Complete Monster Hunter World PC Optimization Guide!

[pisceincarnate]

This guide is a collection of nearly two months of research and testing on my part. I finally have my game running just about perfect and wanted to share! Monster Hunter World is one of the few games to truly utilize multi cores, multi threads! It’s a big step but it does need a few more updates to work properly. If you are experiencing issues and have a 1060 or above then you’ll be pleased to know it isn’t your GPU. It’s your CPU bottlenecking more than likely. I currently use a 1070 at 1440p set to ultra and it stays consistently smooth. If you’re using a 1060 than you should get the same performance I get on my 1070 at 1440p as your 1060 should get at 1080p. I currently get between 80-55 on my i7 6700k at 4.6 ghz and OC'd 1070. Pretty far past the general average.

#0 My Computer

As said I am using a i7 6700k OC'd to 4.6 Mhz and an OC'd MSI Armor 1070 at 2075 Mhz for the GPU and 8808 Mhz for the GPU memory. I have 16 GB of 2400 Mhz DDR4 memory at CL12. I run everything at 1440p in near ultra settings. So the optimization guide is mainly referencing high end ultra but it should also be directly applicable to mid to low end settings as well.

#1 Windows 10 optimization:

The first step in optimizing your computer for Monster Hunter World is to do every step mentioned in this wonderful guide from YouTube. But don't use the display settings files they have you use. You can use them just as a starting point if you want to. I didn't like them. They aren’t very good. I’d skip those, optimize your system, do the rest of the guide and then adjust the display settings yourself inside of Monster Hunter World’s menu.

Link to the guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLLm8efoHA

#2 Special K mod

After you finish that you’ll need to install Special K’s mod. This mod provides a fix for better 4k resolution and CPU optimization. At start Monster Hunter World launches 32 CPU process’ which kills almost any CPU. So follow this guide to install special K. Once it’s installed you may need to switch the CPU tweak from logical cores to physical cores. Logical Cores is for threaded cores included. So if you have 4 cores and 8 threads then it acts like there's 4 total cores. Physical cores is as it say. It optimizes for just four cores. Though I have an i7 I experienced better results on the physical cores. It’s one of the first optimizations you’ll see on the Special K start up menu. When you open MHW a special k menu will also briefly open up. That’s where you can adjust settings.

Link to Special K:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/582010/discussions/3/1745594817439431537/

#3 Razer Cortex

Razer Cortex made a big leap for my setup. When you first launch it you’ll see Game Booster and System Booster tabs at the top. After every computer boot go to System Booster and run Optimize. You only have to do this once unless of course you reboot your computer or close cortex and re-open it. Then go back the Game Booster tab. If you don’t see MHW under the games then click the + icon and navigate to where your .exe file is for MHW. It should be C:Programefilesx86/steam/steamapps/common/monsterhunterworld. Unless you installed your game to a different HDD. In which case it will be X:SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/MonsterHunterWorld and you’ll see the .exe file there. X being whatever your drive letter is.

Now with your game selected whenever you launch Monster Hunter World it runs a system optimization. To select optimizations for launch go to the Boost tab that’s right next to the System Library tab. Here you want to scroll down to the bottom of the first list of tweaks and select Launch game on Game Desktop. This is really important. It opens MHW up in a special shell that mimics how a console game runs. I got MAJOR stability from using this. Also check the optimizations and uncheck “Cortex Power Plan” if it’s an option that’s there. We set a better power plan earlier. The CPU optimizations also caused an issue that made my 4th core max out and overload. It would cause MHW to stutter and freeze at times. Also every once in a while the Game Desktop fails to launch along with MHW. Sometimes I have to restart to get it to launch along with the game. You'll see your desktop go blank and a tab appear at the top of your desktop to exit Game Desktop. If you suspect it didn't launch then once the game loads press alt + tab to see if it's open. If all you see is MHW when hit alt + tab then it didn't. So close out of MHW and launch it again to make sure Gake Desktop is running. Now with Game Desktop checked then go over to process’ and start checking non-essential programs that aren’t needed. Then go over to non-window services and do that same.

Download link for Razer Cortex:
https://www.razer.com/cortex


#4 Optimizing your graphics card settings:

Follow this guide if you’re running nVidia. Set the multi thread optimization to on and enable triple buffering if you’re going to use V Sync. Just sort of experiment around with triple buffering and v sync. I experienced some temporary game freezes at first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KsK55zgUAQ&t=475s&list=PLGaBIITwflQ126TgA7zl0pOeAfVP13NtT&index=81

Follow this guide if you run AMD. I don’t have an AMD card so I’m not able to test this guide. But it’s made by the same person.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz5kTs8rDfk

Now this is nVidia specific. There’s been a bug in the nVidia drivers since their first MHW optimized driver. If you've been avoiding updating your drivers then you can now! Go ahead and update your drivers to the latest. This bug is whats causes the FPS to drop when things get crowded and especially in rotten vale. You’re going to need nVidia inspector to remove the bug in the driver profile. So download and install inspector and then open it up. In the profile menu at the top either scroll to MHW or just type and search for Monster Hunter World. Once you load up it’s profile scroll to the bottom to the section for “Unknown.” Look for two profiles. The first one is 0x00A25FC4 and the second is 0x10C158AD. You’ll need to disable them. Click on them and change the first two values to 0x0.

