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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteShort answer: Alan Wake II can demand a powerful GPU when you enable its most demanding ray-tracing features, but the evidence does not show that every player needs a flagship card. A 2023 independent benchmark found that lowering ray tracing and using upscaling made the game playable across a wider range of tested GPUs. Since then, Remedy has added graphics features that the benchmark did not test, so its results are useful historical examples—not a current GPU ranking.
What the 2023 benchmark found
HotHardware’s October 27, 2023 test showed why Alan Wake II earned a reputation as a demanding PC game: the heaviest ray-tracing settings put even high-end cards under pressure. The results depended on the selected preset, output and render resolutions, upscaling, and—in one card’s case—texture quality.
4K output with High ray tracing
For its 4K output test, HotHardware selected High ray tracing and DLSS Performance, which the article describes as rendering from a 1920×1080 input resolution. The RTX 3080 struggled at that setting, and the RTX 4080 could not maintain a 60 FPS average without DLSS 3.5 frame generation. Those are findings from that test, game build, and driver period; they do not establish how current cards perform on later versions.
1080p output with Medium ray tracing
At 1080p output, HotHardware compared Medium ray tracing with Quality upscaling, using DLSS on GeForce cards and FSR2 on Radeon cards. In that test, the RTX 3080 outperformed the Radeon cards included, and the RTX 4060 Ti also performed better than those two Radeon cards. Frame generation materially changed the RTX 4060 Ti’s relative showing, so the comparison was not simply a measure of conventionally rendered frames.
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Low ray tracing
HotHardware said Low ray tracing disabled path-traced indirect lighting. Under that setting, the reviewer described both tested Radeon cards, the RTX 3060 12GB, and Intel Arc A770 as playable. The RTX 4080 still struggled above 1080p render resolutions in the reviewer’s tests. “Playable” is the article author’s qualitative judgment about those test conditions, not a guarantee for every scene or system.
How to read those results
HotHardware used a Windows 10 Pro 22H2 system with a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, 32 GB of DDR4-3600 memory, an ASRock X570 Taichi motherboard, and PCIe 4 NVMe storage. Its tested GPUs were the GeForce RTX 4080, RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, RTX 3080, and RTX 3060 12GB; Radeon RX 7700 XT and RX 6800 XT; and Intel Arc A770 16GB. The article cited then-current drivers, including NVIDIA 545.92, AMD Adrenalin 23.10.2, and Intel Arc driver 4900. It tested four locations at the High quality preset, which did not set every option to maximum. Read HotHardware’s test and methodology.
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The game had no built-in benchmark, so the reviewer manually gathered data in repeatable locations. HotHardware also noted that its normal test workbenches were not configured for Epic Games Store titles. Those factors help explain why its observations cover selected locations and cards rather than an exhaustive or fully automated GPU comparison.
VRAM and texture quality
Memory capacity affected the tested RTX 4060 Ti: its 8 GB of VRAM caused severe stuttering in two of four locations at Ultra textures, so HotHardware lowered that card to High textures. That is a specific observation from its test, not proof that every 8 GB card will behave identically on every build or setting.
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Can your PC run Alan Wake II?
Remedy’s official FAQ says, “Alan Wake 2 requires an SSD.” Its March 6, 2024 PC update notes say the game’s minimum GPU requirements were lowered to GeForce GTX 1070 or Radeon RX 5600 XT after rendering optimizations for GPUs without mesh shaders. These are official requirements and update notes, not a promise that those minimum GPUs will deliver high resolution, high ray tracing, or a particular frame rate. Read Remedy’s PC FAQ and PC update notes.
If you already own a compatible PC, treat the 2023 benchmark as a guide to the trade-offs: more ray tracing and higher render resolution raise the GPU burden; upscaling reduces render resolution; and frame generation can change displayed frame rates without being the same thing as rendering each frame directly. A current, directly comparable 2026 GPU matrix is not established by the cited benchmark.
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Which settings should you lower first?
Change one variable at a time so you can see which compromise improves performance without making the image unacceptable to you.
- Lower the ray-tracing preset. If you are using a heavy ray-tracing configuration, try a lower preset first. In HotHardware’s 2023 testing, Low ray tracing disabled path-traced indirect lighting and widened the range of cards the reviewer called playable.
- Use an upscaling mode supported by your GPU. The 2023 test used DLSS Performance for 4K output from 1080p input and compared DLSS with FSR2 at 1080p output. Upscaling can reduce the rendering workload, but the resulting image quality depends on the mode and output resolution.
- Reduce texture quality if you encounter stuttering and have limited VRAM. HotHardware’s RTX 4060 Ti 8GB test needed High rather than Ultra textures in its comparison because of severe stuttering in two locations. Check how your own game behaves before assuming a texture setting is the cause.
- Decide whether frame generation suits your priorities. It can increase displayed frame rates, but generated frames are distinct from conventionally rendered frames. Consider responsiveness as well as the displayed number, especially if you are sensitive to latency.
What changed after the benchmark
Remedy’s update notes list PC version 1.2.10, dated August 18, 2026, as the latest listed PC version. It adds FSR 4, automatically enabled on supported GPUs when FSR Super Resolution is selected, and FSR Frame Generation on supported GPUs. The 2023 HotHardware results did not test these features or this version.
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Earlier, PC update 1.2.8 in January 2025 added DLSS 4; transformer AI models for DLSS Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction on all RTX GPUs; DLSS Frame Generation on RTX 40 and 50 Series; Multi Frame Generation on RTX 50 Series; RTX Mega Geometry; and an Ultra ray-tracing quality setting. Remedy’s January 30, 2025 announcement says the new Ultra preset includes fully ray-traced reflections, transparent reflections, and higher-quality fully ray-traced indirect lighting. It is accessed from the PC game’s graphics settings after updating. Check Remedy’s versioned update notes and Remedy’s January 2025 graphics announcement.
How to interpret the high frame-rate claims
Remedy’s 2025 announcement says new GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs can achieve over 230 FPS at 4K with full ray tracing and maximum settings using DLSS Multi Frame Generation. NVIDIA separately claims an average 8.7X performance versus brute-force rendering for RTX 50 Series owners using DLSS Multi Frame Generation alongside other DLSS technologies. These are vendor-authored claims involving DLSS and generated frames, not independent native-rendered measurements from HotHardware. The figures describe different claims and should not be combined into a single benchmark result. Read NVIDIA’s announcement.
What GPU should you choose?
The right GPU depends on the output resolution and visual settings you want, not on the game’s reputation alone. The available benchmark supports historical comparisons among specific cards and settings, but it does not supply a current 2026 apples-to-apples ranking. Remedy’s FAQ, updated October 22, 2024, recommended GeForce RTX 40 Series with NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 for full ray tracing; that is the FAQ’s dated recommendation, not a newly revised 2026 requirement. See the dated FAQ.
Quick Recap
- For maximum ray-traced settings: expect a substantially heavier workload than with lower ray tracing. Remedy’s 2025 feature announcement makes RTX 50 Series relevant to its DLSS Multi Frame Generation claims, but those claims are not a universal minimum.
- For a more modest setup: reducing ray tracing and using supported upscaling are evidence-backed ways to ease the load. The 2023 findings show that lower ray tracing changed the reviewer’s assessment of several tested GPUs.
- For any GPU with limited VRAM: be prepared to test lower texture quality if stuttering occurs. The specific 8 GB RTX 4060 Ti result is a warning about that tested setup, not a universal capacity threshold.
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