Microsoft Reveals Forza Horizon 5 PC Requirements

With Forza Horizon 5 coming to the PC this Fall, Microsoft has revealed the minimum, recommended, and ideal configurations you’ll need to play the game.

“Forza Horizon 5 on PC renders every detail throughout the world with stunning realism, down to the tiniest features like the light that glows through each needle on a Cholla cactus,” Microsoft’s Alan Walsh writes. “With extreme draw distances and robust levels of detail, experience sweeping panoramas from the summit of the Gran Caldera volcano—the highest point ever in a Forza Horizon game—and scan the distance ahead to prepare for your next expedition.”

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Here are the specifications.

Minimums

Minimum OS. Windows 10 version 1909

CPU. AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or Intel i5-4460

Video card. AMD Radeon RX 470 or NVIDIA GTX 970

RAM. 4 GB

Storage. 110 GB HDD

Recommended

Minimum OS. Windows 10 version 1909

CPU. AMD Ryzen 5 1550X or Intel i5-8400

Video card. AMD Radeon RX 590 or NVIDIA GTX 1070

RAM. 8 GB

Storage. 110 GB HDD

Ideal

Minimum OS. Windows 10 version 1909

CPU. AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT or Intel i7-10700K

Video card. AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT or NVIDIA RTX 3080

RAM. 16 GB

Storage. 110 GB SSD

On the PC, Forza Horizon 5 will also support 4K, HDR, 21:9 ultrawide displays, popular steering wheels from Logitech, Thrustmaster, and Fanatec, and haptic feedback on the Xbox Wireless Controller across all versions including Steam for the first time.

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Conversation 13 comments

  • mattbg

    Premium Member
    30 September, 2021 - 11:22 am

    <p>I’m not big into gaming, but is it normal to stratify requirements into Minimums, Recommended, and Ideal these days?</p><p><br></p><p>I get that people know what it means and that it doesn’t matter, but "the Ideal is more than is Recommended" is an odd statement to make.</p>

    • Greg Green

      30 September, 2021 - 11:53 am

      <p>Yes, some have been doing that for a while. To get the game to crawl you’d use the minimums, if you want all the bells and whistles at 60 fps you need well above minimum.</p>

  • kcarson97404

    Premium Member
    30 September, 2021 - 11:46 am

    <p>This is why I don’t do PC gaming. I would need to upgrade my current machine to even get to the Recommended, yet alone Ideal configuration. I think I’ll just stick to my XBox Series X, knowing it will run everything I want to play without worrying about configurations and minimum standards. </p>

    • spacein_vader

      Premium Member
      30 September, 2021 - 12:34 pm

      <p>True, but our games cost less (admittedly not Forza as its one of those dual play games with xbox) and look better. Horizion 4 on PC looks as good or better as it does on a series X, let alone the xbox one it launched on. It also loaded quicker than the xbox one as consoles hadn’t discovered SSDs yet (welcome to 2013!) There’s also mod support.</p><p><br></p><p>I appreciate the counter argument, it just works and you don’t have to check specs, there’s room for both in the end. </p><p><br></p><p>Shame the console has inherited the PC’s long heritage of lengthy installs and massive patches whereas we’ve inherited (for games like forza anyway) the consoles inability to handle modding. </p>

      • davehelps

        Premium Member
        30 September, 2021 - 2:04 pm

        <p>Sorry, that reads dangerously like a balanced reply, aware of nuance.</p><p><br></p><p>You get 3 of those per week, maximum, any more and I’m afraid the internet will ban you.</p>

      • bettyblue

        01 October, 2021 - 6:39 am

        <p>He never mentioned the now ancient Xbox One. I guess you did to make your point?</p><p><br></p><p>I own both, a pretty good gaming PC (3070RTX, 3700X, 64gigs of RAM, 2TB of NVME) and a XSX. Both plugged into the same 27 inch 1440p, 144hz 27inch IPS gaming monitor. XSX Is running at 120hz and VRR. PC is basically only used to play DCS these days. My PC would cost you at least 2K these days, 1K of that for the video card. I paid $1079 for it. I got my XSX on launch day for $499. </p><p><br></p><p>In my experience the games are not cheaper. I have game pass and on either platform I buy games on sale. There are crazy sales on both platforms multiple times a year. I picked up AC Odessy with all expansions for the Xbox $19 recently. I also think most games (that are new/updated) either look the same or only so ever slightly better on my PC vs the XSX. Again I am on a 1440p monitor. I can lower stuff on the PC to run faster and I would run most games on high vs ultra to do so. The gap has closed so much in terms of graphics. </p><p><br></p><p>On the PC there is massive cheating in most AAA MP games. You also have to deal with multiple game stores, accounts for each, updating all of them, a separate comm app (discord for me) and of course Windows and all of its junk, drivers, updates etc. </p><p><br></p><p>It is cheaper, easier, and practically cheat free to play on the XSX for me and the experience is basically the same in terms of image quality and over all game speed (loading fps etc). </p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

        • spacein_vader

          Premium Member
          01 October, 2021 - 2:27 pm

          <p>That happens every gen. For the first year or two the console has near parity in image quality, before falling further and further vehind as tech moves on. </p><p><br></p><p>AAA games tend not to be much cheaper sales or no, but everything below that from AA to indie either doesn’t exist on the console or doesn’t go as cheap in sales. Many quality games are under £5 or your local equivalent in sales on PC storefronts. </p><p><br></p><p>As I said, both have their strengths and weaknesses, even if the lines between them are blurrier than before. </p>

    • solomonrex

      30 September, 2021 - 2:37 pm

      <p>Microsoft would be thrilled if you played this on Xbox Cloud Gaming, no gaming PC or Xbox required.</p>

  • erichk

    Premium Member
    30 September, 2021 - 12:20 pm

    <p>Well I bought the Seagate expansion disk for my Series S, might as well use it!</p>

  • brettscoast

    Premium Member
    30 September, 2021 - 8:54 pm

    <p>The hardware requirements for this new game don’t seem too onerous. Look forward to getting this through Steam.</p>

  • whistlerpro

    01 October, 2021 - 4:38 am

    <p>I know it’s less relevant with Game Pass these days, but will this game still be sold as ‘Play Anywhere’ like Forza Horizon 4 was?</p>

    • thretosix

      01 October, 2021 - 3:26 pm

      <p>Yes it is Play Anywhere. I looked it up when the game was announced. It is listed on the store page as a capability of the game.</p>

  • zeromus2003

    01 October, 2021 - 12:55 pm

    <p>I think its important to note that if you purchase on Steam, you can’t crossplay/save with Xbox. (Microsoft does a very poor job of explaining that) Therefore, I will be forced to purchase via Windows Store for cross saves/play anywhere.</p>

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