0x00A25FC4 should first say 0x20000001. Chance it to say 0x00000001
0x10C158AD should first say 0x20000000. Change it to say 0x00000000

Then apply the changes and you’ll be set! You'll need to do this every time you update your driver until they finally fix it. Whenever you update your driver it'll reinstall the profile.

Read here for more information. If you aren't on the 400 series drivers or some slightly older ones then there could be two other profiles that need to be removed. If you are on the latest then you're good.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/582010/discussions/3/1735462352470150697/?ctp=2

Download link for nVidia inspector.
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/nvidia-inspector-download.html

Another optimization I applied from Nvidia inspector is to enable Vertical Sync Smooth AFR and Adaptive mode. Adaptive mode can be applied from the regular control panel. Use either to enable that. But Smooth AFR Behavior can only be applied from inspector. So go to the global setting profile or just use the MHW profile. Either way. I used the global setting profile but either should work. Scroll to vertical sync, enable it, set adaptive mode and then enable Smooth AFR Behavior. Smooth AFR does as it implies. It applies smooth FPS transitions when Vsync is enabled. Also enable triple buffering if you’re going to use this. With triple buffering I experienced game freezes due to the lag at one much earlier point in my testing. The game pauses while waiting for it’s frame to loaded. But yes, these settings to create input response lag. Not much. But just be aware of that. These bugs/freezes don't happen to me anymore though. If you have G Sync then you lucky bastard don’t bother with v sync!



#5 FPS Monitor

You’ll need to download the trial version of an app called FPS monitor. We’ll need to monitor more than just the built in FPS monitor for Steam or nVidia can do. FPS Monitor shows your FPS, CPU load for each core and each thread and temperatures. Download it, install it and open it up. It needs to be open for it start up with the game. So get this ready and now let’s move on to the final step!

Link to download FPS monitor
https://fpsmon.com/en/?

#6 Setting your FPS

If you have anything below a 1060 6G or 580 then you might need to set the FPS limit to 30 FPS. 30 FPS is what the console version runs. So it’s still running it well. If you have 1060 6G or above than congrats! You can go to ultra as long as you stay at 60 FPS. If you have a 1070 or above than set it to unlimited at 1440p. Hz prefence between 90-144 is up to you. I’m at 144 but would not go below 90. See what works best.

Before continuing I want to say that you don’t focus on maximum FPS and pushing the number as high as possible by sacrificing quality. 70 FPS at 1440p ultra is what I’ve found to be the threshold when you step over the mark into the glorious threshold of absolute heaven.

#7 Graphic Settings in Monster Hunter World:

If you have an AMD graphics card open up your radeon crimson software. You can add a preset for individual games here. If you don’t already have Monster Hunter World listed then add one. Don’t change any of the settings. Just add it and let it do it’s thing. Make sure it’s enabled. If you have nVidia you can go the GeForce experience and murder your graphics by selecting recommended optimized settings. It’s a great starting point but don’t leave it like this. It’s bat♥♥♥♥♥♥ugly settings! But it’s the greatest settings possible to reach maximum FPS. So just start with these settings.

Now inside of Monster Hunter World go options, display advanced display settings. This is what each of the options means.

Ambient Occlusion. Adds a soft sharow to crevices and objects near each other creating a realistic sense of separation between the objects making them stand out. It’s wonderful! I have it set to mid for my ultra settings. Yes it has an FPS impact. I recommend for high settings

Anisotropic Filtering. The overall sharpness of textures from a distance. Not much of an FPS impact imo. Reccomend for mid settings.

Anti-Aliasing. The smoothness and sharpness of the edges of objects. This is definitely an FPS impact but is also a very important part of the graphics. If you have AMD inside of your game profile you can set it to enhance this. Becareful when doing that. I suspected it made my game glitch at times. But that was just a suspicion. Give it a try! FXAA is the most commonly used but TAA looked prettier to me. Umm yeah this is definitely a defining FPS impact. But it is essential.

Display mode. Come on this is obvious. Full Screen is the best and actually helps FPS.

Foliage Sway. This is the setting for the realistic movement of bushes, trees and flowers. It’s an FPS impact of course. But it is also an essential.

