Alan Wake 2 [PC, PS5, XBSX|S] 17th october 2023

[davis.anthony]

Finished building my new PC so fired up Alan Wake 2 and honestly, I'm not that impressed by it graphically and I do think that CP2077 with over drive mode is a vastly better looking game.

Does Alan Wake 2 get better looking as you delve deeper in to?

 

[pharma]

Finished building my new PC so fired up Alan Wake 2 and honestly, I'm not that impressed by it graphically and I do think that CP2077 with over drive mode is a vastly better looking game.

Does Alan Wake 2 get better looking as you delve deeper in to?

Did you make the config file changes?

 

[davis.anthony]

Anyone else catch this reference?

 

[Man from Atlantis]

RTX 2060 12 GB on PS5 performance settings

 

[Jupiter]

Finished building my new PC so fired up Alan Wake 2 and honestly, I'm not that impressed by it graphically and I do think that CP2077 with over drive mode is a vastly better looking game.

Does Alan Wake 2 get better looking as you delve deeper in to?

Alan Wake 2 looks excellent but Cyberpunk 2077 impresses me even more. There, the lighting is more consistent and more objects/subjects look grounded. In addition, there was much more dynamism in Cyberpunk 2077. I haven't been to the big city in Alan Wake 2 yet, though.

Alan Wake 2 also runs worse but it is not surprising that the forest scenes are much more demanding than city landscpaes in Cyberpunk 2077. In Cyberpunk, the performance also dropped when you were in jungle-like places. Rendering many alpha textures is computationally intensive with pathtracing.

Both Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 currently are by far graphically the best titles that I have seen. After that comes Control, then Callisto Protocol or The Last of Us 2. However. the developers of Alan Wake 2 could have invested more in the animations when characters are talking or doing some stuff.

 

[Scott_Arm]

RTX 2060 12 GB on PS5 performance settings

So probably in the 40s out in the woods. DLSS performance mode might be the play if people are set on 60 fps. Don't think there's much to be gained by turning down the remaining settings like GI.

 

[GhostofWar]

Alan Wake 2 also runs worse but it is not surprising that the forest scenes are much more demanding than city landscpaes in Cyberpunk 2077.

Reconciliation Park in CP has alot of trees/foliage and it does cause a perf hit, someone could work out the performance delta if they wanted but it still probably wouldn't really help work out what's more performant in regards to path tracing. The video is linked where it starts going right into the heavy nature area.

Both Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 currently are by far graphically the best titles that I have seen. After that comes Control, then Callisto Protocol or The Last of Us 2. However. the developers of Alan Wake 2 could have invested more in the animations when characters are talking or doing some stuff.

No love for plague tale requiem? Going through the forest down the cliff along the beach in the start of chapter 7 was a visual treat, although I wouldn't put it above your first 2 choices.

 

[Man from Atlantis]

So probably in the 40s out in the woods. DLSS performance mode might be the play if people are set on 60 fps. Don't think there's much to be gained by turning down the remaining settings like GI.

at 1440p it's pretty good I must say. this card has all the latest goodies sans frame gen. have sufficient VRAM for its size too. If I'd look for a cheap upgrade from a polaris card or GTX 1060 this would be in my list.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Although the 2060 is clearly a weaker GPU than the PS5, its pretty impressive that thanks to DLSS it can provide a broadly equivalent experience in this game to the consoles. Perhaps even a marginally better experience with some careful settings selection, e.g. higher AF.

 

[GhostofWar]

higher AF.

Has there even been a logical or confirmed reason why consoles are still skimping on AF?

 

[troyan]

What’s the technical difference between pathtracing and raytracing for direct lights?

There are only a few "visible" lights included in the raytracing. Unlike Cyberpunk which has hundreds of real light sources Alan Wake 2 still relies on the tradional light system. Cyberpunk at night is like a total different experience. Alan Wake 2 is "just" fixing the most obviously problems with Raytracing (reflections and shadows from a light).

