX 3060 ti. You would get a good idea about the performance of the game from that.

Forza Horizon 5 Graphics Settings Guide

The most anticipated Racing Game of 2021 is finally here. Forza Horizon 5, is not available for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The game has been developed by Playground Games and published by Xbox Game Studios. This fifth Forza Horizon title is set in an open-world environment based on a fictional representation of Mexico. The game has the largest map in the entire Forza Horizon series, and the map consists of locations like an active volcano, jungles, and beaches, temples, etc.

Forza 5 is undoubtedly one of the best Racing Games I have ever laid my hands on, and I can guarantee that even if you are not a fan of Racing Games, you would love this.

The game features hundreds of the world’s greatest cars. And is nothing less than a visual marvel. Forza Horizon 5 features our most diverse, adventurous, and social open world yet, inviting players to lead breathtaking expeditions across the vibrant and ever-evolving landscapes of Mexico with limitless, fun driving action in hundreds of the world’s greatest cars. IGN has already rated the game 10/10, calling it a ‘Masterpiece’.

Overall, I would say, that the performance of Forza Horizon 5 is superb. I did test the game on a RTX 3060 ti, RTX 2060, GTX 1650. And apart from some little freezing, that too on the GTX 1650, I didn’t face any performance issues. Some people are facing some technical errors, though.

Now, it is a known fact that not everyone is sitting with a high-end gaming rig. And this is where PC gaming shines. You don’t always need overpriced hardware to play games, as you can tweak the in-game graphics settings of the game you want to play and then get the best performance out of it, even if you don’t have a high-end gaming rig. Let’s check out the graphics settings guide for Forza Horizon 5 now:

Graphics Settings

  • Resolution: 1920×1080 (These settings are for the 1080p resolution only)
  • Frame Rate: Unlocked (Variable) (Lock this, if you are facing high GPU usage or GPU heating issues)
  • Resolution Scaling: Off (If you don’t know, this is basically a multiplier for your native resolution)
  • Vertical Synchronization: Off (Turn this on, only if you are experiencing extreme screen tearing)
  • Full Screen: On (You get the best performance in full-screen mode only)
  • Show FPS: On (Your choice. I like to keep this on)
  • Motion Blur: Off (I don’t like motion blur. But if you like motion blur in racing games, then you can turn this on. Doesn’t affect performance)
  • User Interface Scale: 100 (Has no effect on performance)
  • Anisotropic Filtering: High (Makes the game look good without affecting performance much)
  • Shadow Quality: Medium (This is a demanding setting)
  • Night Shadows: Off (You will hardly pay attention to shadows at night)
  • Motion Blur Quality: Any (Personal preference. Doesn’t affect performance)
  • Environment Texture Quality: Medium (Medium is the sweet spot for low-end GPUs)
  • Environment Geometry Quality: High (If you have anything better than the GTX 1050 ti, set this to High)
  • MSAA: 2X (I found 2X to be the most appropriate)
  • FXAA: Off (This game looks more sharp without the effect of FXAA)
  • SSAO Quality: Off (Another demanding setting)
  • Reflection Quality: Medium (Medium is good enough. In my opinion, this game sometimes overdoes the reflection at some instances)
  • World Car Level of Detail: High (You have to keep this at High. It is the cars that you would be looking at most of the time)
  • Deformable Terrain Quality: Medium (I was switching between High and Medium, but didn’t notice any difference in performance)
  • SSR Quality: Medium (This adjusts the quality of reflections within the road and water. Does affect performance)
  • Lens Effect: High (I didn’t notice any effect on performance)
  • Shader Quality: High (I have to recommend High, because Medium makes the game look drastically different. You would have to restart your game after changing this)
  • Particle Effects Quality: Medium (A really demanding setting)

Forza Horizon 5 Graphics Settings

Specifications of Test system

  • CPU: Ryzen 5 5600x
  • GPU: Zotac GTX 1650
  • RAM: 16 GB DDR4 3200mhz
  • HDD: 2 TB 7200 rpm
  • SSD: Samsung 970 EVO 500 GB
  • Monitor Resolution: 1920×1080
  • Graphics Driver: Nvidia Game Ready Driver v496.49

I am seeing a lot of articles and videos, where content creators are testing Forza Horizon on RTX 3080s, 3090s, RX 6800 XTs, etc. What is the point? We all know what the GPU market is like at the moment. How many users are really sitting with those GPUs? According to the latest Steam Hardware Survey, the top 5 most used GPUs at the moment are, GTX 1060, 1050ti, 1650, RTX 2060, and GTX 1050. And I didn’t see a single big content creator benchmark Forza 5 on these cards. Anyway, let’s move on to the performance analysis

Forza Horizon 5 Performance Analysis and Benchmarks

Minimum FPS (1% Low)
 Average FPS Maximum FPS
30 FPS 68 FPS 110 FPS

I am not done with my testing yet. But one thing I can say, Forza Horizon 5 is probably the most optimized AAA title I have seen this year. The game runs flawlessly on the GTX 1650, with the settings given above. I don’t think there is even a need for me to mention its performance on the high-end cards. In fact, I was so surprised when I started playing the game, that I check my system, and made sure that I have the 1650 installed only, and not the RTX 3060 ti or 3070. The 30 FPS you are seeing under ‘Minimum’, is from the cutscenes between the races, that are locked to 30 FPS

I was actually quite surprised after seeing how good the game looks on Medium Settings. I did notice some minor freezing while testing the game on the GTX 1650. But that is something that could be easily overlooked. Whenever you enter a completely new area, the game would freeze for a fraction of a second. Other than that, the game ran flawlessly.

Overall, I would say that Forza Horizon 5 is really optimized, and you should not have any problem playing this game on low end GPUs like the GTX 1050 ti.

If you want, you can actually check out this benchmark video of Forza Horizon 5, running on a RTX 3060 ti, paired with a Ryzen 5 5600x. All settings are maxed out:

That’s all folks!