Forza Horizon 5 crashing on PC?

Forza Horizon 5 crashing on PC seems to be a thing. Here is details of that, potential fixes and other issues players seem to be having ahead of the main release date.

Because the Forza Horizon 5 early access preview was on Xbox Series X and S only (full review here), we never got to see the Xbox One gameplay. Nor did we see anything from the PC master race.

However, the Premium Edition release date and review embargo has been lifted. That means it is full speed ahead with regard to playing Forza Horizon 5. At least, it would be if there were not a lot of people on Reddit complaining about the game crashing.

Some experience it, as I did, at start-up. The bottom right corner has a spinny loading icon that simply stops spinning and the game crashes. I became very familiar with the copyright screen that first appears, I will say that much.

Others appear to get to a certain point in the game when it crashes and keeps doing so. Or it simply stops loading up entirely when you try again.

As I was downloading from the Microsoft Store and its slower download speeds, I really did not want to redownload Forza Horizon 5 twice. But nothing else worked so I did and, low and behold, the game loads for me. Will this work for everyone? Perhaps not.

However, there are other fixes that may help. According to the people of Reddit, you could try adding Forza Horizon 5 as an exception to your antivirus. Or, as others have suggested, uninstall it entirely. Just remember to reenable or reinstall at a later date.

There have also been mentions of disabling a service called Nahimic. A quick CTRL+ALT+DELETE then Task Manager then click on the rightmost ‘Services’ tab. I could not see this service when playing, but maybe you can. Nothing to lose in trying.

A quick browse on the ForzaHorizon Reddit comes up with numerous results so if struggling to load Forza Horizon 5 it might be worth having a look. There appears to be a consensus that suggests changing regions could be the cause of the problem, but I had a pre-release review copy and am in the UK. On Xbox Series X everything was great.

Any other notable Forza Horizon 5 issues?

Steering wheel support, or rather the lack of, is another issue causing a stir on Reddit. While my Thrustmaster TS-XW steering wheel was fine during the preview and seems okay so far in the full game, I have seen others having issues. The Logitech wheels seem most affected but that could simply be as a result of it being such a big seller.

What I have noticed is that I cannot use my handbrake as a handbrake – only as a sequential shifter. It does not recognise the function.

And on that subject, good luck if you want to assign some stuff a button because you, for instance, want to enjoy the new convertible function.

Because the likes of ANNA are deemed essential button assignments (even if you switch ANNA to Telemetry in settings), which means you simply run out of buttons on the standard Xbox Series X or Xbox One controllers. Not ideal.

Forza Horizon 5 also thinks my lovely 4K BenQ monitor does not have HDR, which is funny because it did before Forza Horizon 5 came along.

And when playing on PC using a controller, if you fast travel the game decides to open the menu over and over regardless of whatever you do. I tried swapping to a Series X controller from Xbox One and other things, but only a game restart solved it. So no fast travel for me (you can unlock it here).

I think any game on the release date has issues these days (*cough* Cyberpunk 2077). But let’s remember that the non Premium Edition launch is four days away at the time of writing. One would hope, cross those fingers, another early update is imminent.