Monster Hunter Wilds has famously endured struggles when it comes to running well on PC since release. Capcom have tried relentlessly to improve that situation, with varying results. Cue today, and a Reddit scientist coming to the conclusion that overtly aggressive DLC checks might be a key factor in the game’s woes. Another modder has subsequently put out a work to combat the issue with the checks, but they reckon fixing this problem isn’t necessarily a cure-all.
The original thread looking into these DLC checks was penned by Reddit user de_Tylmarande. Having played around with versions of the game on two Steam accounts – one with all of the Wilds’ DLC bought and one running the DLC-less base version – they observed that the former seemed to benefit from better FPS numbers. Reaching the hypothesis that the discrepancies in frame rate they report experiencing in the two versions might be down to the DLC-less version of the game being throttled by regular behind-the-scenes checks as to which DLC was active, they did some testing.
“I quickly made a small ‘mod’ that made the game think I have all DLC present…And yes – performance went through the roof. Yes, without any CPU boost, in Balance mode. On any settings. The game literally flies,” they wrote, emphasising that the mod was simply one that convinced the game they had all of the DLC installed, rather than actually giving them it. So, they said they’ve reached out to Capcom’s support with their findings, suggesting “it’s just a bug in the code they need to fix” rather than any maliciou bit of design.
Cool. Naturally, this being modders, one of their brethren has already looked into the situation and put out a work which limits Wilds’ DLC checks on Nexus Mods (as spotted by friend of the Treehouse Dominic Tarason). According to this second modder, Vaeux, the DLC checks do seem to have some impact on performance, but only in certain areas of the game:
As discovered by de_Tylmarande, who documented it in a Reddit thread, depending on which DLCs you own, Monster Hunter Wilds may perform dozens of checks for DLC ownership every frame. This can easily add up to thousands of (relatively) computationally-expensive checks every second, significantly reducing your framerate if it’s bottlenecked by your CPU.
Unfortunately, it looks like this only happens when you’re close enough to a Support Desk Felyne (the ones that handle bounties and have a DLC menu) to see an exclamation point on its map/world icon, which pops up if you purchase DLC, so you know to go and redeem your new DLC. So, it only matters while you’re standing in/near a Base Camp. Not quite as game-changing as some were hoping, but better than nothing.
We’ll see whether Capcom, having seen all of this experimentation, end up being able to nail down any extra fixes/improvements to Wilds beyond what they’ve already done or have planned.