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Alan Wake PC | Tech, performance and information thread

S

Sethos

Banned
IcyBlueStrawberry said:
Some games that run like shit at 2560x1600 are much better at 1080p from what I've seen.
Click to expand...

Yes, games that are very graphically intensive can take a massive hit in 2560x1600, agreed. However, I can't stress this enough; this game is no graphical monster, visually! that is why it surprises me because nothing in this game warrants low performance. During the intro nightmare sequence everything is covered in darkness ( See Dennis' screenshot in this very thread ), you run along a dark map broken up by a few lampposts and a few brief glimpses of a lighthouse hidden away in darkness and fog. Even here, with nothing really going on the game isn't hitting any high FPS numbers. That usually tells me they are rendering completely unnecessary stuff or there's some effects that are much more taxing than what they really need to be.

Render distance. In the ferry sequence, the entire background is made up of mountains. These mounts are made up of simple polygons where some lower-resolution textures have been slapped on. That does not tax a system.

There is no correlation between what I see on screen and the massively varying FPS.

Some people in this thread just seem to defend this game with the notion that the engine is apparently out of this world. If the engine is so underwhelming visually and runs this bad, there's something wrong!

But leave it, I won't be playing the game ( yet again ), people can keep thinking the engine is the new Crysis benchmark with its 2009 feature set, DirectX 9, unimpressive lighting, horrible vegetation and low-res textures.
 
M

mxgt

Banned
1080p, everything maxed with MSAA on 2x and FXAA on low.

40-60fps, above 50 most of the time, has yet to drop below 40. It's not that bad to be honest.

Rig is 2500k 4.4ghz and a GTX570 stock.
 
H

Horse Armour

Member
plagiarize said:
he'd need to push 40 times the pixels of the 360 version to run at 60 fps. 40 times!

do people think Alan Wake ran at 540p on 360 because 'lol'?
Click to expand...

Precisely. Alan Wake running at 1080p 60FPS is running at four times the resolution and more than twice the framerate of the 360 version which would need at least 8x the power of the 360 assuming that they were able to get the same efficieny from the PC version as they did the 360 version and that's not mentioning the improved textures, antialiasing, texture filtering and lightning. A GTX 580 is around 10-11x faster than the 360, so it not achieving a perfect 60FPS at 1080p is more than reasonable.
 
Domstercool

Domstercool

Member
plagiarize said:
apparently AMD put together a fix for crossfire that has them at about 60% scaling. not sure what drivers that's part of. SLI is currently borked but i understand crossfire is not, at least not with the right drivers (or profile perhaps).
Click to expand...

I just looked at the site and you are right, it seems Cap 3 was updated to fit them in!

New profiles added to this release:
- Alan Wake - Improves CrossFire performance
Click to expand...
 
I

IcyBlueStrawberry

Member
My download has restarted twice -_-

It will run at 5 mb/s for a while, then it will reset and start again at less than 1mb/s. I've never had that happen before.
 
S

sp3000

Member
plagiarize said:
the same is true of crysis though... and the texture resolution and the number of polygons in those distant objects don't really have anything to do with doing lighting calculations over a much bigger area.

the engine renders things to a distance of 2k. that isn't an opinion. you'll soon see that there are levels where you can see something really far away that you seamlessly move out to.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure why you feel a strong urge to defend the tech of cheap console ports. It's pretty obvious remedy outsourced this to an external team who simply added resolution options and some AA settings and called it a day.

Crysis does not illuminate over a distance and neither does alan wake. There was no global illumination until crysis 2. The draw distance is a meanngless calculation because its simply a smoke and mirrors effect masked with object lods.

What matters then is asset quality and texture resolution, both of which are the same as the 360 version.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
Sethos said:
Yes, games that are very graphically intensive can take a massive hit in 2560x1600, agreed. However, I can't stress this enough; this game is no graphical monster, visually! that is why it surprises me because nothing in this game warrants low performance. During the intro nightmare sequence everything is covered in darkness ( See Dennis' screenshot in this very thread ), you run along a dark map broken up by a few lampposts and a few brief glimpses of a lighthouse hidden away in darkness and fog. Even here, with nothing really going on the game isn't hitting any high FPS numbers. That usually tells me they are rendering completely unnecessary stuff or there's some effects that are much more taxing than what they really need to be.

