Forza Horizon 5 PC: can Playground's masterpiece scale beyond Series X?

Digital Foundry : We've already established that Forza Horizon 5 scales exceptionally well over Xbox hardware old and new, but has Playground Games managed to achieve the same quality on PC? Additionally, does the PC release scale beyond the bar set by Xbox Series X, offering even better graphics? And finally, what settings should you be aiming for to replicate and then build upon the console experience - and what kind of GPU will you require?

[Terry_B]

More important are the many negative experiences people made with bugs. Graphics might be even better than on xbox but if the game does not even run on a system, its worthless. Hope MS will fix any big bugs.

[dumahim]

My biggest gripe right now is the AI on a lot of races is stupid difficult. I usually have cars with a really good launch tune, but every other car takes off like a rocket way faster then me and on some races it's damn near impossible to win, even on Highly Skilled difficulty. One particularly difficult race, I compared the AI winner's lap time to the Rivals time, and it'd be in the top 0.6% on the leaderboard at Highly Skilled. At Unbeatable, only 35 people (out of like 45,000 who recorded a time) have a faster time (if you take the name of the difficulty literally, maybe it's not an issue for some).

I had to drop down to above average to win that race, but then the next couple races were a cakewalk.

[BenRC01]

Yeah same here, won a lot at highly skilled but then some races are just impossible for some reason

[tronyx12]

Maybe they are literally aiming for the name of the difficulty and you are just an Above Average driver lol

[dumahim]

@tronyx12
Yeah, I'm sure some would argue you shouldn't expect to win when it's called "Unbeatable." It's just that we're having problems a few steps below that.

[Terry_B]

Not sure why someone gave my comment a negative. That the game has problems right now on PC just like Forza 4 as well is just a simple fact that can't be denied.

[gravedigger]

It can't because XSX is more powerfurl than damn super computers. :/

[Bladesfist]

My game kept crashing until I ran it as administrator, not sure what they are doing that is causing crashes without elevated privileges, hopefully they patch out the crashing and server issues soon as the game is really fun.

[FPS_D3TH]

And honestly that’s the Xbox app to blame, not the game. That’s a common issue with so many games on Xbox game pass for pc, it’s a meme at this point.

[VariantAEC]

Digital Foundry's channel was just terminated according to YT for violating community guidelines.
What guidelines. Guess we'll have to follow their Twitter to find out.

[porkChop]

It's nothing major. Their channel was just the latest to be hijacked. They're working with YT to get it back. With how many huge channels have gotten hijacked this year you'd think YT would actually do something about it.

[dumahim]

Wow. It looks like it got completely nuked. Nothing comes up under search for them, not showing up as a subscribed channel either. I hope this was just a mistake and it gets reversed quickly. I didn't get a chance to watch the direct yesterday.

DF just tweeted they suspect it's an automated response to earlier hijacking.

[porkChop]

Yeah YT removes the channels temporarily. I believe the same thing happened with Scott the Woz.

[ElvisHuxley]

Obviously. Unless the PC version was sabotaged or neglected, it's going to be best.

[MadLad]

Gets disagrees for stating something that holds true to the vast majority of titles released.

[Deathdeliverer]

Ok so I like the game. No doubt about it. I’m also playing on a Samsung Q90 so I have VRR, 120hz, 4k, HDR, the works. My series X checks every box if I’m not mistaken. All that being said…. the game doesn’t look as good as Digital foundry makes it seem. Hell to be honest, it doesn’t look as good as it looked on digital foundry. It’s crazy as hell. Looking at videos online I was wowed. In person it just looks good. Not amazing. Eitherway, it’s horizon and it’s the best free roam racer I’ve played. It’s just… I feel like my eyes lied to me or something. The videos they show versus how it looks is just… different. Never seen anything like this before.

Edit- I think if you’re using the outside the car view things look better. Maybe it’s because you get to see the shiny car. I drive with the inside the car view or first person so I think that’s why it is underwhelming. I don’t see how people use that outside the car view.

[Deathdeliverer]

Ok so I see what it is. After watching this replay I envy the people that drive in 3rd person. Game looks VERY good in 3rd person. Sadly replays are the only way I get to see it like this. Game looks awesome. Guess I’ll be watching replays more. Wow.

[Eonjay]

Actually I prefer the outside car view. Probably because I'm just used to it. But if you are comparing that view to the inside care view, then yes it is a completely different look. Now In refrernce to DF videos vs real life, there are a littany of reasons why if may not look as good as their video. One big thing could actually be HDR. There are a few tuning videos out there that might make the image better for you.

[dumahim]

You'll probably have to check which of those features actually works with each other though. My Sony disables a lot of stuff, including HDR when VRR is enabled. I messed with it for a few minutes before I decided that smoothing out a few dropped frames here and there isn't worth the loss of the color and HDR settings.

[XxINFERNUSxX]

Throw in reshade: https://www.youtube.com/wat... and it will look even better. You should also disable MSAA and use reshades SMAA option. It will look great and give much better performance. I would pick the 1080p option to get the most FPS, usually in the 100's fits me and all options set to max. I bought that new 360hz 1080p HDR panel over any 1440p because I don't like options in games set to anything below ultra high or the lowest I would ever go is high. I will buy 1440p but not for another 1-2yrs 😁

[XbladeTeddy]

I used to say the same but then I got a 1440p card and it's a major step up visually. Can max out any game and bang out 80+ FPS just like my 1080p card did. 360Hz is worthless though even my 144Hz is overkill.

[XxINFERNUSxX]

My 3070 card can handle 1440p easily but, most games you can't really put all settings to max and get the FPS you would like to get. Yes it is super sharp and 144hz is not overkill even in 1440p 😁 if you play some older games you can easily max out 144fps and beyond. 360hz actually is a big step up, I went from 144 to 240 now 360 and there is a difference, much smoother overall at 360hz, plus I do play an esports game Paladins, and it feels great locked at 357FPS. Remember to cap your FPS at least 3FPS below your refresh rate with G-SYNC, or FreeSync.