Any long-time Monster Hunter fan knows the frustration of a mid-hunt stutter. You’re one charged blade swing away from taking down a massive elder dragon, and suddenly your game freezes for half a second, making you miss the hit and take a full blast of elemental damage to the face. If you’re prepping for the upcoming Wilds launch, you’ve probably seen chatter online about what is Monster Hunter Wilds benchmark, and wondered if it’s worth taking the time to run on your own setup. This guide breaks down everything you need to know about the official tool, from what it tests to how to fix low performance scores, so you can spend launch day hunting instead of tweaking graphics sliders.
What is Monster Hunter Wilds Benchmark, Exactly?
Released by Capcom as a free, standalone tool ahead of the full game launch, the Monster Hunter Wilds benchmark is designed to simulate real in-game performance on your PC without requiring you to buy or download the full 70+ GB game file. It runs a pre-rendered 2-minute sequence of actual Wilds gameplay, including open world flight sections, large monster battles with dozens of particle effects, and crowded base areas with multiple NPCs and dynamic weather. Unlike fan-made benchmark tests that only measure static scenes, the official Monster Hunter Wilds benchmark replicates the exact stress your PC will face during real hunts.
The tool isn’t just for players with high-end gaming rigs, either. I ran it last week on my 3-year-old mid-range laptop, and it saved me from wasting hours downloading the full game only to find it ran at 12fps on low settings. It also includes a built-in setting optimizer that suggests tweaks based on your hardware, so you don’t have to guess which sliders to adjust to get the best balance of visual quality and performance. You don’t need any technical knowledge to use it, either — just download the tool, pick your preferred settings, and hit run.
Key Metrics the Monster Hunter Wilds Benchmark Tracks
A lot of players assume the benchmark only gives a single framerate number, but it actually tracks half a dozen useful metrics that tell you exactly how your rig handles different parts of the game. These are the most important metrics to pay attention to when you run the test:
- Average framerate: The overall number of frames per second the test averages across all scenes, the most basic measure of smooth performance.
- 1% and 0.1% low framerates: The lowest framerates you'll see during the most intense action, far more important than average for avoiding mid-hunt stutters.
- VRAM usage: How much of your graphics card's dedicated memory the game uses at your chosen settings, which will tell you if you need to lower texture quality to avoid crashes.
- CPU and GPU load percentages: Shows if your processor or graphics card is the bottleneck holding back your performance, so you know what to upgrade if needed.
- Final performance score: An official Capcom rating from "Poor" to "Ultra" that tells you at a glance if your setup can run the game at your selected settings.
So many players only pay attention to average framerate, but that’s a huge mistake. If your average is 60fps but your 1% lows drop to 20fps, you’re going to have a terrible time when the monster unleashes a full-screen elemental attack right as you’re dodging. Always prioritize 1% low scores over average framerates for fast-paced action games like Monster Hunter Wilds. The VRAM metric is especially important for players with older GPUs that have 4GB or less of dedicated memory. Wilds’ open world has far higher resolution textures than previous entries in the series, so you’ll likely need to lower texture quality if you’re running on a card with less than 6GB of VRAM, even if other metrics look good.
How to Run the Benchmark for Accurate Results
A lot of people run the benchmark incorrectly and get misleading results, so follow these simple tips to make sure your scores are actually reflective of real in-game performance. First, Close all background applications before running the test. That includes browser tabs with 20 open pages, Discord, streaming software, even your antivirus if you can temporarily disable it. Any program using CPU, GPU or RAM in the background will skew your results lower than they would be when you’re actually playing the game.
Second, run the test 2 to 3 times instead of just once. Sometimes background processes will spike randomly during the first run, leading to an unfairly low score. If you get similar results across 3 runs, you can trust that it’s accurate. I made the mistake of running the benchmark once while I had a 4K YouTube video playing in the background, and it gave me a "Poor" rating. When I closed everything and ran it again, I got a "High" rating at 1080p medium, which was way closer to what I actually get when playing preview builds of the game.
Third, test all the settings you plan to use. Don’t just run it on ultra to see if you can get bragging rights, test medium settings if that’s what you’re actually going to play on, and don’t forget to test both 1080p and 1440p if you have a monitor that supports both resolutions. If you plan to play multiplayer hunts with friends, make sure to test your performance with the network simulation toggle enabled in the benchmark settings. Multiplayer adds extra CPU load from tracking other players’ actions, so your performance will be 5-10% lower in co-op than in single player.
What to Do With Your Benchmark Results
If you get a score of "Ultra" or "High" at your preferred settings, you’re good to go. You don’t need to change anything, and you can expect smooth performance even during the most intense hunts with multiple players. If you get a "Medium" rating, you can still play, but you’ll want to tweak a few settings to boost your 1% lows. The most impactful settings to lower are shadow quality, global illumination, and particle effects, since those put the most stress on your GPU without making a huge visual difference for most players.
If you get a "Poor" rating, don’t panic. First, try lowering your resolution from 1440p to 1080p, that alone can boost framerates by 30 to 40% on most setups. If that still doesn’t work, try lowering texture quality first, then anti-aliasing. You don’t need to run the game on ultra to have a good time, and even low settings still look far better than Monster Hunter World did on high settings for most rigs.
Pay attention to the CPU and GPU load metrics, too. If your benchmark shows that your CPU is running at 100% load while your GPU is only at 60%, that means your CPU is the bottleneck. You can fix this by turning off background processes, enabling game mode on Windows, and lowering CPU-heavy settings like crowd density and physics simulation. If your GPU is the bottleneck, focus on lowering the graphics settings we mentioned earlier. Don’t feel like you need to rush out and buy a new graphics card if your results are lower than you expected. Capcom has a history of patching games after launch to improve performance on lower-end rigs, so there’s a good chance performance will get better in the first few weeks after release.
At the end of the day, taking 10 minutes to run the Monster Hunter Wilds benchmark (now that you know exactly what is Monster Hunter Wilds benchmark and how to use its results) is one of the best things you can do to prepare for launch day. It takes all the guesswork out of setting up your game, so you don’t have to spend your first few hours of playtime tweaking sliders instead of hunting new monsters. Even if your results aren’t as high as you hoped, you’ll have a clear idea of what settings to adjust to get the smoothest possible experience. Just remember to follow the tips we shared to get accurate results, and don’t stress too much about getting a perfect ultra score. The most important thing is that the game runs smoothly enough for you to enjoy your hunts, no matter what settings you use.