Forza Horizon 6 Fast Startup

Drop-in mod that skips Forza Horizon 6's startup wait, the ~25s black screen shown after the disclaimer/logo. It leaves disk loading untouched, so the game reaches the menu as soon as loading finishes. The skip is automatic; nothing to configure or turn off.

Download on Nexus Mods

Install

1. Copy version.dll into the game folder, next to forzahorizon6.exe (…\steamapps\common\ForzaHorizon6\).
2. Optionally copy fastboot.ini there to change settings.
3. Launch the game.

No launcher or injector. version.dll is a system library the game loads; this copy proxies it and forwards its calls to the real one in System32.

Already have a version.dll from another mod? Rename it to version_orig.dll; this loads it alongside the skip.

Uninstall

Delete version.dll (and fastboot.ini / fastboot.log).

How it works

The hold is a busy-wait: a game thread spins on QueryPerformanceCounter, comparing elapsed time to a fixed deadline. It coincides with the startup logo video (T10_MS_Combined.bk2), and it overlaps real disk loading, so "wait for the disk to go quiet" is not a reliable signal.

Fast Startup loads in-process and hooks the timing APIs. It scopes the skip to the startup video's lifetime: it watches for that file opening (and tags the matching BinkOpen handle), and acts only until the video closes. Inside that window it spots the hold's busy-wait by its QPC call rate, measured relative to the same boot's own rate rather than a fixed threshold, so it auto-scales to any CPU. It then adds a constant offset to the clock to push the wait past its deadline, re-firing until the spin collapses.

The offset shifts the clock forward and leaves the rate unchanged, so frame timing (now - prev) is unaffected and gameplay runs at normal speed. Real loading is disk-bound and event-driven, so it is untouched. Scoping to the video window keeps it from firing during menus or gameplay, and works the same on fast SSDs and slow HDDs.

Config (fastboot.ini)

Key	Default	Meaning
intro_video	T10_MS_Combined	Startup video filename (substring). The skip runs only while this video is on screen. If a game update renames it, set the new name here.
jump_ms	30000	How far to push the clock per jump.
poll_ms	80	Monitor poll interval.
enter_spammer	0	Set 1 to auto-press Enter through the post-skip press-start prompts and drop straight into the game.
enter_interval_ms	120	Enter interval while spamming.
enter_window_ms	12000	Stop spamming this long after the skip.

The spin threshold is auto-calibrated per machine, so there is nothing disk- or CPU-specific to tune. F8 is a manual skip: press it to collapse the intro on the spot (a hands-on fallback if the automatic skip ever misses). The mod always writes a small fastboot.log (spin peaks, gate, disarm); delete it anytime.

Build

Rust, MSVC toolchain:

cargo build --release

Output: target/release/version.dll. pwsh ./package.ps1 produces the release zip.