Control Resonant launched on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on September 18, 2026, and four days later the picture on hardware is clear: Remedy Entertainment built a PC port around ray tracing and path tracing, and it is charging accordingly. Official specifications published ahead of launch call for an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 9070 just to hit a 1440p/60 FPS target with medium ray tracing, according to Notebookcheck’s report on Remedy’s published specs. That is a notably higher bar than most current releases set for their “recommended” tier, and it is already reshaping how reviewers and shoppers talk about what a modern ray-traced PC game actually costs to run.
This piece breaks down what Remedy actually published, what independent outlets measured across dozens of GPUs, and what the numbers mean for anyone deciding whether to buy new hardware, dial back settings, or simply wait for driver and game patches to catch up. It also places Control Resonant’s demands in the context of the original 2019 Control, which was itself a stress test for early ray tracing hardware, and looks at what this launch signals about the next wave of PC releases chasing path-traced visuals.
Control Resonant PC Requirements: What Remedy Actually Published
Remedy’s official Control Resonant PC requirements, as compiled by Notebookcheck and corroborated by KitGuru’s coverage of the same specification sheet, split into three tiers rather than the usual two. The minimum tier targets 1080p at 30 FPS on low settings with low ray tracing and Quality-mode upscaling. A “recommended, rasterization” tier aims for 1440p at 60 FPS on medium settings with ray tracing disabled. The third tier, labeled specifically for ray tracing, asks for an RTX 4070 Ti or RX 9070 to reach 1440p at 60 FPS on medium settings with medium ray tracing enabled, per KitGuru’s breakdown of the requirements.
All three configurations assume Windows 10 or 11 64-bit and roughly 120GB of SSD storage, a figure confirmed across multiple outlets tracking the launch specs. That storage number alone is worth pausing on: it is a meaningfully larger footprint than most 2026 releases, and it lands in the middle of an ongoing conversation about SSD and DRAM pricing that has already shaped coverage of other recent GPU and storage stories on this site, including the reporting on DRAM prices jumping a record amount this year.
Notebookcheck’s reporting also flagged a discrepancy worth noting for anyone who researched this game before launch: earlier, unofficial requirement lists in circulation cited an RTX 3070 and roughly 100GB of storage as the recommended bar. Those figures did not match what Remedy ultimately published. The newer, official specifications listing the RTX 4070 Ti or RX 9070 for the ray-tracing tier are the ones that matter for anyone buying or building around this release today.
| Tier | CPU | GPU | VRAM / RAM | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum | Core i5-8500 / Ryzen 5 3500 | GTX 1070 / RX 5600 XT / Arc A580 | 6GB VRAM / 16GB RAM | 1080p, 30 FPS, Low preset, low RT |
| Recommended (rasterization) | Core i7-10700 / Ryzen 7 3700X | RTX 3060 Ti / RX 6700 XT / Arc B580 | 8GB VRAM / 16GB RAM | 1440p, 60 FPS, Medium preset, no RT |
| Recommended (ray tracing) | Core i7-10700 / Ryzen 7 3700X | RTX 4070 Ti / RX 9070 | 10GB VRAM / 16GB RAM | 1440p, 60 FPS, Medium preset, medium RT |
Every tier assumes an SSD, not a mechanical hard drive, which tracks with how the game streams assets in its ray-traced environments. Readers weighing an upgrade around this launch may also want to check how their current card handles the load before spending, using the steps in our Nvidia Control Panel settings guide to squeeze out extra frames before assuming new hardware is required.
DLSS 4.5, FSR 4.1, and the Notable XeSS Gap
Control Resonant ships with a full Nvidia feature set: DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution, DLSS Ray Reconstruction, DLSS Frame Generation, and Multi-Frame Generation on supported GeForce RTX 50-series cards, according to reporting from PurePC and PC Games Hardware on the launch specification sheet. AMD’s competing stack is also present, with FSR 4.1 upscaling and frame generation both included.
What is missing is Intel XeSS. Reports from ComputerBase and DSOGaming both note that Intel’s upscaler is absent from Control Resonant at launch, leaving Arc GPU owners without a first-party upscaling path tuned for Intel hardware, even though Arc cards do appear on Remedy’s minimum and recommended-rasterization requirement tiers. That is an unusual gap for a 2026 release built around a partnership as deep as the one Remedy has with Nvidia here, and it is the kind of omission that tends to get patched in post-launch updates rather than left permanently, though no such patch has been confirmed as of this writing.
