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Bizarre Wild Hearts PC performance fix confirmed by developer

An unusual Wild Hearts PC performance fix to improve frame rates recommended by Steam users is confirmed to work in some cases by the hunting game’s developer.

Wild Hearts PC performance fix - a character with a pink-tipped mohawk plants their feet and shifts their weight to swing a giant hammer in a circle around them

With the first Wild Hearts PC patch aimed at fixing performance problems in the Monster Hunter style game still in the works, some players have spotted an easy fix that improves the frame rate dramatically – and it’s not what you might expect. While this simple settings change isn’t resolving the issue for everyone, Wild Hearts developer Omega Force confirms that the tweak can, in fact, result in notable performance improvements.

The Wild Hearts performance fix was first shared by a user called ‘Ryan Johnson’ on the Steam forums, who calls it a “wonky workaround.” They say that, despite their overlay telling them the game was running correctly, they were noticing severe frame rate drops while playing. After a friend noticed that the game seemed to run better while wearing headphones, they did some experimentation, and found that this made a tangible difference.

By changing their in-game audio settings from the default stereo to 7.1/5.1 channel surround sound, they noticed tangible improvements to the game: “I’m getting above 60fps now, and it actually feels like it. The game is playable now.” With multiple other players in the comments responding to say that they found this surprise solution actually worked for them, it was also shared to the Wild Hearts Reddit by a user called ‘ProfessionalAnimal27,’ which drew an official response from Omega Force.

“We’ve been testing this fix and have confirmed reports that, in some cases, switching your ‘output settings’ in the in-game audio settings from stereo to 7.1/5.1 can – again, in some cases – yield performance improvements,” developer account ‘wolf_hands’ says. They add, “This workaround doesn’t seem to work in all cases and players already running recommended specs at over 60fps are unlikely to see an improvement but, while we investigate and work on the patch, please try it yourself and see if it improves performance for you.”

Wild Hearts PC - a giant rodent, a Ragetail, looks through a gap in some trees at a woman on the floor, as a hunter nearby stands guard over the fallen woman

A very strange solution, then – but one that seems to bear enough weight for you to try out yourself if you’ve been struggling with the game’s performance since launch. Omega Force gives thanks to the two users who shared the fix, as well as to “all the hunters this has affected for your patience while we work on a permanent fix.” It confirms the planned patch is still on schedule for a release next week. Hopefully full fixes are incoming soon, as the game itself has lots of promise.

Our Wild Hearts review takes a look at how the game holds up in light of these initial performance problems. We’ve also got the lowdown on everything you need to know about all the Wild Hearts monsters, the best Wild Hearts weapons to use against them, and how Wild Hearts crossplay works on consoles and PC.