The Alters - PC performance graphics benchmarks of Graphics Cards and Processors

We have tested The Alters on maximum graphics settings with video cards of the GeForce RTX 20, 30, 40 and 50 series, as well as Radeon RX 6000, 7000 and 9000. Also, during the tests we conducted, we assessed the quality of the graphic display of the game itself.

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THE GRAFICAL PART

This subsection of our review highlights the main graphical aspects of this game. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphic settings and the quality of development of the main visual aspects.

Supported OS and Graphics API

The Alters — a single-player story-driven survival sci-fi game for PC with Windows 10 and above and using DirectX 12. The project is built around the technology of controlling the clones of the main character and requires a fairly powerful system, especially when running in 4K. The game supports both basic configurations with cards of the GeForce GTX 1060 level, and ultra-settings with RTX 3080 and RX 6800 XT video cards, where all visual effects and advanced detailing are used.

System Requirements The Alters

Minimum system requirements:

• Operating system: Windows 10 or later (64-bit)

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 or Intel Core i7-6700

• Memory: 16 GB

• Video card: AMD Radeon RX 570, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or Intel Arc A570 (6+ GB VRAM)

• DirectX: Version 12

• Disk space: 50 GB

• Extra charges: Requires SSD

Recommended system requirements:

• Operating system: Windows 10 or later (64-bit)

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X or Intel Core i7-8700K

• Memory: 16 GB

• Video card: AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 or Intel Arc A770 (8+ GB VRAM)

• DirectX: Version 12

• Disk space: 50 GB

• Extra charges: SSD is required; for 4K graphics - AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT or Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (10+ GB of video memory)

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

The Alters was announced in June 2022 at the PC Gaming Show by 11 bit studios, the Polish developers known for the series Frost Punk и This War of Mine. The idea was born in mid-2021: to explore the theme of multi-all through the prism of human decisions - "what if you chose a different life." The main character, Jan Dolski, is an ordinary miner who, in an emergency on an alien planet, creates his own copies - alters - in order to survive. Each copy carries a personal story and psychological background.

In 2022–2023, the project was developed behind closed doors: the main work was done on the alter generation algorithm, the wheelbase basing system, the day/night simulation — a second of real time equals a minute in the game. Closed previews and tests were held in Warsaw — all for the sake of balance of work, sleep, and interactions between alts. The community, through demo versions and feedback forums, actively asked the question: how do the decisions made by the hero affect his copies, their relationships with each other, and the final outcome of the entire group?

In October 2023, a large-scale PR campaign was launched: the first full-fledged trailers, interviews, teasers. In February 2024, the long-awaited gameplay videos and release dates appeared. The game was postponed several times - first from the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025 (due to the need to refine the script plots and AI alters), then to the summer of 2025. In December 2024, the studio held public beta tests in Warsaw, inviting players to try the build, recording performance, logical rakes and emotional perception of the scenarios.

The release took place on June 13, 2025 on PC (Steam, GOG, Epic), Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 platforms. From the very beginning, the game was available on Game Pass — a guarantee that millions of players will notice it. The key figure was the narrative artist Katarzyna Tybińska, who wrote individual stories for each alter, their moral dilemmas, conflict situations between the “copies of Jan”. This is not just a system of units — it is an emotional kaleidoscope of personalities that reflects the same human life from different angles.

By the time of release, 11 bit studios had combined survival, narrative drama, and base management into a cohesive experience: the player manages resources, basic infrastructure, and simultaneously balances on a fine line among alters, each of whom is a full-fledged character. It’s an interesting and mature project: not a sensation, but a clear, polished story built over years of development, testing, and diplomatic polishing.

GRAPHICS

Visual The Alters — is not a demonstration of UE5 capabilities, but an example of how impressive results can be achieved based on a deeply modified Unreal Engine 4. The studio refused to implement Nanite or Lumen, instead relying on carefully designed lighting, high-resolution textures and dense geometry of objects. Light in the game is built through lightmap and screen-space reflections; dynamic lighting is minimal, but originally colored with contrasts of light filters depending on the time of day and danger. This creates an atmosphere that is not similar to the winter landscapes of Frostpunk, nor to the dusty streets of This War of Mine, but to the living world of an unknown planet, where light, shadows and colors play a drama.

The materials are handcrafted: the skin of the alters looks alive and warm, the metal of the station is cold and emasculated, the fabric and clothing elements react to movement and physics. The effect of dust and debris on the surfaces enhances the feeling of real space. During the day, there are sharp beams of light, drops of Rapidium spread across the dark ground; at night, there are smooth foggy polygons, reflections of lamps. The camera shoots zonally: close-ups in personal dialogues, a distant view of the base and the passage of time - without lags and transitional artifacts, thanks to competent work with content streaming.

Cutscenes are a separate level of graphic presentation, despite the work in the engine. The camera is smooth, the focus and depth of field changes emphasize the drama, the faces of the alters and Ian are individually worked out, the expressions express emotions. All these scenes are generated in real time with rig animation and custom facial control - without pre-rendering. Facial expressions are real: sometimes you can feel muscle microchanges - the result of scanning and adjusting the actors' expressions, which is not often seen in UE4 for a long time, but works here.

On PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, the game consistently maintains 60 FPS in 4K. There is dynamic quality adjustment, but without offensive dips. The PC version extends this to DLSS, FSR and XeSS, and on high-speed builds easily produces 120 FPS. At the same time, visual deviations at increased frequencies remain minimal, since the engine was tuned to work on high-performance settings. The stability of the frame rate emphasizes the main idea of ​​the game: the graphics should be strong, but not resource-intensive - all in the name of the plot, atmosphere and survival.

Bottom line: The Alters — is a precisely constructed, mature visual style, where beauty serves the meaning, and not the race for technology. The studio abandoned the top solutions of UE5 and preferred dense manual development. And it worked, giving the game its own unique style.

GAME ENGINE

Game engine The Alters — is a solidly assembled Unreal Engine 4 base (modified version 4.26), but the game feels like a fresh AAA action game. There is no abundance of UI, the HUD is minimal: only resource and time indicators. Everything moves: bases, camera, interface, character animation — everything is built around time and emotions. The resource cycle is based on a time timer: one second of real time — one minute of game time. This sets the pace — and directly dictates what you must have time to build, extract, distribute tasks among alters before the team is destroyed by radiation. The virtual day is strictly inseparable, and the player is always under stress: each alter is not just a unit, but an individual with their own needs, fatigue, level of trust and emotions. They show irritation, cause conflicts, demand attention — this is not an RTS, not a sandbox, this is a symbiosis of management, dialogue and survival built into the engine.

The alters' AI is controlled through a deep system of flags and triggers. Each alter has its own routine: sleep, work, research, rest, and communication. They can conflict with each other, becoming a background for emotional drama. It is based on a custom AI model with psychological profiles. The decision engine tracks each parameter and reacts accordingly. The camera is functional: it gently moves away when reviewing the base, zooms in during dialogues, and trembles slightly in emotional moments. The narrative is smooth — everything is in sync with the actions.

The resource flow, physics and base simulation are built on UE4, but the author's modules manage AI flows, resource flows and event processing. The sound part works through the Wwise/UE4 Audio Engine, the music is growing - calm, anxious, crisis. Particle effects - dust, Rapidium, solar flare - are mixed manually without GPU-intensive tracing. All materials, from metal to fabric, are controlled through custom shaders - manually configured, without filled tracing.

Level streaming is organized by station and surface zones, which removes the load and ensures stability on the SSD. When changing zones, the base moves without black loading screens - as if it were a seamless world, but in fact it is a classic UE4 architecture. Delayed loading, asset selection, unloading of inactive ones are written into the engine on the package.

The game runs on three platforms — PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S. The consoles use DualSense and haptics adaptive triggers. The PC version benefits from DLSS/FSR/XeSS. But it’s still based on the same UE4. There are no signs of UE5 — this is not a fake or a demo, this is a real mature work with proven technology.

QUALITY

Minimum settings в The Alters designed for mid-range graphics cards with 6 GB of VRAM. In this mode, the density of objects is reduced, complex lighting effects and particles are disabled, and shadows and reflections work in a simplified form. Textures are loaded at low resolution, weather effects are minimal, and the geometry of the environment is simplified for a stable frame rate. The game remains playable even on systems with limited performance.

Maximum settings are designed to run on video cards with a memory capacity of 10 GB or more. Advanced shadow masks, global illumination, volumetric effects, depth of field and high-resolution textures are included. All elements of the interface and the world - from the surface of the earth to the costumes of the characters - are displayed in high detail. When playing in 4K, additional graphic layers are activated, creating a dense and visually rich atmosphere.

TEST PART

Below you will find a table of equipment that was kindly provided by our sponsors: GIGABYTE, ASUS, Kingston и Deep Cool. It reflects the list of motherboards, video cards, memory modules and cooling systems used in the tests, and also indicates the current configuration of the operating system and drivers.

Test configuration
GIGABYTE
motherboards	Z490 AORUS PROAX      GIGABYTE Z590 VISION Gigabyte X670E AORUS PRO X GIGABYTE Z690 AERO G
ASUS
motherboards	ASUS ROG Strix B650-A Gaming Wi-Fi ASUS Z790-A GAMING DDR4
Video Cards	Asus GeForce RTX 5070 TUF Gaming OC ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER OC ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XT 20G
KINGSTON
RAM	16 GB DDR4 4600 CL19 Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB DDR4 3600 CL16 Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB DDR4 4000 CL18 Kingston FURY Renegade              32 GB DDR5 5600 CL40 Kingston FURY Beast                       32 GB DDR5 6000 CL30 Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB DDR5 7200 CL36 Kingston FURY Renegade 48GB DDR5 7200 CL36 Kingston FURY Renegade 48GB DDR5 8000 CL36 Kingston FURY Renegade  Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB
Storage devices	Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD Kingston NV3 1TB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4 Kingston XS2000 4TB SSD
Deep Cool
Cases and cooling	Case DeepCool CH510 WH  Case DeepCool CH780 WH SVO DeepCool LS720 WH Deepcool PX1200G 1200W Power Supply
Software configuration
Operating system	Windows 11 24H2
Graphics driver	Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 576.66 WHQL AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.6.1
Monitoring programs	MSI Afterburner 4.6.6 Beta 5 Build 16555

All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. Below is a video of a test segment from the game: 

Our video cards were tested at different screen sizes 1920x1080, 2560x1440 и 3840x2160 with maximum graphics quality settings without upscales. 

