First off, and as in every other trouble-shooting procedure, we must identify what its causing our problems so we can get to their root (if possible) and solve them without triggering any more problems.

1. GPU Related Issues.
When we are talking about GPU Related Issues or GRI for short, (which stands for Graphical Related Issues) we are referring to problems such as Tearing, Buffering, Delays on the Displayed Image or Visual Artifacts. Problems like this are usually caused by some faulty connection, driver or in cases, Overclocks. Your problem might of been caused by your GPU if:

-You have outdated drivers that are either very old or very unstable, specially if paired with an older generation card (700-800 GTX Series and their AMD counterparts) and it's causing conflict with new code such as MHW.


-Your card is currently overclocked and it's become unstable with apps such as MHW. It's fairly known to everyone that overclocking cards (specially new ones, 10 Series for example) is not very rewarding, and can cause more problems that it can solve. A lot of new games don't like GPU Overclocking, as they have defined speeds and frequencies at which their engine displays images (Overwatch is a prime example of a game that dislikes overclocking) and therefore, going beyond what the game (and your machine to some extent) can handle, usually results in Visual Artifacting (seeing purple squares around the screen, black spots, missing textures, purple or green screens of death) and can cause other components of the machine working at the minute to also conflict with the game and eventually crash it or make the performance worse.

-Your card runs at very high temps and therefore is thermal throttling and bringing performance down with it. If you have an old gen card, or you live in area that is dusty/foggy or simply have your case somewhere in a corner of your room, chances are your card is overheating and it's keeping it's clocks down so it doesn't overheats and dies. Remember, if you are very prone to dust, or you know your card fans are not that good, keep an eye on temps and act as soon as you see your card going beyond it's thermal limits.

-Your card is not receiving enough voltage and it's underperforming. This is quite a common problem, and seeing as I've suffered it in the past, I can tell that it's very easy to identify and to solve. You know when your card is not being fed enough voltage when your screen goes black for a millisecond and then comes back, or you are seeing constant stutetting on your game, and/or alt-tabbing out or switching windows causes random black-screens or purple-screens. The fix is quite simple and it doesn't requiere any further examination.

Now that you've read through the GPU section, and you've hopefully checked your PC and realized this is not what is causing your problems, maybe we should take a look at the CPU.

2. CPU Related Problems (PRI for short, which stands for Processing Related Issues).

The CPU is a little bit more hard to diagnose, as its problems are not usually caused by him alone, they are usually caused by other problems that are spreading across your system, but that will not stop us from trying to fix this bad boi. You know you have PRI when:

-Your game takes too long to load. It might seem like a HDD problem at first, even a faulty SSD at worst, but sometimes, the HDD or SSD is working as intended but the CPU is just too slow at prrocessing the information the HDD is sending to him, and therefore it's causing the game (and regular functionality of the system) to slow down and making your game perform bad when it finally loads. If you know your SSD works fine (because you bought it 2 hours ago) then take a look at your CPU, as he might be the culprit of it all.

-Your game freezes for a couple seconds and then goes back online again. This is very noticeable, you are just wandering around searching for some Great Jagras footprints and your game randomly freezes for 2-4 seconds and then comes back on, at first you might just think that it was just loading the textures and meshes since you know your system is quite oldie, but if this happens more than once, and in very short lapses of time, it is an indication that your CPU is giving up on processing the HDD and GPU information, and has to stop the process (the game) to load everything and to check if tis correct, then resume the process "seemingly".

-Your case is making weird noises. This is more of a "Fan" related issue, but sometimes when the CPU is undervolting or overvolting, it tends to do a "buzzing" sound that might be too low for you to hear with your headphones on, but when you do hear it, it's quite troubling. If you hear any buzzing or rattling, whizzing, turn your system off inmediately and check that nothing is clogged, if the system is clear but the buzzing is still there, your CPU might be getting zapped behind it's heat-shroud.

