Monster Hunter Wilds: Best PC settings for graphics and performance

by

At last, after several public testing phases and a recent benchmark tool, Capcom’s latest addition to the Monster Hunter series has finally arrived – Monster Hunter Wilds. This game remains faithful to the traditional formula that’s defined the series over its 20-year history: you take on missions to hunt and defeat monsters, gather the dropped items as rewards, use these items to upgrade your equipment, and then repeat the process.

A fresh software development kit is what Capcom utilized to build Monster Hunter Wilds, unlike how Monster Hunter: World runs on the MT Framework. Interestingly, the RE Engine, previously used for Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster and Dragon’s Dogma 2, was chosen for Wilds. It’s likely that the coding for Wilds was based on Dragon’s Dogma 2 as both games share an open-world design and have similar aesthetics.

Despite their differences, both Monster Hunter World and Dragon’s Dogma 2 perform quite similarly in terms of performance. However, it’s important to note that Monster Hunter World is significantly less demanding on CPUs compared to Dragon’s Dogma 2. The minimum system requirements are fairly light – for instance, a Ryzen 5 3600 with a GeForce GTX 1660 – but Capcom always adds a disclaimer: these requirements are based on the use of frame generation technology.

While it’s not absolutely necessary to use frame generation, you can still achieve a decent level of performance without it. On the other hand, upscaling is crucial, and I’ll tell you why in a bit. There are numerous graphics settings you can adjust, but Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t run particularly fast, even on top-tier computer hardware. Adjusting many of these settings has little impact on the frame rate.

Even though each has been thoroughly examined and tried out, it would be unreasonable for anyone to plow through all of them in order to simply have a pleasant gaming experience.

To discover the settings that truly make a difference, I’ve put four diverse gaming rigs through their paces, running numerous loops in the game’s starting zone. Although these computers don’t encompass every combination of CPU, RAM, and graphics card, they offer valuable insights into optimizing your gaming PC for an optimal blend of graphics and frame rate.

You can use Capcom’s Monster Hunter World benchmark tool to get a general sense of performance, similar to what we did. However, keep in mind that this tool primarily tests the graphics for cutscenes instead of the game world itself, so it places more stress on your GPU rather than CPU. Once you start exploring and hunting monsters, you’ll find that your CPU is working quite intensely.

Test PC specs

  • Entry-level PC: Core i7 9700K (65 W), Radeon RX 5700 XT, 16 GB DDR4-3200
  • Budget PC: Ryzen 7 5700X3D (105 W), GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 32 GB DDR4-3200
  • Mid-range PC: Core i5 13600K (125 W), Radeon RX 7800 XT, 32 GB DDR5-6400
  • High-end PC: Core Ultra 7 265K (250 W), GeForce RTX 4080 Super, 48 GB DDR5-8000

Here are four gaming PC configurations that approximate the system requirements suggested by Capcom, with the entry-level setup featuring a slightly older CPU compared to the minimum requirement, but boasting a somewhat superior graphics card.

As a gamer, I’m thrilled about my budget PC setup that leans more towards the premium side, thanks to the Ryzen 7 5700X3D processor. However, it’s not all raw power here; the RTX 3060 Ti keeps things balanced and ensures an optimal gaming experience without overwhelming the system. The mid-range and high-end PCs have their graphics cards to thank for their respective categories – a clear differentiator that sets them apart.

Monster Hunter Wilds performance

To gauge the maximum performance in Monster Hunter World, I adjusted all graphics settings to their minimum values. This sometimes involved turning off features like anti-aliasing, depth of field, or water reflections, though generally, it simply lowered the quality of various rendering effects.

One key observation from the presented data is that resolution significantly influences the typical frame rate, even at low graphics settings. Interestingly, the RTX 4080 Super setup experiences only a 10% decrease in average performance when shifting from 1080p to 1440p. However, transitioning to 4K reduces the frame rate by approximately half.

