Horizon Forbidden West PC – Best Graphics Settings

Horizon Forbidden West is finally out on PC 2 years after its initial release back in February 2022. I loved the first game and the overall excitement for this one had never been higher. Even though the fact the PC users had to wait for 2 years to play this game, it is well worth it.

As we all know the game offers excellent visuals which is an improvement over the last game. The graphics are so breathtaking that I would sometimes stop whatever I was doing and stare at the beautiful scenery ahead of me.

But games like these are often heavy on the hardware. So if you are looking for the Best Graphics Settings for Horizon Forbidden West that would give you decent performance as well as retain the visual depth of the game, you have come to the right place.

Here is the Best Graphics Settings You Can Use for Horizon Forbidden West

Now it is obvious that if you put everything on Low you get maximum performance. But Games like Horizon Forbidden West are not meant to be played on all Low. So we will help you crank up the settings but in a way that your PC will be able to handle it.

Now when we talk about a PC, we consider an average gaming rig. There is no point in doing a guide for Graphics Settings on a beast PC with RTX 40 series GPUs.

Display Settings:

• Monitor – Default screen will be selected
• Window Mode – Exclusive Full Screen
• Display Resolution – Native Resolution (Always select your default resolution for best performance)
• Aspect Ratio – 16:9
• Refresh Rate – 144Hz
• V-Sync – Off (Keep this off to avoid any input delay or frame capping)
• Nvidia Reflex Low Latency – Off ( If you have VSync off you don’t need this option)
• Dynamic Resolution Scaling – Off (We don’t need DSR. As we do not intend to go beyond our native resolution)
• Upscale Method – DLSS (Upscales a lower resolution to your current resolution. Increases performance)
• Upscale Quality – Medium

Graphics Settings:

• Texture Quality – Medium (Textures do not affect performance provided that you have enough VRAM. If you have 4 to 6GB of VRAM use Medium. You can go higher if you have more than 6 GB of VRAM)
• Texture Filtering – 8x Anisotropic
• Shadow Quality – Medium (Has a huge impact on performance so Low or Medium should be fine. Do not go higher) 
• Screen Space Shadows – On
• Ambient Occlusion – SSAO
• Screen Space Reflections – Medium/High (Reflection of Medium is fine. You can set it to High but it will bring down FPS when you are near a reflective surface)
• Level of detail – Medium
• Hair Quality – High (We are always starting at the back of our character. So the hair needs to look good)
• Crowd Quality – Low / Medium (If you do not bother about the NPC qualities you can just set it to Low or Medium)
• Terrain Quality – Medium (Medium is fine. However, going High affects performance by a lot)
• Water Quality – High (You will not always be around a water source. So when you are near one check and see the difference between High and Medium. For me, it was like 6 frames and I could sacrifice that for amazing water details)
• Clouds Quality – Low / Medium (This is something that you can live without. So put it on Low or Medium)
• Translucency Quality – Default
• Parallax Occlusion Mapping – On

Understanding how the graphics settings impact performance is key and that is how you find your sweet spot. At the end of the day, it comes down to your personal preference and comfort level. So try playing around with the settings a bit.

That should be all on “Horizon Forbidden West PC – Best Graphics Settings“.

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I hope the guide was helpful. Please let us know in the comments section below. Also, follow FPS Index for more guides on Horizon Forbidden West.

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