Linux Gaming @lemmy.ml HobbesHK @startrek.website 6mo ago

[Solved?] Alan Wake 2 - Performance seems poorer than it should be?

I was wondering if anyone could offer some insights.

Bit the bullet and purchased Alan Wake 2 on the Epic Game Store. With the DLC on the way I just can't wait any longer and maybe this one will never come to Steam? (With Epic as publishers, who knows)

I've installed Heroic Game Launcher, downloaded the latest Wine-GE and Proton-GE, downloaded the game and managed to get it running. Tried it with both Wine-GE and Proton-GE. No noticeable difference.

My specs:

Intel Core i7 10700K
48Gb RAM
Radeon RX 7800 XT 16Gb
Manjaro Linux, kernel 6.9
Mesa 24.1.1 (using the mesa-nonfree repo)
Game is installed on my 1TB NVME drive

I'm running things on Medium/High, with FSR2 on Balanced, in 2560x1440

No raytracing enabled anywhere.

Honestly, it doesn't matter what resolution I choose. Even when running is 720p on Low, the framerate is the same.

I get around 27 fps with regular dips into the lower 15-20 when I spin the camera around quickly.

I've finished the first chapter (just in the morgue) and the framerate got choppier and choppier. I get Bright Falls has a lot more going on than the intro woodsy bit. But at this rate, I'm just not sure what to do.

When I look at other people on YouTube, their framerates are much higher. Even on Linux. And with less powerful hardware. Other games run MUCH faster. I get AW2 is demanding, but I can play CP2077: Phantom Liberty at 140+ fps in Dog Town on High in 1440p with FSR2 enabled, so I don't feel that AW2 should tank my PC that hard.

Is there something I'm overlooking here? I've tried the CyberFSR as well, made no noticeable difference.

Mangohud shows my CPU is consistently around 50% and my GPU is around 40% so there's definitely room to push things more, I feel. So why isn't AW2 using these resources?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I love this game and want to play it, but the framerate is stopping me from really enjoying it.

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12 comments

I've the same card.

By non-free do you mean you are using amdvlk?

Don't do that, Vulkan performance is nearly double on RADV.

If you have multiple drivers installed, (amdvlk, amdpro, vulkan-radeon) you can install amd-vulkan-prefixes to select which one a given application should use.

Then add vk_radv as a command prefix to use the open source implementation, vulkan-radeon. It's the best performing one and as such should be your first choice even before the non-free drivers, unless it has problems with a given game.

Alternatively, simply uninstall amdvlk completely leaving vulkan-radeon as the only installed driver.
- Hi, sorry, the non-free is a very Manjaro-specific thing.
  
  TLDR: They removed a lot of proprietary video codecs from Mesa, which means that Manjaro's Mesa tends to lag behind the Arch repo. By using nonfree, the Mesa installation is pulled and compiled straight from Arch.
  
  So yes, I'm using RADV through Mesa 24.1.1 instead of version 23.x (which is where Manjaro is still at). I wanted to be on a newer version since 24.x packed in a lot of 7000XT improvements.
  
  Out of curiosity, have you tried AW2 with your 7800XT? How does it run for you?
  
  Yes. It runs perfectly.
  
  Back at launch it used some shader features that were not yet in the current Mesa release, so I had to run it using Mesa-git from the AUR for a while, but that's long since become unnecessary.

12 comments