Alan Wake 2

Alex

Remaster of the first game apparently coming 5th of October.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-09-04-alan-wake-remastered-pops-up-on-retailer-websites-with-october-release-date

Gordon

Out tomorrow and reviewing extremely well. I never played the first one but I’m quite tempted. It’s only (!) £50 on PSN as well.

Alex

Yeah looking forward to this, although barely made a dent in AC Mirage yet.

Gordon

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2023-alan-wake-2-on-playstation-5-remedy-raises-the-bar-for-visual-accomplishment-once-again

Alex

Yeah I saw this earlier.

Jogort

Was hovering over the buy button on this for PC, required specs are pretty high with an Nvidia 3070 as recommended minimum 😱
Apparently looks absolutely stunning on all systems though even at low settings. Damn it why is there so many good games this month.

Brave

Jogort it’s Broketober dude. All in the name 😉

Alex

I’ve heard the PC version runs really well, despite the high system requirements.

It’s getting some crazy reviews, looking forward to getting it at some point. I think I will end up rationing out this month’s games over the next six months or so.

Jogort

Alex yeah I’ve read the same thankfully. Looks like it’s very vram hungry.
Good info on it here
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/alan-wake-2-performance-benchmark/6.html

Alex

Jogort Those graphs are very interesting but I notice they are without upscaling. I can’t imagine anyone running this without DLSS/FSR so would be nice to have the same information but with that turned on.

Still, according to that my 3070 should get around 50fps with max settings no RT at 1440p, which is perfectly playable with VRR turned on. With DLSS you might even be able to crank on some RT features.

Jogort

Alex Yeah there’s quite a few pages on that site going through all different settings & performance. I have a 3070Ti so hoping I can maybe turn on some RT and my monitors are only 1080 so that should help
Page 7 shows the RT and Path tracing benchmarks….my poor machine will be hurting 🤣
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/alan-wake-2-performance-benchmark/7.html

Alex

Hmm, just realised there’s no physical copy of this, which is interesting. Good thing that it’s not full price £70 then!

Jogort

I’ve got it, getting 30-40fps in medium with RT on also but with the internal resolution low, still looks pretty damn good.
I will say if some of the more tender people on here play it, remember your man nappies🤣🤣😝

Jogort

So a little fiddle and happy with 45-60fps so far and it looking stunning. Only a little ways in but it’s pretty damn freaky already. It’s a bit slow paced but that’s a nice change from LOTF

System
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor 3.80 GHz, 32Gig RAM, GeForce RTX 3070Ti 8Gig VRAM

Settings

Display Mode - Borderless
Display Res - 1920×1080
Render Res - 1114×626 (balanced mode)
Res Upscaling - DLSS
Vsync, motion blur & film grain all ON
Quality Preset - Custom
Post Processing Quality - High
Texture Res - High
Texture Filtering - Medium
Volumetric Lighting - Medium
Volumetric Spotlight Quality - Medium
Global Illumination Quality - High
Shadow Res - Medium
Shadow Filtering - High
Shadow Detail - Medium
SSAO - Off
Global Reflections - Off
SSR - Off
Fog Quality - High
Terrain Quality High
LOD - High
Scattered Object Density - High
Ray Tracing Preset - Medium
DLSS Ray Reconstruction - On
Direct Lighting - On
Direct Lighting Denoise Quality - High
Path Traced Indirect Lighting - Medium
Path Traced Indirect Lighting Denoise Quality - Medium
Transparency - High

Alex

Similar machine but a 3070 and my display res is 1440p. For me I’m running with DLSS Performance and RT turned off. I tried putting it on but it reduces the FPS a bit too much. I’m getting about 40-60 FPS with everything non-RT turned up to max.

MadAndy

That does look stunning 🤩

Alex

Good video from DF about what the different settings do on PC and how they compare to the PS5.

Alex

With all the in-game discussion of “the dark place”, I can’t help but always think of this. 😂

But yeah, a good chunk into it and, man, it’s kind of mental. It really brings parts of previous Remedy games together. It almost feels like not just a sequel to Alan Wake but to Quantum Break and Control as well. Also there is a whole big fourth wall breaking element to it. Really interested to see where it’s going.

Alex

I just completed the Valhalla Nursing Home section. All those Cynthia jump scares absolutely can fuck right off! 😂

Gordon

Alex I was actually going to buy this yesterday and then I read that it’s full of jump scares. Nope!