-You just feel the delay. Sometimes when we play for a long time, we tend to know when something is not working right, let it be a small delay between buttons or some micro-stuttering that just keeps annoying you, we just know. When you feel like the game is just not right, and you can verify that it's not V-Sync or your monitor causing it, chances are is your CPU stopping on it's tracks to process something it should of done 2 seconds ago. You can quite notice it when you are trying to smash a combination of buttons but it takes just a few extra ms to show on screen.

Hopefully you have been able to identify or to at least have a clue of what might be causing your nerve-racking problems that won't let you hunt some Great Jagras on peace. Next section will cover how to solve this problems, so you can get some weight off your shoulders.

To ensure the highest possible chance of fixing our performance problems on MHW (and potentially other games) we need to get the right tools that will allow us to diagnose and fix our problems and have a nice, relaxed Great Jagras hunting session.
Note: You can always unninstall any of this programs after running through this guide, if you wish.

Display Driver Uninstaller:If you don't have this program installed already, then you are missing out. DDU (for short) is a program that allows us to delete a Display Driver completely off of our system, this includes the visible and hidden folders that it creates on our OS disk, the registry entries it creates in order to work, and the driver itself, where as your normal driver elimination procress would leave those things behind. Don't worry, this doesn't cause any harm to your PC, as it is only uninstalling display drivers, not stealing your information. We are going to use this program to uninstall our faulty/conflictive display drivers and install fresh new ones to keep the game nice and smooth.



To get DDU, go to this site, download and install, pretty simple: https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

HWMonitor:HWMonitor as its name indicates, is a Hardware Monitoring program that grants us access to metrics such as temperatures and voltages which are needed for our problem diagnosing. HWMonitor is very light-weight and User-Friendly, so no one will have trouble understanding what each metric shows, as everything is divided by component in a nice, easy to look at list. We will use this program to monitor our PC, and ensure everything is right.


To get HWMonitor, you can do it from the following page, donwload and install, nothing more, nothing less: https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Solving GRI is quite simple, as many times the problems are isolated and don't incur into problems that are much widely spread.

First thing's first,
1. For Nvidia and AMD users, go to your respective sites (Nvidia Geforce Drivers Center and AMD Drivers and Support) and download the latest Drivers for your respective GPU. Please keep in mind that you NEED to make sure that you are downloading the correct Drivers for your Operating System (OS) and your GPU. Search for the latest version, download it and put it on your desktop, and use DDU (Display Driver Unninstaller) to get rid of EVERYTHING that makes up the old driver, so we can avoid any conflicts.



NOTE FOR NVIDIA USERS: As it has been reported over on the Monster Hunter World subreddit, DO NOT DOWNLOAD THE LATEST "GAME READY" DRIVERS FROM NVIDIA

they have been proven to be causing problems with some 10 Series cards, and it's bringing performance down. Please use Driver 398.36 instead, if you are already using it, Do not download the newest drivers. Thank Nvidia for messing up our games again.


If your card is currently Overclocked, please save a profile of your OC and turn the card back down to it's factory settings and reboot your system, open the game and test it. Doing this steps will ensure to us to that your Overclock that might of been stable for months, it's not conflicting with the game and it's causing your performance problems. Remember, if you see missing textures, or if your game stutters, or your screen randomly goes purple/green, this means your card is overclocked and it's unstable, causing applications to not work correctly, this also applies to Factory Overclocked cards such as the ones EVGA or MSI sell very often, tell them to test it and benchmark it before you buy, you never know when it can go unstable.

FOR Precision X or XOC Users:
1.Save your OC profile in one of the slots at the bottom of the app's window.



2.Press the "Default" button at the left side of the program's metrics window.

3.Reboot your computer and ensure the card is running at it's stock frequencies by hitting the "K" button on the left side of the program's window.

4.Deactivate K mode and open the game and test it for a period of 20-40 minutes, this way you can ensure it is running "as it should" and no longer giving performance drops.