The game runs on DirectX 12 and supports DLAA for players who want native-resolution antialiasing without upscaling, a detail confirmed in PC Games Hardware’s benchmark coverage. Multi-Frame Generation, Ray Reconstruction, and RTX Mega Geometry are hardware-dependent features tied specifically to Nvidia’s current architecture, meaning AMD and older Nvidia cards will see a smaller subset of the available toolset even where FSR 4.1 is technically supported.
How Much Ray Tracing Actually Costs: The PC Gamer Benchmarks
The clearest picture of ray tracing’s performance cost in Control Resonant comes from PC Gamer’s testing across the game’s five ray tracing presets. Running the same test system from RT Off through RT Ultra, PC Gamer recorded a drop from 105 FPS average with ray tracing disabled down to 62 FPS average at the Ultra preset, a loss of 43 FPS or roughly 41 percent. The 1% low figures tell a similar story, falling from 73 FPS with RT off to 44 FPS at RT Ultra.
| Ray Tracing Preset | Average FPS | 1% Low FPS |
|---|---|---|
| RT Off | 105 | 73 |
| RT Low | 84 | 60 |
| RT Medium | 76 | 54 |
| RT High | 71 | 50 |
| RT Ultra | 62 | 44 |
PC Gamer’s practical takeaway was that the jump from RT Medium to RT Ultra costs roughly 14 FPS on average for a visual difference that is often hard to spot during actual gameplay, and its testing recommended sticking to the lower ray tracing presets rather than maxing every slider. That advice matters more than usual here because the drop-off between presets is steep and fairly linear, unlike games where only the top one or two settings carry a real performance tax.
Tom’s Hardware Tested 28 GPUs — Here’s the Real-World Bar
Tom’s Hardware ran the broadest test of the launch, benchmarking 28 different graphics cards to find where the practical 60 FPS line sits. Its conclusion: among current-generation cards, an RTX 5060 Ti or Radeon RX 9060 XT is roughly what it takes to average around 60 FPS. Among older-generation hardware still in wide use, Tom’s Hardware identified the RTX 4070, RTX 3080, and RX 7800 XT as cards that land in that same performance neighborhood.
That is a useful cross-check against Remedy’s own recommended-for-ray-tracing spec of an RTX 4070 Ti or RX 9070, since it suggests the official numbers are not overstated marketing figures — independent testing lands in roughly the same tier, even if the exact settings and resolution used varied between the official spec sheet and Tom’s Hardware’s test methodology. For anyone still running a GPU older than the RTX 30-series or RX 6000-series, this is one of the clearer signals yet that a upgrade is close to necessary for path-traced titles releasing through the rest of 2026, a trend also visible in the pricing pressure covered in our story on the RTX 5090 climbing to $4,329 amid the broader GPU delay.
Frame Generation Math: Displayed FPS vs. Real Rendering Cost
Frame generation multipliers are doing a lot of work in the highest-end Control Resonant benchmarks circulating this week, and the numbers need context to be useful. Sportskeeda’s testing on an RTX 5070 Ti found that at the game’s highest ray tracing preset with DLSS Quality mode and no frame generation, the card averaged 68 FPS. Turning on 2x frame generation raised that to roughly 115 FPS, 3x frame generation pushed it to about 167 FPS, and 4x frame generation brought it up to approximately 198 FPS. In a separate configuration using DLSS Quality, maximum ray tracing, Ray Reconstruction, and 6x frame generation, Sportskeeda recorded a figure as high as 309 FPS.
Those multiplier-driven numbers look dramatic next to the base 68 FPS rendering rate, but they are not equivalent to native performance. Frame generation interpolates additional frames between ones the GPU actually renders, which raises the displayed frame rate and can smooth motion on a high-refresh display, without reducing input latency or the underlying computational cost of the scene. The 68 FPS figure without frame generation is the more honest measure of how hard an RTX 5070 Ti is working at Control Resonant’s top ray tracing settings.
On the higher end of Nvidia’s current lineup, GamingBolt’s test using an RTX 5080 paired with a Ryzen 7 9850X3D and 64GB of DDR5 RAM, running DLAA with DLSS enabled, reached up to 144 FPS with even its lowest recorded figure staying close to 100 FPS. That configuration represents close to the ceiling of what’s available on PC today, and it underscores how wide the gap is between Remedy’s stated 1440p/60 FPS recommended target and what enthusiast-tier hardware can actually deliver.
IGN Calls It a Strong Port — With Caveats
Not every early verdict on Control Resonant’s PC version is about frame-rate charts. IGN tested the game across five separate machines and, per its published headline and testing notes, came away describing it as an excellent PC port overall. On an RTX 4070 Ti Super at 1440p with medium settings, medium ray tracing, and DLSS Balanced mode, figures cited alongside Tom’s Hardware’s own testing put IGN’s recorded average at 111 FPS with an 81 FPS 1% low — comfortably above Remedy’s own 60 FPS target for that hardware class.
