Forza Motorsport PC Performance Review and Optimisation Guide

Introduction

Forza Motorsport has returned, but the game’s PC version leaves a lot to be desired

The Forza Motorsport series does not have a long history on PC. 2017’s Forza Motorsport 7 being the only game in the series to launch on the platform, at least until now. Forza Motorsport (2023) is now available on PC, and it is clear that this game is not made by PlayGround Games, the studio behind the open-world Forza Horizon franchise. To say the least, Forza Motorsport’s PC version is not as polished as its recent Horizon counterparts.

Today we will be looking at the PC version of Forza Motorsport, which is now available on PC through Steam, the Microsoft Store, and Game Pass. In this review, we will be letting you know how to get this game running well on your PC. We will also testing this game across a variety of PC hardware configurations to see how this game on both low-end and high-end GPUs.

What’s wrong with Forza Motorsport’s PC version

We will start with one of the largest complaints that PC gamers have with Forza Motorsport’s PC version, it’s multiplayer framerate cap. On PC, Forza Motorsport has its framerate capped at 60 FPS on PC in multiplayer races. This limitation is designed to keep Xbox and PC players on the same competitive footing, something that is very uncommon for a multiplayer game. While we can see why Turn 10 Studios may have decided to enable this framerate cap, it is worth noting that such limitations do not apply to most multi-platform multiplayer titles. This is an annoying limitation that probably could have been worked around.

Another annoyance is that while this game has unlocked framerate options, we found that framerates were limited to the maximum refresh rate of our connected PC monitor. In our case, this limited Forza Motorsport to 120 FPS. Is a framerate really unlocked when there is a framerate cap? Another issue that we found is that there are juddering issues if VSYNC is not enabled, making VSYNC a near mandatory option in this game.

Other Problems

Another annoyance in Forza Motorsport’s PC version is that players need to reboot the game after almost all settings changes. Failing to do so could react in strange visual bugs, settings not enabling correctly, or negative performance consequences.  Without a reboot, lower performance levels can often be seen after lowering this game’s graphical settings. When using AMD GPUs, we also note that shader compilation takes a lot longer than on an equivalent Nvidia-based system. This compilation also takes place on every game boot when we are using AMD GPUs. The graphical options in Forza Motorsport are also confusing to decipher. Turn 10 can improve this with better setting descriptions.

Overall, Forza Motorsport lacks the polish that Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Horizon 5 have. It is clear that Turn 10 Studios have not made many PC games. This is hugely disappointing given how well designed the PC versions of recent Playground Games’ titles are.

Review Contents

• Preset Performance Scaling
• Ray Tracing Optimisation Tips
• General Optimisation Tips
• DLSS 2 Performance
• FSR 2 Performance
• 1080p Performance
• 1440p Performance
• 4K Performance
• Conclusion

GPU Drivers

When testing Assassin’s Creed Mirage on PC, we utilised the newest Nvidia and AMD GPU drivers that were available to us at the time of the game’s launch. These drivers were Radeon’s AMD Software Adrenalin Edition version 23.10.1 drivers, and Nvidia’s GeForce 537.58 WHQL drivers for Windows 10/11.