Horizon: Forbidden West is the latest PlayStation “exclusive” to hit Steam and Epic games. Contrary to its predecessor, the game is remarkably well-optimized, averaging over 60 FPS on every reasonable configuration. If you have been facing any performance issues with the game, read on as we test every graphics setting to find the culprit.
Horizon Forbidden West: PC System Requirements
Horizon: Forbidden West demands a hex-core Ryzen 5 3600/Core i5-8600 alongside a GeForce RTX 3060/Radeon RX 5700 for 1080p 60 FPS at the “Medium” quality preset. Switching to 1440p “High” increases the CPU requirement to a Core i7-9700/Ryzen 7 3700X and the RTX 3070/RX 6800.
Ultra HD or 4K raises the GPU requirements to a GeForce RTX 4080 or a Radeon RX 7900 XT, and the CPU recommendation to a Core i7-11700 or a Ryzen 7 5700X. The game requires 16GB of memory at any resolution/preset and 150GB of SSD storage.
Our Test Bench
- CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K.
- Motherboard: ASUS Z790 Maximus Hero.
- Cooler: Lian Li Galahad 360.
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.
- Memory: 16GB x2 DDR5-6000 CL30.
- Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e.
System Settings to Optimize
Enable Resizable BAR (SAM)
Resizable BAR was enabled on most x86 motherboards and GPUs following the adoption of the PCIe Gen 4 standard. Traditionally, the CPU and GPU have communicated through a narrow BAR (a 256 MB window), constantly moved around to allow the CPU to access different parts of the graphics memory. Resizable BAR allows the CPU full access to the GPU’s memory bus rather than a small portion.
Intel’s 10th Gen CPUs and newer support Resize BAR, while AMD’s Ryzen 3000 chips and onward also support it. On the GPU side, NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 series and newer feature Resizable BAR support. The Radeon RX 6000 cards were the first to enable it on the opposite side.
Enabling Resizable BAR usually involves turning on two PCIe technologies from the motherboard BIOS: Above 4G Decoding, and Resizable BAR support. The ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI motherboard guides are linked for further instructions.
Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling and Windowed Optimizations
Next, ensure you have “Optimizations for windowed games” enabled in your Windows settings as this will help with latency and thread priorities. To get there, open System Settings (Right-click on the Windows logo and click settings) -> Display -> Graphics -> Default graphics settings and enable both options.
Overclock your Graphics Card
Overclocking GPUs is a fairly safe and easy process. If done right, it won’t void your warranty and can boost your gaming performance by at least 5-10%. Unlike CPUs, you don’t have to mess with the BIOS or worry about BSODs. All you need is MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision X (they work with GeForce and Radeon cards regardless of the AIB):
- MSI Afterburner.
- GPU-Z
- Games you play often, preferably a recent release that will stress the GPU.
- Here’s a guide to get you started.
Enable XMP/EXPO Memory Profile
XMP profiles (EXPO for AMD Ryzen platforms) are a set of predetermined memory clocks and timings known to run stably on a given memory die. They’re a shortcut to overclocking your memory without testing every frequency and timing.
Most motherboard BIOSes include this setting on the BIOS homepage, under one of the following: Extreme Memory Profile, AI Overclock Tuner, Load XMP Profile, EXPO, A-XMP, or DRAM Profile. Further instructions are linked.
Horizon Forbidden West Resolution Scaling: 1080p vs 1440p vs 4K
Horizon Forbidden West runs remarkably well, averaging 69 FPS on the GeForce RTX 4060 at 1080p “Very High.” The RTX 4070 pushes 100 FPS, while the Radeon RX 7900 GRE posts an average of 124 FPS with 1% lows of 98 FPS.
The RX 7900 GRE delivers over 100 FPS at 1440p “Very High,” while the RTX 4070 drops to 84.5 FPS. The higher-end GeForce and Radeon cards post averages of nearly 120 FPS, led by the RTX 4090’s 138 FPS. Even though the RTX 4060 is reduced to 46 FPS, it should be a valid 1440p option when paired with DLSS/FSR.
The higher-end GPUs are limited to ~80 FPS at 4K, while the RTX 4070 barely falls short of the 60 FPS mark. The RX 7900 GRE nets an average of 62.5 FPS, while the RTX 4090 leads the convoy with an average of 94.4 FPS. Once again, all these GPUs should offer a delightful experience with upscaling (or frame generation in the case of the RTX 4060).
Best Graphics Preset for Horizon Forbidden West: Low vs High vs Very High
Horizon Forbidden West runs across a wide range of hardware. At 4K, the GeForce RTX 4090 averages 149 FPS using the “Very Low” quality preset, versus 134 FPS at the “Low” quality preset, marking a performance dip of 11%. Increasing the graphics preset to “Medium” reduces the frame rate by another 10% to 121.5 FPS.
