Stalker 2 PC | Performance Optimization Guide + Optimized Settings

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Most of the settings here barely show any difference in fps, if any, since the game is so poorly optimized, the CPU is the limiting factor, it doesn't allow the fps to go any higher, even at low framerates, which is why for this game specifically, I prioritized the optimized settings to focus on the graphics changes a setting made instead of its performance, even if higher options seemed to perform the same.

[@BillyTubememe]

About DLSS, according to testing from some of the community members, it appears that DLSS has problems with shadows flickering and distant foliage shimmering, regardless of any setting. This can be fixed by using TSR, which is the most stable upscaler, and it offers the best fps and stability. The negative, however, is that it gets very blurry the more you crank down your resolution scale. I think this is the first game I've seen where DLSS is not the best upscaler, and actually introduces its own problems.

[@Munky332]

How can the CPU be the limiting factor, if we're not seeing CPU limits? I would say more people are GPU limited than CPU, but its really a case by case basis. ie I have no core going above 50% on a 14700k. The average across the cores (28 of them, mind you, 8p-core/16t, 12 e-cores) is like 20-30%. My GPU, a 4090, on the other hand is 85-99% most of the time (4k + DLAA)... So I'm def GPU limited, not CPU limited. I maintain about 75'ish FPS with a few tweaks I've applied to engine.ini and a few other things.

[@paco1022]

@@BillyTubememe which tsr setting and at what resolution scale?

[@Freemasons1732]

Ok, 2 things i noticed. Effects does have an effect on the black smoke. It is thicker on higher settings. Also draw distance seems to my eye to effect shading or shadows. They can be seen farther in epic than near. Look at the grass and bushes on the top right and across the middle of the screen. Thank you so much for the video! This definitely helped me decide what settings were worth putting up instead of randomly turning things up and down.

[@Reaper9-4]

@@BillyTubememe tsr 100% best looking. not best performing though.

[@Reactx7]

There are only a handful of KZbinrs that actually take their time and create an indepth optimization guide. I've been waiting for this. Thanks to you, sir. 👌

[@ZykopathOfficial]

You're very welcome!

[@manofredets1616]

@@ZykopathOfficial Yeah true.Thank you so much man!

[@eladlavi3965]

Very correct, thanks!

[@atypicalnihilist]

Been searching for your optimization video since launch

[@HybOj]

same, and I stumbled upon other vids which were of laughtable quality

[@eladlavi3965]

@@HybOj exactly

[@alexandr3542]

Same, bro

[@offlinegamer6756]

now THAT'S how you do an optimization guide video sir ! subscribed right now !

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Thanks for the sub, you won't be disappointed!

[@offlinegamer6756]

@@ZykopathOfficial i'm sure i wont , keep up the great content bro !a gamer from Algeria !

[@iROHxo]

I just made actual INPUT LAG FIX video so you might wanna check it out, not spamming just trying to help cuz game is good but UE5 is, no comment...

[@roastinpeace2320]

Wow! From 20 fps to 40! What a time to be alive to play games at 40 FPS on 180Hz monitor!

[@Reaper9-4]

maybe dont play the newest game on high/max settings and 1440p onthe WORST possible new graphicscard aka 4060, 4060 is made for 1080p and not max settings in the most demanding games. My 2080super and 3700k does 4k at all medium setting at a stable 60 fps, if the 4060 tried that itd be fried.

[@roastinpeace2320]

@@Reaper9-4 Performance wise RTX 4060 = RTX 2080 Super. I also doubt you're playing this game at 4K with 60 fps on 2080S.. maybe with DLSS performance and FG lol.

[@Reaper9-4]

@@roastinpeace2320 kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJ69eZlvl9VshpI i made a video for you just to show you how much of a clown you are.

[@IIIIgniumIII]

@@Reaper9-4 Copium

[@adnan4688]

The rig doesn't matter, the game is the problem. We literally had situations where a worse rig performed better then the stronger rig. It doesn't even make any sense. Memory leaks somewhere and they need to fix it. I am not playing the game for at least another two months.

[@bruta]

thanks, pain in the ass to test multiple settings with the game compiling shaders on each launch

[@cameron818]

Thank You. Finally someone showing a comparison of setting changes and not just some BS optimization because honestly when I would change a setting I really couldn't tell.

[@sepimomane5158]

finallyyyy, i waited for this one :))

[@Takemikezuchi]

me too

[@bamananama1959]

Saaaaaame! I was like thank god Zykopath is on the case again!

[@8Paul7]

Great vid, I expected DF to do this but nothing. The CPU performance is hilarious, I did not expect to see my 5800X3D to be dropping to 40s..

