Monster Hunter Wilds Players Are Trying To See If Fixing a Typo Will Give Them a Performance Bump

Since launch, PC players of Monster Hunter Wilds have been tinkering with the game, working to optimize their performance and settings. As it turns out, some even dug all the way into the config files and found a typo, which they subsequently tested to see if that could bump up their numbers.

As discovered on Steam over the weekend (thanks, Kotaku), inside the config file of Monster Hunter Wilds, there's a line where "Resolution" is spelled "Resoltuion". According to the original Steam poster, fixing the misspelled word gave them a "perfomance boost," though they also said it made their processor temperature "jump significantly," from 50 degrees Celsius to 70.

A Reddit thread spun up too, where the original poster claimed to get a mild performance bump from around 120 FPS with Frame Gen to around 140. "Again, maybe a coincidence but I have no idea," the OP said. "Needs more testing. I'm just happy to gain FPS somehow."

Now, several repliers have commented with some words of caution and reason: adjusting this variable could be doing something completely different. "Renaming could just be setting whatever it is to a default which is lower than whatever it was, hence the perfomance increase," one Reddit commenter said.

Another user said it's a placebo. The executable contains the same typo, so it actually refers to a specific node. "By 'fixing' the typo, that makes the game not find this one specific config key/value, so perhaps [its] defaulting to some other value," the responder said.

There are, of course, posts disputing the placebo effect. Without official confirmation from Capcom, this does seem like a red herring. And it's best to advise caution when diving into the config files or other parts of the critical game files.

Players' avid search for what fixing the typo does, however, indicates the fervor with which Monster Hunter Wilds players are hunting for performance bumps. The PC optimization has been a point of discussion for Monster Hunter Wilds players, up to the point that even social posts about an upcoming fix for a progression-breaking bug are garnering responses asking for optimization fixes.

PC players continue to flood into Monster Hunter Wilds though, as Capcom's latest has been a record-breaking entry for both the series and the Steam storefront. With this much popularity, hopefully we see some fine-tuning in the weeks and months ahead, typo or not. A title update for Monster Hunter Wilds is expected in April, which is due to add a new endgame area to gather, as well as more monster hunting action for players to embark on.

To help get your Monster Hunter Wilds adventure started, take a look at what Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t tell you, and a guide to all 14 weapon types in the game. We’ve also got a detailed Monster Hunter Wilds walkthrough in progress, a Monster Hunter Wilds multiplayer guide to explain how to play with friends, and if you’ve played one of the open betas, here’s how to transfer your Monster Hunter Wilds Beta character over.

IGN’s Monster Hunter Wilds review returned an 8/10. We said: “Monster Hunter Wilds continues to smooth off the rougher corners of the series in smart ways, making for some extremely fun fights but also lacking any real challenge.”

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.