Monster Hunter Wilds’ listless performance and frame gen misuse plant an oversized axe in the carapace of good PC tech

In hindsight, we astir apt should person taken Monster Hunter Wilds’ earlier benchmark instrumentality release arsenic much of a warning. The existent crippled is each spot the graphics card torture instrumentality that standalone instrumentality suggested it mightiness be, and portion it doesn’t marque DLSS 3/FSR 3 framework procreation mandatory per se, it intelligibly intends to misappropriate these features, forcing them to enactment arsenic show crutches they were ne'er designed as.

What makes this peculiarly headshakey is that Wilds’ PC mentation is, initially, rather sympathetic to the format: too a afloat acceptable of DLSS/FSR/XeSS upscalers, an unlocked framerate option, Nvidia Reflex enactment and the like, its thirty-odd idiosyncratic prime options hint astatine the finest of fine-tuning possibilities. Yet these, too, aren’t truly acceptable for purpose, with lone insignificant differences successful however the highest and lowest settings perform.

More connected that beneath – ne'er fto useless settings get successful the mode of a bully settings guide, arsenic grandpappy utilized to say. First, though, let’s punctual ourselves our Wilds’ precocious lowered strategy requirements, and whether they fare amended successful the crippled due than they did successful the benchmark tool.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Capcom

Monster Hunter Wilds strategy requirements and PC performance

No! They don’t! The authoritative specs are inactive listing the GeForce GTX 1660 and Radeon RX 5500 XT arsenic entry-level GPUs, and portion I didn’t person either of these disposable to test, I did effort the roughly-as-powerful GTX 1070, and the highest in-game mean I could get retired of it – astatine 1080p with the Lowest preset and FSR 3 connected Ultra Performance – was 26fps. And that’s with some a overmuch little upscaling prime than what the specs suggest (Upscaling from 720p to 1080p means Quality mode; Ultra Performance upscales from conscionable 640x360), arsenic good arsenic the overpowered Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU I’d near successful the trial rig.

In fact, it took a GTX 1080 Ti to scope a stable-ish 30fps astatine 1080p, and that was inactive with Lowest settings and Performance-level FSR 3. A GTX 1080 Ti! For 30fps! With minimum settings! I’m atrocious but the the lone mode a GTX 1660 is pulling 30fps present is if you’re watching a cutscene, oregon person jerry-rigged an Apple Watch surface to enactment arsenic your superior gaming monitor.

I’m inactive going to replicate the requirements here, partially due to the fact that I’m a enslaved to formatting normal and partially due to the fact that different idiosyncratic aspects of them (the RAM requirement, SSD abstraction etc.) bash look much accurate. Don’t spot the GPU listings, mind.

Monster Hunter Wilds minimum PC specs

• OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i5-10400 / Intel Core i3-12100 / AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 / AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, allegedly
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 75GB (SSD required)

Monster Hunter Wilds recommended PC specs

• OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i5-10400 / Intel Core i3-12100 / AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• RAM: 16GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super / AMD Radeon RX 6600
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 75GB (SSD required)

Do enactment that 75GB doesn’t see the High Resolution Texture Pack, which is simply a abstracted download. And, also, astir apt not worthy your information – it doubles the size of Wilds’ installation footprint, hurts show adjacent more, and has an outrageous 16GB VRAM request of its own, successful speech for textures that don’t look dramatically amended than the basal game’s High prime equivalents adjacent astatine 4K. Except wherever mentioned, each forthcoming trial results don’t see it.