Your GPU, as everything else in your PC, needs electricity to work, electricity (and it's strenght) is delivered in a measurement that is called "Volt/Voltage". The electricity that every GPU uses differs, as it requeires different amounts of electricity to work, but the VOLTAGE needs to be somewhat consistent and average in every system. Your PSU (Power Supply) delivers electricity in 3 channels, a 12V+ rail, a 5V+ rail and a 3.3V+ rail, whilst each of the rail controls how powerful the electricity passing through them is, the PSU delivers a constant amount of it.

Overvoltaging ocurrs when your GPU (or any component for that matter) is receiving MORE voltage than it needs to operate, this leads to extremely harmful and dangerous temperatures, but also shortage of the Chip's lifespan due to constant over-shocking.

Downvoltaging in the other hand, means that the GPU (or any component for that matter) is receiving LESS voltage that it needs in order to work correctly, this leads to poor GPU performance, graphical artifacts/errors or the card not working at all.

IDENTIFYING OVERVOLTAGE AND DOWNVOLTAGE:

The 12V+ rail should deliver (unless otherwise requeired) between 12.1 and 12.3 Volts, some cards, specially the GTX 10 Series can eat upto 12.5V without suffering major damage.

The 5V+ rail should deliver (unless otherwise specified) between 5.04 and 5.1 Volts, again, some 10 Series cards can eat up a tiny bit more without damaging themselves.

The 3.3V+ rail should deliver (unless otherwise specified) between 3.36 and 3.42 Volts, and once more, 10 Series cards can take up a little bit more.

HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT VOLTAGE IS THE CARD USING RIGHT NOW?

That is why we need HWMonitor. Using HWMonitor we can get a metric of what voltage our card is using at the moment. Keep in mind that ANY software monitoring is bound to missplace some numbers, so always take this metrics with a bit of salt. Always use a physical piece of hardware to monitor your hardware.


1.Open HWMonitor and let it load your system specs. It shouldn't take longer than 20 seconds.

2.Check the voltage that your MOBO is using (should be first metric) and compare the 12V+, 5V+ and 3.3V+ values that it displays with the ones on this guide.

3.Scroll down to your GPU and ensure the clock measurements are right, both memory and core speeds, aswell as the temps, make sure they are not high. Any card above 81°C is considered overheating and it's at risk of melting down (literally).

4.Once you've checked everything we need to check, close the program and move on.

HOW TO SOLVE POTENTIAL PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED WITH HWMONITOR

1.If your card is overvolting or downvolting, make sure your PSU is in working condition, make sure the PSU is not clogged up with dust or spider-webs and if it is, clean it up with a compressed air can. Make sure the connection to and from your card are all in good condition, no smelly cords, no melting cords, none of that nasty stuff.

If your PSU is correctly working, then your wall outlet is to blame. Make sure you are using the correct AMPS and VOLTAGE that your PSU specifies (for US is usually 10A 125V, and for EU is 15A 145V), if you are unsure what amperage and voltage the socket gives, try switching it up from one to another until the metrics are right. If all of them are not optimal, you need to change the amount of electricty that socket gives, that's the electrician problem, not ours.

As stated before, CPU related issues are a tiny bit harder to diagnose and correct, because what happens to him, is usually the result from another problem of another component that is spreading across our system. Nonetheless, we can do some stuff to isolate and fix our problems.


Using HWMonitor again, we can check how our CPU is doing, specially when idle. We should be looking at the amount of cores that are active (4 for a 4 core CPU, 6 for a hexa-core CPU, 8 for a octa-core CPU, etc) and what are tha max frequencies of them. For example, if I am diagnosing my i5 7600, I should be looking at 4 active cores (0-1-2-3) with a max clock speed of about 3.8-3.9 Ghz.



If you play close attention, my CPU is running at optimal health and there should be nothing to worry about in this sector.

If your clock speeds or core counts are not right, then we can do some stuff.

