Spider-Man 2 Swings Onto Steam With Forgiving PC Specs

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 swings onto PC today, January 30th, and its PC port boasts impressive features and surprisingly broad hardware compatibility. Developer Nixxes Software, in a PlayStation Blog post, details the extensive optimizations designed for diverse PC configurations.

A new trailer accompanies the announcement, highlighting the removal of the PSN requirement for PC players and the inclusion of advanced ray tracing capabilities, such as DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction. Nixxes graphics programmer Menno Bil explains the enhancements: "With ray reconstruction enabled, we see more detailed ray-traced reflections and sharper ray-traced shadows, particularly at steep angles. Improvements are also evident in ray-traced interiors, with reduced ghosting and noise in ray-traced ambient occlusion."

The game also supports DLSS 3, FSR 3.1, and Intel XeSS upscaling and frame generation technologies. While DLSS 4's Multi-Frame Generation isn't directly supported, Nvidia app users might leverage the newer transformer model for improved DLSS 3 Frame Generation image quality.

Ultrawide monitor support extends to an impressive 48:9 aspect ratio, with cinematics viewable up to 32:9.

System requirements are categorized into ray-traced and non-ray-traced configurations. For players prioritizing performance over ray tracing, a modest system with an Nvidia GTX 1650, Intel Core i3 8100, and 16GB RAM can achieve 720p at 30 FPS. High-end configurations, targeting 4K 60 FPS with "Ray Tracing Ultimate," require an RTX 4090, AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and 32GB RAM.

Steam Deck compatibility remains uncertain due to the game's relatively high RAM requirements and need for a modern GPU. Unlike the previous Spider-Man titles which had PS4 ports, Spider-Man 2's PS5 origins might present greater hardware demands.

Despite this, the wide range of supported configurations has garnered significant online praise. Reddit users have lauded the comprehensive system requirements, with comments like "This must be the best hardware requirements sheet I’ve seen so far" and "Honestly, great job. If performance lives up to this, it'll be very well received."