[SOLVED] Forza Horizon 5 FPS drops on PC

With the improvement of the graphics and vehicle sounds, Forza Horizon 5 is obviously the best Forza Horizon game to date. However, just like any other games released this month, Forza Horizon 5 still has some performance issues. If Forza Horizon 5 FPS drops on your PC, or if you’re suffering from in-game lag and stuttering, don’t worry. You’ve come to the right place. Although this issue is quite frustrating, you should be able to fix it on your own easily after reading this article!

Try these fixes

Here’s a list of fixes that have resolved this problem for other PC players. You don’t have to try them all. Just work your way through the list until you find the one that does the trick for you.

1. Install the latest game patch
2. Update your graphics driver
3. Set the Power Plan of your PC for high performance
4. Optimize in-game graphics settings
5. Modify graphics card settings
6. Disable overlays
7. Disable background recording and Xbox Game Bar

Install the latest game patch

The developers of Forza Horizon 5 releases regular game patches to fix bugs and improve gaming performance. It’s possible that a recent patch has caused the game crash issue, and that a new patch is required to fix it.

If a patch is available, it will be detected by Steam, and the latest game patch will be automatically downloaded and installed when you launch the game.

Launch Forza Horizon 5 to see if the FPS is back to normal. If the in-game FPS still drops, or there are no new game patch available, move on to next fix, below.

Update your graphics driver

If you haven’t updated your graphics driver for a long time, you should update or reinstall the driver, because the outdated or faulty graphics driver may be causing Forza Horizon 5 FPS dropping issue.

There are mainly two methods for you to update the graphics driver:

Manually – To update your graphics driver to the latest version, you’ll need to visit the manufacturer’s website, download the exact driver, and then install it manually.

• NVIDIA
• AMD
• Intel

Automatically – If you don’t have the time, patience or computer skills to update your drivers manually, you can, instead, do it automatically with Driver Easy.

Driver Easy will automatically recognize your system and find the correct drivers for your graphics card, and your Windows version, and it will download and install them correctly:

1. Download and install Driver Easy.
2. Run Driver Easy and click the Scan Now button. Driver Easy will then scan your computer and detect any problem drivers.
   
3. Click the Update button next to the flagged graphics driver to automatically download the correct version of that driver, then you can manually install it (you can do this with the FREE version).
   
   Or click Update All to automatically download and install the correct version of all the drivers that are missing or out of date on your system.
   
   (This requires the Pro version which comes with full support and a 30-day money back guarantee. You’ll be prompted to upgrade when you click Update All.)
4. Once the driver is updated, reboot your PC for the changes to take effect.

Set the Power Plan of your PC for high performance

On Windows OS, a power plan is a set of system and hardware settings to manage how your computer consumes and conserves power. Generally speaking, the higher the performance, the more power your computer consumes.

In most cases, the power plan on PCs are configured to Balanced by default, which may limits the operating capacity of your graphics card and CPU. In Windows 10 or Windows 11, you can customize the power plan on your PC, which allows you gain more performance.

If you’re experiencing peformance issues like FPS dropping, try modifying the Power Plan of your PC for Best Performance. Here is how to do it:

1. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and R at the same time, then type powercfg.cpl and press Enter.
   
2. In the pop-up window, expand Hide additional plans and select High performance.
   

Launch Forza Horizon 5 and check if you get a better PFS. If this issue persists, try the next fix, below.

Optimize in-game graphics settings

Optimizing the graphics settings is another fix that may boost the in-game FPS, especially if your PC barely meets the minimum system requirements of Forza Horizon 5. If you have a powerful PC, just skip this fix.

Normally, the in-game PFS will increase after you lower some in-game graphics settings:

• Turn off Night Shadows
• Set Shadow Quality to Low
• Turn off MSAA
• Turn off FXAA
• Set Reflection Quality to Low
• Set World Car Level of Detail to Low

If the FPS in Forza Horizon 5 still drops, try the next fix, below.

Modify graphics card settings

If you haven’t tried this fix, just tweak your graphics card settings in Nvidia or AMD control panel to see if the in-game FPS boosts. Some players fix this issue after modified theire graphics card settings.

For Nvidia users, follow the steps below:

1. Right-click on your desktop and select NVIDIA Control Panel from the context menu.
2. Click Manage 3D Settings on the left, then navigate to the Program Settings tab. In the Select a program to customize: part, add Forza Horizon 5 from the program list.
3. In the Specify the settings for this program section, modify following settings:
   
   Image Sharpening : Off
   Threaded Optimization : On
   Power Management : Prefer Maximum Performance
   Low Latency Mode : Off
   Vertical sync : Off
   Texture filtering – Quality : Performance
   
4. Click Apply to save the changes.

For AMD users, follow the steps below:

1. Open AMD Radeon Settings.
2. Go to Gaming > Global Settings. Then modify the settings the same way you see on the screenshot below.
   

Run Forza Horizon 5 to check if the in-game FPS increases. If not, move on to the next fix, below.

Disable overlays

According to some PC gamers, overlays sometimes they may interfere with Forza Horizon 5 and even introduces performance issues and compatibility issues.

Some players has reported that disabling the in-game overlay would improve the FPS in Forza Horizon 5. If you’re using the in-game overlay, just disable it to see if the in-game FPS improves.

There’re many apps that support overlay features. Here I’ll take the Steam Overlay as an example to show you how to turn the in-game overlay off in Steam:

1. Launch Steam and go to your LIBRARY, then right click on Forza Horizon 5 game title and click Properties….
   
2. In the GENERAL section, Uncheck Enable Steam Overlay while in-game.
   

If you’re using other apps with overlay features, such as Discord, Nvidia GeForce Experience, Twitch, etc., make sure you’ve disabled the in-game overlay in those apps feature before you restart the game.

Run Forza Horizon 5 again after you disabled all the in-game overlays and check if Forza Horizon 5 fps drops. If this issue persists, try the next fix, below.

Disable background recording and Xbox Game Bar

For those who love sharing game highlight videos, the background recording and Xbox Game Bar feature in Windows 10 is convenient. However, once enabled, they’ll constantly run in the background, hogging a ton of resources.

If you’ve turned on background recording and Xbox Game Bar, and you’re suffering from in-game FPS drops, just try disabling them. Here’s how to do it:

1. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and I at the same time to open Windows Settings. Click Gaming to open Windows 10 gaming settings.
   
2. Turn off the toggle under Xbox Game Bar if it is turned on.
   
3. Click Captures on the left, then turn off the toggle udner Background recording if it is turned on.
   

Run Forza Horizon 5 to see you can play it smoothly.

Hopefully, one of the fixes in the aritcle helped you fix the FPS droping issue in Forza Horizon 5. Feel free to leave us a comment below if you have any questions or suggestions on this issue. Thanks for reading!

• games
• Windows