The switch to “High/Very High” has the largest impact on performance, reducing frame rates by 20-25%. Interestingly, “Very High” and “High” produce nearly the same framerates (95-100 FPS) on the GeForce RTX 4090.
Field of View Slider Performance
The field of view (FOV) slider has a surprisingly low impact on performance. Increasing the slider reduces frame rates by 3% while decreasing it by the same amount makes the game run 4% faster.
Texture Filtering and Terrain Quality
Texture filtering improves the appearance of on-screen textures, enhancing detail and reducing artifacts. This is achieved using Anisotropic Filtering which resamples the textures perpendicular to the screen. Without texture filtering, surfaces in the distance often look blurry and lacking detail. The reason is that the game uses low-quality MIP maps to save resources for far-off meshes.
Texture filtering has a modest impact on performance, reducing frame rates by 5% at the highest “16x” quality setting. If you are strapped for FPS, we recommend switching to “x2” for the best experience.
Terrain quality sets the resolution of rocks, soil, and other surface textures. It usually does so by increasing the polygon count (CPU+GPU intensive) or using tesselation (GPU intensive). In Horizon, it has a nominal quality on performance, reducing frame rates by a mere 3%.
Level of Detail and Crowd Quality
Level of Detail (LOD) is used to adjust the mesh quality of different objects in the game. This refers to the 3D polygon complexity rather than texture quality and affects the CPU and the GPU. Usually, the lower-quality presets reduce the LOD of far-off objects while “High/Ultra” renders several distant meshes.
LOD has a sizable impact on performance in Horizon Forbidden West. Going from “Very Low” to “Very High” reduces frame rates by 18% on average. “High” offers a more balanced ground, retaining most details, while decreasing frame rates by only 8%.
Crowd Quality causes a 9% drop in average performance at “High,” from 79.4 FPS to 73.7 FPS. “Medium” produces a more favorable 78 FPS without culling many characters.
Shadows and Ambient Occlusion
Horizon Forbidden West features Shadows, Screen Space Shadows, and Screen Space Ambient Occlusion. The latter two are dynamically generated for objects on the screen, while the former is a product of pre-baked shadow maps.
Disabling shadows grants a 12% performance improvement but dramatically reduces realism. If you’re running low on performance, the “Medium” setting is a more balanced option delivering roughly the same frame rates as “Off.”
Screen Space Shadows has an unexpectedly hefty impact on performance, bringing down frame rates by 12.5%. If you’re struggling to hit 60 FPS, this can turned off.
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion has a negligible impact on performance, reducing less than 1% of the frame rate.
Transparency, Water, and Cloud Quality
Reflections and transparency can have varying impacts on performance. “Screen space reflections” is one of the more taxing on-screen effects. Water and Cloud quality have a minimal impact on performance, reducing frame rates by only 3%.
Screen Space Reflections, Translucency, and Parallax Occlusion Mapping are settings with a subtle impact on quality and performance. Together, they have a sizable impact on frame rate but should be switched off only if you’re running a several-year-old PC.
Hair Quality
Hair Quality affects the hair quality of the human characters and animal/machine creatures. It has a nuanced impact on performance, with “Medium” being the most balanced setting. Even the “Very High” option degrades performance by only 4%.
Upscaling and Frame Generation: DLSS 3 and FSR 3
Horizon Forbidden West features DLSS 3, FSR 3, and XeSS. Frame generation is only available on GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs, while DLAA (Deep Learning Anti-aliasing) should work on all RTX GPUs. For whatever reason, Frame Generation didn’t provide a higher performance than DLSS “Performance” upscaling.”
Since it generates a whole frame, Frame Generation alleviates CPU and GPU bottlenecks which is why this is so strange. With standard upscale, DLSS “Quality” improved performance by 21%, while “Performance” led to a 35% uplift.
Anti-aliasing techniques like SMAA and TAA perform the same as “Off,” while DLAA bites off a few frames from the average.
Horizon Forbidden West: CPU Bottleneck and VRAM Usage
Horizon Forbidden West requires an 8GB graphics card for optimal performance. Higher resolutions like 1440p and 4K are even more demanding, using up to 10GB of video memory. Upscaling and frame generation are the easiest ways to get away with a slim VRAM buffer. It’s the reverse on the CPU side. The game didn’t exhibit any CPU bottlenecks at any resolution or setting. We tested using the Core i9-12900K, i9-13900K, and the Ryzen 7 7800X3D.
