Already on the day of the embargo, Digital Foundry presented a technical analysis of the PS5 version of Alan Wake 2, but editor Oliver McKenzie only gained access to the Xbox code later. Therefore, a full comparison of the console versions is published only now.
On both more powerful consoles, the game offers two modes: Quality and Performance. Differences in settings include, for example, vegetation density, shadows, reflections or draw distance. The biggest one, of course, is the resolution. Quality mode upscales the resolution from 1270p to 4K, while Performance mode outputs 1440p, upscaled from 847p.
The settings and resolution are identical on PS5 and XSX, but what’s interesting is that the same can’t be said for frame rates. While overall games run largely the same on both consoles, in AW2 the more powerful Series X has the advantage in both modes. In quality mode, it maintains a stable 30 FPS most of the time, and on PS5 the game drops just below 30. This is even more noticeable in performance mode, which is again very stable on XSX (drops are mostly isolated and this is, for example, one frame), and on PS5 it can be quite unstable, although still somewhere between 50 and 60 FPS.
A surprisingly big difference may also be that the Xbox Series consoles support mesh shaders (which are required to play on PC), while the PS5 “only” has slightly older primitive shaders that are nonetheless compatible. Either way, the PlayStation 5 loads faster, loading a save in the test in under 7 seconds, compared to 9 seconds on the XSX.
What about the weakest console of the current generation? The clipping is noticeable compared to more powerful devices, very similar to the PS5 and XSX’s performance mode, but goes a little further. The performance mode on XSS, by the way, quite understandably, is completely absent; the game has only one mode aimed at 30 FPS. The output resolution is 1440p, but the upscaling is a little more aggressive, especially with 720p. In any case, the positive news is that the frame rate is stable, even more than on the PS5, but the drops will still be greater than on the XSX.
So while the all-console versions have some tradeoffs (including heavy aliasing due to aggressive scaling), you’ll have no problem enjoying the game on all platforms, according to McKenzie.
Alan Wake 2 is a truly impressive spectacle for console systems. There’s still room for improvement, however, and the PS5 sometimes struggles to achieve stable frame rates. https://t.co/Xhpxtg06pG
— Oliver McKenzie (@oliemack) October 31, 2023
Source :Indian TV
