Instructions:

1. Download the archive below.
2. Unzip the archive.
3. You’ll find two folders: one with the original file (in case you need it) and one folder that has the file you need to replace.
4. Simply copy and replace Blur.obj from Blur Disabler folder to Alan Wake Installation\shaders\build\pc.
5. Enjoy.

A pretty interesting thing happened with Alan Wake. The game was announced back in 2005 for XBOX and PC but the PC version was canceled after Microsoft got it as a exclusive title for its console. The interesting part is that Remedy convinced Microsoft to “allow” a PC version of the game. This version was in development for approximately 7 months.

The most important question is this: How optimized is Alan Wake for PC? I’ll try answering this question by doing multiple tests.

First of all, I will test Alan Wake with different operating systems (Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows to see if there are any performance differences between them. Then I’ll look into how much CPU power it needs to run properly, this is the main problems with ported console games. And finally, I’ll look into how the game performs and looks with different settings and drivers.

Alan Wake’s version is: 1.00.16.3209

Each test will consist of 3 runs of 60 seconds. The area used for testing is found between the emergency box where you get the flare gun and the bridge just before the lighthouse. The area chosen might not be the best for testing purposes because it’s not 100% repeatable but after doing a few runs the margin of error was rather small and acceptable. The main reason behind choosing this area is that it has everything: enemies, explosions, shots, flying objects, flashes of light, fog; And the most intensive part of the test is the flare gun shot, where FPS drops to the 30s and the minimum FPS is registered. I believe this is the perfect area that combines almost all intensive elements of Alan Wake’s gameplay.

Settings: Settings are maxed out @ 1680×1050, the only difference between Maximum Settings and High Settings is that High has 4xAA enabled and Maximum has 8xAA.

FPS was recorded using Beepa Fraps 3.4.7.
CPU usage was recorded using Windows Performance Monitor. Processor(_Total) with a sample interval of 1 second.
GPU Usage was recorded using MSI Afterburner 2.2.0 Beta.

Alan Wake behaves 99% the same with all tested operating systems, performance is exactly the same with all of them. I didn’t notice any differences in loading times, graphics or any other thing between them. It’s safe to say that Alan Wake is perfectly optimized for at least these 3 operating systems and performs the same no matter the architecture, x32 or x64.

Alan Wake started just fine with 1 core enabled but it wouldn’t load any savegame or new game, it loaded forever. I let the game load for 10 minutes but the loading disc kept on rotating without any success. Furthermore, the menu was very laggy and even if the game loaded it wouldn’t be playable.

There are literally no differences in performance between different numbers of cores available. 51 average FPS across the board. This and the fact that GPU usage is all the way up indicates that Alan Wake is very well optimized. I really expected some sort of CPU usage issues with Alan Wake especially if the game was first released on a console. Obviously I was dead wrong.

Here you can see exactly how the processor is used. The CPU usage is fairly stable except for a short time (between seconds 47 and 52), this is the part where a barrel smashes into the bridge and a lot of debris appear, here, physics calculations are needed. Obviously, for AMD Graphics Cards, physics are calculated by the CPU.

The GPU Overclock to FPS Ratio is almost 1:1. I’ll explain this; for every 1% in GPU Overclock you’ll get a 0.8% improvement in frames per second. That’s pretty good. This is another sign that Alan Wake is well optimized, this is exactly how a game should behave.

If you’re using CrossFire: AMD recently released a CAP with a profile for Alan Wake that should improve CrossFire scaling, you can get that CAP from here: Catalyst Application Profiles 12.1 CAP 3.

Using different AMD Catalyst drivers won’t make any difference with Alan Wake, we’ll have to wait until AMD releases a driver with some optimizations for this game.

It is great that the developer added a lot of quality settings you can fiddle with. To be honest, the differences in graphical details between Low and High are not that big, biggest one is shadows quality, taking into account that Alan Wake is a “nocturnal game”, shadows won’t be very noticeable but these kind of things are very subjective so it’s up to you to decide if you’re sacrificing performance for some fancy shadows. Going from High to Low settings will let your GPU render ~74% more frames per second.