[@robertostan7457]

Same here. I got a 5600x and I've even seen 30s..

[@hodenbacke55555]

You got Unreal Crashes too?

[@8Paul7]

@@hodenbacke55555 I only played few hours but had zero crashes. My issues with the game are low framerate in villages and no deadzone on controller.

[@mt09menace]

top tier video your editing made it so easy to see differences

[@Pingu65716]

I believe that object quality settings determines poly count of small items like food and such, i saw a difference when looking at items on tables

[@RamilBayramov214]

Finally. I swear I was expecting a video from you on the day the game came out. Thanks in advance. I haven't even finished watching the video yet.

[@ZykopathOfficial]

This only happens in the rare occasion I recieve a game key days in advance.

[@CrisURace]

Thank you so much for the side by sides comparisons

[@junk3996]

what an excellent breakdown. well done, sir

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Glad it helped!

[@Szilagyicsabaistvan]

Finally a proper video about the settings.

[@MirelRC]

I've been waiting for this video 😅 Thank you for your great work.

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Nice to know my work is appreciated, enjoy!

[@ax_a-ix6275]

Mate, Its astonishing work, thank you a lot!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Glad you like it!

[@SpeedfIow]

Finally a helpful optimization video for this game, appreciate you testing every setting!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Glad to help!

[@Blizz976-mh4qf]

thanks for this guide

[@xaler5630]

Thank you so much. At the beginning of the game, the default settings were set to Medium but Frame Rate was so terrible I decided to go with Low for performance. After a while, I decided to look for some better optimization settings and found your video. It's funny that I have almost the same specs as you. Now, game runs great and looks amazing! Thanks a lot!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Glad I could help!

[@ihatebartz]

Man, you put the optimized setting in the description for quick reference, that alone deserves a subscription!

[@gregorB92]

Became by far my favourite youtuber when it comes to optimization videos and comparing settings. subscribed

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Appreciate that!

[@сантомони]

Thank you so much for this video! Special thanks for showing how post-processing works. Personally, this vignetting effect on the sides of the screen infuriates me and I have now completely disabled it.

[@jearie]

Amazing! Thanoyou man, waited for this one :))

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Enjoy!

[@reallastone]

Thank you for great summary of all differences and their effect on performance. It will help a lot of people there.

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Just doing what I can to help the community!

[@TMinh956]

This one is amazing, every setting tested! Thanks

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Glad you like it!

[@MTO_3589]

The only things that helped me was downloading a newer version of the DLSS Swapper app and in this app I had to download the latest DLSS version (v3.8.10) from the library and then you just have to replace the older DLSS version with the latest version (in the Games tab) for the respective game. In addition, every time I start the game I open the task manager, go to the Details tab, right-click on the Stalker 2 exe/task there and go to Set priority in the selection menu and then select high. This gives me a stable 98-120 FPS (I limited the game to 120 FPS). This may not help people who play with an AMD graphics card, but it might help people who also play with an RTX Nvidia card that is compatible with the latest DLSS version v3.8.10.0. There is also a workaround for AMD cards on Nexus Mods by adding the latest FSR version to the game.

[@manijak.0]

Now THIS is how you do a Guide. Big Thanks for the Energy you put in your videos!! Love it!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Glad you like them!

[@kennystats]

Thank you so much for putting in the time it takes for this. I think I speak for us all when I say thank you so much!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

You are so welcome!

[@kalorko]

Thank u a lot mate, very detailed

[@EreZm1]

The exact guide i was looking for! Well done

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Glad I could help!

[@domitt7235]

Damn this is a well explained guide, you are the goat

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Just doing what I can.

[@XeronicZeal]

great video really liked that you showed each one next to eachother!

[@HybOj]

ok finally someone capable of actually testing the game, thank you a lot!!!

[@J22381]

bruh the only guide that actual works thank you 🙏

[@Nybis]

At least the video I have been waiting for.

[@sergie2822]

These settings are great! Got a little higher FPS and the game still looks good as if it was still on high or epic.

[@koodyql9325]

Awesome video ngl, and very much needed lmao

[@JorisWeerts1]

FOG controls the Volumetric resolution, meaning 'resolution of light shafts'. ENVIRONMENTAL DRAW DISTANCE controls the distant light sources being active, from what I found. Maybe other things I didn't found. Appreciate the vid!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

@@JorisWeerts1 Thanks for the info, sometimes just 1 person isn't enough, we gotta help each other out.

[@JorisWeerts1]

@ZykopathOfficial true, the clouds thing is the one thing I didn't find, thanks for that. I would also advise to cap the FPS to 30 with 'RTSS, front edge sync' for smooth frametimes without input lag. It's a far better experience then a jittery 41 fps, especially if you can't reach a constant 60 no matter what.

