Alan Wake 2 is finally here! I’m sure many of you are anxious to jump into this new American nightmare, but you may want to adjust the game settings before you do. Luckily, we’ve prepared this Alan Wake 2 best settings guide to go over each setting on consoles and PCs. 

Alan Wake 2 Best Settings – General for All Platforms:

All platforms are different, but they all share some standard settings that I think everyone should change before they jump into Alan Wake. I’ll go over the more specific graphical modes afterward, but let’s focus on what’s shared across every platform. 

Gameplay

• Enable Tutorials – Keep this on, as Alan Wake 2 has plenty of new mechanics that can be rather confusing at first. 
• Controller Sensitivity – The defaults are fine because Alan Wake 2 is a slower-paced game. However, you may want to increase aiming sensitivity a little bit as enemies can easily overwhelm you. 
• Gameplay Assist 
  • Controller Aim Assist – ON (Default) 
  • Single Tap Walk – ON – Running in Alan Wake 2 is slow, and I found holding the button to be annoying. Turning this to a single tap means you can alternate between running and walking with a single button press. 
  • Quick Turn – ON (Default)
  • Adaptive Triggers (PS5 and PC with a DualSense Controller) – ON (Default) – In some games, this can be a bit aggressive, but in Alan Wake 2 they’re hardly noticeable. Plus, it’s a slow-paced game, not an online shooter where speed matters. 

Controls

I found the default mapping to be perfect in Alan Wake 2, but if you want to customize and remap an action to a different button, you can do so under this menu. 

Graphics

I’ll break down this more for each platform in the next big section, but for now, these are the settings to focus on. 

• Motion Blur – OFF on PC and on consoles if you use performance mode. ON if you use quality mode on consoles. 
• Film Grain – OFF

Audio 

Default. There’s no controller audio, so there’s no need to worry about turning that off for players using the DualSense. 

Interface

Alan Wake 2’s UI isn’t what I would describe as being cluttered. But, because the game lacks photo mode at the moment, for those looking to capture the perfect picture, turn the following ON:

• HIDE HUD
• HIDE HUD WIDGET
• HIDE HUD NOTIFICATIONS
• TURN SUBTITLES OFF

This will give you the cleanest possible way to capture images. 

If you aren’t a big fan of nudity, you can censor nudity under the Interface tab at the bottom. 

Alan Wake 2 Best Consoles Settings – Quality or Performance Mode?

The big question that always surfaces for a console game is whether or not you should play in performance or quality mode. This is all dependent on the user, though in this case, I’d highly recommend playing in quality mode. First, let’s see precisely what each mode targets for frames and resolution. 

PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X:

• In Quality mode, favoring visual fidelity, the output resolution is 4k, the render resolution is 2258 x 1270. The framerate is 30fps.
• In Performance mode favoring performance, the output resolution is 1440p, render resolution is 1505 x 847. Framerate is trying to reach 60fps.

Xbox Series S output resolution is 1440p.

• There is no Performance mode on the Xbox Series S.

So why do I recommend Quality Mode over Performance Mode? Well, anyone who has read my past Best Settings Guide knows that I am a performance-first type of person. However, in the case of Alan Wake 2, I have to say that Quality Mode is really, really good. First, graphically, you are getting more on the screen. Resolution plays a bit of a part since it’s much higher than the render resolution in performance mode, but textures, screen-space reflections, lighting, and effects are just that much more of a difference in Quality Mode. You even get more foilage, which matters a lot because the game takes you through a lot of wildlife areas. 

And I know 30fps is usually a big no-no amongst the community. But give it a try because the techniques employed to deliver it make it feel perfectly smooth to the point that I’d argue it’s hard to tell the difference or even notice it’s running at 30fps on any of the platforms. You’ll notice a big dip in visuals switching to performance, something you might come to regret in the latter portions of the game. 

Just be sure to keep motion blur on, as it does help hide camera choppiness. Otherwise, if you use performance, turn it off. 

Alan Wake 2 Best PC Graphical Settings:

Before we start, it has been brought to our attention that some graphical options are missing in the settings. Luckily, there’s a workaround, as listed by X user PC_Focus. Alan Wake 2’s system config is located in the following directory: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Remedy\AlanWake2

Search for that, open the configuration files, and change the following:

• m_bVignette: set this to “false” to disable vignetting
• m_bDepthOfField: set this to “false” to disable depth of field
• m_bLensDistortion: set this to “false” to disable lens distortion

There are other options to toy around with, such as FoV and scaling, but these are the big ones, as they remove several onscreen graphics to give you the cleanest possible image. 

Now, onto the in-game graphical settings. 

Everyone has different PC configurations, and I will try my best to offer you settings based on our own testing. Though at the current moment, we’ve only tested out our RTX 4000 series builds. 

RTX 4090 GPU, AMD 7900X CPU

If you have an RTX 4090 and a high-end CPU, you should be more than capable of running everything on max, including full 4K resolution. For framerate, DLSS 3.5 and frame generation will get you into the high 110-130fps. For those using a capture card that doesn’t support VRR, I recommend locking the frame rate to 60fps via the Nvidia control panel to avoid screen tearing. 