Render distance. In the ferry sequence, the entire background is made up of mountains. These mounts are made up of simple polygons where some lower-resolution textures have been slapped on. That does not tax a system.

There is no correlation between what I see on screen and the massively varying FPS.

Some people in this thread just seem to defend this game with the notion that the engine is apparently out of this world. If the engine is so underwhelming visually and runs this bad, there's something wrong!
Click to expand...
there isn't. the lighting in Alan Wake is much more complex than your average game. it's very fillrate dependant, and upping the resolution puts a massive strain on your graphics card as a result. in a brightly lit scene like the beginning, you aren't really getting a benefit from the complex real time lighting vs the sort of prebaked lighting you'd see in such scenes in most games.

but, the realtime lighting really comes alive when the wind starts blowing, and you'll see much more open spaces with some really dynamic lighting going on further into the game. i promise :)

a lot of the daylight scenes don't expose the dynamic lighting, and so you don't see the benefit of all that extra number crunching, but there is benefit to it, and you'll see it as levels get bigger, and you have loads of dynamic light sources at once, and the trees and shadows are all moving in the wind.
 
T

Tifou

Banned
sp3000 said:
I'm not sure why you feel a strong urge to defend the tech of cheap console ports. It's pretty obvious remedy outsourced this to an external team who simply added resolution options and some AA settings and called it a day.

Crysis does not illuminate over a distance and neither does alan wake. There was no global illumination until crysis 2. The draw distance is a meanngless calculation because its simply a smoke and mirrors effect masked with object lods.

What matters then is asset quality and texture resolution, both of which are the same as the 360 version.
Click to expand...

You don't know what you are talking about
 
D

Darklord

Banned
sp3000 said:
I'm not sure why you feel a strong urge to defend the tech of cheap console ports. It's pretty obvious remedy outsourced this to an external team who simply added resolution options and some AA settings and called it a day.
Click to expand...

No.

m5PjWl.jpg
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
sp3000 said:
I'm not sure why you feel a strong urge to defend the tech of cheap console ports. It's pretty obvious remedy outsourced this to an external team who simply added resolution options and some AA settings and called it a day.
Click to expand...
because what you have just claimed is baseless speculation that goes against actual facts.

Crysis does not illuminate over a distance and neither does alan wake. There was no global illumination until crysis 2. The draw distance is a meanngless calculation because its simply a smoke and mirrors effect masked with object lods.
Click to expand...
and i never said Alan Wake did global illumination. GI is a specific lighting effect. Crysis and Alan Wake both have realtime dynamic lighting, it just isn't GI.

What matters then is asset quality and texture resolution, both of which are the same as the 360 version.
Click to expand...
that isn't all that matters to *me*. i wish the game had better assets yes, and i will not defend them, just as i won't defend the IQ of the 360 version. i will argue though, that there are things that the game does extremely well visually.

because there are things that the game does extremely well visually. bad assets doesn't magically make the lighting shit. me being a whore for lighting is nothing new.
 
CAW

CAW

Member
I forgot I had some override settings via CCC, for Skyrim. I set them back to 'user application settings' and now everything in the game runs fine, maxed, including FXAA.

Whew!

How many are using the K&M over the pad? Finding the pad a bit more comfortable, but then again I did play the 360 version when it released so maybe that's why.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Darklord said:
No.
Click to expand...
They also added a couple of other things, some of which (no HUD and FOV) may have been by fan request.

Steam said:
■Lots of customizable graphics settings and support for 4:3, 16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratios!
■Multithreaded engine that takes advantage of quad core CPUs.
■Additional features our fans have sought after such as field of view adjustment as well as “hide HUD”.
■Works with AMD Eyefinity 3D 3-screen mode.
■Works with NVIDIA NVISION2 Stereoscopic 3D
Click to expand...
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
IcyBlueStrawberry said:
I'm willing to bet the 79xx drivers are going to break that trend :p.
Click to expand...

that's what i'm afraid of. the PCGH benchmarks showing the 7970 as the fastest card for this game gives me hope though...

like i said, watch it run like shit on my system and see me back here in less than two hours bitching. lighting and environmental effects in the 360 version are some of the best i've seen though... i hate that people overlook such things and just focus on where the game is weak visually.

if i'm staying above 40 fps at 1080p with everything maxed (and/or the same at 720p 3D on my HMZs) i'll be happy.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
DennisK4 said:
Looks good.
Click to expand...

