Horizon Forbidden West update 1.3 official patch notes: Intel XeSS 1.3, Nvidia Reflex, bug fixes, and more

Horizon Forbidden West's latest title update is now live on PC, adding various performance optimizations, the highly requested fix for Nvidia Reflex, and more. The update 1.3.55.0 also comes bundled with the latest version of Intel XeSS upscaling tech, 1.3, which adds a new option for "XeSS AA", akin to Nvidia'a DLAA, an alternative for the game's native TAA.

Intel XeSS started quite slow, struggling to keep up with Nvidia and AMD's upscaling offerings. However, it has made some significant improvements since. With XeSS 1.3, players can now use a similar feature like DLAA, albeit without being locked to Nvidia'a RTX 40-series cards.

This article provides a look at Horizon Forbidden West PC's latest update 1.3, the official patch notes, improvements added to Intel XeSS, and more.

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Horizon Forbidden West 1.3 official patch notes

One of the biggest new additions with the latest update is Intel XeSS 1.3, making Horizon Forbidden West among some of the very first PC games to adopt the latest version of Intel's proprietary upscaling solution. While the game does support both DLSS and FSR, more choice for players when it comes to upscaling and AA is always welcome.

Intel XeSS should be a good alternative for players who aren't fans of the game's native TAA and don't want to use FSR2. The second big change is the fix that Nixxes finally added to the game's implementation of Nvidia Reflex. At launch, enabling Nvidia Reflex resulted in the game either crashing or introducing stutters.

With the latest update this issue has been rectified, allowing players to once again enable Nvidia Reflex, without any performance or stability penalty. That being said, here are the official patch notes for Horizon Forbidden West PC update 1.3.55.0:

• Improved the visual quality of dust.
• Added Interface Text Size option in the General Settings menu.
• Improvements to texture streaming to reduce memory usage and improve quality.
• Updated Intel XeSS to version 1.3 with improved image quality and new XeSS Native AA option.
• Resolved performance regression when enabling NVIDIA Reflex On+Boost.
• When using Quick Slot hotkeys to select weapons, the last ammo type used will now be remembered.
• Improved smoothness of camera movement in Photo Mode when using the mouse.
• Removed hardcoded Mouse and Keyboard bindings for actions such as Navigation Assist in Focus Mode. They now listen to their respective remappable key bindings.
• Various optimizations and stability improvements.
• Various UI bug fixes.

Horizon Forbidden West, despite the minor hiccups related to Nvidia Reflex and occasional framerate drops during cutscenes, is still one of the best PC ports in recent memory, which isn't surprising coming from Nixxes Software.