Digital Foundry: Alan Wake 2 Xbox Tech Review - Excellent On Series X, But What About Series S?

Gaiff said:
The Medium preset is a lot more demanding than what the consoles are using in performance mode. In fact, the Medium preset has higher settings than consoles even in Quality mode. The biggest performance hog is the post-processing setting which using Medium defaults to High, meaning post-processing effects will be done at your native resolution which can massively tank your fps.
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You are right, tested it now and it makes a pretty big difference in performance
SlimySnake said:
there is a memory leak.
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In the game itself ? Or do you mean on my end?
That could explain why i had normal performance at most points and ~30 at others (which just happened to be after long session).
I though it was just foliage+lightning being very demanding which given how well it looks seemed fair.
 
T4keD0wN said:
You are right, tested it now and it makes a pretty big difference in performance

In the game itself ? Or do you mean on my end?
That could explain why i had normal performance at most points and ~30 at others (which just happened to be after long session).
I though it was just foliage+lightning being very demanding which given how well it looks seemed fair.
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Its a bug in the game. Affects latter levels if you play for a long time. they are investigating it.

And yes, turning down the post processing setting will net you the same performance enabling RT reflections will do. Its like 20% hit to framerate just like RT reflections but little to not visual difference. You will notice it in some depth of field shots where there is extra shimmering but during gameplay it will be very hard to notice.
 
ITT: 30fps only mode with 60fps poor graphics settings has been normalised.
To the point where we're calling Capcom incompetent for trying to hit 60fps by lowering graphics settings. What is going on?
 
The game looks awful in some places on series X in perf mode. Lockers and other metallic surfaces have tiny white dots everywhere, also appears in Sagas hair, and surfaces in general have an oily, fuzzy sheen to them. Other areas look amazing, its odd. At first I thought it might be my Oled, but its the same on my wifes TV, she also plays on series X. I had the same issue on Cyberpunk. I think its the fact that some of the effects they use just dont work on consoles yet.
 
wow Xbox Series S SHINES when it isn't being ravaged by incompetence and complacency!

Remedy didn't just copy/paste code over to Xbox and hit "that'll do" like most third party developers do.

Inspirational :messenger_sunglasses:
 
Been playing in Quality mode on PS5 and they're right. There are quite a few segments where the game runs at lower than 30fps, it's very noticeable.
 
Three said:
ITT: 30fps only mode with 60fps poor graphics settings has been normalised.
To the point where we're calling Capcom incompetent for trying to hit 60fps by lowering graphics settings. What is going on?
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It's really going to blow your mind to learn that people who buy affordable GPUs don't expect the same visual performance as those who buy pricey GPUs.

K-Pop GIF
 
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shamoomoo said:
For the folks who suggested Alex's Alan Wake was not biased in any way, please explain this?
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Nothing to explain he is right.
AW2 runs like trash on ps5.
It's still devs fault. They should just put out identical version to XSX is the console has "weaker compute" whatever that is
 
Great performance for XSX, I'm gonna play it very soon. I stopped playing games on Day One, as I prefer to wait for a couple of patches and have the most possible "polished" experience. The atmosphere of this game is amazing, and the only way to wait, is playing Dead Space Remake first, and then Alan Wake 2 :D oh yeah.
ps : really happy it looks and runs great on XSX.
 
rofif said:
agreed


And yet ps4 games have way better image quality.
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Because they were using 1920x2160 to checkerboard to 4K on the PS4 Pro, not 1505x847 to upscale to 4K/1440p. Additionally, the much simpler rendering pipeline had less elements to consider in the final resolve. There's a reason we dropped AA techniques like MSAA that were fantastic in older games but started to look like shit in more visually complex titles.
 
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Negotiator101 said:
PS4? Really? Maybe PS4 Pro on certain games and One X definitely but PS4, I don't think so.
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absolutely.
Play uc4, tlou2, death stranding, horizon and few other games.
Sure, it's 1080p but stable. This fsr breakup and shimmer is crap.
Three said:
ITT: 30fps only mode with 60fps poor graphics settings has been normalised.
To the point where we're calling Capcom incompetent for trying to hit 60fps by lowering graphics settings. What is going on?
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That's what I've complained about in my topic year or so ago.
These modes are just an excuse not to make any of the modes good.
Usually, at least 30fps/40fps modes have better image quality or RT and 60fps modes are just low res. In case of AW2, quality mode is barely 30, no rt, no reflections and terrible image quality.

Imo, there should be no modes. Just make the game in ONE GOOD WAY and over "fps unlock", so we don't need patches with ps5 pro/ps6 etc.
Saying that though, I do appreciate 40fps modes.
 
Freeman76 said:
The game looks awful in some places on series X in perf mode. Lockers and other metallic surfaces have tiny white dots everywhere, also appears in Sagas hair, and surfaces in general have an oily, fuzzy sheen to them. Other areas look amazing, its odd. At first I thought it might be my Oled, but its the same on my wifes TV, she also plays on series X. I had the same issue on Cyberpunk. I think its the fact that some of the effects they use just dont work on consoles yet.
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It's the FSR2 upscaling with it's artifacts.
 
