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STALKER 2 - PC/Xbox Series X|S Review - Digital Foundry Tech Review
- Thread starter Midn1ght
- Start date
Mister Wolf
Member
A great showcase for Nanite. Having a blast playing this.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
- Atmosphere, environmental artwork etc are the games greatest strengths
- UE 5.1 used, so vegetation is not using Nanite and not fully treated with Unreal's shadow maps
- Texturing across the game is high quality, hence the games massive install size (150GB~)
- Storms and weather effects highlight visual quality as well
- Cut-scenes and NPC's are synced properly to either localization
- A number of light sources do not cast shadows, something the original game did (eg muzzle flash causing shadows)
- Lumen light and reflections present but use a lot on SSR and can cause light break
- No Hardware Based Lumen at present, devs have said they will add post-release
- Xbox:
- Fidelity and vegetation lower than PC's Epic settings, but even Series S has a 'shocking' amount of vegetation on screen
- Shadow maps on Quality mode (SX) look similar to PC but Performance is lower quality with more jittering
- Lumen is lower quality in Performance mode and can have more light breaks compared to Quality mode or PC in its Epic settings
- Performance mode and Series S has lower quality translucent effects on windows etc, where SX in Quality and PC render it properly
- DRS on both console with Unreal's TSR
- Series S: 684p to 864p reconstructed to 1080p with TSR (single mode)
- Series X Performance: 864p to 1152p reconstructed with TSR to 4K
- Series X Quailty: Around 1440p with TSR to 4K at 30 FPS
- DF note that make sure to change sRGB on monitors (something I also pointed out in the OT) as the game looks very dark by default
- The day 0 patch fixes a lot of the initial problems in the review period, but still has some problems that need to be addressed by the developer.
- Shader comp at boot prevents shader stutters, but game still has some CPU / traversal related stutters. This issue was much more prominent before the day 0 patch.
- The game is super CPU limited.
- The CPU limitation extends to console. SX in Performance in outdoors is almost always low 50's or high 40's with sparse indoors hitting 60.
- Performance mode feels a lot better on a VRR display but is not recommended on fixed rate displays
- Cities with a lot of NPC's can cause dips to low 40's.
- DF note an issue where the game can freeze for a few seconds on Xbox when entering the first big settlement ((adam note: The freeze frame locks Alex talks about in the video, I did not encounter it in my run, there has been one more patch after the day 0 which likely fixed that too.))
- Quality mode is 'vastly preferable'. Only very rare drops to 29~28fps when a lot of NPC's are present.
- UE 5.1 used, so vegetation is not using Nanite and not fully treated with Unreal's shadow maps
- Texturing across the game is high quality, hence the games massive install size (150GB~)
- Storms and weather effects highlight visual quality as well
- Cut-scenes and NPC's are synced properly to either localization
- A number of light sources do not cast shadows, something the original game did (eg muzzle flash causing shadows)
- Lumen light and reflections present but use a lot on SSR and can cause light break
- No Hardware Based Lumen at present, devs have said they will add post-release
- Xbox:
- Fidelity and vegetation lower than PC's Epic settings, but even Series S has a 'shocking' amount of vegetation on screen
- Shadow maps on Quality mode (SX) look similar to PC but Performance is lower quality with more jittering
- Lumen is lower quality in Performance mode and can have more light breaks compared to Quality mode or PC in its Epic settings
- Performance mode and Series S has lower quality translucent effects on windows etc, where SX in Quality and PC render it properly
- DRS on both console with Unreal's TSR
- Series S: 684p to 864p reconstructed to 1080p with TSR (single mode)
- Series X Performance: 864p to 1152p reconstructed with TSR to 4K
- Series X Quailty: Around 1440p with TSR to 4K at 30 FPS
- DF note that make sure to change sRGB on monitors (something I also pointed out in the OT) as the game looks very dark by default
- The day 0 patch fixes a lot of the initial problems in the review period, but still has some problems that need to be addressed by the developer.
