Alan Wake 2: What's The Difference Between Quality And Performance Modes?

on PS5 and series X Allen wake offers a quality mode and a performance mode which Target 30 and 60 frames per second respectively remedy has gone a lot further than just tweaking resolution here however and have cut back a range of settings to hit the higher performance mode Target most obviously the density of environmental objects is decreased quite a lot in the performance mode plants that are present in the quality mode are often entirely absent when we switch to Performance Gra also tends to see a reduction in density with a more sparse patchy appearance scattered leaves and rocks are similarly thinned out both modes look perfectly fine on their own terms but the quality mode looks significantly more Lush in head-to-heads with abundant thick foliage while we're looking at the terrain the performance mode also seems to have a slightly cruder terrain surface with less obvious displacement for ground details this is most obvious up close where the ground clearly featur features less geometry than the quality mode texture filtering takes a hit too if you look at the ground here the texture detail tends to blur more severely when viewed perpendicular to the camera most of the time it doesn't make a huge difference but distant texture detail in particular doesn't resolve well in the performance mode the actual resolution of in-game textures does seem to be unchanged however as both resolve similar detail levels at close range volumetric lighting also encounters some obvious cutbacks in in this shot the performance mode has less distinct volumetrics without the detailed Rays we see in quality mode resolution has been cut back somewhat to hit the harsher frame time Target fog quality is dialed down as well with a less pleasing presentation here next up is Shadow quality the performance mode Shadows are less comprehensive so distant objects like the flag here or this NPC don't have shadows neither mode looks great here but the quality mode does have obviously better Shadow coverage Shadow resolution though usually looks about the same between the two there are some exceptions like the Shadows from the string on the caseboard here but most of the time apparent Shadow resolution seems similar if not the same this post provides a good example you can see how both modes feature the same Alias edges in the exact same places most of the difference in typical play comes down to Shadow filtering which operates at a higher quality level in the quality mode edges have a more defocused appearance and shadows have a slightly smoother look helping to minimize the appearance of aliasing as I flip back and forth here notice how the smaller branches become more indistinct in the quality mode it's a subtle difference that again is only really noticeable in a close appraisal of the two modes there are a couple of other settings that have been changed as well LOD settings are more aggressive in the performance mode so Popin is more intrusive and occurs Clos to the player view Global illumination takes a hit too so certain details like saga's hair showcase less accurate Lighting in the performance mode screen space Reflections appear noticeably improved in the quality mode as well with a less grainy and better defined appearance though this is just a byproduct of the differences and rendering resolution between the two modes with visual settings out of the way let's move on to the resolution metrics the series X version renders at 1270p in quality mode with with a 4K FSR 2 output resolution in performance mode we're looking at an 847posts R2 struggles to maintain a smooth image especially in the performance mode image quality is one of the few areas where Allen wake's console code doesn't Excel and the results can be messy at times especially with lots of specular detail or with fine foliage elements like tree branches the combination of a third person perspective lots of dynamic lighting and somewhat aggressive resolution targets throws up issues for the FSR 2 here with an understandable but Annoying hit to image quality and what about PS5 we've been looking looking at the series X version so far but the PS5 is more or less a mirror image of the series X code across a range of tests I couldn't spot any real differences favoring either console key problem areas on the series X like a pretty messy Shadow resolve and mediocre screen space Reflections recur identically on the PS5 as far as I can tell that holds true across both the quality modes and the performance modes on both respective systems and resolution wise we're still at 1270p 847posts

Channel: DF Clips

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Id: uVQdBBldBHM

Length: 5min 11sec (311 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 03 2023