Friday, October 20th 2023
Alan Wake II System Requirements Released, Steep RT Requirements Due to Path Tracing
Alan Wake II by Remedy Entertainment promises to be the year's most visually intense AAA title. The publisher put out the various tiered system requirements lists that highlight just what it takes to max the game out. As with most publishers these days, the company put out separate lists for RT and non-RT experiences. The common minimum requirements across all tiers include 90 GB of SSD-based storage, Windows 10 or Windows 11, and 16 GB of main memory. At the bare minimum, you'll need a quad-core Intel Core i5-7600K or comparable processor. For all other tiers, Remedy recommends at least an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel equivalent processor (which would mean at least a Core i7-10700K), or an 8-core/16-thread processor that's as fast as the 3700X.
The bare minimum GPU requirement calls for an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6600. With this, you can expect 1080p @ 30 FPS, and can use the "quality" setting with DLSS 2 or FSR 2. The non-RT "Medium" list, is either 1440p @ 30 FPS or 1080p @ 60 FPS. For 1440p @ 30 FPS, you'll need a GPU at least as fast as a GeForce RTX 3060 or Radeon RX 6600 XT. 1080p @ 60 FPS requires at least a GeForce RTX 3070 or Radeon RX 6700 XT. The "Ultra" non-RT preset with 4K @ 60 Hz, which is the best experience you can possibly have without ray tracing, demands at least a GeForce RTX 4070 or Radeon RX 7800 XT. Ray tracing is a whole different beast.
The "Low" ray tracing tier, which is medium raster graphics settings with low ray tracing, for 1080p @ 30 FPS, demands at least a GeForce RTX 3070 or Radeon RX 6800 XT. The "Medium" ray tracing tier, which is medium raster graphics settings with medium ray tracing and path tracing enabled, for 1080p @ 60 FPS gameplay, demands at least a GeForce RTX 4070. There's no AMD Radeon GPU with the ray tracing performance of an RTX 4070 in its price-range, so Rockstar didn't recommend an AMD option. The "High" ray tracing preset, which combines high raster graphics with high ray tracing, and path tracing; for gameplay at 4K with 60 FPS; requires a GeForce RTX 4080.
The bare minimum GPU requirement calls for an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6600. With this, you can expect 1080p @ 30 FPS, and can use the "quality" setting with DLSS 2 or FSR 2. The non-RT "Medium" list, is either 1440p @ 30 FPS or 1080p @ 60 FPS. For 1440p @ 30 FPS, you'll need a GPU at least as fast as a GeForce RTX 3060 or Radeon RX 6600 XT. 1080p @ 60 FPS requires at least a GeForce RTX 3070 or Radeon RX 6700 XT. The "Ultra" non-RT preset with 4K @ 60 Hz, which is the best experience you can possibly have without ray tracing, demands at least a GeForce RTX 4070 or Radeon RX 7800 XT. Ray tracing is a whole different beast.
157 Comments on Alan Wake II System Requirements Released, Steep RT Requirements Due to Path Tracing
I also know that a good number of dlss fans don't want to use dlss to attain playable framerates, instead they wanted to use dlss as a way to supercharge performance, which we know is not the developers intention anymore.
Or you have the people like me that realized how nice playing the game at a native resolution is, free of most motion artifacts and sharp as can be.
In the era of zero or even negative price / performance increases with new generation there is verry little demand for upgrade - unless your old card suddenly doesn't cut it even for measly 1080p at 60 Hz without upscaling.
I wonder how many" badly optimized" new games have actually been intentionally made "to be the new Crysis", without the actual visual generational leap in image quality Crysis brought...
While it is knowned that Remedy tends to push graphical requirements with each game release, I cannot help but feel that they have gone way over the limits here. They are not selling a game anymore. They are selling a graphic showcase. What is the point of releasing a "beautiful game" when only a small handful of people can truely enjoy the eye candy. It is good to test the boundary somewhat, but this is way overboard when you see 4K path tracing requiring a RTX 4080 @ DLSS performance mode (aka 1080p upscale) in order to play @ 60 FPS. Seriously... I am voting with my wallet to not bother buying this game because it just means I need to shell out even more money for a better graphic card.
yesterday you play at 1080p@1080p, today you play 1080p@4k, tomorrow you will play 720p@4k, the day after tomorrow 800*600@8k and so on.
it's so nostalgic remembering the old times where I wasn't able to play some games (Civ3 is the first that I clearly remember) because my monitor (or video card drivers idk) was stuck @800*600 and the minimum required resolution was 1024*768... Now the table is turning...
The RTX40x0 series is soooo over!
I can't wait for the 50x0 series to launch, let's hope Nvidia does not hike the prices again, or hobble the performance of anything lower than the 90 series, like they did to the 4080 this time.
Remedy has always pushing the boundary in graphics and now the only way to do this is by using the nVidia's tech.
The performance of the gpus is increasing in every gen by 20-40% while the requirements of just a reflection with slightly higher res may require 12 times the performance of the fastest gpu available. Just for a reflection. No real time shadows, no global illumination, no ambient occlusion or complete path traced rendering.