The consistent theme across outlets is that Control Resonant’s PC port is stable and well-optimized at the settings Remedy actually recommends; the performance concerns only show up when players push ray tracing and resolution well past the official targets. That distinction matters for shoppers: the game is playable well on mid-range current-generation hardware at its intended settings, but chasing maximum visual fidelity requires the kind of GPU most players don’t own yet.
Historical Context: The Original Control Set the Template
Remedy’s original Control, released in 2019, was one of the first mainstream titles built to showcase real-time ray tracing on PC, and it was notoriously demanding on the ray tracing hardware available at the time. That reputation set expectations for how a sequel-scale follow-up would behave on modern GPUs, and Control Resonant leans further into the same identity rather than backing away from it. Where the original game offered ray-traced reflections and lighting as an optional showcase feature, Resonant adds full path tracing, DLSS Ray Reconstruction, and Multi-Frame Generation as core parts of its rendering pipeline — features that did not exist when the first game launched.
That progression mirrors a broader pattern across the industry, where flagship visual showcases increasingly require the newest one or two generations of GPU hardware to run at their best. It is the same dynamic that has shaped coverage of GPU pricing and availability more broadly this year, including reporting on GPU prices climbing sharply in key retail markets as demand for ray-tracing-capable cards stays elevated.
Nvidia vs. AMD: An Uneven Feature Comparison on This Title
Control Resonant is a useful case study in how unevenly ray tracing support can land between the two major GPU vendors on a single title. Nvidia’s RTX 4070 Ti sits in Remedy’s official recommended-for-ray-tracing tier, and RTX 50-series owners get access to DLSS 4.5’s full toolkit, including Ray Reconstruction and Multi-Frame Generation, features that go well beyond simple upscaling. AMD’s RX 9070 is listed as an equivalent recommended option, and FSR 4.1 brings comparable upscaling and frame generation to Radeon hardware, but without the Nvidia-exclusive Ray Reconstruction and Multi-Frame Generation features.
Intel Arc cards, meanwhile, appear on Remedy’s minimum and rasterization-recommended tiers but have no XeSS support at all in this title, based on reporting from ComputerBase and DSOGaming. That leaves Arc owners dependent on either native rendering or a competitor’s upscaler where supported, a meaningfully worse position than Nvidia or AMD users get. For a market where Intel has been trying to establish Arc as a legitimate third option, a high-profile release skipping XeSS entirely is a notable gap, even if it gets patched later.
Market Impact: What This Means for GPU Demand
Control Resonant’s requirements land in the middle of a year already defined by tight GPU supply and rising prices. Remedy setting the RTX 4070 Ti and RX 9070 as the practical bar for a fully-featured ray tracing experience adds another data point pushing mid-range-and-up cards toward being the realistic minimum for new AAA releases, not just an enthusiast nice-to-have. That dovetails with the pricing pressure already visible in this year’s DRAM and GPU price increases, where memory costs alone have pushed card prices well above their launch MSRPs.
For retailers and hardware reviewers, a launch like this becomes a convenient real-world benchmark to point to when explaining why a given GPU tier is worth its price. Tom’s Hardware’s 28-card test in particular is likely to get cited repeatedly over the coming months as shorthand for “what a current path-traced game actually needs,” a role that cards like the ones compared in our RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell vs. RTX 5090 breakdown already play for enthusiast-tier buyers.
Getting the Best Experience on PC: What Reviewers Recommend
Across the launch coverage, a consistent piece of practical advice emerges: don’t default to the highest ray tracing preset. PC Gamer’s testing specifically recommended staying at Medium or Low ray tracing rather than Ultra, noting the visual difference is often subtle in actual play while the frame rate cost is not. Given the 43 FPS average gap between RT Off and RT Ultra recorded in that same testing, players on mid-range hardware are likely to get a smoother experience — and arguably a better-looking one, since low frame rates introduce their own visual artifacts — by running one or two presets below maximum.
For players deciding between upscaling modes, DLSS Balanced appears repeatedly in the higher-performing benchmark configurations cited by IGN and Tom’s Hardware, offering a reasonable middle ground between DLSS Quality’s better image fidelity and DLSS Performance’s higher frame rate. Frame generation is worth enabling on supported hardware for smoother motion on high-refresh monitors, but players sensitive to input latency, particularly in a game with combat encounters, may prefer to keep it off or limited to 2x rather than the higher multipliers tested by Sportskeeda. Anyone running into thermal throttling while pushing these settings can check our CPU-GPU bottleneck troubleshooting guide before assuming a full upgrade is necessary.