NOTE:We are going to be messing around with stuff like BIOS and OS configuration. If you are unsure how your BIOS works, or don't wanna mess with it, then please restrain yourself from doing so. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED BY MISUSE OF INSTRUCTIONS ON THIS GUIDE.

NOTE: The way a BIOS is displayed varies greatfully from manufacturer to manufacturer. Please search online for a manual for your specific MOBO or look up videos for your specific manufacturer.

(Please be careful when navigating the menus as one missplaced option can turn out in very unpredicatble results and/or total bricking of your machine. USE YOUR MOBOS MANUAL. I'm just giving you a very general walkthrough of what you wanna look for.)

There are many ways to enter your BIOS, but the most common approach is hitting F2 or F9 while the system is booting up. The PC will display a screen while booting where it indicates when you should press said F"X" button. Just reboot your computer.
While in your BIOS, navigate over where the CPU section is and make sure all "Active Cores" are set to Auto or to the number of maximum physical cores your CPU currently has. Also make sure any Overclocking options (if your MOBO allows it) are disabled and/or turned off completely. Modern BIOS should have a "General" or "Overview" tab that displays general information about the system, such as voltages and/or fan speeds. ASUS has this "EZ Mode" that allows you to navigate the BIOS safely and check general metrics that we need.

Once you make sure all your CPU cores are active from the BIOS, reboot your PC and once you are back on, press the Windows Key + R to open the "Run" command window. Type "msconfig" and hit enter. (Excuse all Spanish from this pictures)



Go over where it says "Startup"(second tab) and click on advanced configuration.



There should be a "Number of Processors" tick box on the left corner, tick it and open the list, select the max number of cores (should be the max amount of cores your CPU has, if all of them were active on the BIOS) then click accept, apply, and then accept again.

Reboot your computer and we are good to go. What we just did was that we ensured all CPU cores were running actively, and forcing them to all work once Windows starts up, this way we can make sure all cores are running at all times and they do not become parked when starting up any application.

No further diagnosing should be needed for the CPU as it's problems have been isolated. You are free to proceed to next section.

We have gone a long way diagnosing and ensuring our PC is running at optimal performance and fixing any problems we may have encountered along the way. There is one last step that we need to perform, and this way we will be forcing the game to run at the Framerate it was supposed to run at when it launched on PC: At glorious 60FPS.

Our tool is called "Special K for MHW by Kaldaien". Our friend here, Kaldaien, had already released a "Special K" for NieR Automata, a mod, that essentially fixed a lot, and I mean, A LOT of performance and stability issues, while also giving some options to further control and customize the look and behaviour of the game. He's done the same for MHW and boy oh boy has it been a blessing.

Special K for MHW fixes A TON of visual and performance errors, such as eliminating the washed-out lighting and terrific Glare and Bloom that kills our eyesight while also imporving the way the game handles texturing caching, lighting controls, texture handling size, and most importanly, giving us True HDR support for our HDR-Capable monitors.



On the performance side of things, it also allows us to change the God-awful option of the game using our CPU threads (which are use for both our background apps aswell as our game) to use our CPU cores, allowing better splitting of process and multi-threading, which is a win-win on both sides. Apart from that, it also allows us to allocate certain amount of memory from our GPU so the game can spread out texture handling more evenly while also having extra space for texture caching. With the added benefit of an OSD and the option to take HUDLess screenshots and add ReShade filters, this mod certainly aliviates the pain in the ass that both a bad port and Denuvo can do.

Follow this link in order to download the mod, and also follow the instructions there in order to install it, which is also pretty quick and easy: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/582010/discussions/3/1745594817439431537/?ctp=27

Hopefully this guide has been helpful to you all, and that is has at least eased up the pain that this terrific bad port made to both us and our wallets.

If you enjoyed this guide or if it proved useful for you, let me know in the comments!

If you think something is missing from the guide, or you think we can cover more angles of a certain problem, let me know in the comments! we can all make this game playable.

Have fun hunting, Hunter!