I’m very pleased to see Alan Wake perform the way it does, never expected to see this kind of game (console version released before the PC one) perform this good. The game might not be the best looking game out there but you can’t disagree with the fact that the lighting in Alan Wake is close to perfection. Transition between light and dark is done very smooth and the feeling you get from playing Alan Wake is almost unique. The only thing I don’t like about the game is the camera control, I always need to push three buttons and make adjustments with the mouse to run in the direction I want.

Recap:

• Alan Wake performs the same no matter on which operating systems it is played on.
• No more than two cores are needed for the best performance at highest settings, even to process intensive scenes.
• Overclocking the CPU is useless (for current gen, high end CPUs). If you have an older generation processor this is actually recommended
• GPU usage is always at 99% (depends on your CPU), this means no stutter or big frame drops.
• Overclocking the GPU is very useful, almost 1:1 ratio return (OC in % : FPS gained in %).
• AMD Catalyst drivers have no say in increasing/decreasing performance.
• Differences in graphical quality between different quality presets are small in comparison with FPS gained.

Driver Packaging Version: 8.95-120214a-133662E-ATI
Catalyst Version: 12.2
2D Driver Version: 8.01.01.1235
Direct3D Version: 7.14.10.0894
OpenGL Version: 6.14.10.11554
Catalyst Control Center Version: 2012.0214.2218.39913

The AMD Catalyst™ 12.2 Certified driver (It is the same driver as the Catalyst 12.2 Pre-Certified, but will be officially Microsoft® certified) will be posted in late February or very early March 2012.

Feature highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.2 pre-certified driver:

Windows 7 and Windows® Vista® support for the AMD Radeon™ HD 7900 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series

• Enables support for Windows 7 64-bit/32-bit and Windows Vista 64-bit/32-bit
• Windows XP support will be made available in AMD Catalyst 12.4

Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing is now available for DirectX® 10 and DirectX 11 applications

• Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900 and 7700 Series
• Users can now enable Super Sample Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing through the AMD Catalyst Control Center for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications
• Applications must support in game Anti-Aliasing for the feature to work (Forced on Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center is not supported for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications)

AMD Eyefinity 2.1 technology enhancements

• Custom resolutions – users can now choose from a much larger set of display resolutions for their AMD Eyefinity configurations
• Dynamic Configuration Changes: Switching between different display configurations (when physically plugging/un-plugging displays) will occur automatically by loading the appropriate profile
• HydraVision enhancements: The Windows Task bar can now be moved and resized based on users preference
• Profile Manager improvements: Users can now create multiple Display profiles, enabling users to seamlessly switch between various AMD Eyefinity and Display Configurations

New profiles added to this release:

• Alan Wake: The American Nightmare – Improves CrossFire performance.
• Syndicate – Improves both single GPU and CrossFire performance.
• Darkness 2 – Improves CrossFire performance.
• Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – Improves CrossFire performance for the AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series to avoid negative scaling at low resolutions.
• Natural Selection 2 – Fixes shadow map flickering issue seen with CrossFire enabled.

To see how well this driver performs I will compare it to the latest WHQL driver (12.1 WHQL) and the best driver so far (8.95 17 January).

Prior to installing a driver, a sweep was done in safe-mode using Phyxion Driver Sweeper.

All 3 drivers are tested in 5 synthetic benchmarks and 5 games.

