Strange but true: a bug in Capcom’s game hits PC players hardest if they own fewer DLC packs.

It recently emerged that one reason Monster Hunter Wilds can struggle with frame rate on PC is the way it checks DLC ownership – and the fewer add-ons you have, the worse performance can get. That’s a problem in practice, especially with dozens of cosmetic DLC items in the mix. The good news is that once modder de_Tylmarande pinned down what was happening, Vaeux on Nexus Mods quickly pushed out a workaround: the Less DLC Checks mod. It relies on praydog’s REFramework, which is widely used to address various issues in titles built on Capcom’s RE Engine.

Digital Foundry then dug into the issue and confirmed that, in the right circumstances, a user’s PC really can be hammered by thousands of DLC checks – with a measurable hit to frame rate. There’s a catch, though: it appears to occur in a very specific scenario, namely when your character is in a hub area and a Support Desk Felyne NPC is close by. The likely reason is simple: those NPCs are tied to the DLC menu. Even so, under those conditions, the modder’s core claim holds up.

Digital Foundry editor-in-chief Richard Leadbetter tested the impact on a Ryzen 5 3600 system and found that the performance gains from Less DLC Checks grew as settings came down. At max settings (1440p Ultra, ray tracing enabled, DLSS Balanced), the uplift measured 11.4%. With ray tracing enabled at High, it climbed to 20%. And at the lowest settings, using DLSS Ultra Performance with RT off, the gap jumped to 25.6%.

The upside is that this is a PC-only performance problem, and only under the conditions described above. Still, it’s something Capcom should address quickly – and it’s pretty wild that a user spotted such a sloppy issue almost a year after the game’s original release.

Source: WCCFTech, Nexus Mods, Digital Foundry