We've already established that Forza Horizon 5 scales exceptionally well over Xbox hardware old and new, but has Playground Games managed to achieve the same quality on PC? Additionally, does the PC release scale beyond the bar set by Xbox Series X, offering even better graphics? And finally, what settings should you be aiming for to replicate and then build upon the console experience - and what kind of GPU will you require?
First up, a word of explanation on Forza Horizon 5's initial set-up times and its general accessibility in tweaking settings. On first loading the game, you're met with a pause as the game compiles its shaders for your specific graphics hardware. It's a little on the time-consuming side - even on a high-end PC - but it's worth the wait and it's necessary to ensure smooth performance with little stutter. Stutter seems to be a common issue on many PC titles right now, especially those using Unreal Engine 4, and it occurs as shaders are compiled on the fly as they are needed. FH5's technique of a single compilation period on first loading really is the best way to address this.
Where I do find Forza Horizon 5 somewhat onerous is the requirement to restart the game after adjusting certain settings. The problem here is that it effectively kills the tuning process as you have no instant way of knowing what the impact of the settings change is and what the performance gain - or loss - may be. Shader re-compilation also kicks in, and although shorter than the initial pause, it adds to the wait.