1. 3DMark06 1.02 Professional Edition - 1680×1050 – 2xAA – Anti Aliasing Quality = 0 – 4xAF – Shader Model 2.0 = Return to Proxycon + Firefly Forest – HDR/Shader Model 3.0 = Canyon Flight + Deep Freeze – 2 Runs.
2. 3DMark11 1.0.3 Professional Edition - 1680×1050 – 2xMSAA – 4xAF – Graphic Tests 1-4 – 2 Runs.
3. Unigine – Sanctuary 2.3 – 1680×1050 – 2xAA – 4xAF – High Shaders – Ambient Occlusion = OFF – 2 Runs.
4. Unigine – Tropics 1.3 – 1680×1050 – 2xAA – 4xAF – High Shaders – Ambient Occlusion = ON – Reflections = ON – 2 Runs.
5. Cinebench x64 11.5 – 3 Runs.
6. Crysis 2 1.9 using Adrenaline Benchmark Tool – Extreme Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xAA – Hi-Res Textures – Central Park – 3 Runs.
7. Metro 2033 using Update 1.2 Benchmark Tool – Very High Settings – 1680×1050 – 16xAF – No AA for DirectX 9 and 4xMSAA for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 – 3 Runs.
8. DiRT 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xMSAA – 3 Runs
9. Battlefield 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xMSAA – 16xAF – Multiplayer @ Strike at Karkand (32p map, Large Conquest), main street: US Deployment -> B Flag – 3 Runs x 60s.
10. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim v1.4 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xAA – 16xAF – Tested in the area East of Rorikstead – 3 Runs x 60s.

All synthetic benchmarks were ran 2 times except Cinebench (3 runs), all games were ran 3 times.

Table of Contents:

Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – 3DMark06,3DMark11,Cinebench and Unigine
Page 3 – Crysis 2, Metro2033, Battlefield 3, DiRT 3 and Skyrim
Page 4 – Conclusion

Page 2 – 3DMark06,3DMark11,Cinebench and Unigine

Driver Packaging Version: 8.95-120214a-133575E-ATI
Catalyst Version: 12.3
2D Driver Version: 8.01.01.1235
Direct3D Version: 7.14.10.0894
OpenGL Version: 6.14.10.11554
Catalyst Control Center Version: 2012.0214.2218.39913

Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning is updated to version 1.0.0.1.

Game settings are the following: 1680×1050; Shader Complexity = Standard; Post-Processing = Enabled; Texture Quality = High; Vegetation = Enabled; Shadow Quality = Highest; Anisotropy = Slider to Max.

All tests are done in the area right after exiting the Well of Souls. Each test consists of 3 runs of 60 seconds.

FPS was recorded using Beepa Fraps 3.4.7.
CPU usage was recorded using Windows Performance Monitor. Processor(_Total) with a sample interval of 1 second.
GPU Usage was recorded using MSI Afterburner 2.2.0 Beta.

First of all let’s see how Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning is performing under three operating systems from Microsoft: Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8. This benchmark will feature tests in both architectures: 32-bit or x86 and 64-bit or x64.

It appears that no matter the operating system performance will be the same. There is a slight increase in minimum FPS in Windows XP but that is the only difference between the OSs and a rather small one.

Developers recommend a quad core CPU, let’s find out how much processing power Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning really needs.

The game is not CPU intensive at all, with 2 of the 4 cores of a 2500K disabled, I was still able to fuel the game with the needed CPU processing power and the CPU Usage was only 50%; the game ran smooth without any FPS or GPU usage drops.

On the other hand the game couldn’t use more than 2 cores but that’s just because it doesn’t need more than that, you really don’t need a quad core to run this game at the highest settings but don’t think that 2 cores from a 2500k equals two cores from a e2100 for example, these are apples and oranges.

Tests showed that the GPU driver used isn’t really important, all drivers I tested with Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning delivered the same frame rates.

• Low: 1680×1050; Shader Complexity = Simple; Post-Processing = Disabled; Texture Quality = Low; Vegetation = Disabled; Shadow Quality = None; Anisotropy = Slider to Lowest.
• Medium: 1680×1050; Shader Complexity = Standard; Post-Processing = Enabled; Texture Quality = Medium; Vegetation = Enabled; Shadow Quality = Normal; Anisotropy = Slider to Middle.
• High: 1680×1050; Shader Complexity = Standard; Post-Processing = Enabled; Texture Quality = High; Vegetation = Enabled; Shadow Quality = Highest; Anisotropy = Slider to Max.

Disabling Shadows results in a huge FPS increase, a 170% increase to be more exact. Other settings don’t have a big impact on performance, disabling or lowering either one will only give you a few extra frames per second. It’s good to know that disabling shadows will almost triple performance !

