I decided to dive into Forza Horizon 6 one evening, perched at my DIY Steam Machine set up in my home lab. But thanks to Microsoft, the moment it recognized my trusty AMD RX 480, I was slapped with that familiar error: FH201 Error.
Apparently, Radeon 400 and 500 series graphics cards with Polaris or Vega architecture are no longer on the "minimum supported hardware" list. The easiest path would have been to hit "Refund" on Steam and call it a night with some instant noodles. But hey, we've tinkered with terminals enough to know we don't give up that easily, right? Never. With this fantastic guide on Reddit as my backup, I rolled up my sleeves.
Why Isn't This Thing Supported?#
The issue boils down entirely to DirectX 12 features. The game expects the graphics card to possess certain DirectX levels at a hardware level. Our older generation cards lack these features in hardware. But thankfully, Linux's gift to the gaming world, Proton, and Vulkan, come to our rescue.
Through Proton's translation layer, we can emulate those missing DirectX features the game expects, making it seem like they're there. Since our graphics cards fully support Vulkan, this false declaration is enough to fool the game engine1.
The Fix: Launch Parameters#
If your processor is sufficient for Forza Horizon 6 (my system has an i5-10500 and it handles it quite well), all you need to do is add the following parameters to the game's launch options in Steam.
Heads up! This part is critical.
When copying the command below, make sure you don't miss the %command% at the end. Otherwise, the game won't launch correctly through Steam.
VKD3D_FEATURE_LEVEL=12_1 VKD3D_CONFIG=descriptor_heap,no_upload_h_vram RADV_EXPERIMENTAL=heap,sync2 radv_wait_for_vm_map_updates=true %command%
After entering this command and launching the game, that annoying FH201 screen disappears, and you can jump straight into the race.
FPS and Performance Realities#
At 1080p resolution with Low or Medium settings, it offers a quite playable experience. While you get a stable 60 FPS on Low settings, on Medium, especially in dense areas like Tokyo, the FPS can drop to around 40. But believe me, instead of shelling out several times the minimum wage for a new case, PSU, and graphics card combo, cruising along at 40 FPS feels a lot sweeter.
Stay cool, folks, I'm off to push my RX 480 a bit harder on the streets of Tokyo.
🔗 More Notes from the Lab#
The gaming situation on Linux isn't something you can cover in a single post. Here are some other experiences that might be useful as you tinker with your system:
- Monitoring Game Performance with MangoHud
- Linux GPU Driver Guide
- Steam "Wrong ELF Class" Error and Its Solution
- Installing Turkish Patches for Games on Linux
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This emulation is done via VKD3D (a Vulkan-based D3D12 implementation). The
VKD3D_FEATURE_LEVEL=12_1command is precisely for this purpose. ↩