Forza Horizon 5 FPS drops or low frame rate on PC, issue gets acknowledged (workaround inside)

‘Horizon’ is the spin-off saga of the Forza racing games. While the ‘standard’ Forza was intended to offer a realistic driving experience, Forza Horizon is aimed at the arcade driving segment.

Forza Horizon 5 is the latest installment in the racing franchise. It is also one of the exclusive games for Microsoft platforms (Xbox consoles and Windows OS).

However, currently Forza Horizon 5 players on PC are facing serious performance issues with FPS drops or low frame, and even crashing and freezing (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). But, there are some workarounds.

According to multiple reports, Forza Horizon 5 is experiencing noticeable FPS drops on PC. Also, the maximum FPS rate for some players is locked to a lower figure than the hardware supports (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

FPS drops and frame freezing in-game except for online racing

didn’t have this before, now I do and its pretty bad. is this a known issue or is there something in my settings that I should focus on getting right. having at least 1 frame freeze every 3 seconds in the game but its absolutely perfect in horizon open
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what has happened ?

i just got back to playing FH5 after about a 3 month break because of the streaming bandwidth issue now that issue has been fixed from what i played today but the performance its horrible i would get a locked 60 0 dips before, now the framerate is all over the place game stuttering like crazy.

rig 3070ti, i7 6700k 16gb ram
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Forza Horizon 5 players are also facing other performance issues like crashing and freezing.

Sometimes the problem can be so severe that the game freezes the entire PC.

When I try to run the game it freezes whole pc (the pc unfreezes when i press the Windows button). After a while the game closes itself and pc is working again. Also when the game is loading the only way i can make it to work is by spamming Windows key until it loads.
It also uses a lot of VRAM,
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The vast majority of reports agree that the most recent update to Forza Horizon 5 for PC brought the performance issues (1, 2).

Frame freeze and stutters after the new update

Hi everyone. Does anyones screen gets stuck on one frame after the latest update ? The problem can be solved by switching to another window or the desktop and going back but it’s annoying especially during races where it sometimes means you lose.
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The Playground Games team is already aware of the Forza Horizon 5 performance issues on PC. Furthermore, the company reveals that the cause of the problem is a conflict between the game and certain third-party overlay programs.

If you experience graphics or framerate loss during extended play sessions on the PC version of #ForzaHorizon5 this is typically caused by a memory leak and can sometimes be alleviated by disabling third-party overlay programs.
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It seems that not all programs with overlay features are compatible with the game. Therefore, Playground Games recommends disabling third-party overlay programs while playing Forza Horizon 5:

Also, there are a few tweaks you can make to Forza Horizon 5 graphics settings in order to improve performance:

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

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Playground Games did not reveal in their official acknowledgment if they are working on resolving the issue. We will update this story as events unfold.

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