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
Path Tracing is "........omg that looks like a render." Our hardware is really just not up to that task yet. But this is history repeating itself, it happened way back in the 90's when they introduced crazy-expensive new visual techniques like............Anti Aliasing :) And don't get me started on the hit we all took when Tesselation became the hot buzzword.
This one is going to hurt because this math isn't worked out fully yet, we need 10 years of devs working with tools (or maybe the AI's can actually help us out here before they kill us all).......before we get this stuff as casually as we get AA or AF settings today.
My point is, let's wait until the game is out and see for ourselves. Developer recommended systems hardly ever match the truth.
And here we are. New games come out and requirements state upscaling "recommended" for all configurations and resolutions to achieve barely playable framerates.
You can play at 1440p/60+ with a 2080Ti nearly at max settings. I mean what did you expect to get from a gpu with this level of performance at 1440p on a fall 2023 AAA title?
The RT requirements are reasonable too. You can play at 1440p with a 3080/4070 level of a gpu.
And still the 2080Ti, I believe can run it at 1440p with RT on with a few tweaks here and there.
4K/60/Pathtracing on? this is a joke. Not only 4K res with pathtracing on but 60fps as well?
They could put 4090 there and still I would be ok with that.
The path tracing came to existence because of the frame generation. There is no other way to play a AAA path traced game.
This isn't new at all. This happened for ages. Just now it reached it's culminating point.
On the topic. Let the game be released first. So it can be tested with various HW. But that excess gloss...
At least CPU and other specs are same. Though it still looks like an effort to up sell the 4090 the same way as 8800 Ultra.
If we keep that up a year or so, this practice is going to be history. Might even get us an Nvidia gen with 16GB midrange next time. I know, I know, but we can dream.The point is not calling it RT then, but just raster graphics, because frankly that's what they are - a raster post effect. It even manages to add latency like back in the DX9 Bloom Days.
I dont own console myself but from what i've seen most games there run as they're intended.
There is some level of RT there but no upscaling and FG just yet.
keep my money
thanks
I don't have this kind of nonsense with my RX 6750 XT in Hogwarts Legacy, even when demanding! And I thought Hogwarts Legacy was a tough one, TBH!
These are the actual requirements:
Raster
RTX2060 / RX6600 - 720p on low with 30 fps
RTX3060 / RX6600XT - 835p on medium with 30 fps
RTX3070 / RX6700XT - 1080p on medium with 30 fps
RTX4070 / RX7800XT - 1080p on high with 60 fps
RT/PT
RTX3070 / RX6800XT - 720p on medium + RT low with 30 fps
RTX4070 - 720p on medium + RT medium + PT with 60 fps
RTX4080 - 1080p on high + RT high + PT with 60 fps
Am I happy with these?
Absolutely not.
Am I going to buy this game?
Absolutely not.
But Epic buying Remedy's next few games on the cheap is what makes it all meaningless. I still remember the day when Remedy was about to go out of business and went to Steam, hat in hand, and peddled their two Alan Wake's there. I remember buying them and enjoying them and thinking, "This has got to help." Then they sold their souls to Timbo the PC Piracy Is The Problem Not My Games Man.
Just look at them go on without me. I wish them well, I really do, but they shouldn't have made that Epic deal. No one who has made a deal with Epic has ever come away better for it. People Can Fly, Microsoft, Bandcamp, or the investors Timbo swindled into thinking Epic Game Store was going to be Steam all those years ago. Doesn't matter who you are.
The only person who wins in a deal with Timbo is Timbo. Too bad for Remedy this time. They'll learn.
When you look at it as needing a 4070 to play a game at decent settings, that indeed does suck. When you realize a 2080 Ti really isn't THAT far off a 4070 (~10-15%, maybe ~20% on the outside absolute performance depending upon where the bottleneck is, and it can be 2x perf a stock 6600xt when overclocked), it's not so bad. I do agree that it's important to look at *some* nuance in settings, as we're kinda spoiled by the fact W1zard cranks everything up in reviews and 2080ti is turning into a <1440p/60fps gpu in some scenarios. I agree 1440p60 will probably be doable with a little finessing that won't impact IQ that much (if you're running a fairly decent CPU). We shall see, but make no mistake that reasonable settings (say 1440p60 or 4k DLSS balanced) are left off for a reason...They likely make too much sense on a cheaper product to sell newer more-expensive gpus (which is the point of a game like this).
I really, honestly, do not blame the games advancing in required spec. I blame nVIDIA's pricing racket and performance segmentation. AD104 is handicapped, AD103 is expensive. It would be great if AMD would catch up in RT, but I'll take the cheaper prices in the mean time.
At some point people will realize the next step up from that level of perf is not RT, but 16GB of VRAM (hence the 1080p60 med RT for the 4070/ti; 1440p is conspicuously missing bc it too probably won't run performant-enough on AD104). It will be interesting to watch 4070ti age versus 7800xt. I imagine 7800xt aging even better vs 4070ti than 2080 ti versus 4070, and in the end the achievable playable performance will be similar (if 7800xt not better when 12GB becomes a limiting factor at ~1440p regardless of RT). I think there's also a dang good chance the same will be true with AMD/Intel's next GPUs and 4080 wrt longevity. 4080 will likely always be a very slightly better GPU, and that's by (probably anticipated) design, but (hopefully) there will reach a point where people realize it's just not worth the premium unless you're absolutely enraptured by nVIDIA's paid-for tailored features in a handful of games specifically there to up-sell you to a needlessly expensive GPU that still can't run at a decent resolution/fr with those features turned on. JMO.
As a 'what will x get me' sorta guy, I really only see two GPUs currently: 2080ti, which is old but a bangin' value, and (6800xt)/7800xt, which is if you're buying new. There needs to be a GPU that is ~30% faster but also ~30% more money; a slightly cheaper 7900xt if you will. The only way anything changes in the current landscape is if 4080 gets a ton cheaper, and I just can't see them going below the price of a 7900xtx bc greed. 7900xt might get cheaper though.
I can also imagine 7800xt becoming cheaper, and navi4x/BM being greater than proportionaly better perf/$ than 4070ti/4070 ti super, or whatever they call a further cut AD103, let-alone 4080. TBD value prop with 4070 (just like) tea tea, as I think 4070ti/4080 are going to lose a metric ton of value fairly quickly and it's unknown how nVIDIA will attempt to slot that into the equation. If it's under $700 and can compete with 7900xt/n4x/BM in value I will be pleasantly surprised, but I'm not holding my breath.
With that being the case, I just don't see how anyone can make an argument for nVIDIA's current GPUs unless you are that person for which money is no object; the next evolution of an Apple fanboy complete with paying the tax for a bespoke feature. I can appreciate RT as much as the next guy, but I just don't see the value until the next generation (at the very least). Until that point, I just don't see why someone would buy something more expensive than a 7900xt, and preferably that performance would be (and soon likely will be) even less expensive.
I mean is not supposed to need more memory at max than at the lowest settings.
I find it wierd that memory is the same all the way.
Also for the low setting for 1080p/1440P. 1080P needs a rtx 3070 and 1440P needs a rtx 3060?????
I hope thats an error, cause else it dosent make sense at all.