[@HybOj]

hmm you mean the resolution of light shafts he was not able to find in the game? :)

[@RealDantee]

I'VE WAITING FOR THIS

[@MehlstaubtheCat]

Thanks for your work!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

My pleasure!

[@TheBankai17]

You SIr are a LEGEND!!! Thank you so much for this Guide it absolutely helped me improve my game!! ♥

[@carrmak]

Thank you so much for the in-depth video.

[@rkntrknt]

The most useful video about this game, period.

[@loneeagle689]

thank u brother. exactly what i was looking for. thats an ez sub from me!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Welcome!

[@tourdestan]

So useful! Thanks!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

You're welcome!

[@tin9759]

i have 4070 ti super with DLAA and FrameGen the game fluctuates from 90-110 at 1440p, fps but the latency is very high around 10-20 ms, but when i followed your steps i got 10% more fps and the latency was only 8-9 ms the game is smoother, it seems that Shadows and Shaders are what both cause the fps drop and slow down the game

[@BAECERT]

Any plans for doing Anno 1800?

[@Perun42]

Useful video. Thank you!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Glad it was helpful!

[@TheRoboticFerret]

damn good video, thanks for the showcases and recommendations

[@piotrbiedowicz1602]

Amazing. Thank You very much for your time to do that comparision.👍👍👍

[@ZykopathOfficial]

No problem! 👍

[@GlyNkaa]

Bro, the quality of your video, how you take the time to compare each setting and then give your opinion on which is better and the overall comparison is just top notch, i rarely subscribe on KZbin but i did with yours. Pls never stop making these and much love and luck friend

[@ZykopathOfficial]

@@GlyNkaa Thanks, this means a lot!

[@KaBonD_TV]

The best optimisation guide, ty!

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Glad you think so!

[@predragpesic5953]

Excellent presentation, especially the side-by-side comparison. 💯💯 From what I can see, the reason why game slows down in villages and hubs could be because there is 'too many' characters on the screen (characters with skin weights or weight maps are called Skeletal Meshes inside of Unreal). My guess is that either the LOD (Level of Detail) change on the character isn't very aggressive, so they may still remain very high res even if they are standing far away from the player. It can also be that the character animation itself does not have any LODs at all, and the characters are using the same amount of animation frames (keyframes + passframes) no matter how far away are they from the player. It also doesn't help that the devs decided to take a couple of very important stats and bundle them all into a single option that just says Low, Med, High and Epic. Like you said, the Shadow Quality adjusts both the shadow map resolution and the shadow map draw distance at the same time. It would have been much better if those were two separate settings. Same goes for post processing, foliage etc. Maybe there is an INI file available in the main game folder that has more settings exposed to the user, the way they are presented in the UE5 engine/editor itself. For example, the post processing alone has a ton of settings, which control things like bloom, ambient occlusion, exposure strength and rate, chromatic aberration strength and area, contrast, color grading etc.

[@DemoralizedMan]

FSR3 has been the saving grace for my pc for the moment. GSC has done it again with stalker.

[@Arx_ai]

thank you brother

[@theJoachimMurat]

Great video dude

[@Luck-pw6xp]

Wtf man, I have a rx 6750xt and a 5 5600 and I had a average of 50fps on high preset, Changed it to your settings and it whent up to 70fps without framegen on a 1440p monitor.

[@marinebymistake]

Thank you so much, I was going insane thinking I can't see a difference in settings, but there actually is none, half of them are broken too bad a good game like this comes out so unoptimized

[@berkk29]

Thank you for actually putting the settings in the description too, lots of others dont even put them in the video as a whole to get you to watch the whole video

[@donloder1]

Be fair, don't be a cheapahh. Zykopath did all these back and forth testings, the least you can do is give it a watch but you're just looking for a quick result. Go get caught in a whirlygig.

[@Stardomplay]

Thank you for this comprehensive review.

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Glad it was helpful!

[@broofallbros3036]

I saw a difference in effects when throwing a bolt at an electric anomaly. every setting besides low had the ground illuminated after throwing a bolt at the anomaly.

[@Хорошийигровойканал]

this. And at low there is no light from gunfire and no smoke from the barrel. Higher levels give more particles from explosions and in storms too.

[@lilSmurf69]

your videos look just as good as benchmarking thank you

[@HybOj]

11:13 nice shot, I replayed it many times and found out that high and epic have same tree pop-in... so going above high makes no sense in terms of this most annoying pop in. Medium and low had pop in happening at closer range. So yes, medium is good, but if u can do high, it will make the pop in a bit better, anything above that is nonsense.