TEST GPU

  

In the video card test, the default resolution is 1920x1080, other resolutions are added and removed manually. You can also remove and add any video card positions. You can also select any of our test processors from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance with the given video card tests (the most productive solution is selected by default). The test is carried out on the most productive in this game CPU and scales to other processors, taking into account their testing on NVIDIA and AMD video cards.

When resolved 1920x1080:

• Average FPS (25 frames): Reached on video cards of the level of Radeon RX 6700 XT or GeForce RTX 3060.
• Minimum FPS (25 frames): Provided by video cards of the Radeon RX 6700 XT or GeForce RTX 3060 level.
• Comfortable average FPS (60 frames): Possible with video cards of the Radeon RX 6700 XT or GeForce RTX 2080 Ti level.

When resolved 2560x1440:

• Average FPS (25 frames): Reached on video cards of the level of Radeon RX 6700 XT or GeForce RTX 3060.
• Minimum FPS (25 frames): Provided by video cards of the Radeon RX 6700 XT or GeForce RTX 3060 level.
• Comfortable average FPS (60 frames): Possible with video cards of the Radeon RX 6800 XT or GeForce RTX 4070 level.

When resolved 3840x2160:

• Average FPS (25 frames): Reached on video cards of the level of Radeon RX 9060 XT or GeForce RTX 5060 Ti.
• Minimum FPS (25 frames): Provided by video cards of the Radeon RX 7800 XT or GeForce RTX 3080 level.
• Comfortable average FPS (60 frames): Possible with GeForce-level video cards RTX 4090.

VIDEO MEMORY CONSUMPTION

Testing of the video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the MSI Afterburner program. The results on video cards from AMD and NVIDIA at separate screen resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 with different anti-aliasing settings were taken as an indicator. By default, the most current solutions are displayed in the graph. Other video cards are added and removed from the graph at the reader's request.

Resolution 1920x1080:

• Video cards with 12 GB of video memory: consume 6 GB
• Video cards with 16 GB of video memory: consume 6 GB
• Video cards with 24 GB of video memory: consume 6 GB
• Video cards with 32 GB of video memory: consume 7 GB

Resolution 2560x1440:

• Video cards with 12 GB of video memory: consume 6 GB
• Video cards with 16 GB of video memory: consume 6 GB
• Video cards with 24 GB of video memory: consume 6 GB
• Video cards with 32 GB of video memory: consume 7 GB

Resolution 3840x2160:

• Video cards with 12 GB of video memory: consume 7 GB
• Video cards with 16 GB of video memory: consume 7 GB
• Video cards with 24 GB of video memory: consume 7 GB
• Video cards with 32 GB of video memory: consume 8 GB

TEST CPU

  

Testing was carried out at a resolution of 1920x1080. In the processor test, you can remove or add any processor positions. You can also select any tested video card from the list in the drop-down menu, comparing its performance with the given processor test results (by default, the most productive solution from NVIDIA is selected). Testing takes place on the most powerful NVIDIA and AMD video cards and scales to low-end models.

When using NVIDIA video cards:

• Processors for acceptable FPS (not lower than 25 frames per second):
  • AMD Ryzen 3 3100
  • Intel Core i3-10100
• Processors for comfortable FPS (at least 60 frames per second):
  • AMD Ryzen 3 3100
  • Intel Core i3-10100

When using AMD video cards:

• Processors for acceptable FPS (not lower than 25 frames per second):
  • AMD Ryzen 3 3100
  • Intel Core i3-10100
• Processors for comfortable FPS (at least 60 frames per second):
  • AMD Ryzen 3 3100
  • Intel Core i3-10100

Loading and using streams:

• Maximum load: The game can load up to 12 streams.
• Optimal loading: Uses up to 8 threads as efficiently as possible.

RAM TEST

The indicator was taken as all used RAM. The RAM test on the all system was conducted on various video cards without launching third-party applications (browsers, etc.). In the graphics, you can add and remove any resolutions and video cards as desired.

 

Resolution 1920x1080:

• Video cards with 12 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM
• Video cards with 16 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM
• Video cards with 24 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM
• Video cards with 32 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM

Resolution 2560x1440:

• Video cards with 12 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM
• Video cards with 16 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM
• Video cards with 24 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM
• Video cards with 32 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM

Resolution 3840x2160:

• Video cards with 12 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM
• Video cards with 16 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM
• Video cards with 24 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM
• Video cards with 32 GB of video memory: consume 13 GB of RAM

SPONSORS TESTS