 

[trinibwoy]

There are only a few "visible" lights included in the raytracing. Unlike Cyberpunk which has hundreds of real light sources Alan Wake 2 still relies on the tradional light system. Cyberpunk at night is like a total different experience. Alan Wake 2 is "just" fixing the most obviously problems with Raytracing (reflections and shadows from a light).

Do you have a source for that? Few visible lights is a limit of rasterization, not raytracing.

 

[troyan]

nVidia had a talk about the performance cost of "standard raytracing" and RTXDI in UE5.2: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/on-demand/session/gtcspring23-s51851/

At the 14:00 mark they start with the comparision.

 

[TopSpoiler]

Do you have a source for that? Few visible lights is a limit of rasterization, not raytracing.

In traditional real time path tracing, sampling light sources done for few selected 'hero lights' (ie: The Minecraft RTX's path tracer could sample up to 100 torches if I remember correctly). ReSTIR, which derived from RIS, could sample over millions of light sources including surface light source.

 

[trinibwoy]

In traditional real time path tracing, sampling light sources done for few selected 'hero lights' (ie: The Minecraft RTX's path tracer could sample up to 100 torches if I remember correctly). ReSTIR, which derived from RIS, could sample over millions of light sources including surface light source.

The magic in ReStir is the reservoir and sampling algorithm. It’s still raytracing.

I was asking about the distinction between raytracing and pathtracing for direct lighting. By definition “direct” means one bounce to the light source.

 

[Remij]

I'd love to see the map texture issue fixed, and as a QoL improvement when moving things in the inventory/storage menu I'd love to be able to switch between each quickly by pressing LB and RB shoulder buttons.

 

[Shortbread]

Sometimes it's the very minor details that impress about AW2, one being how effectively RT/PT are use in reflections and lighting of minor items. An example of this would be in the cabin with the wolf prints leading to the upstairs area near the playpen, where you can reflect the backwall windows with your flashlight into the minor pictures hanging on the opposite wall. Instead of it just being a non-essential item or simple texture, the actual picture frame glass reflects the backwall so perfectly when viewing it at angle.

It is those minor things that I'm enjoying about AW2, and Remedy's attention to detail.

 

[sinTheta]

I was asking about the distinction between raytracing and pathtracing for direct lighting. By definition “direct” means one bounce to the light source.

Classic definition is that Ray Tracing is a general term for any algorithm tracing rays. Path Tracing usually refers to specific algorithm which traces N rays from camera. Each ray is then reflected or refracted based on surface properties. Where every bounce can be augmented with next event estimation which traces extra rays towards light sources to speed up convergence. So from this definition direct lighting is a byproduct of path tracing and there's no specific direct lighting pass.

In Cyberpunk and Alan Wake it seems like the definition is more loose and it's whether rays are traced recursively or not, so it's closer to Ray Tracing and Recursive Ray Tracing, but I digress.

Going back to the question my best guess is that "Ray Tracing" samples shadowing separately and mixes it with analytically integrated light. While "Path Tracing" samples both. This paper has a good example what's the visual difference: https://eheitzresearch.wordpress.com/705-2/

Thought it won't be clear until they release a tech talk, as Cyberpunk Overdrive still samples only the shadowing part based on their latest SIGGRAPH talk:

https://intro-to-restir.cwyman.org/

 

[Shortbread]

Has there even been a logical or confirmed reason why consoles are still skimping on AF?

It's mostly bandwidth related, especially on consoles with shared memory resources. PC's having separate memory resources (i.e., system ram and GPU VRAM) can maximize AF with very little difficulty, especially when high resolutions and high-res assets are involved. As such, it's easier to pare back AF on consoles to reserve more bandwidth and performance for more important pipeline features that developers want to use.

 

[davis.anthony]

The most impressive thing about this game is the amount of curves on everything.

No doubt the result of the mesh shaders but even little buttons on background assets have perfectly round edges.

The newspaper in the ground in NYC is also actual geometry which is super cool to see.