The Monster Hunter Wilds beta has just kicked off, allowing PC and Xbox users to try out the game. However, while there’s plenty to be excited about with getting a chance to try the new title, effortlessly smooth performance isn’t one of them, with users reporting regular crashes, frame rate drops, and generally poor performance.
While this is all a little alarming, it is still very early days with the Monster Hunter Wilds release date not until February next year. Plus, there’s at least one setting that seems to be giving a lifeline for some users with certain of the best graphics cards.
The setting in question is frame generation, whether via Nvidia’s DLSS or AMD FSR. These settings are only available to more recent models of GPUs from both companies, though, so you’ll need the likes of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 or AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT to access these options.
The ability of frame generation to near enough double a game’s frame rate essentially for free is allowing gamers who are finding the game is otherwise running worse than they might expect to still get a playable frame rate with acceptable visuals.
The Monster Hunter Wilds system requirements already hinted at it needing hefty hardware but most gamers weren’t expecting the beta to pose quite such troubles. Across several forums, we’ve encountered several users discussing the issues.
One user reports the game running flawlessly at 4K on an RTX 4090 and AMD 7800X3D CPU, but another reports a rather modest 72fps when also using an RTX 4090 and an Intel 12600K and running at 3,440 x 1,440. Only once frame generation is enabled does this jump up to a much smoother 120fps.
Another user reports getting around 90fps on an RTX 4070 Ti when running at 4K, but only when using DLSS and frame generation. Meanwhile, mid-range cards such as the AMD RX 7600 XT and RTX 4070 are achieving around 60fps even at just 1080p, without frame gen engaged.
One brave user has also tried the game on the Asus ROG Ally, reporting back their fps jumped around between 20-45fps, ultimately concluding that “nothing produced anything that I would deem playable.”
It’s quite possible that Capcom will respond quite quickly to these problems and issue some updates during the three-day window in which this beta is running. It’s also possible a second beta test could be opened up closer to launch, with crucial performance updates included. However, for now, we can only recommend trying frame generation if it’s available to you and otherwise to go into the game with the knowledge that it might not be the smoothest experience.
Meanwhile, if you’ve also been encountering an unable to connect to server error in the beta, there’s an easy fix for that too. Head on over to our Monster Hunter server error story to find out what it is.