What’s Still Unconfirmed
A handful of details remain unsettled in the days after launch. Regional pricing has not been consistently confirmed across storefronts; the game is available digitally through Steam and the Epic Games Store, according to Gamers4All’s launch coverage, but exact prices vary by territory and edition. No outlet reviewed for this story identified a major PC-exclusive launch bug, a widespread crash issue, or a confirmed post-launch patch schedule with enough detail to report as fact. Reports so far characterize the port as fundamentally solid, with performance cost — not stability — as the main technical story.
Predictions: Where Control Resonant’s PC Story Goes Next
- Expect Remedy or Nvidia and AMD to ship optimization-focused driver or game patches within weeks of launch, refining DLSS 4.5 and FSR 4.1 performance now that a wide dataset of real-world hardware results exists.
- Path tracing will likely settle into “halo feature” status for most players, similar to how path tracing has been received in other recent showcase titles — technically impressive, but skipped by the majority running mid-range cards, based on the steep FPS cost documented by PC Gamer.
- Frame generation multipliers above 2x are likely to become a recurring point of debate among reviewers, since headline FPS figures built on 3x or higher multipliers risk overstating real-world smoothness and responsiveness.
- Watch for Intel to address the XeSS gap in a post-launch patch, given Arc hardware’s presence on Remedy’s official minimum and recommended-rasterization tiers despite the missing upscaler support.
- Hardware outlets will likely keep citing Control Resonant’s 28-GPU benchmark data as a reference point for “what a 2026 path-traced game needs” well into next year, the same way earlier ray tracing showcases shaped GPU buying guides after their release.
The Bottom Line for PC Players
Control Resonant is a well-built PC port running on genuinely demanding technology. Remedy’s official specifications, an RTX 4070 Ti or RX 9070 for 1440p/60 FPS with medium ray tracing, hold up against independent testing from Tom’s Hardware, PC Gamer, IGN, GamingBolt, and Sportskeeda. Players on that tier or above should expect a smooth, good-looking experience at the game’s intended settings. Players on older hardware, or anyone chasing maximum ray tracing and path tracing settings, will need to either lean on upscaling and frame generation or accept a meaningfully lower frame rate — the roughly 41 percent gap between RT Off and RT Ultra recorded by PC Gamer is not a rounding error.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Control Resonant’s minimum PC requirements?
Remedy’s minimum spec calls for a Core i5-8500 or Ryzen 5 3500, a GTX 1070, RX 5600 XT, or Arc A580 with 6GB VRAM, 16GB of system RAM, and roughly 120GB of SSD storage, targeting 1080p at 30 FPS on low settings with low ray tracing.
Does Control Resonant support DLSS and FSR?
Yes. The game includes Nvidia DLSS 4.5, with Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, and Frame Generation, plus Multi-Frame Generation on RTX 50-series cards. AMD FSR 4.1 upscaling and frame generation are also supported.
Why doesn’t Control Resonant support Intel XeSS?
Reports from ComputerBase and DSOGaming confirm Intel’s XeSS upscaler is absent from the game at launch, even though Intel Arc GPUs appear on Remedy’s official minimum and recommended-rasterization requirement tiers.
How much FPS do you lose by turning on ray tracing?
PC Gamer’s testing recorded a drop from 105 FPS average with ray tracing off to 62 FPS average at the RT Ultra preset, a loss of roughly 41 percent. Lower presets cost proportionally less, with RT Low dropping to 84 FPS.
What GPU do you need for 60 FPS with ray tracing enabled?
Remedy recommends an RTX 4070 Ti or RX 9070 for 1440p at 60 FPS with medium ray tracing. Tom’s Hardware’s independent testing of 28 GPUs found the RTX 5060 Ti or RX 9060 XT among current-generation cards, and the RTX 4070, RTX 3080, or RX 7800 XT among older cards, land in a similar performance range.
How much storage does Control Resonant need on PC?
Approximately 120GB of SSD storage is listed across all of Remedy’s published PC configurations, from minimum through the ray-tracing recommended tier.
Is path tracing worth turning on in Control Resonant?
Reviewer guidance from PC Gamer suggests most players will get a better overall experience sticking to medium or low ray tracing presets rather than maximum settings, since the visual gains at the top end are often subtle relative to the frame rate cost.
When did Control Resonant release and on which platforms?
Control Resonant released on September 18, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, available digitally on PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store.