CONTROL Resonant's Northlight Engine Leans on the GPU, and the CPU Numbers Show It
CONTROL Resonant is the sequel to 2019's Control. You play as Dylan Faden in a Manhattan overrun by paranatural forces, and the game puts more weight on melee combat and action-RPG progression than the original did. It runs on Remedy's in-house Northlight Engine. Wccftech's Sebastian Castellanos describes it as having a GPU-driven geometry pipeline: the graphics card, not the CPU, handles most of the work of deciding which objects to draw (culling) and issuing the draw commands.
The CPU test backs that description up. Wccftech ran an NPC-heavy combat scene with FBC soldiers fighting a large wave of Hiss enemies. Graphics were maxed out, path tracing included, but output was cut to 720p with DLSS Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction at Ultra Performance so the GPU wouldn't be the limit. Under those conditions an Intel Core i7-14700K averaged 193.9 FPS, with 1% lows of 133.8 FPS and 0.1% lows of 105.3 FPS. CapFrameX reported an Adaptive STDEV (a measure of frame-time variation) of 8.9 FPS, and the few larger frame-time spikes stayed under 10 ms.
Thread monitoring showed most of the load landing on about eight P-core threads, with little work on the remaining P-cores or the E-cores. The author notes the Windows 11 scheduler may account for some of that. The result covers one CPU in one scene. It still suggests that current six- and eight-core chips shouldn't be the bottleneck.
DSOGaming's own pre-release testing, on a Ryzen 9 7950X3D, a different platform with different scenes, reached the same conclusion. It calls Control Resonant a GPU-bound title, noting that even at 1080p without Ray Tracing or Path Tracing, our top GPU was used to its fullest. With two independent test benches agreeing, the practical point is simple: your graphics card decides how this game runs.
Shader Compilation Is Clean, but DLSS Frame Generation Frame Pacing Is Not
Many recent PC releases have shipped with shader compilation stutter. CONTROL Resonant doesn't have a dedicated PSO (pipeline state object) compilation step. Wccftech says it appears to run a short shader pre-compile at startup instead, and its testers saw almost no recognizable shader stutter during play. Traversal and asset-streaming hitches did happen, but rarely.
Frame pacing was the bigger problem. Wccftech recorded unusually low 1% and 0.1% lows in some areas dense with geometry and NPCs. It got worse with DLSS frame generation on the RTX 4090 test system. Display times became uneven and the GPU was sometimes underused, so the game felt less smooth than the frame counter said. The author suspects NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency but says the cause isn't confirmed. According to Wccftech, Remedy has been told about the findings and is working on the issue. No fix has been announced yet.
Other testers saw something different. DSOGaming called the DLSS 4.5 Multi Frame Generation implementation strong, with only minor artifacts during very fast camera movement. It said it did not experience any major stuttering issues in the prologue and most of the first open-world area. Gizbot, testing an RTX 5070 at 4K with full path tracing, found that 3x Frame Generation pushed the average up to 66fps, while the 1% low climbed to 39fps, which made the game much easier to play.
These reports don't necessarily contradict each other. Each used different hardware, scenes, and frame generation modes. Wccftech's complaint is specifically about pacing in heavy scenes with frame generation on, not overall smoothness. If generated frames feel uneven on your system, first compare the same scene with frame generation off. Wccftech's own screenshots showed steady display times and high GPU utilization with it disabled.
Remedy's System Requirements Put Path Tracing Firmly in RTX 5080 Territory
On Steam, the minimum and recommended specs both call for Windows 10 or 11 64-bit, 16 GB of RAM, 120 GB of storage, and an SSD, which is mandatory. The GPU requirements are where they differ:
| Tier | CPU | GPU | Remedy's target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum | Intel Core i5-8500 / AMD Ryzen 5 3500 | GeForce GTX 1070 / Radeon RX 5600 XT / Intel Arc A580 | 1080p, 30 FPS, Low, RT off, Quality upscaling |
| Recommended | Intel Core i7-10700 / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X | GeForce RTX 3060 Ti / Radeon RX 6700 XT / Intel Arc B580 | 1440p, 60 FPS, Medium, RT off, Balanced upscaling |
DSOGaming separately reported the same resolution targets: the minimum spec is for gaming at 1080p with 30FPS on Low Settings with FSR Quality, and the recommended spec is for 1440p/60 on Medium with Balanced upscaling. Remedy's more detailed chart goes further. DSOGaming reports that 4K/60 on High with DLSS/FSR Performance needs an RTX 3080 or Radeon RX 6800 XT. It says to enable the Ray Tracing effects, you will at least need an Intel i7-8700K or an AMD Ryzen 5 3600X with 16GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super, and AMD Radeon RX 6600, or an Intel Arc A580.
The top end is steep. Both outlets report that 4K/60 with path tracing requires an RTX 5080. DSOGaming adds that you'll also need DLSS Performance Mode to hit 60FPS. Wccftech additionally reports a 1440p/60 Medium ray tracing target of an RTX 4070 Ti or Radeon RX 9070, and says none of Remedy's targets assume frame generation. In other words, every tier already depends on upscaling but none relies on generated frames.
