Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus Claims Vega GPU Optimizations

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is launching this Friday, and Bethesda have now published the final minimum and recommended specs. Bethesda is touting some PC-focused features like uncapped framerates (as we saw in the Destiny 2 beta, this can also mean “capped above 144”), choice of aspect ratio (4:3, 16:9, 16:10, or 21:9 ultrawide), an FOV slider (70-120), and 4K support.

The New Colossus will use the Vulkan API, following in the footsteps of the notoriously well-optimized DOOM reboot. In our DOOM testing more than a year ago, AMD’s RX 480 benefitted strongly from using Vulkan rather than OpenGL, as did NVIDIA’s 1080 to a lesser degree. Vega is specifically mentioned in this release, and Bethesda claims that with Vulkan they’ve been able to “utilize the power of AMD's Vega graphics chips in ways that were not possible before.” We’ll be publishing GPU tests as soon as possible.

From Bethesda’s site:

Minimum:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-3770/AMD FX-8350 or better
• GPU: NVIDIA GTX 770 4GB/AMD Radeon R9 290 4GB or better
• RAM: 8 GB
• OS: Win7, 8.1, or 10 (64-Bit versions)
• Storage: 55GB
• Additional Requirements: Steam account and broadband internet connection for activation and installation
• AMD GPU drivers no longer support Windows 8.1

Recommended:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-4770/AMD FX-9370 or better
• GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB/AMD Radeon RX 470 4GB or better
• RAM: 16 GB
• OS: Win7, 8.1, or 10 64-Bit
• Storage: 55GB
• Additional Requirements: Steam account and broadband internet connection for activation and installation
• AMD GPU drivers no longer support Windows 8.1

Note that even the minimum specs require at least 4GB of VRAM.

NVIDIA’s latest game-ready driver released today, specifically targeted at Assassin’s Creed: Origins (also releasing Friday) and Destiny 2 (releasing tomorrow). Wolfenstein II isn’t mentioned, but that likely has more to do with marketing deals than actual compatibility.

Other customizable settings will include:

Advanced Visual Settings:

Lights
Shadows
Directional Occlusion
Reflections
Decals
Motion Blur
Image Streaming
Volumetric Quality
Decal Filtering
Deferred Rendering
Chromatic Aberration
Depth of Field
Resolution Scaling

Controls:

Full keyboard and mouse rebinding options
Separate controller and mouse/keyboard sensitivity settings

Anti-Aliasing Options (including, but not limited to):

TAA
FXAA
SMAA
TSSAA

Colorblind Modes:

Protanopia
Deuteranopia
Tritanopia

- Patrick Lathan