STALKER 2 Performance Benchmark

[neatfeatguy]

Running the game with my 5900x and 3080Ti (with 75% power limit on it). Most graphic settings are on EPIC, I dropped down shadows, hair, reflections and one or two others to high. Turned off (or at least down as far as possible) motion blur and let the game run native. Aside from a few hitches towards the start of the game things are running pretty smooth, should be holding around that 60fps mark, but that's just a guess since I'm not actively running a fps overlay. Things run smooth so far, but I've only put about an hour into the game.

After exiting the game I checked MSI and it shows VRAM use was about 9GB.

 

[TomasK]

Game developers need to stay far away from UE5. The engine is a curse for the gaming community.

Yep, agree 100%. Loved the original Stalker trilogy, but staying away from this one, as I avoid UE5 like the plague. If the game used a different engine--any, really, like Cryengine for example--I would have already bought it. But since it's on UE5, I put it on my "waiting till I have an RTX 6080" list. The game being 20 Euros and hopefully well-patched by then is going to be a bonus.

 

[boomheadshot8]

yes, many people are encountering so even on RTX 4000
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Same here with a 3070 + recording 1080p with obs
frames drop 5-10 fps ish
I need to quit the game and restart

 

[mouacyk]

ooh another benchmark to test 4090. cbp gets boring and crysis is outdated

 

[BrainCruser]

How much RAM do you have? what CPU? did you close everything else in the background?

64GB of system ram.
5700x3d
No I don't shut down things in the background, I have 3 monitors(27" 2560x1440 - 34" 3440x1440 - 27" 2560x1440) and watch things on the side monitors. One has a browser, the other monitor has discord and stuff.

But this is the first game that runs out of VRAM in this fashion. Even dropping to 1080p low didn't help with avoiding the performance drops. The only other game that behaved similarly was warzone 2 at ultra settings, but dropping to medium helped in that game. Not even low with reduced resolution helps in this one.

 

[harm9963]

Game visuals are just alright, would look much better with path tracing mode like in Black Myth Wukong.

Will admit this game is not as good looking as it should with UE5 , but Hellblade II ,Remnant 2 , do have UE5 - don't have RT, but DLAA and FG , are the best looking games ever , Black Myth Wukong is a nice looking that's for sure .

 

[Xebec]

64GB of system ram.
5700x3d
No I don't shut down things in the background, I have 3 monitors(27" 2560x1440 - 34" 3440x1440 - 27" 2560x1440) and watch things on the side monitors. One has a browser, the other monitor has discord and stuff.

But this is the first game that runs out of VRAM in this fashion. Even dropping to 1080p low didn't help with avoiding the performance drops. The only other game that behaved similarly was warzone 2 at ultra settings, but dropping to medium helped in that game. Not even low with reduced resolution helps in this one.

OK well that might explain your stuttering . This game is *very* CPU heavy.

 

[Lewzke]

not the performance is the nr.1 issue with the game, the NPC system is broken, I never felt so frustraded about so close random spawns, the A-life 2.0 is not working or it is disabled, I mean come on guys the game was delayed several times now you got 1 million copies sold, that is +60 million USD, can you fix your game? Hire few more expert ...

 

[BrainCruser]

OK well that might explain your stuttering . This game is *very* CPU heavy.

3 fps and stuck at 3, isn't "stuttering". Its obviously thrashing the vram. As in loading and unloading stuff from vram multiple times in a frame. CPU doesn't do anything in that situation.

 

[Super XP]

Unreal Engine 5? Why oh why would they do such a thing. They should have used the far better id tech 7 used for DOOM Eternal or 4A Engine, the one used in the Metro Series.

 

[BrainCruser]

3 fps and stuck at 3, isn't "stuttering". Its obviously thrashing the vram. As in loading and unloading stuff from vram multiple times in a frame. CPU doesn't do anything in that situation.

Disabling Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling helped some with the fps drops.

 

[Event Horizon]

The OG Stalker games had traversal stutter. UE5 can have both shader compilation and traversal stutter but it varies from game to game. It's something that can be fixed hopefully.

 

[Chomiq]

Unreal Engine 5? Why oh why would they do such a thing. They should have used the far better id tech 7 used for DOOM Eternal or 4A Engine, the one used in the Metro Series.

Nooooooooooooooooooope.

Disabling Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling helped some with the fps drops.

Or you know, shaders for specific items were compiled...

Guys get over it, it's UE5 you can't just fix it yourselves. Shader compile stutter are there because devs f'd up and traversal stutter is basically unavoidable in any UE game nowadays.

 

[vbq7qK68eyYAH4iR]

The game does have fast travel. You use Guides in settlements. It makes sense that you can’t just auto travel in a world where anomalies move around. You need someone who knows the safe way.

The game is truly massive. Explore it. It has been thrilling for me.

 

[AKBrian]

Just a data point, I'm playing with a PNY 4090, 64GB DDR5-6000CL30 and a 7800X3D at 3840x1600. I run with DLSS Quality, no frame gen.

In town and some other NPC heavy areas, the GPU usage will drop to 75%-85% usually. I've seen occasional 'half' GPU usage, but it's usually pretty consistent in that 80% range. Outside of these areas it's pretty consistent near pegged to 95-100%.

I would love to see a TPU CPU comparison for this game .

