Forza Horizon 5 is about to introduce fully functional raytracing support during regular gameplay with its next major content update. Though the technology has been available in the game from the very start, with raytracing enabled in specific scenarios such as Photo Mode showcases, there was no option to have it enabled at all times.

While Forza Horizon 5 is no slouch when it comes to graphics, players have long wondered if Playground Games would ever try experimenting with the game's raytracing features to a greater extent. After the upcoming Forza Motorsport game was revealed to fully support raytracing at launch, it seemed like the open-world Horizon may end up only having a very limited implementation of the feature.

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That, however, is no longer going to be the case starting on November 8, 2022, with the conclusion of Forza Horizon 5's 10-year anniversary season. Namely, Playground Games has just announced that Forza Horizon 5 would receive a comprehensive raytracing update that would allow players to toggle this visual option on and off during race events and open-world exploration, effectively enjoying the feature at all times. This update comes alongside support for a whole array of cutting-edge upscaling technologies, such as DLSS 2.4 and FSR 2.2, allowing players to win back some performance that they will end up losing on rendering the game with raytracing enabled.

Forza-Horizon-5-Raytracing-Chart

To enable gameplay-level raytracing on PC in one of the best open-world racing games of all time, players will need to switch the appropriate option to either "Ultra" or "Extreme," with the cited ideal hardware spec being either Nvidia's RTX 3080 or the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card. Playground Games' handy raytracing functionality table also explains the differences between the two options, as well as underlining the fact that only the player vehicle will get full-resolution reflections during race events and free-roam sessions, with other vehicles getting the usual rasterized rendering treatment.

Since FH5 looks quite great even while using rasterization, this shouldn't be too big of an issue, and limiting full raytracing to just the player vehicle is likely the necessary compromise between visual fidelity and performance. The next-gen Forza Motorsport game, on the other hand, only needs to render about two dozen vehicles racing on a closed-down racing track, which is a far cry from Forza Horizon 5's rendition of open-world Mexico.

After Forza Horizon 5's last body kit update only ended up introducing a small number of new customization options for players to peruse, the Donut Media season that's launching on November 8 ought to alleviate this problem. Alongside gameplay raytracing support, players can also expect to enjoy a variety of new cars and 21 classic Rocket Bunny wide-body kits.

Forza Horizon 5 is available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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Source: Forza