Despite the expectation that a high-end graphics card like the RTX 4080 Super would maintain its frame rate regardless of resolution change, surprisingly, the 1% low frame rate remains almost unaffected by this shift from 1080p to 4K. On the other hand, the Radeon RX 5700 XT system demonstrates a decrease of 40% in its 1% lows when moving from 1080p to 4K. This is not unusual for a graphics card that’s five years old and was never intended for optimal 4K gaming, even at launch.

Turning all graphics settings to maximum levels, but disabling upscaling, frame generation, and ray tracing, results in an unexpected disparity when it comes to performance decline. For instance, an RTX 3060 Ti setup at 1080p experiences a decrease in average performance by just 27%, while the 1% lows fall by 38%.

The performance trend for the RTX 4080 Super PC is consistent with other testing setups. At a resolution of 4K, the average frame rate reduces by approximately 25%, while the 1% low frames decrease by about 31%.

Examining the two videos side by side, it appears that while there’s been an upgrade in graphical aspects such as draw distance and shadow quality, the overall improvement isn’t significant enough to justify the performance decline. Objects, textures, and lighting don’t seem remarkably different. This is largely due to the open-world areas being sparsely detailed; it’s primarily during cutscenes or in village/base locations that you can notice a clear distinction.

Of course, for optimal performance on any given system, settings should ideally fall between the extremes of minimum and maximum. So, let’s explore the graphical adjustments available in Monster Hunter Wilds.

Graphics options

In simpler terms, you’ll find 27 distinct graphic settings to experiment with, excluding factors like resolution, aspect ratio, and Vsync. While it might seem overwhelming, many of these settings don’t significantly affect performance, even on a high-end RX 5700 XT setup. These are more about personal preferences rather than impacting the system’s performance greatly.

In simpler terms, effects like motion blur, vignette, and depth of field can be employed without significantly affecting the frame rate, but I chose to keep them turned off. These effects are generally well implemented, although the vignette effect is quite subtle. However, it’s debatable whether they truly enhance the visual quality noticeably.

In this scenario, we’re dealing with aspects like mesh detail, fur texture, wind effects, surface finish, and distant shadow clarity. These elements appear satisfactory even when set to their minimum (though some are simply low or high). It’s only during cutscenes that the differences between these settings become noticeable.

The factors with the most influence on a system’s performance are texture sharpness, visual qualities of skies, trees, and sand, shadow detailing, render range, shadow extend, ambient light clarity, and ambient shading. Yet, the extent of performance alterations resulting from toggling these settings is highly dependent on your specific hardware.

So here are the best settings I discovered for each of the tested PCs.

Best settings for an entry-level gaming PC

🔼 Click to see a full table of the settings 🔼

If you’re curious about how I achieved better performance than with all minimal settings, the secret lies in utilizing FSR 3 Balanced. Upscaling significantly cuts down on the number of pixels that need processing, providing the RX 5700 XT with much more computational leeway.

Instead of constantly maxing out your GPU usage by adjusting settings, consider that pushing it to 100% all the time can actually decrease your 1% lows significantly. It took considerable tweaking with the settings to achieve the performance demonstrated in the video, but it’s generally acceptable. The performance is smooth for the most part, however, it experiences noticeable dips when the screen is filled with objects.

It’s important to clarify that frame generation isn’t being utilized in this context, but it does function effectively and the suggested average performance is superior. However, the bottom 1% results remain relatively unchanged due to the Core i7 9700K performing comparably with Capcom’s minimum recommended CPUs, resulting in some strain during gameplay. The initial boot-up of the game experienced a concerning shader compilation time of 24 minutes, but subsequent compilations take less than 20 seconds.

On an Asus ROG Ally, achieving a consistent 30 fps required adjusting FSR 3 upscaling to Performance mode and activating frame generation. The device also needed to run in its power-saving 25W mode for optimal performance; the battery-friendly 17W mode could only manage around 18 fps.

