Technical State of Monster Hunter Wilds on PC is Catastrophic

Capcom's latest release is a chart-topper, currently ranking 6th on Steam's most played games. However, this success is overshadowed by widespread criticism of its technical performance on PC. Digital Foundry's in-depth analysis reveals a troubling picture.

Their findings highlight significant performance issues. Shader pre-compilation, a crucial process, takes an agonizing 9 minutes on a high-end 9800X3D system, stretching to over 30 minutes on a Ryzen 3600. Texture quality is disappointingly low, even at "High" settings. Testing on an RTX 4060 at 1440p with balanced DLSS revealed substantial frame time spikes, a problem that persists even on a more powerful RTX 4070, where textures remain surprisingly poor.

8GB GPUs are particularly affected. Digital Foundry recommends lowering texture quality to "Medium" to alleviate stuttering, but even this compromise results in subpar visuals. Rapid camera movements exacerbate frame time spikes, although the issue is less severe with slower movements. Crucially, the frame time problems persist regardless of texture quality.

Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia points to inefficient data streaming as the likely culprit, placing excessive strain on the GPU during decompression. This is especially detrimental to budget graphics cards, leading to jarring frame time spikes. He advises against purchasing the game for 8GB GPU owners and expresses reservations even for higher-end cards like the RTX 4070.

Intel GPUs fare even worse. The Arc 770, for instance, struggles to maintain a playable 15-20 frames per second, accompanied by missing textures and other visual artifacts. While high-end systems can partially mitigate these issues, smooth performance remains elusive. Currently, finding optimal settings is nearly impossible without sacrificing significant visual fidelity.