Forza Motorsport: 5 Tips For New Players!

The Forza Motorsport reboot is now live on Xbox Game Pass! Here’s 5 tips to get you ahead of the competition!

WATCH: Forza Motorsport: 5 Tips For New Players!

The Forza Motorsport reboot is here! Six years after Forza Motorsport 7, Xbox’s most popular racing game experience is back – but before you get behind the wheel, here’s 5 tips that will get you ahead of the competition!

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Controls

On startup, the game defaults to all assists turned on, and some very beginner-friendly controller and wheel settings. If you want to go fast, you’ll need to make some changes.

If you’re on Controller, head to Driving Assists. Turn everything off apart from ABS, and set Steering to Normal. Looking at the leaderboards, whether Manual or Manual with Clutch is faster seems to depend on the car, so the choice is yours. If you’re in a wet race with a powerful RWD car, you may want to add some Traction Control! Next, to Controller. I’ve set A as my clutch, B to shift up and X to shift down – though of course you’ll want to experiment to find what’s right for you.

In Advanced Controller, lower all of the inside deadzones to 5 to start with, and increase the outside deadzones to 95. This will make accelerator, brake and steering inputs far more responsive – once you’ve got a feel for the physics and handling, you can lower the inside deadzones further for that little extra control. The default vibrations are also pretty strong, so I’ve set Vibration Scale to 10.

If you’re on a Wheel, in Driving Assists, turn off everything, set Steering to simulation, and Shifting to Manual – or Manual with Clutch if you have one. Head to Input to bind all of your wheel and pedal inputs, then on to Advanced Input.

Each wheel and pedal set is different, so bear in mind these are just a starting point, and you should fine-tune this on track! Set all of the inside deadzones to 0, and outside deadzones to 100. I’m running the Moza R12 on PC, and have reduced Vibration Scale to 50, increased Road Feel to 135, increased Load Sensitivity to 80, reduced Wheel Damping and Centre Spring to 10, and reduced Dynamic Damper Behaviour to 90. These are by no means perfect and still need a lot of tuning, but it’s a decent start.

If you’re just starting out, in Driving Assists, I’d recommend setting Suggested Line to Braking Only, and scrolling down to Additional Assists, turn Track Limits on. This will help you learn which corners you can cut and by how much, which is super-important for lap time – and you can of course turn both of these assists off once you’ve built up your experience.

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Car Selection

Not all cars are created equal. Transmission, weight, power – these all make huge differences to a car’s potential speed, and they really matter in Forza Motorsport. I chose the Honda Civic Type R as my starter car, and found the intro to be a cakewalk. Later, I chose the Toyota Supra for the Built For Sport series, and that was a much greater challenge.

A car’s PI level is your rough “car strength”. Bigger is better, but be aware that more powerful cars may not be as easy to control, so check the cars’ details to make sure it’s right for you. More modern cars also come with more modern parts – including better gearboxes which eliminate the power loss between gears, which can make modern, lower-powered cars quicker than older, higher-powered machines.

Once you’ve increased your Car Level, you’ll be able to upgrade your way out of a lot of these downsides. That brings us nicely onto the CarPG system.

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Upgrades & Tuning

Here’s the main car upgrades I think you should aim for with each new car, plus the tuning options they unlock, and some basic adjustments you can make.

Stock cars tend to come with chronic understeer, so get the Race-grade Rear Anti-Roll Bars as soon as you can. By stiffening this bar in your tuning menu, the car will turn more – effectively increasing your turning radius. Go too far and you’ll be drifting all over the place, so test it on track to find the sweetspot for speed.

Next, go for Race-grade Springs and Dampers. These allow you to adjust your Toe and Camber, which will further increase your performance in the corners. Add negative camber – say -1.0 at the front and -0.5 and the rear – and set front Toe to 0.5 and rear Toe to -0.5. You’ll need to fine-tune this for each car and track to find the right balance between straight-line and corner speed, but this should be a good starting point.

Race Springs and Dampers also allow you to stiffen the springs and reduce the ride height – the lower the centre of gravity, the better the handling in the corners. Be sure to add some rake – making the front lower than the rear – for some extra turn-in on corner entry.