Best settings for a budget gaming PC

🔼 Click to see a full table of the settings 🔼

Despite the RTX 3060 Ti losing some of its initial power, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D continues to shine as an exceptional gaming CPU. This is evident in the video’s frame time graph, which is notably smoother compared to that of the 9700K, and the consistent overall performance it offers.

In this setup, I managed to run most graphic settings at ‘High’, except for mesh detail, render distance, and shadow quality that had to stay at ‘Medium’. Pushing beyond that level significantly impacted the 1% frame rate. While it might seem appealing to disregard significant drops in performance and max out everything on High, this specific gaming rig found it too unstable to provide a smooth experience.

As a gamer, I’ve found myself relying heavily on upscaling techniques like Upscaling and Frame Generation in my gaming sessions. Interestingly, Capcom decided not to let us toggle DLSS upscaling alongside Frame Generation, so I’ve had to make do with just Frame Generation Scale 3.1.3. It’s been a bit of a trade-off for the performance I needed.

Visually, it’s an impressive implementation overall, though I’ve noticed some minor pixel crawling on distant objects and foliage. But all in all, it’s acceptable. The frame generation itself looks quite good too.

Best settings for a mid-range gaming PC

🔼 Click to see a full table of the settings 🔼

With the aid of FSR 3 upscaling and frame generation once more, the RX 7800 XT testing setup delivers impressive performance. I was able to utilize ‘High’ or ‘Ultra’ settings in most areas at 1440p resolution, except for ambient occlusion which remained at a medium level. The reduction in graphic quality is barely perceptible, but it significantly improves the game’s performance during the 1% low frames.

During the review period for Monster Hunter Wilds, the highest texture quality setting wasn’t accessible. This is due to its release as a 75 GB DLC. While none of the test systems encountered VRAM issues, it’s clear that the top-tier texture settings will only be suitable for graphics cards equipped with ample, high-speed RAM.

It’s unlikely that any graphics processing unit (GPU) will consume over 16 GB of video random access memory (VRAM) due to the downloadable content (DLC), but given that enhancing texture quality significantly boosts memory bandwidth, you’ll likely require a GPU with swift memory to fully leverage the high-resolution texture pack.

Best settings for a high-end gaming PC

🔼 Click to see a full table of the settings 🔼

The test setup that proved most challenging to perfect, particularly with regards to quality settings, was primarily due to the Core Ultra 7 265K. When running at 4K resolution and utilizing DLSS 3.7 Performance and Frame generation, the RTX 4080 Super handled almost all maximum settings effortlessly, as demonstrated in the accompanying video. However, it’s worth noting that the GPU usage never exceeded 100% under any circumstances, and the power consumption was significantly lower than its maximum capacity of 320 W.

Despite my best efforts, I consistently struggled to push the 1% lows beyond 60 frames per second while keeping top-notch visual quality. If you prioritize speed over aesthetics, consider reducing shadow detail, render range, and shadow distance. However, if you have a powerful gaming CPU superior to a 265K in conjunction with a high-end graphics card, this might not pose any significant problems for you.

If you’ve reached here, you might have spotted an unmentioned graphics feature called ray tracing in Monster Hunter Wilds. This feature mainly enhances the realism of water reflections, but the decrease in performance may not justify the brief time spent observing a lake and seeing the world mirrored accurately.

Just like other settings, the anti-aliasing options work similarly. You can either turn it off completely (which isn’t recommended), or choose from TAA (Temporal Anti-Aliasing) or a combination of TAA and FXAA (a shader technique that enhances edge quality). However, none of these methods compare to the quality achieved by DLSS, FSR, and XeSS. If your system has enough power, you can switch to an AA mode with any of these upscalers for an even more visually appealing experience.

Considering the significant impact of resolution on game performance, I strongly advise using upscaling consistently, except if you own a Ryzen 7 9800X3D along with an RTX 4090 or 5090. Monster Hunter Wilds performs well with upscaling and when possible, frame generation. However, the necessity of these graphical features for optimal performance might not sit well with many PC gamers.

Read More

2025-02-28 03:03