I’ve always found FH5 to not play as well as FH4. For some reason the steering always seemed to be lagging a bit. As if you’re trying to steer the car with a rope rather than the steering wheel itself. Today I went through the settings because I remember reading something somewhere about the deadzones. I saw that the inside deadzones for steering were set to 15 (I believe). I set them back to zero and immediately the cars responded a lot better to steering input. I don’t think it’s as good as it was in FH4, but it’s a lot better than the standard settings. So I thought I’d share this tip with you guys if you’re struggling with this too. I wish I knew about this sooner!
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To reduce the lag even more I also recommend to use Game mode on your TV and set the game in Performance mode. It’s much better. (At least on Xbox)
I’d also recommend setting outside deadzones to 0, and the deadzones on acceleration and breaking to 0 as well. Also make sure you’re on simulation, not arcade.
Also mess around with steering liniarity. If steering feels slow or “laggy” to you, it likely means you want the steering to be more liniar. This setting is very much personal preference (though no less important than the other settings).
Default settings are terrible. Deadzones should only be used when absolutely needed. On top of that, a lot of controllers have outside deadzones built into them on a hardware level. Dealing with both a hardware and a software deadzone means you lose a ton of control.
These are settings I highly recommend changing for any and every racing game, they are just particularly bad in FH by default. Perhaps calling it highly recommended isn’t enough. I’d go so far as to call it required.
FH tries really hard to have a “one size fits all” setting as default, but the reality of it is that it sacrifices fidelity and control in order to do so. It massively compromises a player’s ability to unlock the potential of the car.
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Thanks for the tips, I’ll try them out soon!
They weren’t bad in FH4 though, I’d say that game had pretty much perfect steering, so why change it?
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I’d heartily disagree, I found the steering in 4 to be just as terrible, however I may have an answer as to why you felt that way.
Suspension physics were much worse in 4. They were muted, poorly calculated, and had hard limits within the software while being able to push past what should have been physical hard limits (for example: bottoming out had very little impact on performance in 4). This meant things like weight transfer weren’t calculated properly, and it’s effects on steering and controlling the car weren’t calculated properly either.
That’ll work better with arcade-like steering, as the game won’t punish mismanaging speed, weight, and suspension as harshly. It also made trying to unlock more potential out of cars less rewarding and more difficult, as you would hit the rather arbitrary limits of the system without much warning or way to feel it out.
5’s suspension system is much, much better. True, it makes the game a little less accessible to the uninitiated, but for that small cost you get a lot more depth to the driving in the game. It’s also not all bad for new players. The new suspension system will better communicate when it’s reaching it’s limits, and makes learning a car a lot easier. This is particularly true if you play in cockpit view, where you’ll both see and feel the car work with its suspension.
So you probably feel like the steering in 4 was better, but I’ll bet you’ll find one you’ve properly set up steering in both games that the steering in 4 was actually worse. The physics of the game just were better suited to PGG’s terrible default settings.
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Never noticed that. I always found the cars in FH3 and 4 to steer pretty direct. Same goes for Motorsport 1-4 and 7 and all other racing games I’ve played. Mind you, Horizon is very arcady compared to Motorsport. Motorsport plays very different than Horizon as it’s aimed at simulation. If you set Motorsport to normal steering and add no grip loss to grass and puddles than you start to get to the Horizon gameplay.
I just played FH5 again a bit but the steering response still feels very slow. I tried playing around with the steering linearity and it did seem to make it a little but better but much worse at larger steering input (which is also explained in the menu). I’d love to know how to decrease that lag because it just takes the fun out of the game and I drive all over the place because of it. In all other Forza’s I can drive very fast and precise but not in FH5 
I set a top 4% time in FM7 rivals so I know how to do it
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Use an Elite 2
Sim Steer only - Standard is unbearably slow turning - Sim gives me more turn in on the corners and allows better slip angle to hold more turning speed.
Also lets me drive more of an F1 race line vs. the standard apex line - and using trail braking to slow down - loads the front end, and allows turn at the same time , which gives me a great exit speed.
Deadzone set to 3 - seems to get rid of the L/R sudden twitch - mellows it out a bit.
Linearity at 45 - vs 50 - little more slow speed control
This set up seems to reduce continual tap steering for me, and be able to hold full lock L/R on the controller for a longer time in the medium speed corners.
I don’t drive very much S2 or X - so the slight loss of high speed control in the linearity doesn’t really come in to play very much for me.
Messed with this for a long time, and this was the best I could come up with so far.
Any suggestions are always welcome . .
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Regardless of the game I like to have my inner deadzones set to 5-10. I’ve never had a controller that didn’t have or at least quickly develop a tiny bit of drift.
I usually find Sim Steering in these games to be too twitchy, but while I don’t have as much problem with it on road here it’s even worse when off-road in this game.
There may be something dodgy going on with the controllers where Microsoft want you to buy the more expensive controllers. When someone wins, and they blow off a party popper it means that they have a FH5 Mexico controller, and they seem to win more often.
Or people who tend to be more than just casually invested and play the game lots are more likely to wanna shell out stupid money on the pad. 
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FYI:- Totally agree- Sim Steer is Awful in dirt and CC. . .
Never even touched Sim Steer in FH4 - it was crazy twitchy.
This game though, it’s an enhancement for me.
I find the lag to be more noticeable in road races than in dirt races.
I didn’t see anything different with that controller than a standard controller other than the color scheme.
I have a Elite II controller… a slight advantage there with the paddle buttons for shifting and adjustable joysticks. Worth the money IMO.
Thanks for the info on the settings. I raced countless hours in FM7 some in the cool competitions. I have to play it again soon as my driving is getting sloppy because of too much FH5 
. I’m doing too much following the driver ahead instead of driving the proper line.
I didn’t mean that you will see a difference, I meant that Microsoft would recognise the controller, and change the code to work better.
Which they don’t.
The firmware for all Xbox Series X/S standard controllers is exactly the same. Unless of course you get early access to pre-release firmware.
The logic board inside the Forza controller is the exact same as the logic board (including the chipset) in the standard controller that comes with the Xbox Series X/S.
Dismantling the controller can confirm this.
It’s only the outer plastics and internal plastics which are different (personal opinion it’s cheaper plastic). So much so you can completely disassemble the Forza controller and use parts of the standard controller to fix it, including the chipset if you wanted/had abilities to do so, and it still registers as a “default Xbox Series X/S controller”.
There is no black magic going on to make it better or worse, hardware or firmware ended by Microsoft.
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Well owning the party popper confirms that you have that Mexico controller, so it has an identification code of some sort. Even if you type it in by hand, you have identified your controller.
Also not everyone who has the car, shirt and celebration has the pad. Some just bought the code.
Even so, it could be used to change the car dynamics. It’s it’s a good plan such as Elon Musk would use. It’s evil and elitist though… pay to win games.
Haha. I honestly didn’t notice a big difference other than the grips are really nice.
It’s just that in Open Racing when someone passes me with unbelievable grip, and speed in the same car as me they nearly always have a party popper podium. I just figured that the party popper code could alter the car dynamics. Then the party popper advertises the controller. It’s like hypnosis, putting an image of a popper relating to a controller, relating to an input code. You hypnotise people into buying the controller, and the cars work better.