Upscaler Choices in CONTROL Resonant Leave Intel Arc Owners Short
The game supports NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution and AMD FSR Upscaling. It has no Intel XeSS and no built-in temporal upscaler of its own. DSOGaming confirms the upscaler lineup: the game also supports NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 and AMD FSR 4. However, there is no support for Intel XeSS. Frame generation options are DLSS (Multi) Frame Generation and FSR Frame Generation, again with no XeSS equivalent.
Wccftech's recommendation depends on your GPU. GeForce RTX owners should use DLSS Super Resolution, starting with Quality mode at 1440p and 4K. Everyone else uses FSR. Wccftech specifies FSR 4.1 for AMD RDNA3 and RDNA4 cards and FSR 3.1 for everything else, which includes Intel Arc. Arc is listed in both the minimum and recommended specs, so it's an odd omission.
There is a catch with FSR Frame Generation: it can't be combined with DLSS Super Resolution. Wccftech points out this hurts owners of RTX cards older than the 40 series most, since they would otherwise pair NVIDIA's upscaler with AMD's frame generation. Those players have to pick one or the other.
The path tracing uses ReSTIR-based indirect lighting along with NVIDIA's RTX Mega Geometry and DLSS Ray Reconstruction. AMD's FSR Ray Regeneration isn't supported. NVIDIA's launch material describes Ray Reconstruction as a technique that replaces traditional hand-tuned denoisers, using an NVIDIA supercomputer-trained AI network to generate higher-quality pixels in the noisy parts of a path-traced frame. NVIDIA also claims up to 320 FPS at 4K on GeForce RTX 5090 using Dynamic Multi Frame Generation. That's a vendor number that includes generated frames, not a like-for-like performance measurement.
The Rasterized Settings in CONTROL Resonant Worth Cutting
The graphics menu has two separate preset ladders. Rasterized presets run Handheld, Low, Medium, High, Ultra. Ray tracing presets run Off, Low, Medium, High, Ultra. Every setting can be changed without restarting the game, and most show static preview images. There's no VRAM meter or live performance readout, so you have to measure the effect of changes yourself. Wccftech says the game scales well across presets and that even Low looks good.
Wccftech tested each setting on its RTX 4090 at 1440p with DLAA (native-resolution anti-aliasing), under GPU-limited conditions, keeping all other settings at maximum. Its non-ray-traced profile:
| Setting | Recommended value | Reasoning reported by Wccftech |
|---|---|---|
| Texture Resolution | Medium–Ultra with 10 GB+ VRAM at 1440p; Low on 8 GB | Mostly a VRAM cost; Low still looks decent |
| Texture Filtering | Ultra | 116 FPS at both Medium and Ultra in testing |
| Level of Detail | High | Dropping lower cuts distant detail for too little gain |
| Global Illumination | High | Lower levels gave little or no extra performance |
| Volumetric Lighting | Medium | Keeps the look with a worthwhile speedup |
| Volumetric Spotlight | High | Ultra costs more for small visual gains |
| Fog | Medium (High if you have headroom) | Medium still convincing and noticeably faster |
| Shadow Map Resolution | Ultra | Lower settings look blocky and noisy |
| Shadow Map Filtering | High | Medium doesn't gain enough to justify it |
| Shadow Map Detail | High | Lower levels give little improvement |
| SSAO | On | Turning it off flattens the image |
| Screen Space Reflections | Medium | Convincing quality, useful GPU savings |
| SDF Reflections | Off | Improves off-screen reflections but at a large cost |
| Post Processing Resolution | Render Resolution | Better cost-to-quality balance than display resolution |
The biggest single saving is SDF (Signed Distance Field) Reflections. They fill in reflections of geometry that isn't on screen, which screen-space reflections can't do, but Wccftech found them too expensive for an optimized profile. Motion Blur, Depth of Field, Lens Distortion, Film Grain, and Vignetting are purely a matter of taste. With all of them on, Wccftech measured 149 FPS, compared with 150 FPS with all of them off.
Texture Resolution needs a note. Wccftech's VRAM thresholds come from its own testing, not from Remedy. Its guidance at 1440p is at least 10 GB for Medium through Ultra textures without ray tracing, with Low for 8 GB cards. With ray or path tracing on, those numbers rise to about 12 GB and 10 GB.
Indirect Lighting Ultra Eats the CONTROL Resonant Frame Budget
The game has no setting labeled "path tracing," which is easy to miss. Gizbot explains that everything sits under the Ray Tracing preset, with separate controls for Direct Lighting, Indirect Lighting, Transparency, and other RT effects. If you push the Ray Tracing preset to Ultra, you'll be getting the full path-traced treatment. Wccftech adds that even the lower ray tracing presets keep some path-traced effects.