Best Graphics Settings for Horizon Forbidden West on PC
| High-end PC | Mid-Range PC | Low-end PC | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 4K | 1440p | 1080p |
| Texture Quality | Very High | Very High | High (Keep this at VH if your GPU has 8GB VRAM) |
| Texture Filtering | 16x AF | 8x AF | 8x AF |
| Depth of Field | Off | Off | Off |
| Shadow Quality | Very High | Very High | Medium |
| Level of Detail | Very High | Very High | High |
| Terrain Quality | Very High | Very High | Very High |
| Cloud Quality | Very High | Very High | Very High |
| Ambient Occlusion | SSAO | SSAO | SSAO |
| Hair Quality | High | High | High |
| Screen Space Reflections | High | High | High |
| Water Quality | High | High | High |
| Crowd Quality | High | High | Medium |
| Translucency Quality | High Res | High Res | High Res |
| Screen Space Shadows | On | On | Off |
| FOV | +25% | 0% | 0% |
| Anti Aliasing | DLAA/TAA | N/A | N/A |
| Upscaling | Native | DLSS/FSR Quality | DLSS/FSR Balanced or Performance |
Definition of High-end, Midrange, and Low-end
Horizon Forbidden West Optimized Settings for Low-End PC
Here’s our low-end PC optimization guide for more details.
| Optimized settings | Ryzen 5 5600/RTX 4060 | i5-12400F/RX 6600 |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 1080p | 1080p |
| Texture Quality | High | Medium |
| Texture Filtering | 8x AF | 16x AF |
| Depth of Field | Off | Off |
| Shadow Quality | High | Medium |
| Hair Quality | High | High |
| Level of Detail | High | Medium |
| Terrain Quality | High | Very High |
| Cloud Quality | High | Medium |
| Ambient Occlusion | SSAO | SSAO |
| Screen Space Reflections | High | High |
| Water Quality | High | High |
| Crowd Quality | High | Medium |
| Translucency Quality | High Res | High Res |
| Screen Space Shadows | Off | On |
| FOV | 0% | 0% |
| Anti Aliasing | N/A | N/A |
| Upscaling | DLSS Quality | FSR Balanced |
Optimized Settings for RTX 4060/3060 Laptop GPU
| RTX 4060 Laptop GPU | RTX 3060 Laptop GPU | |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 1440p | 1080p |
| Texture Quality | Very High | Very High |
| Texture Filtering | 8x AF | 8x AF |
| Depth of Field | Off | Off |
| Shadow Quality | Very High | Medium |
| Level of Detail | Very High | High |
| Terrain Quality | Very High | Very High |
| Cloud Quality | Very High | Very High |
| Hair Quality | High | High |
| Ambient Occlusion | SSAO | SSAO |
| Screen Space Reflections | High | High |
| Water Quality | High | High |
| Crowd Quality | High | Medium |
| Translucency Quality | High Res | High Res |
| Screen Space Shadows | On | Off |
| FOV | 0% | 0% |
| Anti Aliasing | N/A | N/A |
| Upscaling | DLSS 3 “FG” Balanced | DLSS Balanced/Performance |
Horizon Forbidden West Steam Deck Settings
Here’s our optimization guide for the Steam Deck.
| Optimized settings | Steam Deck OLED |
|---|---|
| Resolution | 800p (1280 x 800) |
| Texture Quality | Medium |
| Texture Filtering | Trilinear |
| Depth of Field | Off |
| Shadow Quality | Very Low |
| Level of Detail | Very Low |
| Terrain Quality | Low |
| Cloud Quality | Low |
| Ambient Occlusion | Off |
| Hair Quality | Very Low |
| Screen Space Reflections | Off |
| Water Quality | Low |
| Crowd Quality | Low |
| Translucency Quality | Default |
| Screen Space Shadows | Off |
| FOV | 0% |
| Anti Aliasing | N/A |
| Upscaling | AMD FSR 2.2 “Balanced” |
Horizon Forbidden West PS5 Graphics Settings
The PC equivalent settings of the various PS5 graphics quality modes, courtesy of Eurogamer:
| PS5 Performance Mode | PS5 40fps Mode | PS5 Quality Mode | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texture Quality | Very High | Very High | Very High |
| Texture Filtering | 2x/4x/8x AF | 2x/4x/8x AF | 2x/4x/8x AF |
| Shadow Quality | High | High | High |
| Depth of Field | High | High | High |
| Level of Detail | High | High | High |
| Terrain Quality | High | High | High |
| Crowd Quality | High | High | High |
| Hair Quality | High | High | High |
| Ambient Occlusion | SSAO | SSAO | SSAO |
| Screen-Space Reflections | High | High | High |
| Water Quality | High | High | High |
| Cloud Quality | High | Very High | High |
| Translucency | Default | High Res | High Res |
| Parallax Occlusion Mapping | On | On | On |
