Alan Wake 2 isn’t compatible with older PC graphics cards

Alan Wake 2 is one of the first games to require Mesh Shaders and GPUs with DirectX 12 Ultimate support

Remedy have released the PC system requirements for Alan Wake 2 and they are controversial. Not only are they more demanding than most modern PC released, but they ask that PC gamers enable upscaling (DLSS or FSR 2) in all use cases. This has lead to many PC gamers calling the game “unoptimized”, even before being able to test the game themselves.

One of Remedy’s employees, @newincpp on X, revealed that Alan Wake 2 is one of the first PC games to requires support for Mesh Shaders. Mesh Shaders is part of Microsoft’s DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set. For Nvidia users, Mesh Shaders are only available on RTX 20 series or newer graphics cards. On the AMD side, Mesh Shaders are only available on RX 6000 series (RDNA 2) or newer GPUs.

GPUs from Nvidia’s GTX 10 series or AMD’s RX 5000 (RDNA 1) series and older lack supports for mesh shaders, making them unable to play Alan Wake II on PC.

What are Mesh Shaders?

Mesh Shaders allow developers to better control the geometry pipelines of graphics hardware. This feature will allow future games to offer more geometric precision at a low performance cost. Expect a lot of future games to require features like Mesh shaders.

Other DirectX 12 Ultimate features include Variable Rate Shading (VRS), Sampler Feedback, and DXR 1.1 ray tracing.

Alan Wake 2’s Controversial PC system requirements

A lot of PC gamers have complained about Remedy’s huge hardware demands for Alan Wake 2. The game’s mesh shader requirement leaves users with lower-end GPUs behind, and their request for gamers to use DLSS or FSR upscaling has irritated a lot of gamers. That said, the game’s previews have praised its strong visuals and its use of modern hardware features.

Microsoft launched their DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set in 2020. It has taken until late 2023 for a game to launch with Mesh Shaders as a requirement. Many PC gamers have wondered when we will see Mesh Shaders become a mainstream feature. Now that Alan Wake is launching with such a requirement, gamers are complaining about older GPUs, like Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, being left behind.

Today, PC gamers are complaining about titles like Assassin’s Creed Mirage for not utilising the latest graphical features while also saying the opposite for Alan Wake 2. There is a certain cognitive dissonance within the world of PC gaming where there is a desire for games to push the latest hardware, but also a demand for games to run well on GPUs that are over six years old. That’s the reason why there isn’t a “new Crysis”. You simply can’t please both camps.

You can join the discussion on Alan Wake 2’s use of Mesh Shaders on the OC3D Forums.