The latest entry in the series runs well, yet there remains issues.
I was pleasantly surprised by how well the performance and resolution in Monster Hunter Rise held up when I played the demo last week (which I’m admittedly still playing). Until today though I had no idea what the exact performance and resolutions were. Thanks to YouTube channel VG Tech, which specializes in capturing frame rate and resolution data, we all now know.
Monster Hunter Rise runs at 1344×756 docked/960×540 handheld at a mostly solid 30 FPS.
Monster Hunter Rise runs in HD in docked at 1344×756 resolution, and just below true HD at 960×540 while in handheld mode. This doesn’t come as too much as a surprise: as capable as the RE Engine is, the Switch is still a platform powered by mobile hardware. The UI is rendered at native resolution (1920×1080 in docked, and 1280×720 in handheld), which goes a long way in keeping the whole experience from appearing blurry. That, and 540p holds up well on the Switch’s small screen. Would a locked 720p in handheld be nice? Sure, but what matters more than resolution in Monster Hunter Rise is performance.
According to VG Tech’s analysis, the game mostly holds 30 frames-per-second, though the frame-pacing is a bit jittery. Monster Hunter Rise isn’t buttery smooth quite yet, so fingers crossed the next couple months of optimization and balancing further improve performance. These results do run counter to my own experience, in multiplayer specifically. I noted problematic performance in my impression piece on Friday, so I decided to do some additional digging in light of VG Tech’s findings.
This Twitter thread from Laura Kate Dale postulates the problem stems from our primary account on the Switch. The short of it is simple: apparently playing the game on a secondary account resolves the stuttering and frame rate issues myself and others have run into while playing the game with others. A reply to the thread theorized the issue wasn’t in fact associated with the primary account (which the original thread speculated), but instead with accounts that have over 50 friends. Being the adamant troubleshooter that I am I gave both theories a test, and it looks like the latter may be closer to the truth.
Performance in Monster Hunter Rise was closer to VG Tech’s results when I fired it up on a new secondary account, so that portion of the theory checked out. I then went back and performed some much needed pruning of my friends list on my main account, and rebooted the game once I had it below 50 friends. Sure enough, performance was improved. To finalize my test I had a friend run the game on their primary account, which had fewer than 50 friends. They did not report any problematic performance, or stuttering.
My secondary account was created just for this test, so it has exactly zero friends. Paired with my friend’s results I’m led to believe the alternate theory is closer to the truth. These video from YouTube channel ContraNetwork will give you a good idea of what the issue looks like before and after swapping accounts (the former video featuring an account with many friends, and the latter a new account with none).
Whatever is causing the poor performance for some of us is hopefully ironed out by the time Monster Hunter Rise releases March 23rd exclusively on the Nintendo Switch. Be sure to check out my impressions of the demo here, and give VG Tech’s video a view below.
- This article was updated on January 11th, 2021
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