Also, the recommended specs seemingly lone people 60fps erstwhile framework procreation is enabled – truthful adjacent if they’re a batch much close than the minimum specs, you’re inactive lone looking astatine 30fps' worthy of 'real' frames. As antecedently moaned astir erstwhile the benchmark instrumentality launched, trying to screen up show deficiencies with framework gen makes adjacent little consciousness than doing it with upscaling, mostly owing to however framework gen – whether it’s based connected DLSS oregon FSR – introduces a tangible heap of input lag. This isn’t truthful overmuch of a occupation erstwhile the crippled is already moving at, say, 60fps oregon above, arsenic latency volition commencement disconnected debased acknowledgment to the abundance of frames making it faster for the crippled to bespeak your inputs. Here, you could slap connected framework gen to get up to 120fps oregon so, and portion it volition inactive consciousness much similar 60fps – generated frames don’t person entree to input information and frankincense can’t little the lag, lone summation it – it volition inactive person a decent magnitude of power responsiveness to spell with the ocular smoothness.

Applying framework gen erstwhile you’re struggling to nail down 30fps, connected the different hand, is simply a look for making it consciousness adjacent much gloopy. Wilds wants you to alteration what mightiness look similar escaped frames, and marvel astatine the slickness of its (admittedly excellent) animation work, but connected astir PCs it won’t fto you physique up capable of a stockpile of traditionally rendered frames to sorb the latency impact. Frame gen is expected to beryllium a luxury, not a load-bearer.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Capcom

Saddened by this wanton misuse, arsenic good arsenic the conflict of the full GeForce GTX lineup, I went successful hunt of immoderate graphics cards that could grip Wilds astatine 1080p. My accustomed fund go-tos, the Intel Arc B580 and GeForce RTX 4060, produced mixed results. The RTX 4060 did nutrient a decent 42fps connected autochthonal Ultra, rising to 50fps with DLSS connected Quality, though the Arc B580 could lone mean 45fps successful the tract with a operation of High settings and FSR connected Quality mode. Worse, artefacting connected the Arc occasionally filled the entity with twitching, stretched-out strips of amok textures; I can’t accidental this volition ne'er hap connected Nvidia and AMD cards, though I thankfully haven’t experienced it elsewhere.

The RTX 3070 besides recovered 60fps an elusive beast. At autochthonal 1080p, Ultra prime kept it to 46fps, hardly immoderate faster than the RTX 4060, and the summation of Quality DLSS lone punched it up to 53fps. At 1440p, the RTX 3070’s historical comfortableness zone, those same, upscaled settings saw a dip to 45fps.

Nay, for existent smoothness, you’ll person had to put large time, ideally successful thing with a batch much VRAM. The RTX 4070 Ti, which is listed among Wilds’ expanded hardware specs guide arsenic being bully for 4K, pumped retired 52fps astatine that rez with Ultra settings and Quality DLSS. 1440p looks similar a amended fit, wherever it scored a acold silkier 74fps – capable to warrant turning connected DLSS 3 framework gen, too, for a 102fps average.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Capcom

The newer RTX 5070 Ti, if you tin get your hands connected it, is much palmy astatine plush resolutions. Back astatine 4K, it produced 62fps with Ultra and DLSS Quality, oregon 96fps with framework gen. The RTX 5080 makes for a humble upgrade, scoring 70fps and 108fps respectively.

I accidental it’s not the worst happening that bully framerates are imaginable connected higher-spec monitors, though you truly shouldn’t request to look higher than the likes of the RTX 4060 for buttery 1080p. To accidental thing of the weaker yet inactive widely-used hardware that’s going to miss retired wholly – the GTX 1650, presently the 4th most-used GPU among Steam users? No chance. The Steam Deck? Forget it.

It’s not that there’s conscionable 1 oregon 2 occupation settings causing the malaise, either. Wilds is conscionable unusually demanding successful a wide sense, sometimes granting a fewer moments of smoothness successful a choky cave oregon confined structure yet collapsing to a astir fractional that show level erstwhile you get retired into the wide unfastened world. A benignant of anti-Dragon’s Dogma 2, if you will, which is ironic considering these 2 games stock the RE Engine. There’s beauteous predominant texture pop-in too, adjacent erstwhile simply spinning the camera astir to look astatine thing you’ve already seen. Not bully enough.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Capcom

Monster Hunter Wilds champion settings guide

Compounding the contented is that contempt Wilds’ graphics settings spanning 3 antithetic pages, determination isn’t really overmuch assistance to beryllium had from cutting the prime levels. Some games tin tally astatine treble oregon triple the velocity erstwhile switching signifier maximum to minimum settings, but astatine autochthonal 1080p, my RTX 4060 lone varied from 42fps connected Ultra to 56fps connected Lowest. That truly doesn’t uncover overmuch scope for casual optimisations, though is besides little of a astonishment erstwhile you spot however akin the 2 presets look.

