How to improve FPS in Forza Motorsport (PC)
Forza Motorsport (2023) is the reboot with which Turn 10 Studios relaunched the racing sim franchise, built on an evolved version of the ForzaTech engine that now features real-time ray tracing, even during the races themselves rather than just in replays like in previous entries. The game renders ray-traced reflections on the bodywork of up to 24 simultaneous cars, a very detailed dynamic damage and lighting model, and a weather system that alters asphalt physics in real time. That combination of graphical fidelity and a large grid with aggressive AI makes Forza Motorsport one of the most demanding driving titles on PC, with load split unusually between GPU (ray tracing, lighting) and CPU (physics for 24 cars, AI, damage).
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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 +41% free FPS.
Ray Tracing Reflections
Ray-traced reflections on the bodywork of the 24 cars are the single most expensive setting in the whole game, since ForzaTech calculates real rays for every vehicle on track in real time during the race, not just in replays.
Shadow Quality
Dynamic shadows for 24 moving cars, combined with day/night cycle and weather lighting changes, generate constant recalculation that heavily penalizes framerate on Ultra.
Crowd/Spectator Density
Crowd density in the grandstands of circuits like Silverstone or Circuit of the Americas renders in detail even at a distance, something rarely noticed during a race at racing speed.
World Vegetation/Foliage Detail
Background vegetation on circuits with dense natural environments, like Maple Valley or Road America, adds rendering cost that directly competes with the GPU dedicated to ray tracing.
Anti-Aliasing (TAA)
ForzaTech's TAA smooths the edges of bodywork and asphalt well, but at its highest level adds a sampling cost that competes with the rest of the game's graphical effects.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Track Detail/Environment Quality
Controls the geometric detail level of track structures, pit lane, and environment elements, which on Extreme add up to considerable geometry load without a proportional visual difference in-race.
Car/Vehicle Detail
Affects the detail level of the bodywork of the 24 vehicles on track, including visible damage modeling after impacts.
Texture Quality
Bodywork, asphalt, and cockpit interior textures are a key part of Forza's visual identity, and their cost falls mostly on VRAM rather than raw compute power.
Particle/Weather Effects
Dynamic rain, water splashes from the 24 cars, and off-track dust generate particle spikes that add up quickly in races with changing weather.
Ambient Occlusion
Reinforces contact shading between cars, asphalt, and circuit elements, but on Ultra doubles its compute cost without a perceptible improvement in motion at high speed.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
NVIDIA DLSS 3
+40% FPSForza Motorsport supports DLSS 3 with Frame Generation on RTX 40-series GPUs, especially effective at offsetting the cost of real-time ray tracing during the race.
AMD FSR 2
+28% FPSFSR 2 works on any GPU and offers a reasonably good alternative to DLSS for those without recent NVIDIA hardware.
Intel XeSS
+25% FPSXeSS is available as a third upscaling option, with good performance on Intel Arc GPUs and also compatible with NVIDIA and AMD hardware.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable DLSS in Quality mode at 1440p/4K to recover much of the performance lost when enabling ray-traced reflections during the race.
- •Use Frame Generation (DLSS 3) only if you already have a stable 60 FPS baseline without generation, since in tight races the added latency can be noticeable when braking into the last corner.
- •Enable Reflex from the game's options or the NVIDIA panel to minimize input lag, especially relevant in online competition against 23 other cars.
AMD
- •Enable FSR 2 in Quality mode if ray tracing penalizes you too much on Radeon GPUs, which tend to perform somewhat worse than equivalent RTX cards on this specific workload.
- •Enable Radeon Anti-Lag to offset the latency added by ray tracing and the game's post-processing.
- •Check that Smart Access Memory (Resizable BAR) is enabled in the BIOS, since Forza Motorsport benefits measurably from this technology.
Sistema
- •Install the game on an NVMe SSD: streaming the high-resolution textures of the 24 cars and circuits causes visible popping on slower drives.
- •Let the game precompile shaders the first time you open it (the menu itself indicates this); skipping this step is the most common cause of stuttering in the first races.
- •Prioritize a CPU with strong per-core performance over core count, since the physics and AI for 24 cars depend heavily on main-thread speed.
5. Known game issues
Shader compilation stuttering
As with many modern ray-tracing engines, Forza Motorsport can show noticeable hitches when entering new tracks or activating weather effects for the first time, while the engine compiles shaders on the fly. The game itself offers a precompilation step at launch that noticeably reduces this issue if completed without interruption.
CPU-bound performance with full 24-car grids
In races with a full grid and aggressive damage/AI multipliers enabled, some players with older CPUs report framerate drops that aren't resolved by lowering graphics settings, a sign that the real bottleneck is the processor, not the graphics card.
FPS drops in rain conditions with ray tracing active
The combination of ray-traced reflections on wet asphalt, water splashes from 24 cars, and simultaneous rain particles generates one of the highest GPU load spikes in the game, especially noticeable on circuits with long stretches under dynamic weather.
6. Frequently asked questions
Do I need a GPU with dedicated ray tracing to play Forza Motorsport well?▾
What setting gives the most FPS with the least visual loss in Forza Motorsport?▾
DLSS, FSR, or XeSS — which is best in this game?▾
Why does my framerate drop even though I have a powerful GPU?▾
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Calculate FPS for Forza Motorsport →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →