Alan Wake 2 Performance Benchmark

[Acesbong]

By the time it comes to steam I will have a better gpu so no worries

 

[The Quim Reaper]

Not surprised by the high VRAM requirements.

Remedy games have a long history of being very heavy on its usage.

 

[[XC] Oj101]

Is it me or does ray reconstruction remove shadows, if you look at the image with the chain fence there is absolutely no shadow from it like in the raster image. Not sure if that's because the raster is wrong at adding the shadows or the PT isn't working correctly.

Is it not because the light source is large enough that shadows shouldn't exist? The light behind is big enough and the gap between the fence and floor is large enough that rays of light will hit the parts of the floor covered in shadow in the other images. You'll see there is shadow right against the floor. I think we're just so used to "wrong" shadows that this looks wrong.

 

[Rean]

@W1zzard Correction to the conclusion: Alan Wake 2 is published by Epic Games themselves, meaning that it won't ever arrive to Steam (same as the remastered version of AW1).

 

[PrettyPigeon]

The performance is, frankly, appaling. 39 FPS on a 6700xt when said 6700xt is stronger then either home console? How poorly optimized is this?

And forced upscaling. Utter trash. Will skip.

Which is absolutely hilarious. Everyone who was so smug about how 16GB was useless and people were overreacting to 8GB cards getting it smothered all over their face that, no, 8GB is in fact NOT enough for modern GPUs.

It doesn't run great on consoles neither. According to Digital Foundry on PS5 it runs at an internal resolution of 1270p/30FPS on quality mode and at 847p/60FPS on performance mode (but with big quality compromises on performance mode). According to TPU the AMD RX 7600 runs at 36FPS at 1440p and 49FPS at 1080p max settings so since the RX 7600 is a bit faster than the PS5's GPU and PS5's CPU is way weaker, it lands around where you would expect.

 

[JustBenching]

Yep same as in Cyberpunk honestly. Better is a matter of perception - quite literally.

In my mind PT is Ansel 2.0, you get nice screenshots out of it. No banding etc. For gameplay? Pointless exercise

You could argue the same about ultra or high settings. Just for screenshots, medium gives you way higher fps. But who does that? I mean, who - with a high end gpu - plays at medium settings to get 100-150 fps on single player games? I for sure don't.

 

[Acesbong]

@W1zzard Correction to the conclusion: Alan Wake 2 is published by Epic Games themselves, meaning that it won't ever arrive to Steam (same as the remastered version of AW1).

AW1 is a reskin of an old game, this will come to steam as it makes business sense. Will be 9.99 on epic store in a year, will be 39.99 on steam when its released. No brainer.

 

[Steevo]

All the chain link shadow is gone.

 

[aciDev]

Epic is also funding 100% of dev costs for Alan Wake 2, which is targeting a 2023 release date

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/86349/epic-games-funded-alan-wake-remaster-at-loss/index.html

Meanwhile, we (at least I) are here wondering why they don't invest in creating a client THAT DOESN'T COMPLETELY KILL THE DESIRE TO PLAY EVERY TIME YOU OPEN IT.

 

[theouto]

Given that there is no Denuvo, everyone interested in playing the game will likely have already done so before Remedy eventually releases Alan Wake 2 on Steam in approximately a year, probably leading to disappointing sales.

Ohohoho, you know gamers too well eh

 

[Acesbong]

Medium looks pretty good and doesn't run at 3fps, lol.

Medium looks like the sweet spot, if you want better than that its RT&RR on top of it for a noticable upgrade.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

Did you compare with the Max settings picture ? Look at the lights in right middle of the picture , they are broken compared with the simple RT.

Path-tracying can't deal with rain either. The rain drops have corkscrew in them with the lighting which is wrong.

 

[W1zzard]

@W1zzard Correction to the conclusion: Alan Wake 2 is published by Epic Games themselves, meaning that it won't ever arrive to Steam (same as the remastered version of AW1).

I updated the conclusion, thanks

 

[Xuper]

for Minimum FPS at 4K , any idea why 7700XT is slower than 3060 ?

FPS at 4K , 7700XT (12GB) vs 3060 (12GB) => 28.9 vs 18.2 ( 58% faster)
Min FPS at 4K , 7700XT (12GB) vs 3060 (12GB) => 15.0 vs 16.6 ( %9.6 slower )

This doesn't add up... Stutter Shader cache perhaps?

 

[Acesbong]

Had the same impression.

There are also instances where path tracing adds a shadow, but that only happens ON objects: in the first screenshot for example the sign by the road and the sign in front of the house.

When the object that shadow needs casting on is further away, Path tracing seems to fade it away. Gimmicky indeed. Also, Maximum vs Path tracing? I wouldn't care one bit, maximum every day of the week given the perf benefit.

RT: the problem looking for solutions we already had.

Medium raster looks superior to RT&RR and path tracing in the 3rd screenshot lol. Nvidia has done a good job in brainwashing people
(myself included) that RT is a big upgrade visually. It really isnt and won't be for many years until hardware can do it @ 4k native.

 

[Denver]

for Minimum FPS at 4K , any idea why 7700XT is slower than 3060 ?