After that, Race Transmission will switch your stock gearbox for a sequential, so you’re getting the absolute most out of your engine and eliminating any lost time between the gears. This also lets you change your gear ratios, which you’ll want to adjust for each track. Long straights and few corners? Push towards speed. Tight and twisty circuit? Push towards acceleration. As your engine gets more powerful, combine this with a Race-grade Clutch and Flywheel – only 200 CP total – so the car can handle the increased power.

Finally, Race-grade Tires are essential. You’ll unlock these at around Level 11, and they’re mega expensive – but they’re worth every last Car Point. So much so, that it might be worth it to roll back on previous upgrades just to get your Racing Slicks. Race-grade tires are the single biggest upgrade you can add to your car, totally changing the handling and giving you far more grip in the corners and on corner exit. With Career races being so short, sticking Race Softs on your car makes getting on the podium – even starting from the back of the grid – far easier, so you’ll want to grab these as soon as you can.

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Multiplayer

Three aspects are crucial to success in multiplayer; your fuel, your tyres, and driving clean.

Before qualifying, reduce your fuel to 3 laps, and stick on your Racing Softs to have the best chance of qualifying higher up the grid. Before the race starts, increase your fuel to the race distance – I do the race distance +1 lap just to be safe – and switch to Medium tyres. In most short races, Soft tyres will fall off a cliff in the last 1-2 laps, becoming several seconds a lap slower than the Medium runners. If you can build a gap and hold it, feel free to risk it on the softs, but it’s a big gamble!

During the race, outright speed is often more important than position – especially in the early laps. Don’t waste time in long battles, and be sure to give your opponents racing room. Cars in Forza have a habit of sticking together if you make door-to-door contact, so it’s often better to let an opponent exit a corner ahead of you and fight them into the next one rather than go side-by-side on corner exit.

If you do make contact, Forza’s penalty system does an okay job but it certainly has its moments; I came across a very aggressive driver that blocked and punted me multiple times, and the 2-3 second penalties didn’t really feel like a just outcome when I was in the gravel. In most lobbies, there will be plenty of drivers with penalties by the end of the race, so drive clean, stay within track limits and you may gain some free positions at the chequered flag.

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Boost Your Speed

Getting faster as you play is part of the Forza journey, and thankfully there’s plenty of ways to supercharge your progress.

In the Builders Cup, upping the difficulty also increases the target time in the practice mode. The higher difficulties can put up some challenging times to beat, so working your way up the difficulty ladder will undoubtedly increase your outright speed. If you can surpass the target time on the highest difficulty, you’ll be well on your way to fulfilling your potential.

Rivals mode – Forza’s take on Time Attack – is a great way to push your ability further. Go to your selected event, head to the leaderboard and select a top time. Here, you can watch their replay from all camera angles – or even better, set their time as your Rival or as a Training Ghost, so you can race against them. This is a great way to learn the ideal gears for particular sections of track, the lines you can take, and how much you can cut particular corners – perfect for pushing your limits and growing even further.

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Bonus: Performance

Right now, Forza Motorsport’s optimization on PC is… pretty awful, so here’s how to get the most out of your hardware.

Starting with the automatic settings as a baseline, enable DLSS on an Nvidia card, or FSR 2.0 on an AMD card. I’ve found little difference between Auto and Ultra Performance on my 3070 Ti, but feel free to experiment with your card.

The game’s resolution has a massive effect on the framerate, so if you can cope with your resolution fluctuating in exchange for more frames, set your resolution scale to Auto. If you’d prefer to be locked at a higher resolution, set your Resolution Scale as desired, Performance Target to Unlocked, and disable Ray Tracing.

With Performance Target set to Unlocked, the game may reduce the visual fidelity to push extra frames. If you’re happy for the game to run at 60fps – bearing in mind that multiplayer is locked to 60fps as standard, or 72fps on a 144hz monitor – set the Performance Target to 60fps so it’ll optimise around maxing the graphics whilst maintaining that framerate.

There we have it – a whole host of tips to get you started in your Forza Motorsport journey! Are you already playing, or are you getting started today? What are your thoughts on the game so far? Let us know in the comments below.

If you want to know our thoughts on Forza Motorsport so far, check out our review here.