- Shader comp at boot prevents shader stutters, but game still has some CPU / traversal related stutters. This issue was much more prominent before the day 0 patch.
- The game is super CPU limited.
- The CPU limitation extends to console. SX in Performance in outdoors is almost always low 50's or high 40's with sparse indoors hitting 60.
- Performance mode feels a lot better on a VRR display but is not recommended on fixed rate displays
- Cities with a lot of NPC's can cause dips to low 40's.
- DF note an issue where the game can freeze for a few seconds on Xbox when entering the first big settlement ((adam note: The freeze frame locks Alex talks about in the video, I did not encounter it in my run, there has been one more patch after the day 0 which likely fixed that too.))
- Quality mode is 'vastly preferable'. Only very rare drops to 29~28fps when a lot of NPC's are present.
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GHG
Member
??
STALKER 2 Benchmarks & PC Performance Analysis
Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it's time now to benchmark STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl and examine its performance on the PC.
www.dsogaming.com
This is what I meant the other day about some of you being encapsulated by PR and marketing buzzwords. It's embarrassing.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Yeah, this video has convinced me to switch to the Quality mode.
Mister Wolf
Member
??
STALKER 2 Benchmarks & PC Performance Analysis
Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it's time now to benchmark STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl and examine its performance on the PC.
I was referring to the detail on the objects in the environments.
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mansoor1980
Gold Member
no hardware lumen in PC version?
GHG
Member
What's your point?
DF say it doesn't use nanite, DSO say it doesn't use nanite. So how exactly is it a "great showcase for Nanite"?
GHG
Member
The end of the video?
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
PC on Epic Settings
- High-quality dense foliage visible in the far distance. Lack of Nanite on foliage means vegetation details popping in and out
- Textures and materials look very good
- Weather effects are varied and impressive, with sci-fi weather effects such as red lightning storms
- Poor shadow quality at times. The flashlight does not cast shadows and often times, NPCs standing in front of light sources don't have shadows either
- Typical Lumen issues with light leakage and inconsistencies such as it disappearing in and out of existence
- Reflections seem to be screen spaced and foliage isn't reflected
- Game is very CPU limited with the 7800X3D maxing out at 100fps. The 3600 maxes out at around 50fps and 50ms frame time spikes. All at Epic settings
- No shader compilation stutters, but traversal stutters that affect every version. 20-30ms spikes on a 7800X3D at around 100-110fps
- CPU performance becomes very erratic when many NPCs are present, even a 7800X3D is all over the place and is limited to 60fps with drops to the 40s and 30-50ms frame time spikes
- With the town with many NPCs, the 3600 barely goes above 30fps and often drops to the 20s with 50-80ms frame time spikes
- In a basement scene with many NPCs, the 7800X3D barely managed to hold 40fps
- Blasts the Ryzen 3600 to nearly 100% usage
- Dev expressed interest in adding hardware ray tracing for reflections and lighting. May come letter
- Does not recommend playing the game with an unlocked fps with a Ryzen 3600. Recommends locking it to 30. Recommends locking the 7800X3D to 60fps
- Still needs work, especially on the CPU side
- Compared to PC, shadows on consoles are worse, reflections and translucency are worse as well
- Hair rendering is simplified in Performance Mode and on the Series S is highly simplified
- Dynamic resolution is likely in place, but TSR artifacts make pixel counting difficult
- Series S is 648p to 864p reconstructed to 1080p
- Series X in Performance Mode is 864p to 1152p reconstructs up to 4K, but looks nothing like 4K
- Series X in Quality Mode is 1440p and looks great, but is 30fps
- Series X in Performance Mode never hits 60fps when it matters. Otherwise, always is in the 40s and 50s during gameplay. Shouldn't be used without a VRR display
- Series X has even worse CPU problems than the 3600 with the game completely freezing for about 6 seconds when many NPCs are present. Hovers around 40fps in the town with many NPCs
- Series X in Quality Mode and Series S run fine at 30fps, much better than Performance Mode on Series X. Minor frame time spikes and drops. Traversal and combat are locked. Still get major freezes when entering towns with many NPCs
- No motion blur at 30fps
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Mister Wolf
Member
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
6 second freezes on Xbox.