Negotiator101 said:
What he's saying is right though.
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No he isn't as he doesn't understand other factors like Data Streaming which no gaming device does faster than PS5 so it can't be utilized with 3rd party games.
shamoomoo said:
For the folks who suggested Alex's Alan Wake was not biased in any way, please explain this?
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Tried saying this the other day... some are conveniently blind.
SEGAvangelist said:
Huh? It actually looks like Remedy did a really great job with the Series S version.
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Better looking games can be found last gen vs this so called current gen consoles version of AW2.
 
S0ULZB0URNE said:
No he isn't as he doesn't understand other factors like Data Streaming which no gaming device does faster than PS5 so it can't be utilized with 3rd party games.

Tried saying this the other day... some are conveniently blind.

Better looking games can be found last gen vs this so called current gen consoles version of AW2.
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Alex is far more knowledgeable than you, he is also a PC gamer so has no bias between consoles.
 
rofif said:
ps4 slim. my shots from 2017. And these games are mostly stable in motion. in AW2 everything shimmers and flickers even when you don't move. When you move, it's tragedy.
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DS is upscaling from a native pixel count of 4.1 million pixels. thats what 4kcb is.

Alan Wake is upscaling from a native pixel count of around 2.8 million pixels. 1290p. or 1800p cb. They probably shouldve targeted FSR quality instead of balanced and lowered the settings instead.
 
GHG said:
Ok I'm now convinced this guy posts here.
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I thought he used to a while back, can't seem to find posts by him though, maybe a name change or something?
SlimySnake said:
DS is upscaling from a native pixel count of 4.1 million pixels. thats what 4kcb is.

Alan Wake is upscaling from a native pixel count of around 2.8 million pixels. 1290p. or 1800p cb. They probably shouldve targeted FSR quality instead of balanced and lowered the settings instead.
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He said PS4 slim.
 
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Too much flip flopping around "teraflops don't matter" to "teraflops do matter".

This game and its engine are heavily compute bound because it makes extensive use of mesh shaders so it was very likely going to run better on the Series X than the PS5.
 
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SlimySnake said:
DS is upscaling from a native pixel count of 4.1 million pixels. thats what 4kcb is.

Alan Wake is upscaling from a native pixel count of around 2.8 million pixels. 1290p. or 1800p cb. They probably shouldve targeted FSR quality instead of balanced and lowered the settings instead.
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That's just 1080p native. shots from ps4 slim.
yeah agree. FSR should not be used with THIS low res. Especially not with this many specular and grainy assets
 
Freeman76 said:
The game looks awful in some places on series X in perf mode. Lockers and other metallic surfaces have tiny white dots everywhere, also appears in Sagas hair, and surfaces in general have an oily, fuzzy sheen to them. Other areas look amazing, its odd. At first I thought it might be my Oled, but its the same on my wifes TV, she also plays on series X. I had the same issue on Cyberpunk. I think its the fact that some of the effects they use just dont work on consoles yet.
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FSR
 
Ozriel said:
It's really going to blow your mind to learn that people who buy affordable GPUs don't expect the same visual performance as those who buy pricey GPUs.

K-Pop GIF
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There you go contorting stuff again with your daft self. Who was saying people who buy affordable GPUs expect the same visual performance as those who buy pricey GPUs?
I'm saying I don't see how this is a triumph in optimisation on series S that makes other devs like Capcom seem incompetent when Remedy have halved the framerate, lowered the settings considerably AND cut back resolution. Was just pointing out how that half framerate has become normalised all of a sudden.

The cheek of you talking about expectations too when the expectation was "the same just at a lower resolution", now you're getting all three cutbacks, to framerate, to settings and to resolution. Even your own past posts thought differently.
Ozriel said:
Nah. It won't 'struggle' the way something like the Xbox One S is struggling right now. A cheaper device running games at a lower resolution with a few effects pared back isn't 'struggling'. It'll most likely run games at the same framerate with the bigger consoles. And it's inevitable they'll have an AI reconstruction tech in place for later.

I think many of you don't realize that people who buy the cheap, $299 option already know to manage their expectations. And that good looking games still tend to look good with a few nips and tucks here and there. There's a reason many XSS owners are pleasantly surprised how good the games look running on the hardware.
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Ozriel said:
Huh?
It's doing what it's advertised to do. Running 4K flagship games at 1080p, same framerate as the 2160p versions.

Didn't think this through, eh?
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rofif said:
pc gamers tend to dislike consoles with a bias.
And they also are mvoe favorable to xbox brand because they release on pc as opposed to ps
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In Alex's case, he's being stubborn because he was one of those saying Xbox would be running games better based on the specs sheet. He's using this as a "told ya" moment, instead of admitting that basing everything on TFlops was foolish.

3 years later, a handful of games perform significantly better on the Xbox and he thinks he's vindicated. I vaguely recall the same narrative being peddled with A Plague Tale: Requiem but it was back to the status quo after. Perhaps this has something to do with mesh shaders but games using that features are scarce so I'm not expecting to see such a performance difference often, assuming it's even due to the usage of mesh shaders.
 
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*Quantum Dreams has entered the chat

*Quantum Dreams has exited the chat

Edit: or Quantic Dreams 😔
 
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adamsapple said:
CMA would have denied approving if they saw the mesh shaders in effect. Smart move.
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I'm begging to all things holy that you guys are joking right now.

I could just imagine judge Corley saying "and what is this mesh shader that you're talking about, someone please explain it to me".

Would have been a hoot.
 
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