FPS at 4K , 7700XT (12GB) vs 3060 (12GB) => 28.9 vs 18.2 ( 58% faster)
Min FPS at 4K , 7700XT (12GB) vs 3060 (12GB) => 15.0 vs 16.6 ( %9.6 slower )

This doesn't add up... Stutter Shader cache perhaps?

Perhaps the effect of running with the appropriate driver...or Nvidia helping in the development process.

 

[AvrageGamr]

I guess they don't let the rays bounce as much, or cast fewer of them

Another site says the path tracing in AW2 is only used for indirect lighting.

 

[Vayra86]

Under 60fps in 1080p with a 3080. Yea- there is no way I am buying this. Do better.

10GB card, as predicted; don't go complaining now

Compromises are always gonna happen sooner or later

You could argue the same about ultra or high settings. Just for screenshots, medium gives you way higher fps. But who does that? I mean, who - with a high end gpu - plays at medium settings to get 100-150 fps on single player games? I for sure don't.

You could, if that means in your use case you get playable FPS, correct.

Or you could only because you don't want to suffer higher noise and temp levels and power usage just because you turned on PT... I mean, sure. You could have a hundred reasons to lower settings. But for some settings its a no-brainer. And yes, medium is in a lot of situations a just fine IQ to be gaming at. That notion places everything in perspective nicely.

At the same time though, Maximum is likely closest to dev's artistic intentions, and it shows, because PT barely deviates from it. In this situation, even if I had a 4090, I would rather just have a solid min. FPS over PT, and lower power/noise as bonus. Brutally honest here, what does it really add to the picture? Getting your gaze drawn to puddles of water more readily?

In Cyberpunk you could make a better case for PT in comparison imho, there, some scenes are truly different, and where they do, its generally an improvement, a refinement if you will.

 

[JustBenching]

10GB card, as predicted; don't go complaining now

Compromises are always gonna happen sooner or later


You could, if that means in your use case you get playable FPS, correct.

Or you could only because you don't want to suffer higher noise and temp levels and power usage just because you turned on PT... I mean, sure. You could have a hundred reasons to lower settings. But for some settings its a no-brainer. And yes, medium is in a lot of situations a just fine IQ to be gaming at. That notion places everything in perspective nicely.

At the same time though, Maximum is likely closest to dev's artistic intentions, and it shows, because PT barely deviates from it. In this situation, even if I had a 4090, I would rather just have a solid min. FPS over PT, and lower power/noise as bonus. Brutally honest here, what does it really add to the picture? Getting your gaze drawn to puddles of water more readily?

In Cyberpunk you could make a better case for PT in comparison imho, there, some scenes are truly different, and where they do, its generally an improvement, a refinement if you will.

If you are talking specifically about this game, sure, PT doesn't look jaw dropping, at least not from the screenshots. I still give it the benefit of the doubt until I try it of course.

 

[sethmatrix7]

10GB card, as predicted; don't go complaining now

Compromises are always gonna happen sooner or later

Runs Starfield, Jedi survivor, and everything else great.

Shit game, shit developer.

 

[W1zzard]

Another site says the path tracing in AW2 is only used for indirect lighting.

That is definitely false. I've verified that ray traced reflections are only active when path tracing is active (screen space reflections are used otherwise)

https://imgur.com/MngEIyp

Edit: This is from NVIDIA's reviewer guide, suggesting AO is part of of Path Tracing, too.

https://imgur.com/7SClBkc

Edit2: Settings description in-game

 

[Vayra86]

Runs Starfield, Jedi survivor, and everything else great.

Shit game, shit developer.

Yeah Remedy is truly known for low quality releases mhm.
You might wanna get a reality check.

I'll skip the game because its simply not my cup of tea. But I don't see a token of poor devving here tbh. Sure, perf will be patched up a little, but the gist won't change, card hierarchy won't change... And raster perf is in a decent place given the engine/game type. Not great, not horrible either.

 

[Gucky]

Path tracing is actually broken in this game and removes a ton of shadows, look at dsogsmings article, he mentions it completely removes a ton of shadow.

It depends... some shadows might disappear (partially) if pathtracing introduces more light bounces then raytracing or raster...
If you shine a flashlight into a room, not only the wall in front of you is lit, but the whole room. But that also depends on the reflection of the room. A white room reflects more light then a room with black/dark walls (and much more).

What many games are missing are modern flashlights with 100000 Lumen. No shadow to hide.

There are also instances where path tracing adds a shadow, but that only happens ON objects:

That is because raytracing or raster does not add all possible shadows. Just thing about CP2077, same thing happens there.

 

[sethmatrix7]

Yeah Remedy is truly known for low quality releases mhm.
You might wanna get a reality check.

If needing a 4090 to run 1440p at not even 120 fps is a quality release to you, you might wanna get a reality check.

 

[W1zzard]

for Minimum FPS at 4K , any idea why 7700XT is slower than 3060 ?

FPS at 4K , 7700XT (12GB) vs 3060 (12GB) => 28.9 vs 18.2 ( 58% faster)
Min FPS at 4K , 7700XT (12GB) vs 3060 (12GB) => 15.0 vs 16.6 ( %9.6 slower )

This doesn't add up... Stutter Shader cache perhaps?

Maybe AMD hitting the VRAM limit while NVIDIA does not? Generally NVIDIA has better memory management, and is handling resource allocation a bit more efficiently