So there you have it, here is a recap:

1. Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning is a not a demanding game and will work with recent low-end/mainstream hardware.
2. A quad-core processor is not necessary to run the game at the maximum settings.
3. The game will perform the same no matter the operating system.
4. Performance will be similar with all recent AMD drivers.
5. Disabling Shadows will improve FPS with a staggering 170% !

Mass Effect 3 was voted the most anticipated game of 2012. Mass Effect 3 Demo begins right in the middle of the action: when Earth is attacked by the Reapers. The demo will be fairly short but after you finish it you can try the four coop missions included, the demo features two coop maps from the full game.

Mass Effect 3 will be released on March 6, 2012 on PC, XBOX360 and PS3.

More info at Bioware’s Mass Effect 3 Website.

You might notice some changes in the methodology, I removed two tests: Unigine Heaven and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but I added three more: 3DMark11, Unigine Sanctuary and Unigine Tropics. The reasons behind the changes are simple. Apparently Unigine Heaven has some incompatibilities with my motherboard and has a bad habit of crashing. I tested all hardware parts individually, they are fine. Furthermore Unigine Heaven minimum FPS is recorded at the very start of the test and that is not OK; minimum FPS was always very unstable.

On the other hand, S.T.A.L.K.E.R tests took very very long to complete (~2h) and I hate waiting that long for just one test to finish.

Based on your comments, I made a financial effort and got 3DMark11 Pro (didn’t pay the full price but it didn’t come cheap either). Unigine Sanctuary and Tropics might be a bit old but I haven’t encountered any issues with them; plus both feature all major APIs (DirectX 9-10-11 and OpenGL).

Hope you like the changes. Anyways, to test AMD Catalyst 12.3 RC 8.95 31 January I will compare it to 12.1 WHQL and 8.95 17 January.

Prior to installing a driver, a sweep was done in safe-mode using Phyxion Driver Sweeper.

All 3 drivers are tested in 5 synthetic benchmarks and 5 games.

1. 3DMark06 1.02 Professional Edition - 1680×1050 – 2xAA – Anti Aliasing Quality = 0 – 4xAF – Shader Model 2.0 = Return to Proxycon + Firefly Forest – HDR/Shader Model 3.0 = Canyon Flight + Deep Freeze – 2 Runs.
2. 3DMark11 1.0.3 Professional Edition - 1680×1050 – 2xMSAA – 4xAF – Graphic Tests 1-4 – 2 Runs.
3. Unigine – Sanctuary 2.3 – 1680×1050 – 2xAA – 4xAF – High Shaders – Ambient Occlusion = OFF – 2 Runs.
4. Unigine – Tropics 1.3 – 1680×1050 – 2xAA – 4xAF – High Shaders – Ambient Occlusion = ON – Reflections = ON – 2 Runs.
5. Cinebench x64 11.5 – 3 Runs.
6. Crysis 2 1.9 using Adrenaline Benchmark Tool – Extreme Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xAA – Hi-Res Textures – Central Park – 3 Runs.
7. Metro 2033 using Update 1.2 Benchmark Tool – Very High Settings – 1680×1050 – 16xAF – No AA for DirectX 9 and 4xMSAA for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 – 3 Runs.
8. DiRT 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xMSAA – 3 Runs
9. Battlefield 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xMSAA – 16xAF – Multiplayer @ Strike at Karkand (32p map, Large Conquest), main street: US Deployment -> B Flag – 3 Runs x 60s.
10. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim v1.4 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xAA – 16xAF – Tested in the area East of Rorikstead – 3 Runs x 60s.

All synthetic benchmarks were ran 2 times except Cinebench (3 runs), all games were ran 3 times.

Table of Contents:

Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – 3DMark06,3DMark11,Cinebench and Unigine
Page 3 – Crysis 2, Metro2033, Battlefield 3, DiRT 3 and Skyrim
Page 4 – Conclusion

Page 2 – 3DMark06,3DMark11,Cinebench and Unigine

New profiles added to this release:

• Star Wars: The old republic :  Improves CrossFire performance and resolves flickering seen on Map
• Unigine Tropics – Resolves flashing shadow reflections with CrossFire enabled
• Wargame: European Escalation:  Improves CrossFire performance