Forza Horizon 6 on Steam Deck OLED Performance

Besides maybe 007 First Light and LEGO Batman, Forza Horizon 6 is one of the most anticipated games of May for me, so I wanted to see how it runs on the Steam Deck OLED before moving on to the other handhelds. It's hit or miss, and as far as I can tell it's a pretty CPU-bound game most of the time. This is early access, so I'm sure a lot of updates are coming, and it's already Steam Deck Verified from day one.

Disclosure: the early access game code was provided by Xbox, through Keymailer.

Quick take

Tested at 800p (1280x800), V-sync off and an unlocked frame rate, from the very low to high presets, with FSR3 or TAA.
In the built-in benchmark: 48 FPS on very low and 38 on low with FSR3 Quality, 30 on medium, and 38 on low with TAA. The game tends to run better in real gameplay than the benchmark shows.
In races with TAA, the overlay mostly read the 40s to 50s on low, the 50s on very low and the mid to high 30s on medium.
Most of the time, TAA looks and runs a bit better than FSR on the Deck right now.

Test setup

These aren't best settings. I messed with the presets to show how it runs and looks on the Deck. I think most people will land somewhere between low and medium depending on the frame rate they want, and a lot of people will probably lock 30 or 40 FPS and adjust settings to hit that target. There's room for everybody to do that.

Device: Steam Deck OLED, docked for capture, played with the new Steam Controller
Display: 1280x800, no HDR, V-sync off, unlocked (variable) frame rate
Presets: very low, low, medium and high
Anti-aliasing / upscaling: FSR3 (Quality in the benchmark, Balanced on medium and high in gameplay) or TAA
VRAM: the on-screen label says 4GB VRAM.
Gameplay FPS numbers are what the on-screen overlay read in the video, checked every two seconds. Benchmark numbers are the "Achieved" result on the built-in benchmark's results screen.

Forza Horizon 6 video settings on the Steam Deck OLED: 1280x800, unlocked frame rate, V-sync off — Video settings: 1280x800, unlocked (variable) frame rate, V-sync off.

Built-in benchmark

The benchmark has the same kind of layout as Forza Horizon 5's, but it's a bit harder to run in general and isn't really indicative of real-world gameplay. The game tends to run better than this in races. It's a consistent spot to compare settings, though.

800p settings	Benchmark result
Very low preset, FSR3 Quality	48 FPS
Low preset, FSR3 Quality	38 FPS
Medium preset, FSR3 Quality	30 FPS
Low preset, TAA	38 FPS

Forza Horizon 6 benchmark results on the Steam Deck OLED at 800p: very low 48 FPS, low 38 FPS, medium 30 FPS, low with TAA 38 FPS — Benchmark results at 800p: very low with FSR3 Quality (48 FPS), low with FSR3 Quality (38), medium with FSR3 Quality (30) and low with TAA (38).

Unless you start running more into medium settings and get into the open world, where FSR might help from time to time, TAA just looks and runs a bit better for me in early access on the Deck.

Race gameplay

The game ends up fairly CPU-bound in most areas, and that causes a lot of the skips, stutters, frame time issues and load-in problems I'm not seeing on other handhelds, like the ROG Xbox Ally X I'm also testing it on. It hits the CPU side pretty hard here and just can't keep up and feed the GPU to keep things as smooth as you'd want.

Across a couple of different races at 800p, here's what the overlay read:

Very low, TAA: mostly the 50s, about 45 to 64.
Low, TAA: mostly the 40s to 50s, about 31 at the lowest and up to about 61.
Medium, TAA: mostly the mid to high 30s, about 33 to 45.
Medium, FSR3 Balanced: about 37 to 45.
High, FSR3 Balanced: mostly the 30s, about 30 to 39.

Forza Horizon 6 race on the Steam Deck OLED at 800p very low preset with TAA, overlay reading 48 FPS — 800p, very low preset, TAA. Overlay reads 48 FPS.

Forza Horizon 6 race on the Steam Deck OLED at 800p medium preset with TAA, overlay reading 45 FPS — 800p, medium preset, TAA. Overlay reads 45 FPS.

Forza Horizon 6 race on the Steam Deck OLED at 800p high preset with FSR3 Balanced, overlay reading 30 FPS — 800p, high preset, FSR3 Balanced. Overlay reads 30 FPS.

Verdict

Even with its issues, Forza Horizon 6 is verified on the Deck, and with early access I'm hoping for plenty of updates to smooth things out, especially on lower-end hardware like the Steam Deck. For now, this should give you enough of an idea of how it runs on the Deck and whether it's something you want to play here.

FAQ

Is Forza Horizon 6 playable on the Steam Deck OLED?

Yes, and it's Steam Deck Verified, but it's hit or miss. At 800p with TAA on the low preset, the overlay mostly read the 40s to 50s in races, with stutters and frame time issues because the game is fairly CPU-bound.

Should I use FSR or TAA in Forza Horizon 6 on the Steam Deck?

Most of the time TAA looks and runs a bit better on the Deck right now. FSR might help from time to time on medium settings in the open world.

Want more handheld tests?

New Steam Deck, ROG Ally, Legion Go and Steam Machine performance videos every week.

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