Horizon Forbidden West FPS Calculator & System Requirements

Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition arrived on PC in March 2024, bringing Guerrilla Games' open-world action RPG with dense foliage, dynamic weather, and large mechanical creatures. To run the game your PC must reach a CPU performance score of at least 58 and a GPU score of at least 52. As a visually intensive title, Horizon Forbidden West rewards hardware above the recommended threshold — particularly for ray tracing, high-resolution shadow maps, and ambient occlusion. At the recommended tier (CPU 75, GPU 83) expect around 60 FPS at 1080p on high settings. Enter your CPU and GPU in our calculator for a personalized estimate.

Horizon Forbidden West lists these minimum specifications: CPU — Intel Core i3-8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1300X; GPU — Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 4GB or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 4GB; RAM — 16 GB RAM; Storage — 150 GB SSD; OS — Windows 10 64-bit. At the minimum tier, expect the game to run at low or medium presets with frame rates around 30 FPS at 1080p. Demanding scenes — dense environments, complex lighting, or heavy particle effects — may dip below this. Disabling ray tracing and lowering shadow quality deliver the highest performance recovery on minimum-spec hardware.

For the best Horizon Forbidden West experience, the recommended specifications are: CPU — Intel Core i5-8600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600; GPU — Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700; RAM — 16 GB RAM; Storage — 150 GB SSD. This hardware level targets smooth 60 FPS at 1080p on high settings with stable frame times. Enabling ray tracing, high-resolution shadow maps, and ambient occlusion simultaneously calls for a GPU above the recommended tier. If you are targeting 1440p on ultra presets, check our FPS calculator for the exact scores required.

On hardware meeting Horizon Forbidden West's recommended specifications, expect around 60 FPS at 1080p on high settings. Enabling ray tracing, ultra shadow resolution, or screen-space ambient occlusion can reduce that figure by 15–30% depending on your GPU. Minimum-spec hardware typically achieves 25–40 FPS at 1080p on low-to-medium presets. Moving to 1440p costs roughly 30% of your 1080p frame rate, and 4K approximately 50–60%. Enter your exact hardware in our FPS calculator for a personalized estimate across every quality preset.

For high graphics settings in Horizon Forbidden West at 1080p, your GPU needs a performance score of at least 83. The officially recommended card is Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700, which targets 60 FPS at 1080p. Enabling ray tracing on top of high settings demands significantly more GPU headroom — plan for a score well above 83 if RT is a priority. For 1440p on high settings, a GPU scoring around 108 or better is advisable. The FPS calculator lists every compatible GPU ranked by expected performance for this title.

Horizon Forbidden West requires a CPU with a minimum performance score of 58 — roughly the level of Intel Core i3-8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1300X or better. For a smooth experience without CPU bottlenecks, target the recommended score of 75 (around Intel Core i5-8600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600). As a graphically rich title, it can stress the CPU in densely populated areas, complex physics sequences, or large set-piece moments. A CPU at the recommended score paired with 16 GB RAM ensures the processor does not throttle your GPU's potential output in those scenarios.

At 1440p, expect roughly 25–35% lower frame rates than 1080p in Horizon Forbidden West. On hardware at the recommended tier (GPU score 83), this translates to around 42 FPS on high settings. To maintain 60+ FPS at 1440p, target a GPU scoring around 108 or higher. Use the FPS calculator above to get a precise estimate for your specific CPU and GPU combination at 1440p across every quality preset.

4K demands roughly 55–65% more GPU power than 1080p in Horizon Forbidden West. On the recommended GPU (score 83), expect around 25 FPS at 4K on high settings. Reaching a consistent 60 FPS at 4K requires a GPU scoring around 137 or better. Upscaling technologies like DLSS 3 or FSR 3 can recover 40–60% of the resolution overhead with minimal visual cost on supported hardware.

Horizon Forbidden West's 150 GB install size reflects the scope of its open world, high-resolution texture packs, and extensive audio/cutscene data from the Complete Edition which includes the Burning Shores DLC. Unlike some games, it does not offer a reduced install option without cinematics. An NVMe SSD is strongly recommended over SATA SSD to minimize open-world streaming stutters when traversing biome boundaries.

Yes. The PC version supports NVIDIA DLSS 3 (including Frame Generation on RTX 40-series), AMD FSR 2.2, and Intel XeSS. For mid-range GPUs like the RX 6700 XT or RTX 3060, enabling DLSS or FSR Quality mode typically recovers 25-35% FPS with minimal perceptible quality loss, making 1440p at 60 FPS very achievable on hardware that would otherwise struggle.