Just made this quick and dirty video showing no freeze when running to the settlement from a distance.
DF's video is still likely a patch behind
Very typical result of UE5 on console. Same types of cuts or sacrifices to offer a performance mode.
2 good things compared to other cases of UE5 games on consoles and that are appreciated:
1-The use of TSR instead of FSR. The IQ in both modes is clearly better than what we have seen in other games that use FSR or TAA.
2-The framerate in quality mode is free of framepacing from day one. The average framerate in performance mode falls within the good range of VRR and seems to work well.
I hope that successive patches can fix what is still not right.
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Was there another patch? Alex played on patch 0.
Senua
Gold Member
There's still nanite, just not for foliage.??
STALKER 2 Benchmarks & PC Performance Analysis
Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it's time now to benchmark STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl and examine its performance on the PC.
This is what I meant the other day about some of you being encapsulated by PR and marketing buzzwords. It's embarrassing.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
You should only ever play in quality mode. Suckers love them extra frames. Give me the eye candy any day.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I don't know if patch 0 is the 135GB one over the weekend, or the other 35GB one that the game got one day before release.
I'm assuming it's the former.
But I'm definitely not seeing any kind of freezing like Alex shows in this video.
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Senua
Gold Member
First person shooters at 30fps make me feel like i'm drunk. Actually heck yea go quality mode bros
TehGoomba7s
Member
Seems a mess but performance isn't exactly something that STALKER games have ever been prolific in.
Zathalus
Member
Mixed bag on the on the visuals front. Nanite and textures look great but it’s a shame Nanite doesn’t extend to the foliage. Characters and some of the lighting look bad at times. Glad to see shader comp issues are becoming a thing of the past, but UE still has that annoying issues with traversal.
I’m eager to play but I think I’ll hold off for a few months, until some patches have been released.
I’m eager to play but I think I’ll hold off for a few months, until some patches have been released.
GHG
Member
That's all good and well, but it's not much of a showcase then if there are still plenty of assets that are popping in when in the outside areas.
The whole point of Nanite was to comleletly eliminate pop in and LOD shifts.
owandeseis
Member
Curious they don't mention anything about Frame Gen, it's a blessing specially in CPU limited scenarios, sadly the input lag is noticeable even when im at 100-120 FPS.
And yes software lumen sucks, same with Silent Hill 2, if you can afford it, activating hardware lumen is a must there, much better than pretty much any other graphical settings
Also it's funny this game is probably the one with the best and most impressive foliage in the ground, since it only makes the game harder, the NPC's will still shoot you even if there's no vision at all due to this foliage, while you can't see shit lol
And yes software lumen sucks, same with Silent Hill 2, if you can afford it, activating hardware lumen is a must there, much better than pretty much any other graphical settings
Also it's funny this game is probably the one with the best and most impressive foliage in the ground, since it only makes the game harder, the NPC's will still shoot you even if there's no vision at all due to this foliage, while you can't see shit lol
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twilo99
Member
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LordOcidax
Member
Didn’t try the quality mode… Looks like is the best option right now… BTW, good to see that DF is more on the positive side… Let me grab some popcorn 
.
.
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Senua
Gold Member
Yup, the textures and objects are impressive so I have no problem with what Wolf said
Kings Field
Member
I'll wait for the PS5 pro version if it ever comes out
R6Rider
Gold Member
Senua
Gold Member
Any games out there yet with nanite foliage?
