GSC GameWorld has just lifted the review embargo for STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it’s time now to benchmark it and examine its performance on the PC.
For our benchmarks, we used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX580, RX Vega 64, RX 6900XT, RX 7900XTX, NVIDIA’s GTX980Ti, RTX 2080Ti, RTX 3080 and RTX 4090. We also used Windows 10 64-bit, the GeForce 566.14, and the Radeon Adrenalin Edition 24.10.1 drivers. Moreover, we’ve disabled the second CCD on our 7950X3D.
GSC GameWorld has added a lot of graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of Textures, Hair, Effects, Materials, Objects Detail and more. The game also supports AMD FSR 3.0 and Intel XeSS, alongside NVIDIA DLSS 3. And yes, there is support for AMD FSR 3.0 Frame Generation. Moreover, there is support for HDR.
The devs have not included any built-in benchmark in this title. So, for our GPU and CPU benchmarks, we used two separate scenes. The first scene was a GPU-heavy area, featured in the following video. The second area was in the first main village you encounter which has a lot of NPCs. This was one of the most CPU-demanding areas.
In our CPU-heavy scene, our AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D was unable to provide a constant 60FPS experience. As you can see, there were drops to mid-50s. Again, this is the most CPU-demanding area in the game. All other areas run way better. So, make sure to keep that in mind. To get framerates higher than 60FPS, you’ll at least need a modern-day six-core CPU.
Let’s now focus on our GPU benchmarks. At 1080p/Epic Settings, you’ll need a GPU equivalent to the AMD Radeon RX 6900XT to get framerates higher than 60FPS. The NVIDIA RTX 3080 was also able to offer a smooth gaming experience, provided you use a G-Sync monitor.
At 1440p/Epic Settings, the only GPU that was able to offer framerates higher than 60FPS at all times was the NVIDIA RTX 4090. The AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX was also able to run the game smoothly. As for Native 4K/Epic Settings, there is no GPU right now that can come close to 60FPS.
Sadly, the in-game graphics settings do not bring any meaningful performance improvements. To get a 60FPS experience at Native 4K, we had to lower our settings to Medium. As for the Low Settings, they could not come close to 100FPS. So yeah, this is one of the most demanding PC games.
What this means is that for 4K, you’ll have to use DLSS 3 or FSR 3.0. The good news here is that the NVIDIA DLSS 3 implementation is great. The only issue I encountered was that it was de-activating itself during the in-engine cutscenes and dialogues. I don’t know why this was happening. We’ve already informed NVIDIA about this, so hopefully they’ll work with the devs to address it.
With DLSS 3 Quality, we were able to get over 60FPS at all times in our GPU benchmark at 4K with Epic Settings. Then, by enabling DLSS 3 FG, we were able to game at over 100FPS. I could not notice any input latency issues. So, this is the best way to play STALKER 2 on a high-end PC system. At least in my opinion.
Regarding AMD FSR 3.0 Frame Generation, although it worked perfectly fine with AMD’s GPUs, it did not work at all on NVIDIA’s GPUs. In the video above, you can see this issue on the NVIDIA RTX 4090. Again, FSR 3.0 FG worked fine on the AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX. So that’s another issue the devs will have to fix.
So, for a smooth gaming experience, you’ll have to DLSS 3 or FSR 3.0, even on high-end PC systems. Now I know that this may disappoint some but STALKER 2 is doing some interesting things under its hood. We have A-Life 2.0, interesting firefights, and a dynamic weather system. Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely room for improvement here. However, it at least offers some things that other modern games don’t have.
OK, let me rephrase this. STALKER 2 uses the CPU more efficiently than Dragon’s Dogma 2. Both of them can drop below 60FPS in the HUB areas on the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D. Contrary to DD2, though, STALKER 2 has way more advanced mechanics. So, if you somehow were fine with the CPU requirements of Dragon’s Dogma 2, you should not be complaining about STALKER 2.
Speaking of gameplay mechanics, yes. A-Life 2.0 works as described. Creatures can fight with your enemies. You can also lure creatures or enemies to the environmental hazards. The enemy AI is also pretty good. Some enemies can sometimes become dumb, but overall, the AI is better than what we’ve seen in other titles.
Graphics-wise, STALKER 2 looks amazing. For those wondering, the game has not been downgraded. However, it suffers from major pop-in issues. STALKER 2 uses Unreal Engine 5.1, which does not support Nanite for grass/vegetation. As such, you’ll see trees and grass popping in the distance. Big buildings will also suddenly appear and disappear while exploring the environments.
The big feature of STALKER 2 is its environments. All of them have been crafted with a lot of detail. The dynamic weather and TOD are also incredible. And, thanks to Lumen, the game looks great in pretty much all weather conditions. The HDR implementation is also amazing here. This is a game I highly recommend playing with HDR. Not that it does not look great in SDR. The following screenshots and video are without HDR. Still, HDR makes STALKER 2 look even better.
STALKER 2 does not suffer from shader compilation stutters. When you launch the game, it will pre-compile its shaders. However, there are some traversal stutters. The good news here is that these stutters are not as bad as those we saw in Star Wars: Jedi Survivor or Silent Hill 2 Remake. Most of you won’t notice them, especially if you don’t use a performance overlay graph.
Before closing, I should note that these benchmarks are WITH the day-1 patch (which is around 135GB on PC). I also encountered numerous visual glitches and bugs while playing it. This game is coming in hot. So, I expect a pretty rocky launch.
All in all, STALKER 2 is a really demanding game on PC, both in terms of CPU and GPU. To get the best gaming experience, you’ll need to use an upscaling tech. There are also numerous visual glitches, even with the day-1 patch. The game at least looks great, so that’s a big plus. And while it’s not a mess, it could definitely benefit from some optimization tweaks and improvements.
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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