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

Allen wake 2 is one of the best looking video games ever made with beautiful lighting and intricate asset detail it's a bit of a technical showcase especially on PC with path tracing enabled the PS5 release also looks brilliant as I covered in a video last week with the same beautiful visuals bereft of some path rcing niceties and with some image quality issues but I didn't have time in that earlier video to do a deep dive on the differences between the performance and quality modes present in the console versions of the game and I didn't have an opportunity to look at Xbox consoles at all so what are the mode differences and is there any meaningful Advantage for PS5 or series X and what downgrades should Series S owners expect on their pint-sized machines 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 though most of these alterations are fairly subtle we'll start by comparing the two modes on series X and will loop back to PS5 in a bit 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 s to Performance grass 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 foreground details this is most obvious up close where the ground clearly 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 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 modee 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 L settings are more aggressive in the performance mode so Popin is more in intrusive and occurs closer 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 a 4K FSR 2 output resolution in performance mode we're looking at an 847posts R2 struct struggles to maintain a smooth image especially in the performance mode image quality is one of the few areas where alen 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 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 a 1270p 847posts with uncommon exceptions we can drop a frame or two sometimes during traversal and there are a few moments that cause momentary frame rate drops but the game feels quite smooth in general play the consistency of the turnout here is surprising and speaks to how scalable the game is on the GPU and to how accommodating Allen wake 2 can be towards lower-end CPU Hardware quality mode is even more stable in my capture only this moment in the overlap caused any issues at all and it poses issues for all other console platforms as well so there's no particular problem on series series X here everywhere else the game runs at a locked 30 frames per second with no deviations that I could see again Allen wake 2 is delivering great results despite the highly Advanced visual presentation PS5 doesn't Faire quite as well certain areas really struggle in the performance mode like this forested section which runs consistently in the 50s we see occasional dips elsewhere as well with a bit of an unstable feel in typical play the frame rate Delta against the series X is surprising as you can see here with the PS5 consistently failing to reach its frametime Target in some missions the same is true in the quality mode the PS5 is just running up against the 33.3 millisecond frame budget all the time at least in tougher areas like the second Saga Anderson Mission performance is a bit more stable here as you might expect and most of the time the game does achieve its 30fps Target but the results are a bit more mixed than you typically expect from a 30f PS current Jen game Beyond frame rates Allen wake 2 is also pretty Nimble and tends to load quite quickly this load to an identical location across the two consoles takes about 7 seconds and 9 seconds respectively with the PS5 being a slightly faster machine the game uses video sequences to mask loading between locations but these can be skipped after a few seconds Spider-Man 2 it is not but Allen Wick's loading won't test your patience at all Microsoft's Junior current gen console the spelt Series S does tend to struggle with some of the more boundary pushing pieces of current gen software so how does it cope with Allen wake 2 Allen wake 2 runs with a 30fps Target on Series S with no option to engage a higher frame rate mode this is pretty common in series s games where High frame rate options often impose OS an image quality penalty that is simply too large at least when it comes to particularly demanding titles beyond that concession though the series squits itself decently well as the visual settings are very similar to the series X performance mode object density is about the same with an identical rendition of the grass in this shot Shadow quality is identical again look at the matching saw to edges on the wood Poole the similar aliasing pattern from the foliage on the white van or the in NPC and flag shadows in both shots here volumetric lights also appear to have the same rather limited resolution on both systems textures do throw up a bit of a difference most textures seem to be a complete match between the two machines here these signs are a good example but in the mind place the caseboard textures clearly have a much lower resolution on Series S the text in particular looks pretty messy on the S although the accompanying photograph graphs also look less distinct screen space Reflections are also degraded a bit on the S the static grain pattern seems slightly more prominent and detail is muddier in the reflected image I don't think that stems from visual settings downgrade though it's more likely to be a byproduct of the game's lower rendering resolution internally the series s is operating at or around 720p that's down from the 847posts output resolution though remains at 1440p as the two consoles exhibit very similar Clarity in Stills and the rare snippet of UI that isn't anti- alist comes in at a 1440p pixel count when moving through the game world it's easier to spot aling on the series s version neither console is really covering itself in glory here but I'd prefer the series X image overall performance-wise the series s manages a pretty stable 30fps with an update that is a bit bit more consistent than PS5 but Falls slightly short of its more powerful sibling there are some occasional moments in tougher areas like this wooden section where it can drop frames though it tends to be well behaved Elsewhere for a cut price console I think the series s is delivering a perfectly fine update here and the excellent motion blur and slower paced gameplay render the lack of a 60fps option less of an issue than it would be in many other titles the premier allenwick experience is undoubtedly on the PC platform with frankly incredible path trce lighting excellent image quality courtesy of dlss and the potential for high frame rates it comprehensively bests the console code but the consoles still look excellent in their own right with Top Class visuals even absent sum of the PC versions tempting visual treats for those players who are looking for good experience on console consoles I think all systems do a reasonable enough job the performance and quality modes on the premium current gy machines are also well calibrated with the performance option looking great despite the halved frame time Target but the series X has a notable and unexpected performance Advantage running a good deal faster than the PS5 in taxing scenarios making it the console of choice for now Series S also puts in a commendable effort essentially runting the other systems per performance mode at 30 FPS with a slightly lower resolution given the series s's issues with raw GPU performance and RAM allocation I'm surprised that Allen awake 2 has managed to deliver good visuals here all consoles do exhibit certain issues though Shadows suffer from considerable aliasing screen space Reflections have a grainy appearance that doesn't look very pleasing and image quality is questionable at times with the performance modes and Series S most badly affected which likely stems from aggressive of upsampling targets combined with challenging visual content the game does suffer from some bugs as well including some cutscene audio sync errors on the Xbox versions so it may be worth holding off for a while while patches are deployed but overall I'd say that alen wake 2 is a great experience on Console systems this is a real visual accomplishment on the consoles delivering well-calibrated visuals even on the series s there's still room for improvement and the PS5 needs a bit of tooling to run it more consistent frame rates but it's a truly impressive game if you enjoyed this video please like subscribe and press the bell for YouTube notifications check out the patreon at digital founder. net for exclusive and Early Access content and to get in touch use social media thanks for watching

Channel: Digital Foundry

Views: 190,096

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Length: 13min 51sec (831 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 31 2023