Zathalus
Member
None that I know of. If there is, it’s not an AAA release.
od-chan
Gold Member
If this is the best UE5 can look (with nanite and everything, and the game eating this much performance) then it's really not worth it. The game honestly looks barely better than, I don't know, RAGE or something. Sure, the enthusiast might disagree because the foliage is slightly more dense or something, but honestly, the game just doesn't look good. At least not in a way that would remotely justify these hardware requirements.
it's simple diminishing returns
So no, I disagree with DF. The game is both poorly developed and looks like shit.
it's simple diminishing returns
So no, I disagree with DF. The game is both poorly developed and looks like shit.
Mister Wolf
Member
The removal of far distance pop in aspect of Nanite has never been much of a concern to me. That has never bothered me in games unless it was ridiculous like Sonic Frontiers. I certainly dont notice it playing Stalker 2. I appreciate up close detail.
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Mr Moose
Member
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Settle down.??
STALKER 2 Benchmarks & PC Performance Analysis
Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it's time now to benchmark STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl and examine its performance on the PC.
This is what I meant the other day about some of you being encapsulated by PR and marketing buzzwords. It's embarrassing.
Nanite support for foliage was added in UE5.2. UE5 still supported nanite before that on everything else.
Black Myth also doesnt use nanite for its foliage, but its an amazing nanite showpiece thanks to nanite being used on pretty much everything else.
GHG
Member
Immortals:
Inside Immortals of Aveum: the Digital Foundry tech interview
Ahead of the launch of Immortals of Aveum, Alex Battaglia and Tom Morgan spoke with Ascendent Studios' Mark Maratea, Julia Lichtblau and Joe Hall about the game
www.eurogamer.net
Fortnite also uses it if you count that as a game.
I wouldn't call black myth a "showcase" for anything either in this sense considering it's very apparent flaws and inconsistencies (paired with the fact that it disproportionately performs poorly once everything is dialed up to maximum for very little in the way of pay-off).
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Series X Performance 864p reconstructed to 4K.
Performance in outdoors is almost always low 50's or high 40's
That's your cue to come and shit on this
DenchDeckard
. You were waiting for the results remember.
Performance in outdoors is almost always low 50's or high 40's
That's your cue to come and shit on this
DenchDeckard
. You were waiting for the results remember.
DanielG165
Member
Series X performance in Quality mode has impressed me quite a bit, especially now knowing the resolution for it. 1440p upscaled to 4K, with this level of fidelity, utilizing lumen for the lighting system, at a locked 30 fps is pretty damn impressive for a $500 system. Played for an hour and a half last night, and not a single crash. I was honestly expecting MUCH bigger cuts and drawbacks on console with an open world UE5 game, but the SX kind of chews through this one.
The game looks incredible in-person; a bunch of depth is lost when simply looking at it in a compressed video on a 6.7 inch screen.
The game looks incredible in-person; a bunch of depth is lost when simply looking at it in a compressed video on a 6.7 inch screen.
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mansoor1980
Gold Member
frame gen to the rescue for me
consoles should utilise it too
consoles should utilise it too
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
the real question is why not? I think i downloaded the electric dreams demo back in 2022. So devs releasing games at the tail end of 2024, wouldve had 2 years to build their games on UE5.2.
SH2, Black Myth and now Stalker are all running on old versions of the engine. and i just dont understand why. The performance improvements for the GPU and especially the CPU are amazing in UE5.4. They have literally doubled GPU performance for hardware Lumen and the CPU performance by 50-80%. You can literally run the game using hardware lumen instead of software lumen and it will perform better.
Epic needs to get involved here. This is a really bad look for the engine. no one likes it. Everyone thinks it performs like shit, and i dont blame them.
twilo99
Member
Senua
Gold Member
Performance in outdoors is almost always low 50's or high 40's
That's your cue to come and shit on this
Desprado123
Member
Something is very wrong both PS5 and Xbox Series X CPU performance when it comes to 3rd party games. It performance worse than 3600, which is equivalent to both Console CPU.
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Silent Hill 2 and Black Myth Wukong both look better and use UE5. The quality of the visuals depends far more on the dev than on the engine.
So you tried to boast with some fancy word you don't even know meaning of?