Technical State of Monster Hunter Wilds on PC is Catastrophic

Capcom's latest release, while a Steam top-ten hit, is facing heavy criticism due to significant technical flaws. Digital Foundry's in-depth analysis of the PC version reveals a concerning array of performance issues.

Their findings highlight prolonged shader pre-compilation times (9 minutes on a 9800X3D, over 30 minutes on a Ryzen 3600), subpar texture quality even at "High" settings, and substantial frame time spikes, even on high-end hardware like an RTX 4070. An RTX 4060 at 1440p with balanced DLSS still experiences noticeable stuttering. 8GB GPUs are advised to reduce texture detail to "Medium," yet visual quality remains underwhelming, with frame time issues persisting regardless of texture settings. Rapid camera movements exacerbate these problems.

Digital Foundry attributes these problems to inefficient data streaming, placing excessive strain on the GPU during decompression. This heavily impacts budget cards, resulting in severe frame rate drops. The analysis discourages 8GB GPU owners from playing and expresses reservations even for more powerful cards like the RTX 4070.

Intel GPUs fare particularly poorly. The Arc 770, for instance, struggles with only 15-20 frames per second, accompanied by missing textures and visual artifacts. While high-end systems can partially mitigate these issues, consistent smooth gameplay remains elusive. Optimizing settings without considerable visual compromise currently proves impossible.