I’ve all the time discovered Dune: Awakening an oddball idea – it’s been repeatedly made clear, by Zendaya no much less, that Arrakis will instantly kill, flay, and digest anybody who pokes a toe into its sands with out an unimaginable sci-fi techsuit and a lifetime of edged weapons coaching. Not, you’d suspect, an apparent setting for a survival crafting recreation the place style conventions demand you start life as some bare loser choosing up sticks.
And but, Awakening has turned out alright, hoisting desert exploration and ominous sci-fi atmospherics above the tedious 24/7 useful resource gathering that has choked out certain peers. PC efficiency is workable too, with sufficient concessions in the direction of low-end rigs, although it’s not crysknife-sharp both: some technical mishaps want a immediate patching, whereas Unreal Engine 5 is as much as its standard stuttering nonsense.
Dune: Awakening additionally displays one other, much less seen quirk of UE5: a graphics settings menu that makes it troublesome to spice up efficiency past blindingly apparent adjustments, like using DLSS or switching off ray tracing-adjacent Lumen results. You’ll discover my blindingly apparent settings information beneath, after a take a look at how this artful MMO fares on varied {hardware}.
Dune: Awakening system necessities and PC efficiency
I don’t know why this recreation wants a further 15GB of SSD house for really useful efficiency. Nonetheless, at the least that’s the one questionable side of Awakening’s official specs. All of the CPU, reminiscence, and for as soon as, graphics card necessities are all fairly affordable, with the GPUs particularly matching expectations in my testing.
Dune: Awakening minimal PC specs
- OS: Home windows 10 64-bit or newer
- CPU: Intel Core i5-7400 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200
- RAM: 16GB
- GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon 5600 XT
- DirectX model: 12
- Storage: 60GB, SSD required
Dune: Awakening really useful PC specs
- OS: Home windows 10 64-bit or newer
- CPU: Intel Core i7-10700K / AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
- RAM: 16GB
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3070 / AMD Radeon 6700 XT
- DirectX model: 12
- Storage: 75GB, SSD required
The GTX 1060, for instance, averaged 36fps at 1080p by combining the Low high quality preset with High quality-mode FSR upscaling. Utilizing native-resolution TAA, that dropped to 29fps, however for a rock-bottom spec card the upscaled outcome ain’t too unhealthy. The recommend-tier RTX 3070, in the meantime, managed 59fps at native 1080p on the Extremely preset – and with High quality DLSS, nearly matched that at 1440p, scoring 58fps.
Vindication for Funcom’s estimates, then, and Awakening appears to scale fairly handily on newer GPUs too. At 1080p, the comparatively humble RTX 4060 produced 50fps on Extremely and 61fps on Excessive – not on the RTX 3070’s degree, however nonetheless fast sufficient to keep away from upscaling if that’s what you like. Increased resolutions don’t block off greater framerates, both: the RTX 4070 Ti was sufficient for a slick 95fps at 1440p, utilizing each Extremely settings and High quality DLSS, and the identical card nonetheless managed 60fps after a swap to 4K. The newer RTX 5080 can be match for this rez, averaging 81fps with Extremely and DLSS High quality.
Again in Budgetsville, even the Steam Deck can sustain, thanks partially to an “experimental” Low Finish Laptop computer toggle accessible by means of the graphics choices. A sort of lower-than-low mode, this does make the lighting and shadow results look a bit cellular gamey, however efficiency on the Steam Deck is spectacular – I usually obtained anyplace between 35fps and 55fps, relying on on-screen bustle, and that was after manually adjusting the upscaling from Extremely Efficiency XeSS to the far sharper-looking High quality FSR.
It’s definitely good to see a contemporary, big-money recreation not being so valuable concerning the want for visible compromises on reasonably priced {hardware}. That stated, there are some locations the place it might use a little bit additional sharpening. Bugs, for one factor, aren’t unusual. After barely an hour on Arrakis I awoke from a spice dream to seek out my imaginative and prescient utterly blackened, in a position to transfer and work together however not see something. Come on Funcom, that’s the alternative of what spice does. Minutes later, having give up and rejoined a server, I spawned into an out-of-bounds void that left me floating helplessly till I relogged a second time.
