While still a success on Steam, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne currently sits with a mixed review. Despite the game's initially positive reception, the reviews on Steam have taken a turn for the worse in recent days due to PC-related issues, and particularly around high-CPU usage. What's worse is that the reviews pointing this out on Steam are among the most highly-rated, meaning the problem(s) at hand are something that's effecting the Monster Hunter World: Iceborne community on a large scale.
While Monster Hunter World's initial release brought Capcom to its highest levels of profitability, the Steam reviews are undoubtedly having a negative impact on Iceborne's profitability. The CPU usage issue isn't unique to the new area of the game, and is instead effecting old and new areas of the game alike where it hadn't before. What this points to is a problem with the new content, which means that finding a solution for players is currently of paramount importance.
Luckily, the Monster Hunter World: Iceborne community has come together and found a few solutions to these problems.
CPU Problems
The reviews for Monster Hunter World: Iceborne are in on Steam, with some of the most recent ones going so far as to say "Don't even bother playing this game without a beefy setup, or at least a beefy CPU right now. Even then you'll want to use community fixed." This isn't the first problem Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is having on PC either, so people can understand the frustration the Monster Hunter World: Iceborne community is expressing.
Players are reporting en masse that even with a strong CPU, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is using about 70-80% of their CPU at any given time while running. What this is resulting in is sub-par performance, with low frame-rates, choppy gameplay, and in some cases overheating problems and reduced overall machine performance.
The problem, however, might not actually be due to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne itself, but instead may have something to do with another Windows program.
Antimalware Service Executable
Players have noticed in the Windows Task Manager that when running Monster Hunter World: Iceborne that Antimalware Service Executable's CPU usage is shooting through the roof. However, once Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is closed, Antimalware Service Executable's CPU usage returns to normal.
To resolve this issue, players are going into Windows Security, where they'll select "Virus and Threat Protection," and proceed to click on "Manage Settings." From there, players are turning off "Real Time Protection," and are noticing that when running Monster Hunter World: Iceborne thereafter that the game runs as normal. While the Antimalware Service Executable service undoubtedly provides a priceless service, sometime it gets in the way of users' computers running appropriately.
However, sometimes players have had to repeat the above steps as the settings within Windows Security are reverting back to normal. Therefore, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne players should keep an eye out for this, and repeat the above steps as needed when playing the game.
Other Notes
For those still experiencing issues when attempting to play, some Monster Hunter World: Iceborne players have experienced success by turning off the GeForce Experience overlay. This has helped reduce issues for those using an NVIDIA GPU. However, it has been noted that sometimes the GeForce Experience overlay is automatically turning back on after a time, and so players need to add an exception to the Monster Hunter World: Iceborne folder in their program files.
In order to do this, Windows users need to open up the search bar. From there, users should type security. From the list of candidates that relates to the search term, select Windows Security, and go to Virus and Threat Protection. Once inside, click on Manage Settings under Virus and Threat Protection Settings, and scroll down to exclusion, click on add or remove exclusions, and click add an exclusion.
Users should scroll down the list of candidates that are eligible for exclusion until they find Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, and click on it. For players that are having a hard time finding it, try searching the Steam>Steamapps Common folder. It should be in there.
Once found, users should press the "Select Folder" button on the bottom right of the window, and Monster Hunter World: Iceborne should be added to the list of excluded programs.
These are just some of the solutions players are suggesting for the myriad of woes plaguing Monster Hunter World: Iceborne on PC right now, with some going so far as to refund their Steam purchase and instead purchase the game on one of their respective consoles. Along with the recent drop of support for Windows 7 by Microsoft, its safe to say that the PC Master Race has been having a tough few days Just be sure repeat the above steps if for whatever reason the problem persists.
Once the above steps are completed, the CPU usage should improve and be around 5 to 6%, which is a vast improvement from 20%. By following the above steps, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne users should be well on their way to dropping monsters once again.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.