We’ve compiled the performance benchmarks for The Outer Worlds 2, the highly anticipated sequel in the AAA RPG genre that boasts advanced ray tracing and various upscaling technologies.
Unveiling the Features of The Outer Worlds 2: Ray Tracing, Upscaling, and More Utilizing Unreal Engine 5 with HW-RT Support
The Outer Worlds 2 marks the next chapter in Obsidian Entertainment’s celebrated RPG legacy, building on the foundation laid by the original game released in 2019. Known for classics like Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian continues to evolve its storytelling and gameplay mechanics. The sequel enhances visual fidelity with improvements such as higher resolution textures, ray-tracing capabilities, and support for various upscaling techniques—all delivered through the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5.
Built on Unreal Engine 5, The Outer Worlds 2 joins other notable titles on this platform, like Borderlands 4, which we assessed last month. Switching from Unreal Engine 4 used in its predecessor to this latest iteration brings a noticeable enhancement in graphical quality. This sequel not only focuses on visuals but also offers a more immersive gameplay experience. For in-depth details, refer to our full game review.
PC Settings for The Outer Worlds 2: Customizing Your Gaming Experience
The Outer Worlds 2 includes an extensive array of graphical settings, courtesy of its Unreal Engine 5 architecture. Noteworthy features include support for Hardware and Software ray tracing through Lumen, alongside multiple upscaling technologies from NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. Players can opt for Software Lumen support immediately, while those with compatible GPUs can tap into Hardware ray tracing for superior visual quality, enhancing ray-traced shadows, reflections, and overall lighting.
The Display settings allow for adjustments including Window Mode, Screen Resolution, FPS limit, V-Sync, Motion Blur, Gamma, HDR, various Upscaling Methods, Frame Generation methods, Latency Reduction methods, and NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency options, along with Hardware Ray tracing toggles.
Regarding upscaling, players can choose from six modes: Off, TAA, TSR, DLSS, FSR, and XeSS, followed by selecting from multiple performance tiers such as Ultra Performance, Performance, Balanced, Quality, DLAA, or Native modes. The Frame Generation method supports up to 4X MFG for NVIDIA RTX 50 GPUs.
Below is a comprehensive list of Graphics Quality Settings accessible within the game:
- Graphics Quality (Options: Low, Medium, High, Very High, Auto)
- Screen Effects
- View Distance
- Shadows
- Anti-Aliasing
- Textures
- Visual Effects
- Foliage
- Global Illumination
- Reflections
- Crow Density
Additionally, players can modify the Field of View (FOV), initially set to 90, with the capacity to increase it up to 121. The visual effects settings are limited to Chromatic Aberration.
Our benchmark setup included an Intel Core i9-13900K processor paired with an MSI MEG Z790 ACE motherboard and 32 GB of DDR5-7600 RAM. We used drivers: NVIDIA 581.57, AMD 25.10.1, and Intel 32.0.101.8247.
Performance Benchmarks for The Outer Worlds 2 on PC
Before diving into the performance metrics, we should examine how the game performs across different quality presets. The Very High setting is the most demanding, and switching to High mode provides a significant performance boost of 28% with SW-Lumen and 34% with HW-Lumen. Further improvements of 10-15% can be attained using the Medium preset, while the Low setting, though the least demanding, still maintains a 10-11% performance improvement.
When assessing performance, the Medium preset is approximately 50% faster than the Very High mode, while the Low preset sees around a 65% increase. For those on older hardware, a mixture of Medium and High settings should strike a good balance, though opting for Low may compromise visual quality significantly, resulting in a less appealing experience.
Next, let’s consider the native FPS results. At a 4K resolution, only top-tier GPUs like the RTX 5090 or 4090 can manage 60+ FPS while most other models struggle below this threshold.
At 1440p resolution, a wider range of graphics cards can achieve 60 FPS, especially those starting from the RX 9060 XT and RTX 4070. Players can also leverage upscaling in Balanced Mode to enhance performance, though the game’s graphical quality might not compensate for these performance issues.
At 1080p resolution, the capacity to exceed 60 FPS is facilitated by almost all graphics cards from the RTX 5060 or Arc B580 upward, although these entry-level options may require lower visual quality or the application of upscaling techniques to maintain this performance threshold.
Moreover, the game includes both upscaling and Frame Generation options. Activating these can yield performance increases of up to 80% using DLSS/XeSS/FSR technologies, and utilizing MFG 4x modes can lead to impressive frame rates exceeding 200 FPS on the RTX 5090, catering well to high-refresh-rate 4K OLED setups. Budget builds may also maintain 60-100 FPS with optimized graphical settings.
The VRAM utilization per resolution demonstrates that even at 4K with 4x MFG enabled, the game approaches a maximum of around 10.81 GB VRAM usage, scaling down to about 7.71 GB at 1080p resolution.
Impressions from The Outer Worlds 2 on PC
Similar to its predecessor, The Outer Worlds 2 invites players to explore diverse planets and biomes, from dense forests to sprawling industrial colonies and intimate spaceship interiors, all rich with life and detail. The environments are brimming with NPCs, creatures, and visually compelling skyboxes.
Players have significant flexibility in configuring settings to achieve optimal frame rates. Each quality preset delivers substantial performance gains, while the implementation of industry-leading upscaling and frame-gen technologies from the respective GPU vendors ensures an adaptable gaming experience.
In terms of VRAM requirements, the game peaks at approximately 10-11 GB depending on the scene. On average, players can expect VRAM usage of around 7-8 GB at 1080p, 8 GB at 1440p, and 10 GB at 4K.
While VRAM issues weren’t particularly noticeable, players may experience some shader compilation issues upon the initial game launch, which typically resolve on subsequent starts. However, a significant concern arises with the HW-Lumen implementation, which can show excessively noisy shadow rendering inconsistencies compared to the Software Lumen alternative.
Using HW-Lumen can incur a performance penalty of approximately 15-25%, which leads us to recommend disabling HW-RT until future optimizations are confirmed through patches.
While The Outer Worlds 2 showcases impressive visuals, we believe the current level of performance does not fully justify the graphical fidelity offered. Recent titles like Battlefield 6 demonstrate how well games can run across a range of GPUs, suggesting that further optimizations are necessary for this UE5 title. Nevertheless, players can still take advantage of upscaling and frame generation to enjoy a satisfactory gameplay experience while delving into the rich RPG universe created by Obsidian.
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