Also, if you find the game is constantly crashing upon boot or locking up your systems. Then make sure MSI Afterburner isn’t running. You might also want to use borderless instead of fullscreen. That was an issue I had myself, and switching to borderless fixed it. 

• Display Mode – Bordlerless if you are having issues; otherwise, Fullscreen.
• Display Resolution – 3840×2160 – Lower if need be to improve performance. 
• Resolution Rending – 3840×2160 (DLAA) – Change to whichever if you prefer a different quality resolution or performance. 
• Resolution Upscaling – DLSS for Nvidia cards, FSR 2 for AMD cards. 
• DLSS Frame Generation (Nvidia 4000 Series card only) – ON
• Vsync – If you run uncapped frame rate off, turn it on to match your monitor and/or capture card. 
• Motion Blur – OFF
• Film Grain – OFF
• Quality Preset – Custom
• Post-Processing Quality – HIGH
• Texture Resolution – ULTRA
• Texture Filtering – HIGH
• Volumetric Lighting – HIGH
• Volumetric Spotlight Quality – HIGH
• Global Illumination Quality – HIGH
• Shadow Resolution – HIGH
• Shadow Filtering – HIGH
• Shadow Detail – HIGH
• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion – OFF if you are using Ray Tracing; on otherwise. 
• Global Reflections – OFF if you are using Ray Tracing, On otherwise. 
• Screen Space Reflection – OFF if you are using Ray Tracing, On otherwise. 
• Fog Quality – HIGH
• Terrain Quality – HIGH
• Far Object Detail (LOD) – HIGH
• Scattered Object Density – ULTRA

RAY TRACING

• Ray Tracing Preset – High
• DLSS Ray Reconstruction – ON
• Direct Lighting – ON
• Direct Lighting Denoising Quality – HIGH
• Path Traced Indirect Lighting – HIGH
• Path Traced Indirect Lighting Denoising Quality – HIGH

RTX 4070 GPU, 13th Gen Intel i9-13900KF CPU

• Display Mode – Bordlerless if you are having issues; otherwise, Fullscreen.
• Display Resolution – 1920×1080, but you can up it to 1440P. 4K can get demanding even on this card. 
• Resolution Rending – 1920×1080 (DLAA) – Again, you can increase this to higher, but you may have to tone some settings down. 
• Resolution Upscaling – DLSS for Nvidia cards, FSR 2 for AMD cards. 
• DLSS Frame Generation (Nvidia 4000 Series card only) – ON
• Vsync – If you run uncapped frame rate off, turn it on to match your monitor and/or capture card. 
• Motion Blur – OFF
• Film Grain – OFF
• Quality Preset – Custom
• Post-Processing Quality – HIGH
• Texture Resolution – ULTRA
• Texture Filtering – HIGH
• Volumetric Lighting – HIGH
• Volumetric Spotlight Quality – HIGH
• Global Illumination Quality – HIGH
• Shadow Resolution – MEDIUM
• Shadow Filtering – HIGH
• Shadow Detail – Medium 
• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion – OFF if you are using Ray Tracing, On otherwise. 
• Global Reflections – OFF if you are using Ray Tracing, On otherwise. 
• Screen Space Reflection – OFF if you are using Ray Tracing, On otherwise. 
• Fog Quality – HIGH
• Terrain Quality – HIGH
• Far Object Detail (LOD) – HIGH
• Scattered Object Density – ULTRA

RAY TRACING

• Ray Tracing Preset – High
• DLSS Ray Reconstruction – ON
• Direct Lighting – ON
• Direct Lighting Denoising Quality – HIGH
• Path Traced Indirect Lighting – HIGH
• Path Traced Indirect Lighting Denoising Quality – HIGH

RTX 3080 GPU, AMD 5900x CPU – 60 FPS

• Display Mode – Bordlerless if you are having issues; otherwise, Fullscreen.
• Display Resolution – 1440P
• Resolution Rending –  2560x1440P (Quality) 
• Resolution Upscaling – DLSS for Nvidia cards, FSR 2 for AMD cards. 
• DLSS Frame Generation – N/A on this series of cards.
• Vsync – If you run uncapped frame rate off, turn it on to match your monitor and/or capture card. 
• Motion Blur – OFF
• Film Grain – OFF
• Quality Preset – Custom
• Post-Processing Quality – HIGH
• Texture Resolution – ULTRA
• Texture Filtering – HIGH
• Volumetric Lighting – HIGH
• Volumetric Spotlight Quality – MEDIUM
• Global Illumination Quality – MEDIUM
• Shadow Resolution – MEDIUM
• Shadow Filtering – HIGH
• Shadow Detail – HIGH
• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion – OFF if you are using Ray Tracing, On otherwise. 
• Global Reflections – OFF if you are using Ray Tracing, On otherwise. 
• Screen Space Reflection – OFF if you are using Ray Tracing, On otherwise. 
• Fog Quality – MEDIUM
• Terrain Quality – HIGH
• Far Object Detail (LOD) – HIGH
• Scattered Object Density – ULTRA

RAY TRACING – OFF

Keep an eye out for updates to this guide, as we’ll add more graphical presets for different builds shortly after launch. 

If you found this guide helpful, be sure to check out our other Alan Wake 2 guides! If you’re having second thoughts before picking up Alan Wake 2, go read our review here that might just change your mind.