Last updated: 5 September 2026

Forza Horizon 6 Best Settings PC & Console Performance Guide

Forza Horizon 6 is one of the most technically demanding racing games on PC, but it also has one of the deepest settings menus. The difference between the default preset and an optimised configuration can be 30–50% more frames — or a significantly better-looking image at the same frame rate. This guide covers the most impactful settings on PC, what to change on Xbox Series X|S, and how to set up assists for any skill level.

01Video Settings: Fix These First

Before touching the graphics sliders, configure the video output settings. These determine your presentation pipeline and have a bigger impact on how the game feels than individual quality settings.

• Display Mode: Fullscreen (Exclusive) — not Borderless Window. Exclusive fullscreen gives the GPU direct control of the display, reducing input latency and preventing composition overhead. If Alt-Tab is important to you, Borderless Window is acceptable, but you lose a small amount of responsiveness.
• V-Sync: Off — V-Sync caps your frame rate to the monitor's refresh rate and adds 1–2 frames of input delay. Instead, use your GPU control panel or monitor's G-Sync/FreeSync to handle frame rate smoothing without the latency penalty.
• Frame Rate Limit: Set to your monitor's refresh rate — or slightly above it if using G-Sync/FreeSync. Running completely uncapped can cause GPU temperature spikes; capping at your refresh rate gives consistent frame pacing.
• Motion Blur Intensity: 0 (disabled) — motion blur in racing games obscures road detail and track edges you need to react to. Disable it regardless of graphics preset. Note: the 'Motion Blur Quality' slider can remain at High; it is separate from blur intensity.
• Resolution: Native unless using upscaling — if you are using DLSS, FSR, or XeSS, the internal rendering resolution is handled by the upscaler. Set output resolution to your monitor's native resolution.

02Upscaling: DLSS, FSR, and XeSS

FH6 supports three upscaling technologies. Choosing the right one for your GPU is the single most impactful graphics decision on PC:

• DLSS 4 (NVIDIA GPUs only — RTX 20 series and above): The best image quality available. Start with DLSS Quality mode, which renders at roughly 67% of native resolution and upscales to your output resolution. At 4K output, DLSS Quality internally renders at 1440p and upscales — the image quality is near-native while performance improves significantly. DLAA is available for native-resolution anti-aliasing with no performance recovery — use it only if you have headroom to spare. Note: DLSS Frame Generation requires RTX 40 series or above; Multi Frame Generation requires RTX 50 series. RTX 20/30 series gets DLSS Super Resolution only.
• FSR (all GPUs): The universal option, running on AMD FSR 3.1. FSR does not include a frame generation mode in FH6 at launch, unlike DLSS. FSR Quality mode is a reasonable starting point on non-NVIDIA hardware.
• XeSS (Intel Arc GPUs, or any GPU with lower quality): Best on Intel Arc hardware. On NVIDIA or AMD hardware, XeSS runs in generic mode and produces softer results than DLSS or FSR on the same GPU. Use DLSS or FSR on non-Intel hardware. Like FSR, it has no frame generation mode in this game.

Frame Generation on PC is currently DLSS-only, and several players have reported ghosting and smearing on fast-moving cars — most noticeably while drifting or in tight traffic — with Frame Generation enabled. Try DLSS Quality without Frame Generation first, and only add Frame Generation if your base frame rate is already above 60 FPS and you don't notice the artefacting on your setup.

03Graphics Settings: Biggest Impact First

FH6 auto-detects a preset based on your GPU, but the preset usually misallocates performance. Here is how to spend your GPU budget on settings that actually look different, versus ones that are invisible at racing speeds:

Settings worth keeping on High:

• Ray Traced Reflections: On — the visual impact is substantial on Japan's wet urban roads and glass buildings. This is one of the signature visual features of FH6. Disable it last if you need more performance.
• Shadow Quality: High — Low and Medium shadow quality produces visibly blocky shadows on the road surface, which is distracting. High is the minimum acceptable level for a polished look.
• Screen Space Reflections: Off (when Ray Traced Reflections are on) — running both doubles the reflection workload with diminishing visual return. If you have Ray Traced Reflections on, turn Screen Space Reflections off.
• Shader Quality: High — affects material surface rendering on cars and road. Lowering it makes car paint look flat. The performance cost is moderate.

