Alan Wake 2 PC Performance Review and Optimisation Guide

Introduction – This is what a next-generation game looks like

Alan Wake 2 shows the power of modern PC hardware

Alan Wake 2 is now available on PC, and it looks incredible. The game is filled with detail, it contains many advanced graphical features, and utilises the latest GPU hardware features. Like Control before it, Alan Wake 2 is a graphical showcase on PC and consoles. Moreover, the game has graphical features that can bring even the latest graphics cards to their knees.

When Remedy released their PC system requirements for Alan Wake 2, we knew that the game was going to be heavy on graphics cards. When maxed out, the game makes heavy use of ray tracing, and on PC the game supports Nvidia’s DLSS 3.5 feature set and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 technology. Most PC gamers are expected to play Alan Wake 2 with some form of upscaling or Frame Generation enabled. That’s how demanding this game can be.

Making use of the latest hardware features

Remedy created Alan Wake 2 with the DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set in mind. We have already mentioned the game’s extensive use of DXR ray tracing, but the game’s feature DX12U support does not end there. Mesh Shaders are vital to achieving solid performance levels in Alan Wake 2. This is why the game has so much geometric detail, and why the game runs so poorly on older graphics cards.

With Alan Wake 2, Remedy are showing gamers what can be achieved if developers let go of legacy hardware support. Mesh Shaders arrived with Nvidia’s RTX 20 series in 2018. It took five years for a high profile PC game to make explicit use of this feature, and moving forward we expect a lot of games to use it. It’s time for developers to fully embrace the DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set.

Review Contents

• CPU Performance
• Memory Performance
• Preset Scaling, Low, Medium, High, and Ray Tracing
• DLSS Super Resolution and Frame Generation
• FidelityFX Super Resolution 2
• Ray Tracing On VS Ray Tracing Off
• Mesh Shaders
• DLSS Ray Reconstruction – Visual and Performance Impact
• Optimised Settings for Alan Wake 2
• 1080p Performance
• 1440p Performance
• 4K Performance
• Conclusion

GPU Drivers

When testing Alan Wake 2 on PC, we utilised the newest Nvidia and AMD GPU drivers that were available to us at the time of the game’s launch. These drivers were Radeon’s AMD Software Adrenalin Edition version 23.20.17.05 driver, and Nvidia’s GeForce 545.92 WHQL drivers for Windows 10/11.