How to improve FPS in Forza Horizon 5 (PC)
Forza Horizon 5 is probably the best example of open-world optimization the last generation has produced. Playground Games built the ForzaTech engine to scale almost miraculously between a modest iGPU and an RTX 4090, without sacrificing the visual density of the recreated Mexico. Even so, with everything maxed out at 1440p or 4K, the dense jungle vegetation, volumetric sandstorms, and online convoys with dozens of cars can make any GPU sweat. This guide breaks down which settings really cost FPS and which just polish shadows almost nobody notices at 100 km/h.
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Calculations based on our FPS model combined with the % gain of each setting (measured in public benchmarks).
1. Quick wins (no visual loss)
Start here. Each one adds a little, but together they give +23% free FPS.
Water Reflection Quality
Reflections in puddles, rivers, and the Baja California sea use a method separate from the rest of the game's reflections and have a disproportionate cost on High/Ultra. Dropping it to Medium is barely noticeable except staring fixedly at still water.
Motion Blur
Forza Horizon 5's motion blur is mainly aesthetic and adds speed-based blur, but consumes a small percentage of performance without adding anything to gameplay. Many sim-racing players disable it because it makes it harder to see apexes in tight corners.
Particles
Dust kicked up by tires in the desert and on rural roads generates a huge number of simultaneous particles, especially in events with numerous AI. Medium keeps the effect recognizable but reduces the density of overlapping particles.
Anti-Aliasing
MSAA is noticeably heavier than TAA on this engine due to the forward shading Forza uses for dynamic lighting. TAA offers a good balance between edge smoothing and cost, especially if DLSS or FSR is already in use.
World Car Level of Detail
This setting controls the detail of traffic cars and other convoy players at a distance, not your own vehicle. Dropping it to Medium reduces geometry load at the Horizon Festival and on congested roads without affecting the car you're driving.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Environment Level of Detail
Controls the distance and density at which trees, rocks, and buildings load, being the setting that hits performance the most in the jungle and in Guanajuato due to its vertical urban density. Ultra adds extra layers of background vegetation only noticeable when pausing to admire the scenery.
Reflection Quality
Body and glass reflections use cubemaps recalculated frequently, especially in reflective urban areas like downtown Guanajuato. On Ultra, the cost rises non-linearly for a minimal difference in metallic paint.
Ambient Occlusion
AO on High/Ultra adds very fine contact shading under cars and in the dense jungle foliage, but its cost grows quickly with environment geometry. On Medium the game retains enough visual depth in most driving situations.
Shadow Quality
Dynamic shadows of vegetation and buildings in biomes like the volcano or the jungle are among the most demanding in the game due to the number of objects casting them simultaneously. Ultra improves shadow resolution at a distance while High already covers foreground well.
Weather Effects Quality
Sandstorms, volumetric rain, and dynamic clouds are one of the game's technical trademarks, but on Ultra they multiply the cost of particles and atmospheric simulation. On High, almost all of the weather spectacle is kept at a considerably more reasonable load.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
NVIDIA DLSS 2
+35% FPSFH5 shipped with DLSS 2 from launch and it's one of the cleanest implementations in the catalog, with barely any artifacts on moving vegetation at high speed. In Quality mode the gain is notable and sharpness barely suffers.
NVIDIA DLSS 3 Frame Generation
+55% FPSAdded later via update for RTX 40, Frame Generation can nearly double the FPS counter in scenes with severe GPU-bound bottlenecks, though it introduces some latency noticeable in highly competitive races.
AMD FSR 2
+30% FPSFSR 2 works on any modern GPU, NVIDIA or AMD, and offers a solid gain, though with somewhat more ghosting in dust and sand particles than DLSS under the same conditions.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable Reflex in the game's graphics panel to reduce input latency in online races, especially useful with Frame Generation enabled.
- •Mid-range RTX cards (3060/4060) get the best balance with DLSS in Quality mode plus Environment LOD on High instead of Ultra.
- •On RTX 40, combining DLSS 3 with Reflex is the only way to take advantage of Frame Generation without noticing input lag on wheel or controller.
AMD
- •On Radeon GPUs, FSR 2 in Quality mode usually performs better than maxing out Ambient Occlusion or Reflection Quality, in terms of FPS gained.
- •RX 6000/7000 cards benefit from dropping Water Reflection Quality to Medium, a known bottleneck in the game's forward-rendering engine.
- •Radeon Anti-Lag especially helps in Horizon Frenzy mode with heavy AI traffic on screen.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an SSD: high-resolution texture streams at the Horizon Festival cause noticeable pop-in on mechanical drives.
- •Update to the latest drivers before each Series/season, since Playground Games ships performance patches alongside every new content drop.
- •With 8 cores or more, enable the game's FPS limit instead of relying on V-Sync to keep frame time stable in the open world.
5. Known game issues
Micro-stutters when crossing biomes
When quickly moving between very different zones (for example from jungle to desert via a fast travel), some users report small hitches from asset streaming, more frequent on mechanical hard drives or with low VRAM.
Shader-compilation hangs in the first session
The first time the game launches after a driver or game update, there can be shader compilation that causes occasional frame drops during the first minutes of play.
Estado: Series 25 update (partially mitigated, persists on very old hardware)
CPU bottleneck in large online convoys
In online sessions with many players in the same convoy, physics and AI recalculation saturates older CPU cores before the GPU, causing FPS drops that aren't fixed by lowering graphics settings.
6. Frequently asked questions
Which graphics setting gives the most FPS in Forza Horizon 5?▾
Is it worth enabling DLSS or FSR in Forza Horizon 5?▾
Why does the game only hitch in certain biomes?▾
Does Forza Horizon 5 need a powerful GPU to run well?▾
Want to know exactly how many FPS YOUR PC will get?
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Calculate FPS for Forza Horizon 5 →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →