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[KyoZz]

According to the devs and the community, it's in the game but it's basically not working. I'm guessing they knew it and launched it anyway because they either ran out of money or ran out of time.

Unfortunately according to the community it is NOT there:

[Source]

Or even this post here. They unpacked the game and what they found is not encouraging to say the least. And based with my experience, it align with what they are saying

 

[adamsapple]

I mean it's PC gamer (lol) but still ..

 

[Arsic]

I mean it's PC gamer (lol) but still ..

If THIS is saving we are fucking doomed…

 

[Arsic]

FINALLY got this game to run acceptably.

I've got an RTX 3080, and I'd been playing it on Medium settings with 4K, DLSS + Frame gen. I was getting crashes, framerate tanks any time I went to a new environment, framerate tanks when entering cutscenes...

I dropped my resolution down to 1440p, and it's like an entirely new game. Steady framerate and no crashes yet.

Will try the 1440P I guess as a last chance. If I can go a few hours without crashing I’d be fine to continue on but it bricks so often now for me it’s just not playable.

Edit: Nope. Game is basically soft locked.

Poppy fields I can move 5 feet from save character dies, game crashes.

Done.

 

[adamsapple]

Will try the 1440P I guess as a last chance. If I can go a few hours without crashing I’d be fine to continue on but it bricks so often now for me it’s just not playable.

Edit: Nope. Game is basically soft locked.

Poppy fields I can move 5 feet from save character dies, game crashes.

Done.

Damn, that sounds bad.

I'm kinda surprised that coming from a PC-first developer, the console version seems to be in a much better state at launch.

 

[SirKicksalot]

What CPU are you 3080 people using? I also have one and it doesn't drop below 45 fps* at 4k DLSS Quality with a 14700k, max settings everything.

*except in cutscenes but who cares

Running towards the village murders my CPU - either the game crashes or the PC reboots. So I just walk when I'm like 100 meters from the village. I can live with that.

 

[SatansReverence]

Will try the 1440P I guess as a last chance. If I can go a few hours without crashing I’d be fine to continue on but it bricks so often now for me it’s just not playable.

Edit: Nope. Game is basically soft locked.

Poppy fields I can move 5 feet from save character dies, game crashes.

Done.

I had a consistent crashing and performance issue for the first 5 hours (they were rough with multi hour saves lost). Eventually found the culprit to be AMD Adrenalines full install. With a lite or driver only it's playing beautifully smooth and crashes are very rare if not completely gone.

Stalker 2 seems to be unhappy with certain programs trying to hook into it for any reason.

 

[Arsic]

I had a consistent crashing and performance issue for the first 5 hours (they were rough with multi hour saves lost). Eventually found the culprit to be AMD Adrenalines full install. With a lite or driver only it's playing beautifully smooth and crashes are very rare if not completely gone.

Stalker 2 seems to be unhappy with certain programs trying to hook into it for any reason.

I’m unsure how to proceed. I’m not super far by any means but ultimately if the crashes once I get here again it’s pointless to restart or find an earlier save.

Plus, I can’t troubleshoot because every crash means let’s compile shaders for 2 minutes.

I don’t want to be the guy who “shits up the OT with negativity” so I’ll just see myself out.

Truly the shittiest game of 2024 for me. Thank god for gamepass… this would’ve been money flushed.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

What CPU are you 3080 people using? I also have one and it doesn't drop below 45 fps* at 4k DLSS Quality with a 14700k, max settings everything.

*except in cutscenes but who cares

Running towards the village murders my CPU - either the game crashes or the PC reboots. So I just walk when I'm like 100 meters from the village. I can live with that.

Ryzen 5 5600X for me. 3080 RTX. Was getting crashes and tanked framerate until dropping from 4K to 1440p. DLSS Quality + Frame Gen in all cases.

 

[Revolutionary]

Rtx 3080, 11th gen intel i7 11700KF at 3.6ghz.

16gb of ram

I was just now in the poppy fields. Kept my energy up , my character is full health, just chugged an energy drink, no radiation, randomly dies then the game crashes.

Probably just abandoning this game now.

After 6 crashes today I’m good. There may be a good game here but what we got is a sad sack of shit that should’ve been delayed for another year.

Will try the 1440P I guess as a last chance. If I can go a few hours without crashing I’d be fine to continue on but it bricks so often now for me it’s just not playable.

Edit: Nope. Game is basically soft locked.

Poppy fields I can move 5 feet from save character dies, game crashes.

Done.

16GB is the minimum spec for LOW Settings at 1080p WITH upscaling enabled

System Requirements​

Minimum:

• OS: Windows 10 x64 / Windows 11 x64
• Processor: Intel Core i7-7700K / AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB / Intel Arc A750
• Storage: 160 GB available space
• Additional Notes: Graphics Preset: LOW / Resolution: 1080p / Target FPS: 30. 16 GB Dual Channel RAM. SSD required. The listed specifications were evaluated using TSR and comparable technologies.

 

[ramuh]

Some of the mods that make this a more bearable fun experience I use currently
Lighter ammo/food
Mod that fixes shader compiler (reduces time/ increases FPS/stability)
Reduce stamina cost
Reduced creature health
Slight reduction in repair costs

7800x3d/4080S/64Ram-6000 Mhz 4k- EPIC settings avg fps -100 (DLSS perf/frame gen)

 

[Arsic]

16GB is the minimum spec for LOW Settings at 1080p WITH upscaling enabled

System Requirements​

Minimum:

• OS: Windows 10 x64 / Windows 11 x64
• Processor: Intel Core i7-7700K / AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB / Intel Arc A750
• Storage: 160 GB available space
• Additional Notes: Graphics Preset: LOW / Resolution: 1080p / Target FPS: 30. 16 GB Dual Channel RAM. SSD required. The listed specifications were evaluated using TSR and comparable technologies.

Idk what to tell you but I can run it at 4k, epic, dlss quality, and frame gen on to get 60 fps 99% of the time.

 

[DanielG165]

Those same dudes who absolutely murdered a pack of dogs earlier for me… I guess they must’ve pissed off the rest of the family or something, because they legit got hunted down. Thankfully, I was high up on a water tower, waiting for nighttime to be over before venturing back out, but I certainly caught some of the chaos lol. One of the guys did get killed in the scuffle, sadly.

Even without A-life apparently not working properly, random stuff like this absolutely makes this game for me. Also, I think night lasts more than long enough, personally. I was up on that tower for at least a good 15 minutes or so, it felt like.

 

[GudOlRub]

I mean it's PC gamer (lol) but still ..

I've had so much fun this year... P3, Astro Bot, Helldivers 2, Silent Hill 2, Frostpunk 2, Metro Awakening, the new Six Days in Fallujah AI update and probably a few other games I'm not remembering right now, just fuck off...
Hell, this year I'm actually having a harder time deciding which game I've enjoyed the most. Last year Alan Wake 2 was my goty easily, this year between Astro Bot and SH2 Remake I can't really decide tbh... I also thought STALKER 2 was going to be in contention but as it currently stands I can't put this game on the same level as those two...

And regarding STALKER 2, I'm loving the game, I'm sad that A-life is completely broken, but something that I can't get out of my mind because I'm constantly reminded of it while playing is light sources not casting shadows... walking around with my flashlight ON or shooting a gun and not seeing any shadows being cast is annoying me so much, initially I didn't think it would bother me this much but it does, it feels like such a big downgrade compared to SoC and because it's something that is constantly present on my screen I just can't shake this feeling that they gimped the visuals in a major way...

Just look at this comparison

Spoiler

The game has so many post-processing effects, I'd honestly trade a couple of them to instead have more dynamic lighting.

My hope now is that they deliver on their hardware RT promise quite soonish, I reckon that would solve most of my issues with it.

The game's combat against humans is so satisfying though, I'm really loving just blasting fools and looting them, from the trailers I thought the combat wouldn't be anything special, I'm so happy I was wrong, it's honestly carrying the game hard for me atm.
On the other hand monster combat isn't much fun for me... they're too bullet spongy for my liking, I know there's mods to change that but I'm hoping they change it a bit in the upcoming hotfix.

 

[hououinkyouma00]

So I just made it to

Spoiler: spoiler

SIRCAA

and holy shit my FPS is terrible. I'm getting like legit 15fps pretty consistently where up until now I was getting roughly 110-130 out in the rest of the world and down to maybe 90 in hubs at least once I upgraded my CPU. I would hate to see how my 3600 performed in this area.

I mean it's PC gamer (lol) but still ..

Rubbish?
We've had Tekken 8, P3 Reload, Helldivers, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Unicorn Overlord, Dragons Dogma 2 (I personally enjoyed it), Crow Country, Space Marine 2, ToL Echoes of Wisdom, and Silent Hill 2 Remake.

What is this retard smoking?

 

[Dusktildawn48]

Some of the mods that make this a more bearable fun experience I use currently
Lighter ammo/food
Mod that fixes shader compiler (reduces time/ increases FPS/stability)
Reduce stamina cost
Reduced creature health
Slight reduction in repair costs

7800x3d/4080S/64Ram-6000 Mhz 4k- EPIC settings avg fps -100 (DLSS perf/frame gen)

I'll have to try some of these, thanks.

You should try running at 1440 dlss quality. Runs and looks far better that way imo.

 

[geary]

I'm 10 hours deep and I haven't seen a single woman in this entire game. None.

What is up with that?

I heard inthe first games theres an explanation on why they are not in the zone. Something related with the radiation messing up with their body.

 

[TheTurboFD]

Idk what happened but i was playing fine before and today I can't get anywhere without crashes. Trying to do the main objective in town and FPS drops to like 4 then crashes, tried to grab a side objective and same thing. This is killing my vibe, i'm on a 7800x3d/4080S/64gb RAM.

 

[MGHA]

Just got to GARBAGE after leaving Lesser Zone with 14 hours of playing. What a game this is. Get introduced to a lot of new weapons too.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Hope this stays long enough on game pass long enough to be reasonably fixed. Then again if it does leave gamepass and has significant fixes to bugs and gameplay I’ll just buy it…for ps5.

 

[SolidQ]

next week patch - https://steamcommunity.com/app/1643320/eventcomments/4626980894528337542?snr=2_9_100000_&ctp=7

 

[Dirk Benedict]

I mean it's PC gamer (lol) but still ..

They used to be respectable, now they're bonafide morons.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

The game looks stunning, UE5 is quite awesome, no denying that.

The only problems visually are the absolutely horrible and dogshit software Lumen, lack of shadows from GI and local shadows, lack of shadowcasting from light sources and flashlight, terrible reflections and indoor lighting / shadowing, massive object pop-in and barely working Ninite. The game literally begs for proper hardware RT (just like in the re-released Metro Exodus for example) if not PT, and I will argue that even hardware Lumen is worse than native Nvidia RT / PT, cuz it has light leak problems as well as in some situations bad AO behaviour you can see in Silent Hill 2 remake. Hardware Lumen for sure performs better but I'd say S.T.A.L.K.E.R. deserves proper hardware RT/PT which are not specific / tied to any engine and especially UE5.

 

[Flabagast]

I know the games meant to be hard but jfc. I think I’m done trying. I have like 15 deaths and I’m like 10 min in. First issue was for some reason the default hdr brightness was so low I was basically blind lol. But constantly bleeding every time there’s a fight, and the being attacked by fucking wind gusts is really annoying, I’m on the lowest difficulty too. It’s a cool world but not for me I guess

Go back to COD please and stop polluting this thread

 

[LaughingStock]

It's so cool revisiting areas from the older games but now being part of the open world. Just arrived in Zaton. When I saw the ship I was like "Chewie, we're home".
It was the wrong ship. But still...

The lack of A-life sucks. The world feels too quiet. But I'm still enjoying this game a lot.

To people struggling with combat against humans: when you're getting shot, run for cover first. Heal or stop the bleeding. Use auto or manual lean to peek. Go for headshots.

 

[Fess]

I dropped my resolution down to 1440p, and it's like an entirely new game. Steady framerate and no crashes yet.

I still get drops in 1440p on a 4090 so don’t feel bad about dropping the res.

I use Frame Generation to sort it out, doubles the framerate so it hovers around 80-110fps in npc stacked areas.

Tried it on the PC in the living room, the kids had watched a movie so had the projector screen out, the projector is 1080p.
- Butter - Smooth
And playing on a huge screen was pretty awesome too.
Don’t know if it was the better CPU (7800x3d vs 7900x) or being forced to cap at 60fps from the projector being 60hz so less fluctuations or if it was the lower resolution. Was nice either way.

 

[adamsapple]

Some more scenes from the Zone. Series X Quality Mode.

The Emissions are fucking scary as a concept. And the game does a great job showing it to you in action. I've had at least 2 missions where Emission warnings started mid-combat and led to a couple of enemies dying from not being able to reach cover, and their screams heard while I was hiding in cover myself.

 

[Revolutionary]

Pushed too hard into MSQ and it canceled one of my sidequests. Whoops. Oh well, I ain't going back x amount of hours just for one side quest.

 

[UnrealEck]

Will try the 1440P I guess as a last chance. If I can go a few hours without crashing I’d be fine to continue on but it bricks so often now for me it’s just not playable.

Edit: Nope. Game is basically soft locked.

Poppy fields I can move 5 feet from save character dies, game crashes.

Done.

Is your graphics card overclocked?
A lot of games will crash when the graphics card is overclocked. Some will make it seem your OC is stable but others will crash it. I was crashing in Stalker 2 and reset my card to stock and it didn't crash. Not saying 100% this fixed my crashes but it has been the fix for other games.

Worth a try.

 

[Fess]

Rubbish?
We've had Tekken 8, P3 Reload, Helldivers, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Unicorn Overlord, Dragons Dogma 2 (I personally enjoyed it), Crow Country, Space Marine 2, ToL Echoes of Wisdom, and Silent Hill 2 Remake.

What is this retard smoking?

It’s PC Gamer, and FF7 Rebirth isn’t out on PC yet. And they might not like the genres for the other games. Could be like expecting a metal fan to be impressed by a year with new albums from Taylor Swift, Enya, Black Pink, Kanye West, J.Lo or whatever.

Tbh for me this year has been so-so. I don’t play Tekken or JRPGs or online games, haven’t finished FF7 Remake so can’t start Rebirth yet, could’ve possibly liked Dragon’s Dogma 2 but reception seemed muted so skipped it, Silent Hill 2 was already too scary in 2001 so not touching the remake, and didn’t like the Zelda game.

Shadow of the Erdtree was awesome but it’s DLC. Really like the COD campaign but it’s a minor thing for a whole year. Astro Bot was the real light in the darkness, loved that but became tedious by the end and wasn’t challenging enough. Shattered Space was pretty nice but DLC and too short. Stellar Blade seems good but very linear and haven’t played far, looks nice though.
And now there is Stalker 2 which is right up my ally, unless it stumbles later on it’ll be my GOTY.

 

[P:axMagellanic]

It's nice to have the ability to lean in an FPS game that's also on console. Very few FPS games have had the ability to lean throughout console history and it's basically nonexistent in modern FPS games. Black Ops 6 included a good auto-lean function and now this has dedicated "lean" left and right buttons when in ADS. It's good to see this ability back in an FPS game on console.

Medal of Honour Airborne figured out the whole leaning on joypad controls waaay back in the 360 days. I'm amazed no other company stole it.

 

[Zathalus]

I really want to jump in and play this. But no, I need to stay strong and wait until it is heavily patched.

 

[GymWolf]

Cohh said that his game is much more stable with the latest nvidia driver (566.14), did someone tried pre and post new drivers to see if there is a difference?

 

[xrnzaaas]

Nice Bethesda quest there with the bloodsucker cave. Go through the cave before getting the quest - nothing. Grab the quest, artifact and bloodsucker populate it.
Also quest givers who don't fight even when dogs are gnawing at their ankles are bullshit. They're invincible to grenades but you can shoot them wtf

Yeah that cave part sucked a bit, I turned on my artifact detector during my first visit to the cave and found nothing. Maybe the bloodsucker brought it?

 

[Fess]

Cohh said that his game is much more stable with the latest nvidia driver (566.14), did someone tried pre and post new drivers to see if there is a difference?

I had zero crashes on an older driver, don’t know the numbers but was likely updated around the Horizon remaster.

Updated to the new 566.14 driver and had 2 crashes within 10 minutes and has had 2 more after that.

So, definitely not any better from my experience…

The crashes are weird, the image is freezing but the sound keeps going. I can’t close the game, can’t alt tab to anything else, literally have to restart the computer. Can’t even remember when that happened before this game.

Theoretically it could be my CPU being down on the knees, it’s a 7900x and I see drops down into the 40s in village areas. But I need to log some lengthy sessions with a crash to say for certain.
Did a quick log with Afterburner and never saw CPU usage above 70, but all the cores were building up a sweat so might still be unusual for this build, most games are pushing the graphics card.

 

[SJRB]

Go back to COD please and stop polluting this thread

Don’t be an asshole.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

It's been 17 years...

Spoiler

 

[Ceadeus]

 

[geary]

It's been 17 years...

Spoiler

When Stalker 2 takes place? between the first 3 games or after them? Sidorovich looks exactly the same, hasnt aged at all

 

[SirKicksalot]

Some of the mods that make this a more bearable fun experience I use currently

Reduced creature health

If it's anything like the originals, you'll be Arnold in Commando before the halfway mark so this should be reverted.
Can you still run away from bloodsuckers? The toxic cave quest is surely meant to teach that. It was a good strategy, especially in Clear Sky where they are invincible when cloaked.

 

[GymWolf]

If it's anything like the originals, you'll be Arnold in Commando before the halfway mark so this should be reverted.
Can you still run away from bloodsuckers? The toxic cave quest is surely meant to teach that. It was a good strategy, especially in Clear Sky where they are invincible when cloaked.

Just did the mission, it was nothing that a double barrel on the face can't solve

I didn't even known you could escape from the encounter.

 

[Josemayuste]

It's been 17 years...

Spoiler

 

[Luipadre]

First patch coming:

no deadzone fix sigh

 

[mèx]

For people playing on PC: https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/57?tab=description

This should fix the asymmetric mouse sensitivity on the X/Y axis.

 

[gtabro]

If it's anything like the originals, you'll be Arnold in Commando before the halfway mark so this should be reverted.
Can you still run away from bloodsuckers? The toxic cave quest is surely meant to teach that. It was a good strategy, especially in Clear Sky where they are invincible when cloaked.

Yes! In the opening mission I ran like there’s no tomorrow crouched turned off my lamp and the sucker just went away (could hear his footsteps going away) and didn’t come back after.

 

[GudOlRub]

When Stalker 2 takes place? between the first 3 games or after them? Sidorovich looks exactly the same, hasnt aged at all

I'm not an expert on STALKER lore, not even close, but from the little I've played and after meeting a few monoliths in the game I think it's definitely set after CoP.
How much time after though I have no idea.

 

[Rocinante618]

Stopped after about ~19 hours (gamepass). Never played a STALKER game before, here are my views.

• Atmosphere is incredible, when you walk during storms (not the red ones) it's insanely cool. I love it, the vibe is perfect. Very picturesque. Very dreadful.
• Guns feel really good, the weight, the movement and the animation are very satisfying. They have nailed it apart from minor deadzone issues and accuracy.
• Combat with humans is enjoyable, fun & challenging when the AI works - often it doesn't, enemies keep spawning, throw millions of grenades, brain-dead AI and sometimes they can see you through walls - this makes stealth impossible.
• Stealth is as I said pretty useless - but that's fine by as I love going guns blazing.
• Indoor areas are not very pretty, low res textures and often the RT/light rays are broken but when everything works it looks really good - the vibe is unmatched, I have just stood and stared at some areas, breathtaking art direction.
• Too much loot and too little weight limit - this makes the game really irritating to play, after getting a weight mod, the game became 100x better.
• Survival mechanics are underbaked - food, rad are not at all an issue given how much loot is present. After 19 hours I have around ~100 sausages and ~80 bottles of alcohol (beer, vodka) and pretty much infinite ammo lol
• Non-humans enemies are extremely irritating as they come in hordes and are just to annoy you. Spongey af on Veteran, zero loot, loss of ammo, absolutely useless - especially the dogs and the invisible enemies (bloodsucker?). Extremely irritating content.
• Quests are actually fun for me lol, I love the banter, I enjoyed the weird dialogue, the VA, the chatGPT names of NPC and just all around vibe. This game doesn't care about "socially acceptable" dialogue and just has whatever makes sense, it's fun and natural. After trying DA: Veilguard, holy the difference.
• Quests while being fun, are very go to A, kill, do this, go to B and given there's no fast travel - you have to walk long stretches of land (thankfully the atmosphere makes up this boring task) so this artifically pads the length. There are apparently 30+ quests in the main mission and I just completed 14 of them - so this game will take me easily 50 hours (out of which 20+ is walking).
• Anomalies! I don't like them at all - they look cool and for couple of times, figuring to pass through them, interact, get the artifact is cool but it becomes super boring fast. A chore. Most artifacts have give rad and given the headache inducing rad effect (white flcikering dots which you can't turn off) I just didn't care. Just sell and repeat. The scanner beep has made me insane and it's super inaccurate - like you have to be 1m away from the artifact for it to show - it spawns when you're super near it. The upgrade isn't that better lol.
• Quest markers are sometimes broken, quests are bugged and don't progress.
• Water bodies instantly kill you - boring! I wanted some swimming/diving.
• Performance is not optimal but given my system (i9-12900K, RTX 4080, 64GB RAM) I get good framerates, ~80fps at Epic, 1440P, DLSS, no FG. Still there's some shuttering, fps drops in cities/towns, 5 crashes so far, weird FOV bugs. Native I get around 45-50fps with ~35fps lows which imo shows bad optimization. UE5 is a boon as well as a bane in this industry. Epic and Nvidia/AMD/Intel need to work together and a fix.

I would say it's a very fun, enjoyable game. Atmospheric and meaty gunplay, funny VA/quests and terrific sound design. AI is more of less broken but I feel other bugs are fixable. It's how a game should be - goofy, fun, meaty gameplay and not super serious.

I really do want to own this on Steam so I'll buy it after 8-10 months when the irritating bugs are fixed or there are enough mods to fix it. Solid game, I recommend getting it if your PC specs are good and you're fine with some irritating stuff. You'll have a nice fun time.

 

[simpatico]

FINALLY got this game to run acceptably.

I've got an RTX 3080, and I'd been playing it on Medium settings with 4K, DLSS + Frame gen. I was getting crashes, framerate tanks any time I went to a new environment, framerate tanks when entering cutscenes...

I dropped my resolution down to 1440p, and it's like an entirely new game. Steady framerate and no crashes yet.

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

This is why we can't have nice things.

I don't get it. If you're implying a 3080 shouldn't be expected to do 4k, then why does it hold 60fps but drop to single digits when entering new areas/cutscenes?

Seems like an optimization and not a GPU problem.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

no deadzone fix sigh

What's the deadzone issue? I'm playing with an Xbox controller on PC, and it feels weird but I can't put my finger on why.