With less than a month to go until Monster Hunter Wilds’ launch, Capcom has thrown players a bone by reducing the game’s system requirements. Unfortunately, the developer is still playing fast and loose with upscaling and frame generation to pick up a surprising portion of the slack.
Comparing the old Monster Hunter Wilds system requirements to the new, there’s cause for celebration among builds of all ages. More specifically there are welcome reductions to CPU, GPU, and most notably to SSD footprint (falling from 140GB to just 75GB).
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | 1080p* / 30fps / Lowest | 1080p* / 60fps** / Medium |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit Windows 11 | Windows 10 64-bit Windows 11 |
| CPU | Core i5-10400 Ryzen 5 3600 | Core i5-10400 Ryzen 5 3600 |
| GPU | GeForce GTX 1660 Radeon RX 5500 XT | GeForce RTX 2060 Radeon RX 6600 |
| RAM | 16GB | 16GB |
| Storage | 75GB SSD | 75GB SSD |
**with Frame Generation.
While it’s great to see Capcom reduce the barrier to entry for Monster Hunter Wilds, its performance estimations are less than ideal.
Take the game’s minimum specs, for example, which calls for upscaling to 1080p from 720p. This isn’t something I’d generally recommend doing given expectedly low image quality, particularly while using AMD FSR (the only upscaler available to GTX 1660).
This is an easier pill to swallow at Recommended as RTX 2060 has DLSS at its disposal. Frustratingly, though, Capcom still calls on frame generation to achieve 60fps. This isn’t an ideal use of the technology as it works best at enhancing already solid frame rates, with sub-60fps performance likely feeling sluggish.
| High | Ultra | |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | 1440p* / 60fps** / High | 2160p* / 60fps** / Medium |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit Windows 11 | Windows 10 64-bit Windows 11 |
| CPU | Core i5-10400 Ryzen 5 3600 | Core i5-11600K Ryzen 7 7700 |
| GPU | GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Radeon RX 6700 XT | GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Radeon RX 7800 XT |
| RAM | 16GB | 16GB |
| Storage | 75GB SSD | 75GB SSD |
**with Frame Generation.
The use of upscaling is less problematic at the ‘High’ and ‘Ultra’ specs, with more-powerful hardware providing a sharper base resolution. The problematic use of frame generation remains annoyingly remains.
Thankfully, you can see how Monster Hunter Wilds runs on your system with our without these performance enhancements thanks to the launch of its free ‘Benchmark Tool’. I’ve run it using a GeForce RTX 5090 paired with Ryzen 7 9800X3D to give you an idea of what the fastest hardware on the planet makes of Capcom’s latest.
Running the game at 4K, using the ‘Ultra’ preset in combination with ray tracing, DLSS (Quality), and Frame Generation I achieve an average frame rate of 146fps. Turning off the latter sees performance drop to 104fps but I could make up the difference by switching to less-intensive upscaling preset or forgoing ray tracing.
Sadly, Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t offer support for Multi Frame Generation but this could arrive via a future update. The Nvidia App also doesn’t read the benchmark tool as a program, but I suspect you’ll be able to override the DLSS version come the game’s full release on February 28.
