Technical State of Monster Hunter Wilds on PC is Catastrophic

Capcom's latest release is a chart-topper, currently ranking among Steam's most played games. However, its stellar online performance is overshadowed by widespread criticism regarding its technical state on PC. Digital Foundry's in-depth analysis confirms these concerns, painting a less-than-stellar picture of the PC version.

Their findings reveal a multitude of performance issues. Shader pre-compilation, for instance, takes an agonizing 9 minutes on a high-end 9800X3D system, stretching to over 30 minutes on a Ryzen 3600. Even on "High" settings, texture quality is disappointingly low. Testing with an RTX 4060 at 1440p with balanced DLSS reveals significant frame time spikes. Surprisingly, even the more powerful RTX 4070 (12GB) struggles, producing noticeably poor textures.

For GPUs with 8GB of VRAM, Digital Foundry recommends reducing texture quality to "Medium" to alleviate stuttering and frame time spikes. Yet, even this compromise results in subpar visuals. Rapid camera movements continue to cause noticeable frame rate dips, though less severe with slower movements. Critically, the frame time issues 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 heavily impacts budget graphics cards, leading to pronounced frame time spikes. He advises against purchasing the game for systems with 8GB GPUs and expresses reservations even for more powerful cards like the RTX 4070.

Performance is particularly abysmal on Intel GPUs. The Arc 770, for example, manages only 15-20 frames per second, further plagued by missing textures and other visual artifacts. While high-end systems can partially mitigate these issues, a consistently smooth experience remains elusive. Currently, optimizing settings without significant visual compromise proves nearly impossible.