Fellow 3840x1600 user; if you haven't already done so, there's a weird way to fix the -FOV output which can cut off some detail on the top and bottom of the image in ultrawide resolutions, as well as result in an unnaturally zoomed in feel.

If not already set as such, go into the Display settings tab and select full screen borderless at native resolution. Hit apply if needed. After this (or from this baseline, if already set), switch to full screen (exclusive), bump the resolution down to 2560x1600 and hit Apply. After that takes change, immediately switch back to full screen (borderless) and hit Apply - do not touch the resolution option, which will remain greyed out at 2560x1600. Presto change-o, your vertical FOV should be restored and you'll also be back at 3840x1600.

There is a caveat, which is that when the game takes control of your viewport, such as during cinematics or some conversations, it will break the FOV and you'll have to go into the settings menu to wiggle it back again, but luckily it only takes a few seconds. Also note that going down to 2560x1440 did not work for me, I had to choose 2560x1600 specifically. I assume the vertical resolution needs to match, otherwise it recalculates everything and borks up the "fix."

Note that this is not the same effect as adjusting the in-game FOV slider from the default 90, which affects horizontal FOV. That can also be adjusted as needed.

Sample of what I mean (dark pictures - apologies, it was literally the first thing I noticed and needed to fix when I started the game up, I hadn't even moved yet).

Default:

Spoiler: Default view:

After output/res toggle fix:

Spoiler: After fix:

 

[phxrider]

So wait.... it crushes your system, but looks like an aging Fallout game, and without ray tracing? Why?

 

[JustBenching]

And looking at the minimum FPS chart at 4K shows most 8GB cards dropping places and frames equally hard. The 3060 12GB is way ahead of the 3060 Ti 8GB for example, almost rivaling the 3070 Ti 8 GB.

The 4060ti 8gb / 3070 8gb are ahead of the 4060ti 16gb. Doesn't seem like your vram argument holds much water

 

[W1zzard]

The game does have fast travel. You use Guides in settlements.

Yeah, but it's just a pain to get to them in the first place. I want "M" and click on a settlement, I've already explored the area on the way _to_ the mission objective

 

[DarkDreams]

The 4060ti 8gb / 3070 8gb are ahead of the 4060ti 16gb. Doesn't seem like your vram argument holds much water

The 4060 Ti 16GB is worse than its 8GB counterpart in all charts. No idea why that is since they have the same chip so should perform equally, but maybe it's a different model with lower power limit or just plain old silicon lottery. Maybe @W1zzard can chime in on that one?
You also cannot just compare different models in a single chart, if you look at the 1440p results the 3070 8GB was almost 20% ahead of the 4060 Ti 16GB while at 4K it lost all of that and dropped to merely equal performance. So something is clearly up there.
That being said I think it is evident from this thread that this game has numerous issues and pretty inconsistent results anyway so who knows. I still think a lack of VRAM might be causing issues in some cases. Another example for that would be the two tested Intel cards: The A770 is slightly ahed of the A750 except in 4K where the A750 falls off a cliff. And again A770 has double the VRAM.

 

[W1zzard]

The 4060 Ti 16GB is worse than its 8GB counterpart in all charts. No idea why that is since they have the same chip so should perform equally, but maybe it's a different model with lower power limit or just plain old silicon lottery. Maybe @W1zzard can chime in on that one?

Nice find. Maybe the game engine does something differently when it detects 8 GB vs 16 GB

 

[Nostras]

@W1zzard according to HUB the 8GB 4060Ti falls apart compared to the 16GB model with reasonable settings.

Actually, looking at the video everything with 8GB or less at 1080p epic is a disaster.
I'm very surprised at how this contrasts with your findings.

Edit: Either the scene is just no representative of the actual experience or there's something wildly different between a 9800X3D and 14900K setup.

 

[darkangel0504]

wow, see those 8 GB cards

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

Our VRAM testing shows that Stalker 2 is very well-behaved in terms of VRAM usage. Even at 4K you're barely hitting 10 GB; lowest settings runs at around 6 GB, so virtually all cards can handle the game without problems

and yet people still go for the VRAM is META farcry (for god's sake!!) without understanding how the game engine behaves.

Thankful for outlets that aren't halfwits on testing the recomended specs.

The wait is over, but this feels still halfbaked.

according to HUB the 8GB 4060Ti falls apart compared to the 16GB model with reasonable settings.

Gonna try this one out later, gonna let a 4060ti (8gb) test her out.

 

[Raptor_i]

Despite the use of Unreal Engine 5, which is the best engine right now, the graphics of Stalker 2 look dated.

Excuse Me, What ? are we even playing the same game ? many many places and environment looks photorealistic, stunning and I'm not even playing on EPIC and a you'll get a whole new experience if you enable HDR, NPCs clothing is very good and faces are mostly covered and please don't compare any game to Hellblade, it's a glorified cutscenes with some gameplay Hellblade is basically a tech demo.

Also worth mentioning that this game have no loading between different sectors and the whole map is huge, dense and filled with handcrafted places, secret places and loot in most remote parts of the map.
The issues that this game have mostly related to ai system called A-life which is a big issue and they said they are working on it, day and night cycle are fast and storm weather are a bit spam, inventory and PDA need more love but graphics shouldn't be the criticized point of Stalker 2.

 

[Rabit]

Nice find. Maybe the game engine does something differently when it detects 8 GB vs 16 GB

In past examples performance difference was caused by lower textures loading on 8GB GPU versions instead higher quality on 16GB version.