Settings you can reduce without visible impact at racing speeds:

• Ray Traced Global Illumination Quality: Low or Off — the global illumination effect is most visible in static scenes and garage views. At racing speeds, the difference between Low and High is negligible. This is the most expensive optional setting to disable.
• Volumetric Fog: Medium — the difference between Medium and Ultra fog quality is nearly invisible at race camera distances.
• Particle Effects: Medium — tyre smoke and rain effects look fine at Medium. Ultra adds density that is invisible at high speed.
• Car LOD (Level of Detail): High — this affects how detailed other cars look at distance. Dropping to Medium saves performance in large multiplayer sessions without affecting your own car's appearance.

04Console Settings (Xbox Series X|S)

On Xbox Series X, FH6 ships with two visual modes:

• Performance Mode (60 FPS, dynamic resolution up to 4K) — recommended for all competitive racing. The frame rate advantage makes the game feel significantly more responsive for both racing and drifting.
• Quality Mode (native 4K / 30 FPS) — better for photography mode and touring the world. At 30 FPS, the input response makes competitive Touge and drift events noticeably harder. Use Performance Mode for gameplay.

Note: on Xbox Series X|S, real-time ray tracing is not used during gameplay in either mode — reflections come from screen-space reflections and cubemaps instead, the same approach FH5 used on console. Full ray-traced reflections and global illumination are a PC-only feature in FH6, available through the graphics settings covered above.

Xbox Series S offers both Quality Mode (1440p / 30 FPS) and Performance Mode (1080p / 60 FPS), each with dynamic resolution scaling. Unlike Series X, the Series S Performance Mode drops to 1080p to hit 60 FPS — but both modes are fully available.

On console, the most useful settings to change are in the Assists and Difficulty menus rather than graphics — those cannot be changed. On Xbox, ensure Dolby Atmos or Windows Sonic spatial audio is enabled in the Xbox system audio settings if you are using headphones; FH6's engine and environment audio benefits noticeably from spatial positioning.

05Assists Settings for Every Skill Level

FH6 offers a full set of driving assists. Each has a small impact on credit rewards — more assists enabled lowers the credit multiplier slightly:

Beginner setup (learning the game):

• ABS: On, Stability Control: On, Traction Control: On
• Driving Line: Full (shows the full racing line with brake markers)
• Rewind: On
• Steering: Normal (auto-assists for controller play)
• Damage: None, Tire Wear: None

Intermediate setup (comfortable with the roads):

• ABS: On, Stability Control: Off, Traction Control: On
• Driving Line: Braking Only (shows brake markers, not the full racing line — teaches you to steer yourself)
• Rewind: On
• Steering: Normal

Advanced setup (competitive / drift):

• ABS: On (or Off for maximum control on track), Stability Control: Off, Traction Control: Off
• Driving Line: Off
• Rewind: On (no credit penalty — there is no reason not to have it available)
• Steering: Simulation (for wheel users or experienced controller players)
• Driver Difficulty: Highly Skilled (10% credit bonus without significantly harder Drivatars)

Note on Difficulty and Credits: Raising Drivatar difficulty increases your credit payout, and it stacks with assist-based bonuses: disabling ABS or switching to manual transmission each add roughly 15% to your credit multiplier, while disabling Traction Control or Stability Control each add roughly 10% — stacking all four gets you to around a 50% bonus before difficulty is even considered. Pick a difficulty where you can still finish near the front consistently rather than maxing it out; racing on a difficulty you can't actually win at pays worse, not better.

06Controller and HUD Settings

For controller play on Xbox or PC, these adjustments improve accuracy:

• Steering Dead Zone Inside: 0 (adjust up to 5–10 if your stick has drift)
• Steering Linearity: 50–55 — default linearity can feel overly sensitive in the centre. Increasing to 55 smooths out small steering corrections without removing responsiveness.
• Vibration Scale: 0.25–0.35 — the default vibration intensity is high and fatiguing over long sessions. Reducing it preserves feedback without numbing your hands.
• Switch to Telemetry in Tuning — accessible from the pause menu during free roam. Shows real-time tyre temperature, suspension travel, and G-force data — essential if you are tuning a car manually.

For HUD, the settings to disable for a cleaner view:

• Disable: Player Names (clutters the screen in multiplayer)
• Disable: Skills Notifications (the pop-ups obscure corner details)
• Enable: Proximity Radar (positioned Centre Left) — essential for awareness in multiplayer and Eliminator
• Enable: Drift Camera on all camera types — gives a slight angle shift that helps judge Drift Zone angle