So, yes. It's completely justified that a 4080 can run this game at 1080p upscaled to 4K, if you understand what is required to be calculated in the background.
Am I happy with it? No! But we cannot beat physics and go from 6nm to 0.000003nm or improve the IPC by 300K% in one-two gens.
To end. I'm happy when some companies push the boundary and take advantage of the best available hardware and i'm ok if I cannot play it right away. But the gamers have to read, think and realize why this happens before post or complain about requirements and resolutions etc.
Alan Wake 2 is one of the first games to require DX12 Ultimate's Mesh Shaders (dsogaming.com)
These days games get released with absurd requirements but when you look at the graphics they offer you're left scratching your head as to why the requirements are so high when the graphics themselves are nowhere near wow level like Crysis was back in the day.
Most of the in house game engines deliver exceptional graphics. A Plague Tale series, Cyberpunk, all Remedy games etc.
Even the plasticky graphics from Sony engine (PS) are ok and better than any Crysis.
The thing is that games were way more simple back then and just a bump in texture resolution or add cube maps/screen space reflections or a bit more detailed models and they were transformed. We are past that. That's why raster graphics are dead. We have accomplished the mission to have extremely good models and textures. The lighting has always been the problem and although we knew the solution, we didn't have the hardware to run this. After decades, we run RT or PT games. Yes in 1080p and that's a success.
If gamers don't like that, we can go back, revive the MXs and stop even using pixel shaders in games.
Also this works both ways. Since raster has been perfected so much over the years people cant always tell the difference or they may actually prefer raster to more accurate methods. For example RT/PT often makes the scene darker. Yes it may be more realistic but people are not always playing games for their realism.Lighting is the least of the problems that impact realism of the games. Animations and physics matter much more than accurate reflections or light bounces.
What good is a PT game when a dumb robotic NPC stumbles onto the scene and opens it's mouth with bad lip syncing? And just like that the "magic" is gone.
Or you throw a grenade into a coffee cup and all that happens is a small black strain on an intact coffee cup.That's BS argument. So if i don't like anything running at 720p 30fps on a reasonably priced midrange card then i should go back to pre-pixel shader era?
How about i go "back" to native 4K 240fps with barely noticeable difference in some graphical elements (like shadows) with much higher resolution and framerate?
Yes i get that eventually games will incorporate more RT and PT but that's a long way off even with various upscaling and frame generation hacks to get it running at reasonable framerates. Also the hardware capable of doing this needs to come down in price not go up in price like Nvidia (and AMD too) have done. That is the ONLY way things go mainstream. Closed ecosystems and higher prices are exactly what killed VR. Yes it's still there but it's not mainstream.
The same will happen to RT and PT if things continue as they are.
An update later and it is still jank and drops to 40 FPS at 1080P, not even at 4K.
Then look at the visuals and tell us... it's truly world apart in visuals for this kind of bad performance on top performing hardware?
Fact is, you can make a case for more RAM anytime of the day but you simply don't need it if you have a well balanced system. For gaming, it seems the norm is 16GB and 24 or 32 won't help you. And from personal experience... the only games that chew RAM are city sims that you take far into late game. That's an outlier.Neh... not sure I totally agree there. It does feed dev budgets. It has also pushed ahead some features we later got everywhere. And at the same time, its a bit like the purchased review.
Also, game sponsorship is inherently also developers and GPU manufacturers having 'the dialogue' which I think is great for an industry. The world revolves around money, money opens doors.Yep... as above... the world revolves around money. RT is clearly a corporate push to extract more of it. And look where Nvidia is right now, money wise. Look where gaming is, in tandem. Not looking good. Can't last.
But, this has been my line of thinking ever since RT was announced and how AMD has responded to it. I think AMD's strategy is sound, and I think Nvidia's is a gamble. Since that moment I've only been reinforced in my stance. AMD is still selling console GPUs, they created a chiplet GPU and they've got a stable environment going on driver wise, while keeping largely in check with Nvidia's performance movement. In the meantime they're expanding on that technology lead by fusing CPU and GPU together on chips with much better yields. This is as steady as it gets. RT? Whatever. RDNA3 runs it too, but doesn't rely on it to sell.Yeah... put this nonsense next to what Crysis was in terms of advancements. Both 1 and 3. Its hilarious. They still haven't really, convincingly surpassed it, have they. Sure, resolution go up. But what else? FPS go down :p
I agree, the in house engine are best suited for the task. But the result is the graphics.
Like in A Plague Tale: You couldn't get millions of rats running around in a general purpose game engine. You have to reinvent a part of the engine or develop a new on from scratch, so it can handle it.
The fact that raster has been perfected, does not mean that we stay with the prebaked lighting. We advance and we want more dynamic elements. At first is the lighting, then the physics etc. etc.
The fact that we have hybrid RT/PT games, shows how difficult it is to calculate these things in real time. And that's how the requirements are justified. As long as there is a normal setting in game, so the gamers can actually play the game, I'm fine with the extreme requirements for the RT/PT level of settings.
AFAIK all nvidia sponsored games run pretty great on competitors cards, they are well optimized and they look good, they support competitors features etc . None of those can be said about amd sponsored games like godfall forspoken jedi immortals etc.