Monster Hunter Wilds: Turns out updating drivers fixes brand new game. Again

Monster Hunter Wilds screen
(Image credit: Capcom (Twitter))

Monster Hunter Wilds has barely been out for a week and already it's dominating the PC gaming world. The newest in the beloved series continues the fine tradition of grinding beautiful and fearsome creatures down into weapons and armour in order to fight even bigger creatures, ad infinitum. Of course, that's if your PC can handle it.

While many are enjoying their eat, fight, loot, repeat lifestyle, others are being plagued by unexplained PC performance issues. At nearly a week in, these players are getting desperate and we're seeing all sorts of so-called fixes being plated up, with more or less effectiveness. One even pointed to a game file typo being behind the trouble, but this newest suggestion by Redditor phil96k is a lot more level headed. To the point of common sense.

Phil96k details a few basic updates that greatly improved their monster hunting experience. First up was making sure Windows 11 was fully up-to-date. If you're behind on updates this may need to be checked a few times until you're on the latest release. Next up is to do the same again for your graphics drivers.

The final update listed is also the one phil96k says helped the most. Upgrading the firmware on your processor. They even included handy links to both AMD and Intel download pages for anyone that may need them. If you need anymore help, check out our page on updating drivers. Turns out this brand new game runs far better on software and firmware that's fully up to date.

For many this is standard troubleshooting procedure, but it's easy to miss, and important to check. Even with automatic updates on, sometimes one hasn't gone through for whatever reason, or it has corrupted along the way. A fresh driver and firmware install can save hours of troubleshooting.

While we're at it, have you made sure to turn everything off and on again?

Keeping your kit up to date is a good idea for security, and is often a great point of call for fixing performance issues. This time, updating seems to be helping a fair few people online get back out into the hunt. Users have reported it fixing performance troubles like slow framerates, freezes, and graphical glitches. So just another helpful PSA: keep your kit mercilessly up to date, especially for those big juicy graphically demanding game releases.

Best CPU for gamingBest gaming motherboardBest graphics cardBest SSD for gaming


Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.

TOPICS
Hope Corrigan
Hardware Writer

Hope’s been writing about games for about a decade, starting out way back when on the Australian Nintendo fan site Vooks.net. Since then, she’s talked far too much about games and tech for publications such as Techlife, Byteside, IGN, and GameSpot. Of course there’s also here at PC Gamer, where she gets to indulge her inner hardware nerd with news and reviews. You can usually find Hope fawning over some art, tech, or likely a wonderful combination of them both and where relevant she’ll share them with you here. When she’s not writing about the amazing creations of others, she’s working on what she hopes will one day be her own. You can find her fictional chill out ambient far future sci-fi radio show/album/listening experience podcast right here. No, she’s not kidding. 

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