Sure enough, erstwhile I tested the idiosyncratic settings 1 by 1 – lowering them to minimum to spot which impact show astir keenly – lone a handful, excluding upscaling and framework gen, added much than 1fps oregon 2fps by themselves. Many didn’t impact the framerate astatine all, which astatine slightest confirms that if you’re going to play Monster Hunter Wilds, you tin astatine slightest permission a large clump of settings connected their highest, with the cognition that they’re not actively making thing worse.

Here's what I’ve travel up with, successful presumption of a “best” settings combination:

• Upscaling/Upscaling mode: DLSS/FSR 3 connected Quality
• Ray tracing: High (if supported)
• Texture quality: High
• Grass/tree quality: Medium
• Wind simulation quality: Low
• Shadow quality: Medium
• Ambient airy quality: Medium
• Motion blur: Off
• Vignette effect: Off
• SSSS Scattering: Off
• Volumetric fog: Low
• Everything else: Ultra preset equivalent

I should archetypal code the evident point-blank ft shootery of adding ray tracing effects to a crippled that I’ve conscionable spent implicit a twelve paragraphs needling for shoddy performance. Thing is, these ray-traced reflections are specified a immense ocular upgrade – spot beneath for however they marque Wilds’ murky rivers look similar thing vaguely approaching existent h2o – that they’re hard to walk up, and yet they’re inactive constricted successful scope to the grade that the framerate taxation isn’t each that steep. Compared to the Ultra preset’s 42fps, adding High-quality ray tracing lone caused a driblet to 39fps, a quality you tin marque up elsewhere conscionable by cutting things similar question blur and the edge-darkening vignette effect.

Besides, chopping and changing prime settings does astir thing compared to the effect of upscaling. Yes, adjacent astatine 1080p, this is thing you should beryllium adding: Quality DLSS took the RTX 4060 from 42fps to 50fps by itself, and you astir apt won’t request to spell little than Quality unless you’re trying 4K. Balanced mode, for example, lone climbed to 52fps.

Ultimately, these settings produced a 51fps mean connected the RTX 4060, making for a 21% betterment implicit native-rez Ultra adjacent with ray tracing. I’m not saying that represents a miraculous fixing of Wilds’ show shortcomings, but it does astatine slightest amusement that you’re amended disconnected making manual adjustments alternatively of relying connected presets. If I’d person conscionable stuck with the second and gone without upscaling, I’d person had to driblet each the mode down to Low to spell faster than with these customized settings.

As for the contented of framework gen, I personally wouldn’t usage it erstwhile stuck beneath a coagulated 60fps – the added latency conscionable interferes excessively overmuch with the crisp responsiveness I play connected PC for. If you mean to play Capcom’s crippled and alteration it regardless, cognize that my customized settings got 88fps with DLSS 3, and that it surely did not consciousness similar 88fps.

Finally, a connection astir the High Resolution Textures Pack. The 16GB VRAM request is simply a batch much connected the wealth than those GPU specs: I tried the pack, alternatively optimistically, connected the 8GB RTX 4060 and it chopped mean show successful half. The 16GB RTX 5080 ran it without issue, astatine the optimal 4K resolution, though again, the resulting autumn from 70fps to 59fps represents a show deed that's conscionable disproportionate to the (very slight) graphical enhancement. Even ray tracing has a smaller interaction connected frames per second, with an arguably much chiseled ocular upgrade. I’d prevention the other 75GB and permission the battalion uninstalled.