DLSS 4 body technology can be damaged, at the least on the RTX 5080 I examined it with. Each its 2x and 4x settings did add some additional frames, however with an inexplicable cap of 95fps, an underwhelming improve from the 81fps I’d beforehand recorded with out them (and, within the case of 4x, at the price of some actually sinful enter lag). I’ve a sense that this can be another RTX 50 series issue, as 2x body technology labored a lot better on each the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4060, with the latter leaping from 77fps with solely DLSS High quality upscaling to 115fps with body gen. However in any case, that’s one other blip that wants fixing.
Lastly, we have now the UE5 particular: common, usually fairly heavy stuttering, no matter total body charges and particularly prevalent when exploring new areas. Which, given how keen Dune: Awakening is to prod you away from the protection of your base, occurs lots. These micro-interruptions due to this fact not often let up, and may usually kick in as a minimum handy of occasions, like while you’re dangling off a cliff face with 5% stamina left to work with, or when attempting to line up a (hilariously long-ranged) knee cost in opposition to an attacking bandit.
I believe at this level, most of us have jittered our means by means of one stuttering Unreal recreation or one other. But it feels notably disappointing right here as the sport will get lots else proper in its method to efficiency, from its handheld-friendly potato mode to the benefit with which higher-end PCs can stability fancy results with silky framerates. Alas.
Dune: Awakening greatest settings information
There’s no technique of overcoming this stutter, but it surely’s nonetheless value twiddling with the visible settings. Not least as a result of the presets – Extremely, Excessive, Medium, and Low – all attempt to pressure on not simply upscaling, however DLSS or FSR body technology as nicely. And that, because the RTX 5080 demonstrated, has combined outcomes.
On the similar time, there’s no level fine-tuning each particular person setting within the record, as a result of – as has been the case with quite a few video games in recent times, UE5 ones particularly – a whole lot of them received’t have an effect on efficiency somehow, until you’re on the weakest or oldest of PC gear. Utilizing my RTX 4060 to check every setting’s framerate affect, even the standard suspects like shadow high quality, foliage high quality, and examine distance carried out about the identical on Extremely as they did on Low.
The large exceptions have been GI (International Illumination) high quality and, by extension, the Allow Lumen setting. Working GI on Extremely robotically allows Lumen, UE5’s built-in ray tracing equal, so merely decreasing that’s a straightforward option to bag a great deal of free frames. Keep in mind how the RTX 4060 averaged 50fps at 1080p/Extremely (with upscaling/body gen disabled)? That turned 76fps with GI high quality on Low, and 72fps with it on Medium.
The opposite massive frames producer is, unsurprisingly, upscaling. It is a no-brainer at 1440p and above anyway, although even at 1080p, it’s viable as long as you persist with the upper high quality settings. Particularly, DLSS is value utilizing in case you have the Nvidia GPU to assist it. In any other case, I’d counsel TSR over FSR, as whereas the previous is narrowly slower – 73fps on the RTX 4060 versus FSR’s 74fps, each on equal high quality settings – TSR seems crisper and cleaner when upscaling to 1080p.
Now for what I simply stated, however in record type:
- Movement blur: Off
- Override upscaling preset: On
- Upscaling methodology/Upscaling high quality/Decision scale: DLSS on High quality, or TSR on 67 rez scale
- Body technology methodology: Off
- GI high quality: Medium
- Allow Lumen: Off (this could set itself after dropping GI high quality)
- Every thing else: Extremely preset equal
A fast benchmark with these settings obtained the RTX 4060 averaging 86fps – not simply an enormous bounce up from the 50fps I used to be getting with Extremely high quality and native 1080p, however very near the 89fps that the identical GPU obtained from utilizing Low settings. Once more, a whole lot of that’s simply upscaling, however the visible high quality of those instruments has progressed to the purpose the place we don’t have to be fairly as frightened of deploying them outdoors of the best resolutions.
As for body technology, I don’t suppose it’s obligatory even when it really works correctly, although the flipside of that’s how greater natural framerates cut back the latency affect when body gen is utilized on high. With the continued caveat that DLSS 4 broke on my RTX 5080, I’ll say it carried out a lot better on the RTX 4060, additional bumping that new 86fps common as much as 137fps – with none severe visible issues or extreme latency. If generated frames are your jam, be happy to at the least check it out for your self.
That’s all from me, however different RPS-based Dune: Awakening guides can be found, together with Jeremy’s character creator overview, trainer locations guide, and water scavenging tips.