Resolution Scaling. The quality at which your resolution scales obviously. If you continue to have stuttering and no matter what settings you set it just keeps stuttering then set this to variable prioritize frame rate. Variable prioritize framerate had the biggest boost to my FPS than any other setting. Only fiddle with this if you’re having big FPS drop issues and stuttering. On my 390 I got an incredible smoothness from doing this. However, the image is constantly scaling up and down. Meaning at times things will get slightly blurry and scale back up. This happens mostly in the village. During combat and while moving around you won’t notice this much. You’ll be good out in the field.

LOD Bias. This is how much of the environment the game loads up. Ever see trees and bushes loading up as you walk into the areas? That’s this. If you have a good enough GPU like a 1060 at 1080p or 1070 then try turning this up for a better experience. It’ll load up the environment before you even walk into it. It’s quite nice. The LOD level is the amount of detail it loads. So if you have a good enough setup then set this unlimited. Low is good for medium, medium is good for high and high is meant for ultra. A high it has a definite FPS impact. But in my opinion if you’re OCD is a must. At high it just makes things feel so much better as you move from area to area.

Ambient Occlusion. Adds a soft sharow to crevices and objects near each other creating a realistic sense of separation between the objects making them stand out. It’s wonderful! I have it set to mid for my ultra settings. Yes it has an FPS impact. I recommend for high settings.

Screen Space Reflection. This enables realistic life like reflections on objects and water. It’s quite beautiful! This is a setting for ultra as it has an FPS impact.

SH Diffuse Quality. This is the setting that controls objects that go transparent when you walk through them or get close to them. This is a setting for high. It has a FPS impact

Shadow Quality. It controls the shadow. I haven’t seen this make much of an FPS impact difference no matter what level you put it on. I’d recommend it for medium settings.

Subsurface scattering.This is what controls the quality of lighting as it hits objects. In my opinion this is one of the most beautiful, awe striking graphic settings. This is for ultra settings. 1060 6G at 1080p or 1070.

Texture Quality. Obviously what controls the level of textures on objects. This is for high settings as it has an FPS impact.

Volume Rendering Quality. This is glossy fog effect that’s the signature of imaging in Monster Hunter World. Either put it in low or turn it off all together. This definitely has an FPS impact. If you’re running at ultra it actually makes the picture look worse. Either set this to low or turn it off. I noticed no difference in how it presented itself between low to high. I noticed on mid to high settings this definitely helped. But when I started running ultra it held the beauty back. Play with it and see. If you’re on low then it kind of masks the crudeness of your quality. As stated there is an FPS impact here.

Water Reflection. Obviously the reflections of water. God bless it’s gorgeous. This is for ultra settings as it definitely impacts FPS.

There’s also a new motion blur option. I experienced a big increase in quality when turning this off.

#8 Final setup and optimization

Now with all of the optimizations in place launch the game with FPS monitor running. Tune the graphics setting to what YOU THINK you want. Then watch FPS monitor. Go for an expedition at first. What you want to watch the most is temperatures, load percentage on CPU cores and lastly FPS impact vs. the level of load and temperature. If it’s been a few years since you applied the thermal paste to your CPU then it might be time to replace it. Monster Hunter World IS CPU HUNGRY! And will push the temps or your CPU. Just monitor everything. When it starts to stutter what was load percentage and on which core? What temperature did it reach before it stutters? As you switch settings on and off what happens? Just do this for several days. After a few expeditions take on Teostra, Kushala and Rotten Vale for the real test!

That’s all! I really hope this helps you.

[ThunderWarrior]

I definetely need to try this out. Great work man!

[pisceincarnate]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Japanese Alcoholic:

I definetely need to try this out. Great work man!

Thank you! Yeah it has been a LOT of work. Today I finally considered it complete. I'm very excited to finally share it in full with the entire community!

[BOOTS]

Helped me out! Thanks for help and effort!

[foooly]

Awesome write-up man. Going to try these out when I'm home from work. Will post my results.

[[R]az]

Very nice fps guide for MHW! One thing though there's 2 ambient occlusion descriptions nearing the end so might want to remove 1 of those.

[Howard Bateman]

No idea which of these steps did the trick, but I was about to refund the game due to 20-30 FPS grossness in the city. After following your guideline I am getting between 90 and 120 FPS. And that is on 1440p. In the city. Let's see what expeditions say, but I'm very positive. Thanks, mate. You've saved my monster hunter experience, no joke.

[Slnn3R]

Hi, does this still actually applicable now and will give Noticable Performance Improvement?

my hardware:
i7-8750H
RTX2070 (8GB VRAM)
32GB DDR4 RAM
500GB M.2 SSD

[Ngb]

good job bro you help me a lot but can you help me with FACEIT anticheat I always update but my windows are service pack system 1 and on faceit eac when I start him he ask me that I need windows service pack system LOL ...