I agree -- I requested earlier but you might not have seen it, do you mind posting one of the crazy full-sized x1600 pictures (a night scene would be nice if you have one, but any time is fine)?

Also it looks like there are some really low-res/low-poly assest in places, but that doesn't bother me too much. :D
 
E

Erasus

Member
Anyone with a 8800GTX/ATI4830/ATI4850?

I still run Hard Reset medium 1080p, Skyrim, BFBC2, TF2, FEAR3, Fallout 3,Aion, Crysis 2 "High"

All 1080p, but it sounds like this is badly optimized, like BF3 (I max bad company 2 but cant run bf3 on low trolololol)

I might be willing to put it down to 720p but then it feels like a waste. :/
 
Hawk269

Hawk269

Member
The game does look pretty fantastic. Performance could be better. I run 2x580's and when I shot a flare at 3 enemies it dipped to 35fps. This is at 1080p and every setting set to the max. For the most part though, I am averagaing around 50-55fps or so with some dips into the 40's and only in the 30's when launching a flare.

Does anyone know how to turn off the motion blur when spinning the camera? I really cant stand motion blur in these types of games.

Oh and it is so nice to play the daytime scenes now at a proper resolution.

For first time players, when you get to the lake house, walk back up to where the car is parked. There are alot of hidden little cutscenes that can play out by "adventuring".
 
D

Dictator93

Member
Sethos said:
Yes, every other game in the world runs fine except this game, MUST BE THAT MONITOR!

People are way too defensive over a poorly optimized game that doesn't even look that good from a graphical standpoint ( Artistic style is nice )



http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35197434&postcount=2339

Downsampled however :)
Click to expand...

If you are running it at that REZ you should not be surprised that it runs kind of poorly. Like metro 2033 this game has fullrez everything. So all post-effects run at your native resoultion. Hence, it should runs scale-linearly worse and worse the more you jack up the rez.
 
S

Sethos

Banned
Dictator93 said:
If you are running it at that REZ you should not be surprised that it runs kind of poorly. Like metro 2033 this game has fullrez everything. So all post-effects run at your native resoultion. Hence, it should runs scale-linearly worse and worse the more you jack up the rez.
Click to expand...

"fullrez everything", lolwat?

And other PC games run stuff at half-res?


Another another note, just messed around with the settings, going from FXAA High to Off, turned down SSAO etc. and it had NO impact on performance whatsoever, still hovered around 30FPS.

How is that even possible?
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Sethos said:
"fullrez everything", lolwat?

And other PC games run stuff at half-res?


Another another note, just messed around with the settings, going from FXAA High to Off, turned down SSAO etc. and it had NO impact on performance whatsoever, still hovered around 30FPS.

How is that even possible?
Click to expand...
Realtime dynamic lighting/shadows typically kill performance in games, especially at higher resolution as far as I'm aware. STALKER is an old example of this, and it's not like STALKER was the best looking game ever.

I'm not a master of 3D tech (I've mostly just done stuff with the UDK), but I would not be surprised if some games used reduced (half-res?) post-processing effects to save processing power. It would make sense and I'm guessing it might look fine in some cases, depending on the game. To take a really stupid example, say you want to do a vignette overlay. If you really wanted to, for whatever reason, you could use a quarter-res overlay but scale it to the full screen size. You don't need as much texture space to store it, and it might look fine.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
Sethos said:
"fullrez everything", lolwat?

And other PC games run stuff at half-res?
Click to expand...
yes. lighting effects are often performed on half res. Dirt 2 in DX9 does some of it's effects at half the resolution. DX10 doesn't, and for me, i see a big difference in IQ between the two modes. i'm sure lots of other games do this too.

Another another note, just messed around with the settings, going from FXAA High to Off, turned down SSAO etc. and it had NO impact on performance whatsoever, still hovered around 30FPS.

How is that even possible?
Click to expand...
http://forum.alanwake.com/showthread.php?t=7725 this might help. it explains what settings do what, and what they stress. post #6 tells you the equivalent 360 version settings to give you an idea of what you're pushing and where.
 
I

IcyBlueStrawberry

Member
Only played through the very first section, but my 7970 was locked at 60 fps @ 1080p with everything maxed including MSAA & FXAA. I obviously expect drops later, but this game does actually look good (artistically and technically) and I'm not at all bothered by the prospect of performance issues.
 
