Quality Presets Performance Compared – GeForce RTX 40 Series
Now that we have a great baseline for how NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs and AMD Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs compare in performance in Alan Wake 2, we wanted to dive a little deeper into the Game Preset quality modes themselves. Therefore, on this page, we will look at each video card individually, and compare the four Quality Presets and how they scale and perform in the game starting with the GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs on this page. Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs will be on the next page.
You may be asking yourself, how are you showing four presets, if there are only three: High, Medium, and Low? Well, that is because remember that setting “High” doesn’t actually set the highest quality settings possible in the game. You can in fact manually customize them and turn up all the knobs to even higher settings, and so that is what we are doing with the fourth: “Maximum” quality setting we are also going to test. Therefore, we can test: the “Maximum”, “High”, “Medium”, and “Low” quality presets to see how they scale in Alan Wake 2.
In the above graph, no upscaling is used, this is native resolution at 4K and no ray tracing. With the GeForce RTX 4090, we see a clear scaling of quality preset settings from Low to Maximum. It appears that pushing the settings even higher, from High to Maximum incurs an 8% hit to performance, so the game can go higher for sure, but it does cost something, even on the RTX 4090. The game is still playable though at Maximum settings and 4K without upscaling. Turning on Maximum compared to Low is a 21% hit to performance, while High is a 14% hit from Low. The scaling is pretty linear here. You should be able to play at Maximum settings on the RTX 4090 at 4K even without upscaling, but enabling DLSS will of course make it even more enjoyable.
In the above graph, we are looking at the GeForce RTX 4080 at 4K with no upscaling and no ray tracing. Unlike the GeForce RTX 4090, the GeForce RTX 4080 has a more stark difference between the High and Maximum presets compared to the Medium and Low presets. It seems that the highest Maximum settings cause a smaller hit from High of 6%, but if you compare the Maximum to Low the difference is 23%. From Low to Medium we see a 9% hit to performance, but from Medium to High there is a 10% drop. At these settings, you can make the GeForce RTX 4080 playable at 4K without upscaling if you use the Medium preset, which allows 4K gaming on the RTX 4080 without upscaling.
In the above graph we have lowered the resolution to 1440p for the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, but still at native resolution without upscaling and without ray tracing. The first thing to notice is that the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti can play Alan Wake 2 very well even at the Maximum custom settings above of the game, so that is possible at 1440p on the video card. We see a very linear scaling of the graphics settings here, moving from Low to Medium to High to Maximum. Moving from Low to Medium drops performance by 7% and from Medium to High is 12% which is a higher drop, and then from High to Maximum is a 10% drop.
With the GeForce RTX 4070 above, we are still at 1440p with no upscaling and no ray tracing. Interestingly, the GeForce RTX 4070 does fall below 60 FPS at 1440p when you use the highest Maximum quality settings in the game, while at High it is above 60 FPS. However, the game still feels playable at 55 FPS average, but it is on the lower side. Moving from Low to Medium is a 9% drop in performance from Medium to High is a 14% drop and from High to Maximum is an 11% drop which is higher than the previous cards.
With the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB video card above, we have dropped to 1080p since 1440p is just a bit much at the higher settings for it. We can hit 60 FPS average and above on the video card, however, even at Maximum settings at 1080p without upscaling. Once again we see a very linear scaling of graphics settings. From Low to Medium is a 10% drop in performance, and from Medium to High is a 10% drop in performance, and from High to Maximum is a 14% drop, which is a bit bigger to go to Maximum settings.
With the GeForce RTX 4060, we find that it really struggles at the higher game settings, even at 1080p. The GeForce RTX 4060 is not able to provide a playable experience at the Maximum quality settings in Alan Wake 2. You will have to play at High quality, or better yet Medium quality for the best experience on the GeForce RTX 4060 without upscaling. Moving from Low to Medium is an 11% drop in performance, from Medium to High is a 10% drop in performance and High to Maximum is a large 16% drop in performance.