Wccftech identifies Indirect Lighting as by far the most expensive setting in the game, especially at Ultra. It controls path-traced diffuse global illumination and specular reflections. Wccftech's ray tracing profile keeps its rasterized settings and changes these:
- Set Direct Lighting to High, which keeps most of Ultra's benefit at lower cost.
- Set Indirect Lighting to High instead of Ultra.
- On non-RTX GPUs, set Direct Lighting Denoising and Indirect Lighting Denoising to Medium. On RTX GPUs, enable DLSS Ray Reconstruction alongside DLSS Super Resolution instead.
- Set Transparency to High. Ultra requires both DLSS Ray Reconstruction and RTX Mega Geometry, so it's only available on compatible RTX hardware.
- Leave Debris enabled. It adds flying mesh particles to ray-traced shadows and reflections, and Wccftech measured no noticeable performance cost.
- Keep Post Processing Resolution at Render Resolution. The option goes away when Ray Reconstruction is on.
PC Gamer's testing shows where the cost lands among the presets. It found that it's the RT Ultra path tracing setting that does the most damage. The difference between RT Medium and RT High is a mere five frames on average. The jump from ray tracing off to RT Low was bigger, at about 21 FPS in its averages. So there's a large cost for turning ray tracing on at all, a small step between Medium and High, and another large cost at Ultra. That makes RT High a good default for cards that can handle ray tracing at all.
Gizbot's RTX 5070 test shows the upper end. At 4K Ultra with DLSS Quality and ray tracing off, the card averaged 44 FPS. Switching on full path tracing cost roughly a 34% hit to the average frame rate, which dropped it to about 29 FPS before frame generation.
What the RTX 4060 Laptop Results Show About 8 GB GPUs
Wccftech ran its Ultra-versus-optimized comparisons on a laptop with a Core i7-12700H, an RTX 4060 Laptop GPU with 8 GB of VRAM, 16 GB of DDR4-3200, and Windows 11 25H2, measuring with CapFrameX. The desktop RTX 4090 was used only for the per-setting tests.
| Configuration | Average FPS | 1% low | 0.1% low |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max settings, no RT/PT (1080p DLAA) | 33 | 11 | 11 |
| Optimized, no RT/PT | 63 | 45 | 22 |
| Max settings, RT/PT (1080p DLSS Quality) | 26 | 21 | 21 |
| Optimized, RT/PT | 46 | 34 | 31 |
That's a 91% gain in average frame rate without ray tracing and 77% with it. The 1% lows improved by 309% and 62%. For the ray-traced runs, Ray Reconstruction was off and Transparency was at High so the results would apply beyond RTX-exclusive features. Wccftech also says its non-RT comparison video had the Ultra and optimized labels swapped by mistake, but the numbers above are correct.
These figures are best read as a warning for 8 GB cards, not a promise for every GPU. Wccftech itself says the RTX 4060 Laptop GPU's 8 GB of VRAM was probably overcommitted at maximum settings. That would explain the 11 FPS lows and suggests much of the gain came from getting back under the memory limit. A 16 GB desktop card would probably see a smaller jump from the same changes. It would still gain from dropping SDF Reflections, Indirect Lighting Ultra, and the heavier volumetric settings, since Wccftech's per-setting tests were done on a 24 GB card.
What this means for you
Start from the preset that matches your GPU. Then make the specific cuts described above instead of running Ultra. This matters most if you have an 8 GB card or want path tracing on anything below an RTX 5080. Owners of high-end cards playing without ray tracing have less to gain, but the same changes still free up headroom. If you use frame generation, test it yourself instead of assuming it's smooth, and watch for a post-launch patch.
- Set Texture Resolution based on VRAM first. Wccftech suggests Low on 8 GB cards at 1440p, and about 12 GB for Medium-and-up textures with ray tracing on.
- Turn off SDF Reflections and set Indirect Lighting to High, not Ultra. These were the largest savings in Wccftech's testing.
- Leave Shadow Map Resolution at Ultra, SSAO on, and Texture Filtering at Ultra, since lowering them hurts image quality more than it helps performance.
- On a GeForce RTX card, use DLSS Super Resolution at Quality plus Ray Reconstruction for path tracing. On AMD, use FSR 4.1 (RDNA3/RDNA4) or FSR 3.1. On Intel Arc, plan for FSR, because XeSS isn't supported.
- If DLSS frame generation feels uneven in busy scenes, compare against frame generation off. Wccftech saw inconsistent display times with it enabled on an RTX 4090, and Remedy is reportedly working on the issue.
- Install the game on an SSD with at least 120 GB free, because Remedy lists an SSD as a requirement at every spec tier.
With CONTROL Resonant out on September 24, the performance picture is already clear: the CPU isn't the limiting factor, shader stutter is largely absent, and the graphics menu gives you enough separate controls to get most of the path-traced look without paying for Ultra. The one real open question is frame pacing with frame generation. Remedy has been told about it, so launch-day or early patch notes are what to watch before settling on a frame generation setup.