S

Sethos

Banned
Blizzard said:
Realtime dynamic lighting/shadows typically kill performance in games, especially at higher resolution as far as I'm aware. STALKER is an old example of this, and it's not like STALKER was the best looking game ever.

I'm not a master of 3D tech (I've mostly just done stuff with the UDK), but I would not be surprised if some games used reduced (half-res?) post-processing effects to save processing power. It would make sense and I'm guessing it might look fine in some cases, depending on the game. To take a really stupid example, say you want to do a vignette overlay. If you really wanted to, for whatever reason, you could use a quarter-res overlay but scale it to the full screen size. You don't need as much texture space to store it, and it might look fine.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's possible but it is not a common practice in PC games, isn't that more of a console thing to render effects and whatnot at a lower resolution? Because right now, all I'm seeing is a game that looks no better than any other PC game available yet the performance is completely screwed up.

plagiarize said:
http://forum.alanwake.com/showthread.php?t=7725 this might help. it explains what settings do what, and what they stress. post #6 tells you the equivalent 360 version settings to give you an idea of what you're pushing and where.
Click to expand...

I'm well aware of what settings do. SSAO alone should net you a few frames and going from FXAA on to off, especially their higher quality FXAA. That should also net you a framerate increase no matter what, here it netted me NOTHING.
 
S

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Sethos said:
But leave it, I won't be playing the game ( yet again ), people can keep thinking the engine is the new Crysis benchmark with its 2009 feature set, DirectX 9, unimpressive lighting, horrible vegetation and low-res textures.
Click to expand...

derp
 
B

brain_stew

Member
Sethos said:
"fullrez everything", lolwat?

And other PC games run stuff at half-res?


Another another note, just messed around with the settings, going from FXAA High to Off, turned down SSAO etc. and it had NO impact on performance whatsoever, still hovered around 30FPS.

How is that even possible?
Click to expand...

I'd say the majority of modern game engines render certain buffers and effects below native resolution, yes. Even the original Crysis does for postprocess effects, shadows and SSAO (and that's all I know for sure, there could be more).


Sethos said:
Yes, it's possible but it is not a common practice in PC games, .
Click to expand...

It absolutely is.
 
S

Sethos

Banned
subversus said:
derp
Click to expand...

Please, this lighting was impressive by 2009 standards. We have moved on.

brain_stew said:
I'd say the majority of modern game engines render certain buffers and effects below native resolution, yes. Even the original Crysis does for postprocess effects, shadows and SSAO (and that's all I know for sure, there could be more).
Click to expand...

Fine but it still doesn't explain the disconnect between this games looks and performance.
 
I

IronRinn

Member
So, I realize that the physical edition of this doesn't come out until March 2, but does anyone know where you'll be able to purchase one from in the US? Would really like to pick up the Collector's Edition but it almost seems like it's UK or Europe only. Amazon, Gamestop, et al don't seem to list it at all.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
IcyBlueStrawberry said:
Only played through the very first section, but my 7970 was locked at 60 fps @ 1080p with everything maxed including MSAA & FXAA. I obviously expect drops later, but this game does actually look good (artistically and technically) and I'm not at all bothered by the prospect of performance issues.
Click to expand...

good news. don't suppose you've tried it in 3D have you?

Sethos said:
Please, this lighting was impressive by 2009 standards. We have moved on.
Click to expand...

i wish Alan Wake's lighting was a baseline standard here in 2012. Crysis 2 DX11 beats it... but i'm not sure what else does. haven't played BF3 but i've heard good things there.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
Sethos said:
Please, this lighting was impressive by 2009 standards. We have moved on.



Fine but it still doesn't explain the disconnect between this games looks and performance.
Click to expand...

Several people have tried to explain repeatedly why the game is so demanding, its upto you to understand their posts.
 
S

Sethos

Banned
brain_stew said:
Several people have tried to explain repeatedly why the game is so demanding, its upto you to understand their posts.
Click to expand...

Oh, you mean the explanation they are using rendering techniques that are overly taxing on the hardware yet provides no visual different over, say bog standard dynamic lighting or even a pre-baked lighting in some cases? I'm supposed to call that acceptable for my game chugging along at 30FPS on top of the line hardware when it looks like something from last year?
 
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