Back in the Day when Comand & Conquer Tiberian Sun was released i also missed looking at the Specs, because i loved the Releases before (when i had an updated Graphic Card it was the First Game which i had to update because inital Release was Buggy). Nowadays games are developed more for consoles or if like Alan Wake 2 on very expensive PC Hardware and its normal that you have to install updates.

 

Good, so did I.

The same principles used here as well. Textures and models are available in different resolutions, shadows are partly baked into textures, several older methods of reflection are used, trasparency can be deferred, etc, etc. But some very expensive effects are used, which are essential for the game experience. Not giving the player the possibility to turn them off is obviously a conscious - and IMHO good - design decision.

Developers have always decided how the game should look. They have always been the ones to decide what to let the player customize. Remedy uses its own engine.

I understand what you're getting at, but for one, you're putting words in my mouth, and secondly, I'm only talking about Alan Wake, not other games. There are many issues in the game industry that lead to all kinds of bad things, we certainly agree on some things, but this is definitely not the case here. Here, in this game we are talking about, some conscious decisions were made. I honestly don't understand the mimimi. "I want to play the latest and technically very impressive game with my $150 low-end GPU" is not an argument, but a loss of reality. Even 20 years ago you had to pay 400-700 bucks for a new GPU to play some graphically demanding games in medium or high details. Now and then, even two such GPUs were necessary in SLI. Just like the fact that some games required the latest hardware to be used because certain shaders were required to run the game. It's always been that way.


Edit:
I recently played a sidescroller that really made my 3080 sweat. This wasn't because of the high resolution or the graphics splendor, but simply because the developer used hundreds of individual light sources on the screen for his stylistically cool lighting, in addition to many other effects, instead of using a few light sources, adjusting the lighting range up and mixing additively or subtractively with others. This went so far that the light sources couldn't switch fast enough to turn on or off outside my screen. I could see the switching about 2cm from each edge of the screen. THAT is poorly optimized!

 

Last edited: Oct 30, 2023

problem is, nowadays "hi-end" RTX 4080 (non-Ti) costs 50% more than what "top-end" GTX 980Ti did years back, not even talking about older cards which were cheaper, even with inflation considered, and yet games struggle;

devs always tried to utilize max potential of gpu generation, or even next generation, but what's happening right now is wild, where even top-end cards cannot handle freshly released games!!

even cinematic-like Plague Tale Requiem runs okay on old 1080Ti at ultrawide 3440x1440, nobody "needs" better graphics in games to make games enjoyable and playable, games being badly optimized and unplayable just results in lower revenue and cutting costs in development resulting in worse games overall in the long run

 

Hmm... I have played about 4 hours of Alan Wake 2 on my RTX 3080 (not TI) with medium graphics settings at 1440p. It looks great and I have absolutely no problems.

 

I can wait 3-4 years to get it for free from Epic Store. Till then I think I can effort 30-40 series gpu with that shader lol.
(using 1080ti here. got it last week for $80)

I think alan wake 2 should rename preset to not using the word "low" Should be high, ultra and extreme instead XD.

 

Last edited: Oct 31, 2023

Not much of a gamer, but I encountered this article talking about the reason for the requirements: Mesh shaders explained: What are they, what's the big fuss, and why are they only in Alan Wake 2?

So if I understood correctly, mesh shaders are not yet implemented in game engines yet, outside a couple of exceptions, like AW2, so the tech/drivers/APIs whatever might need some work.

I didn't like the first one, though it was impressive and fun for a couple of hours (for free), but at least I'm not in a rush to upgrade my system just yet, so I can just wait and try this a few years down the line.