So Monster Hunter is finally out and we all know what happened: Performance is not great, you need a pretty good computer to even get close to 60 FPS on decent looking settings and games simply don't feel that great when you are struggling with framerate.

Well since a solid 60 is simply out of the question for a lot of us, let's try the second best way to run this game: A rock solid 30 FPS, using a little outside help so that it feels and looks as smooth as it can be.

If you are not really used to running games at 30 FPS or a player that can't run the game at a solid 60, I believe this can help. A locked 30 FPS feels far better than framerate constantly going up and down the 40-50-60 range, but we seldom do that because we are more used to running at a solid 60. That being said, at some point you might have heard that console 30 FPS feels "better" than PC 30 FPS and believe it or not it's actually kind of true. That's exactly what we are going to fix with the help of some commonly used tools.

Not really, no. There's a slim chance the "Maximum pre-rendered frames" option discussed at the bottom of this guide COULD help you but for the most part this is not a guide to increase FPS.

Simply put, every frame doesn't take the same amount of time to be created. If you want to picture the concept, image a machine that has to print 60 photos per second and then transport them along a conveyor belt. The problem is the machine is not very good and so sometimes it prints too fast and sometimes too slowly; The machine CAN still deliver 60 photos on time BUT if you were to look at the conveyor belt transporting them, some photos would be closer together or further apart depending on how the machine did things. That unevenness in presentation, AKA "frametime", is the main reason why games feel weird despite seemingly running at the correct framerate.

Second to that, and since it's also sometimes a source of perceived sluggishness in games, we'll also talk about tearing and Vsync.

Making your game feel smoother is not hard and we'll do it in three steps:

1. Fixing the frametime.
   
2. Prevent tearing.
   
3. Optional tweaks.

Some of these steps will have multiple methods listed, either because you can do it in different ways or some methods only work with certain hardware manufacturers. Please consider reading the "combination of frametime and tearing fixes" section further in this guide if you are not sure what to pick.

RTSS[www.guru3d.com] (also available in a bundle download with MSI Afterburner[www.msi.com])is a free, widely used tool used together with other applications to display real-time information about hardware usage. In this case however we only really want it for another one of its options: RTSS has a built-in framerate limiter that's considered to be one of the best in the market because it can deliver impeccable frametimes with it. Even if Monster Hunter DOES have a built-in 30 FPS mode, RTSS' mode is far superior.


RTSS can help you display GPU usage information like this as you play. While setting this up is beyond the scope of this guide, this example compares the frametime of MH's native 30 FPS limit (left) with RTSS' (right). As you might imagine, a flat line is better.

All you need to do to use RTSS' framelimiter is to download the application, install and run it so you can then create a profile for MH. When you first launch RTSS, you will get a window that looks something like this (minus the MonsterHunterWorld.exe entry):



From here the process is simple.

1.- Click the "Add" button then navigate to your Monster Hunter World executable or shortcut. This can be either the shortcut created on the desktop when you installed the game OR the executable located in Steam's installation folder. The latter is usually in Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/Monster Hunter World

2.- Once you have selected the right executable or shortcut, you will see a profile for MonsterHunterWorld.exe in here. Select this profile.

3.- Look to the right and go to the Framerate limit option. Here, click on the box so you can type 30 then press Enter to confirm the change. That's all you need! Once you've done this, feel free to set Monster Hunter's own in-game Frame Limit to No Limit, if you'd like.

4 & 5.- Two more things you might not need to touch but I wanted to mention. If you ever feel like you messed something up, just hit Reset to restore the profile's settings to default. Also, if you are not running RTSS together with something like MSI Afterburner, you might need to toggle the Start with Windows option so that RTSS launches on its own and it can always frame limit your games.

if you happen to have an Nvidia GPU then you might be familiar with Nvidia's Control Panel. Among many display settings, there is one in particular that can be used to make your monitor think that its max refresh rate is 30 FPS and we are going to use it. Do keep in mind that this option does not like when you are running something like Chrome or Firefox in the background, and produces tearing, so if you are the kind of player that runs Monhun while they listen to youtube or something like that, this method might not be for you.

1.- Launch Nvidia's Control Panel, usually achieved by right clicking on your desktop and selecting the option.

2.- Go to Manage 3D settings > Program Settings and select Monster Hunter World from the dropdown list of games installed.

3.- Scroll down to the Vertical Sync option and select Adaptive (half refresh rate) then press the Apply button below.



4.- In-game, make sure to disable Monster Hunter's own Vsync and Frame Limit. Disabling Vsync in-game is particularly important so as not to make your controls feel sluggish, which we'll cover in the next section.

Now normally Adaptive (half refresh rate) wouldn't be enough to achieve perfect frametime and I would recommend running RTSS together with it but for some reason Monster Hunter really likes it. Your frametime should be really solid and the game should feel better.

This method has the benefit of already having a solution for tearing, Vsync, so if you are going to use this you can skip the next section below.

Since tearing is not something we want and some solutions to it can cause a game's controls to feel sluggish, called "input lag", we'll talk about this too.




Notice how it looks like the tent is missing a chunk somewhere around the middle? That's tearing. It happens because your GPU is trying to display frames out of sync with your monitor's refresh rate. It looks pretty bad and can be really distracting so let's fix that too. Thankfully, there are a handful of ways to prevent tearing and they more or less work the same.

