Forza Motorsport 8 Best Settings & Driving Assists

Forza is back with a new entry in their Motorsport franchise, and with it comes devastatingly high speeds, sharp corners and stiff competition. Some players might be used to the more laid-back style of the Forza Horizon games, so if you’re having some trouble getting your gearing right, here’s the best settings and driving assists to have in Forza Motorsport 8.

What Are the Best Settings for Forza Motorsport 8?

When it comes to racing simulators like Forza Motorsport, there are a lot of different settings to toy around with in order to get comfortable behind the wheel. There are different graphical settings you can change, as well as accessibility features and settings specific to playing with a steering wheel.

When it comes to the audio settings, you can mess around with the levels and what sounds are louder than others, so if you wanted to hear less of the engine and more of the cars around you, you can change the sliders according to what suits you best. Graphically — at least on Xbox — you’re only able to change the brightness and swap between the Performance and Visuals modes depending on what your display is capable of.

You can customize what buttons are assigned to different actions, so maybe if you prefer driving with A as the throttle instead of the Right Trigger, you can change that as you see fit. Beyond that, you can get deeper with your controls to really fine-tune how sensitive your inputs are or how much the cars will align themselves.

The best settings to keep in mind for Forza Motorsport 8 are the ones that directly affect your gameplay on a race-to-race basis. I’d recommend leaving on certain features like Car-To-Car Collisions for realism, but I also like the in-race messages that keep track of my progress. If you don’t need the extra distractions, you can always turn those off or change how long they stay on-screen for.

What Are the Best Driving Assists to Keep On?

While the game’s settings are likely to be pretty well tuned for a solid gameplay experience, the Driving Assists are certainly more up to the individual and how much of a challenge you like. The game comes with a few different presets you can choose from, from having the maximum amount of assists possible to being almost entirely unassisted.

Going down the line, the Suggested Line setting controls how much of a guide you’ll have through the track. If you have it set to Full, there will always be a line on the track in front of you that tells you when you hit the gas, brake or just let the car coast. If you set it to Braking Only, the line will only appear when the game suggests that you coast or brake, but it leaves the gas and your position on the track up to you.

You can turn ABS on to automatically pump the brakes for you when you decelerate so that you don’t lock your wheels and spin out around every corner. If you could use more help, then you can turn them to Fully Assisted and the car will automatically brake for you if you get too close to other cars or as you’re coming into turns.

The Steering and Throttle assists work somewhat in the same way, with assisted throttle making it so that you don’t have to hold the gas when you’re going through certain sections of the track. The Steering assist is a bit more involved, guiding your car either back to the Suggested Line or through turns smoothly. You can also set the steering to Simulation, which removes all dampening and assists from your input, giving complete, precise control to skilled players.

The Traction and Stability Control settings are crucial for if you’re having trouble with spinning out too much, because they’ll both apply varying levels of brakes for you throughout turns if they detect that you’re taking the turn too hard or oversteering. These are two things that almost have to be turned off if you’re trying to drift in-game.

The last main Assist in Forza Motorsport is choosing whether or not you want your shifting to be Automatic, Manual or Manual with Clutch. This assist is completely based on how involved you want to be with your car, with Automatic transmission shifting for you, Manual transmission giving you control of when you shift, and Manual with Clutch being the same but requiring you to use a clutch like a real stick-shift. Knowing how to drive in manual can significantly improve your racing performance, but takes a lot more skill and attention.

I would recommend keeping the Suggested Line on Braking Only to give you some freedom, but keep ABS on at first for a little lenience around turns. Keep your throttle unassisted so you have full control of the gas, but keep the steering Normal unless you’re confident enough to go with Simulation. Keep your Traction and Stability controls on unless you’re drifting and start out with your shifting in Automatic until you feel comfortable enough to move to manual.

That about does it for the best settings and driving assists to have on in Forza Motorsport 8. The game offers plenty of flexibility as to how you drive and how much help it offers, so be sure to play around with the settings to find what fits you best. If you need more guides like how to play online, be sure to check back here.