60 fps support is great, but unlocked framerates that can take advantage of high refresh displays are even better. When we first got a look at the PC version of Monster Hunter World, there was a lot of talk about 4K, 60 fps performance, but we're happy to confirm that World offers an uncapped framerate option on PC. Specifically, there are three framerate options: a 30 fps cap, a 60 fps cap, and "no limit."
In testing today on a few systems, we confirmed the game can definitely run above 60 frames per second, but on most hardware you'll need to turn settings down significantly to see high framerates.
On a PC with an i7-7700HQ, a GTX 1070, and 16GB RAM, James noted that the framerate oscillated between 40-70 fps on ‘highest’ graphics settings preset at a 1920x1080 resolution. Dips seemed to occur in the more open environments, and not necessarily when monsters appeared. During an introductory fight between two of the big beasts in a smaller corridor, the framerate steadied around 60 fps showing no signs of slowing down. James did encounter two small framerate hitches in about 30 minutes of play, though it’s unclear if that’ll continue to be a problem or not.
Going from the Highest to High graphical preset bumped up the framerate in the hub area from 60-65 to 70-75, while dropping to the Mid present pushed it up from 70-75 to 75-80. The visual differences weren’t drastic, either, so more consistently high framerates are attainable without a huge graphical hit.
By turning the graphics down to the Low preset, which makes for a very pixelated picture thanks to resolution scaling, MHW's opening cutscene shot up to 144 frames per second on my GTX 980 Ti.
We'll have more detailed performance testing soon to determine what kind of hardware you'll need to monster hunt at above 60 fps on higher graphics settings.