This is noteworthy because it introduces very little lag while still preventing tearing. Thankfully Monster Hunter has a native borderless window mode that you can use and it seems to be pretty good. It is however worth mentioning that certain PCs might experience better performance with games running in fullscreen mode so if that's your case, try another method.

This is really common in games and usually a good way to introduce Vsync so it should be your first fullscreen solution. There is however the chance that other, external methods like the one below could work better for you so feel free to experiment.

GPU software can also let you configure which games should use Vsync and in some cases these modes can be better than a game's native mode. In the case of Nvidia in particular, there also multiple Vsync modes available but for the purposes of this guide I only recommend either regular Vsync or Adaptive (Half Frame Rate) as mentioned in the section above.

These are the cream of the crop when it comes to reducing tearing but since they are both hardware solutions, chances are you cannot use them or already know everything about them.

No matter what you do, the important thing about Vsync is too never use more than one method at the same time. Why? Using Vsync alone introduces a tiny, practically imperceptible amount of input lag, which can make your in-game controls feel slow. The problem really begins when you accidentally use two or more Vsync methods, which will seriously impact your movements in-game. Pick one method at a time, see how it works for you and then disable it once you are done.

By all accounts your game should look and feel better now and you are free to go hunt monsters. I recommend you go and do that, run the game for a while and check things out. If you are happy with it, enjoy! If you are not and you have plenty of time in yours hands then there's still some more things you can try and play with.

While everything we've covered so far is pretty clear cut, the following section of the guide deals with more "experimental" tweaks that heavily depend on each user's PC, subjective opinion and really at times might only be placebo so consider them only if you REALLY want to maximize your experience.

You can find these options in your GPU's respective configuration panel. In theory, they are used to tell the CPU to prepare in advance more frames for the GPU to display, potentially helping small variations in rendering times. In practice however these options might as well be magic because their impact seems to vary wildly from user to user and at times are supposed to help with everything from stuttering to framerate.

In general, lower values for these options are considered to help with input lag so users suffering from that might want to try setting these options to 1 or 2. Players who on the other hand want to have a smoother visual experience might want to try setting it to 3 or 4, although this could potentially introduce input lag. There's really no way to tell if one of these is going to help or not but if you are curious or suffering from stuttering, you might as well try.

A couple months back Nvidia made some changes to their drivers and replaced the Maximum pre-rendered frames setting with a new one called "Low Latency Mode". On paper both settings should be very similar but in practice I've found that, as long as your system is good enough, the new "On" option makes the game feel even better.

This new setting has three options: Off, On and Ultra.
Off is just normal, default operation. If you struggle to reach 30 FPS, you should probably stick to this.
On is supposed to be the equivalent of the old Maximum pre-rendered frames set to 1 but to me it feels much better than that. I believe this could help everyone that can run the game at 40/50 FPS or so but chooses to cap to 30 since they can't reach a rock-solid 60.
Ultra is reserved mostly for very high end systems and people with G-sync monitors. It is not recommended for anyone else because it might actually make the game stutter a little without potent enough hardware.

So what works better? Should you go Fullscreen mode with RTSS enabled and Vsync forced by your GPU software? What about Borderless Window with RTSS on top of the in-game frame limiter or any other combination for that matter? On paper there are multiple combinations of techniques one could use with the only real guideline that someone should never use more than one Vsync type at the same time, as mentioned above, and that features like Nvidia's Adaptive Half Refresh Rate only work with fullscreen mode. While I cannot really test all the combinations and in truth users will hardly share the same opinion on what looks better, I list a couple methods that I personally found to be pretty effective:

1. Borderless Window mode with RTSS Frame Limiter, in-game limiter enabled and Nvidia's Low Latency Mode set to On: This is the new king of settings for me. Game has never felt better and while I still haven't done much testing with the in-game limiter disabled, I'm very happy with this.
   
   
2. Borderless Window mode with RTSS Frame Limiter, in-game limiter disabled: To my eyes this feel like the single most fluid this game can run and it has no input lag to boot.
   
   
3. Fullscreen mode with RTSS Frame Limiter, in-game Vsync, in-game limiter disabled: The second best and pretty much a close match if not identical to the combination above.
   
   
4. Nvidia Adaptive Half Refresh Rate with RTSS Frame Limiter, in-game Vsync and limiter disabled: There's something peculiar about this setting but I can't put my finger on it. The other combinations above can almost feel a little "raw" whereas this one feels more refined.

Do you have any favorites? Any method in specific that gave YOU great results? Feel free to post about it in the comments below.

Yes.

Unless Capcom is insane, no. They would have to ban every single PC media outlet in the planet because they use the same tools.

Yes! The difference is noticeable and it is one of the easiest ways to make your games look nicer. Simply lock the framerate to 60 instead of 30.

You messed up and edited RTSS' or Nvidia's global profile settings instead of just Monster Hunter's.

You are running something in the background that might be messing with it. Browsers in particular are guilty of this so I recommend you close them. Overlays like Steam's can also mess with this sometimes. You should ONLY be seeing any tearing in very small amounts that go away really quick, that's normal with Adaptive Vsync.

No you ain't. Shut up. Your computer ain't magic and if the guys over at Digital Foundry couldn't get this running on hardware far superior than consoles at roughly equivalent settings, neither can you. You THINK your game is running well but if you actually checked, or better yet tried what I've outlined in this guide, you would see what's up.

To RevisDumas over at Deviantart, who I don't know personally but whose 4G decal template I shamelessly stole to make this guide's icon.