Poor performance hasn’t stopped Monster Hunter Wilds from being a top 3 Steam Deck game
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Monster Hunter Wilds launched across all platforms last week, and players everywhere are jumping in to explore its massive world. However, Steam Deck users (among others) have been dealing with serious performance issues. The game is very demanding, and the handheld simply doesn't have the power to run it smoothly. Despite this, the game is currently one of the most played games on the Steam Deck, ranking high in the top-played charts.
Moster Hunter Wilds performance on the Steam Deck
We tested Monster Hunter Wilds on the Steam Deck shortly after the benchmark tool was released. To get the best possible performance, we used FSR Ultra Performance with the lowest settings. This made the game look much worse, and even at these low settings, the performance was not great.
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With frame generation turned on, the game averaged 41.67 FPS. Without frame generation, it averaged only 27.29 FPS. While 40 FPS might sound okay, it's important to remember that frame generation isn't meant to help a game reach 60 FPS. Even AMD recommends using frame generation only when a game is already running at around 60 FPS for the best experience.
On top of that, the game suffered from heavy stuttering, which made it feel even worse to play. The FPS numbers don't fully show how choppy the experience is. Based on our testing, we wouldn't recommend playing Monster Hunter Wilds on the Steam Deck. Even at the lowest settings, the game stutters a lot, and the visuals take a huge hit, making it hard to enjoy.
There is a mod that can help make the game somewhat playable on the Steam Deck. This mod tweaks certain settings to improve performance, but even with these fixes, the game still doesn't run well.
Still performing well in the Top Played charts
Despite all the performance problems, Monster Hunter Wilds is currently the third most-played game on Steam Deck as per the Top-Played charts. This means that a huge number of players are still enjoying the game, even with bad visuals and stuttering issues. It has even overtaken Baldur's Gate 3 and Hades II, two games that run perfectly well on the Steam Deck (Hades II certainly more so).
It's clear that Steam Deck players love Monster Hunter Wilds, even if it doesn't run well on the handheld. Whether this changes in the future depends on updates, patches, and more mods, but for now, people are choosing to play it on the Deck despite its issues.
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