[@dukenukem9781]

Thank you so much too. Good work.🙂

[@dealwolfstriked272]

0:55 IMO, the reason why we don't have A-life is because AI takes up CPU cycles and modern games are also needing to pump up graphics. So when you enter towns with a ton of AI stealing away CPU power your gonna get reduced FPS. Unlike the cute Mexican girl saying "why not both?" if you add in A-life (Real working A-life where the CPU is needing to track NPCs and mutants all across the zone) and not placebo spawn around player......you cant have both!! Its just like with DCS combat flight simulator. I can fly around smooth AF with 100fps but if I start a mission all the enemy AI land vehicles and enemy planes and your own side vehicles and planes reduces the smoothness to a crawl on my PC.

[@HybOj]

possible. Also, the CPU bottleneck is the reason we dont have HW Lumen. Because HW lumen (RT) takes another part of CPU resources, which are already totally cripled by the lack of even basic CPU optimization. Game is UTTER mess optimization wise. Good thing is, its a good game underneath and I believe the devs will deliver in 6-12 months. I will not touch the game before that. Not interrested to see my 5800x3d producing 40fps. I waited 10 years, I can wait 6-12months more and actually get immersed and enjoy the game. Its hard, as Im so hyped about the game, but I will not spoil my experience!!! And the devs... you delivered the most unoptimized game of a year, well done.........

[@HorribleNimbo]

Are you using the game pass version?

[@bravointheua]

Дякую, брат сталкер! ❤

[@crackheadjonezzz]

Did you restart the game after changing each setting? Most of the settings don't show a visual difference until game is restarted and shaders have been recompiled. BenchmarKing is currently editting his video, he's said he had to restart a lot just to see a difference in settings so his video is taking some time, should be released tomorrow.

[@ZykopathOfficial]

I restarted on settings that required restarts, other than that, I didn't have to.

[@syncmaster591s]

gracias por tomarte tu tiempo

[@desgard]

Anti Aliasing slider only works if you set upscaling to traditional AAs like TAA

[@fabiankrokaa1114]

Excellent video! Thank you! Subbed

[@gruuli]

YES i was waiting for it let's go thank you very much dude

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Thats's strange, I also tested the anti aliasing setting on TAA but didn't notice any changes. And yes, I plan on covering updates to see if performance improves.

[@gruuli]

@@ZykopathOfficial Nice dude love to see it! Yea idk about the AA setting itself its confusing but whatever :P

[@miyakejima1]

keep em coming

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Will do!

[@BigMan7o0]

It's insane to me that I have a 5950x and 7900XT and am back to my old low end hardware ways of finding guides like this to figure out the most optimal fps to quality settings, because the game just runs THAT badly. Thanks for the guide, it gave me a noticeable little jump in gpu limited areas in avg and lows, and smoothed out my lows in cpu bound areas by a little

[@xpansky]

you are a legend!

[@zajebanosaurus]

hell yea! Waited for you mate to do a video, I dont trust anyone else

[@Anderson_LS]

Every time I go out from buildings I see blurry messy textures for a couple of seconds. I have 3070ti and i7-12700. I see high texture quality but UE5 seems to look way worse on low - middle PCs on medium settings than older games like Metro Exodus or Dying Light 2.

[@venator9536]

Jeez im surprised by the epic cloud setting lol Also, for me shadow on high, i can loose between 5 to 8 additional fps compared to medium depending on where you look. Have to leave it on medium.

[@burnbarrelnetwork4013]

Trying to find a balance with 3070ti has been a pain even being on a 7800x3d and lowering textures to account for lack of vram.

[@HybOj]

my condolences... just stop playing and wait for patch, its not worth spoiling your experience of otherwise good game

[@burnbarrelnetwork4013]

⁠@@HybOj why did my comment hurt your feelings? Why are you apologizing? Are you a developer? I was just stating my experience. Chill out

[@SlobMobGaming]

yes another dude that does videos just like benchmarking youre a goat for this ive been waiting for his video till i found this imma try these setting out on a 3080ti i dont terrilbe fps but not idel either due to the memory leak due to npc's

[@miked815]

11:50 is what you're looking for

[@cameron818]

For me changing Hair to Medium and Foliage to Medium in Towns made to best difference and I'm using a 3080ti so I could use High but I experienced less Frame spike changing those 2 settings in Town where it's the worst.

[@spero360]

Hair on medium removes stuttering when entering traders buildings for me lol

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Who knew that slightly more hair shading could cripple performance on some PCs, the state of games nowadays!

[@javiervazquez8057]

I'm using a 3080 and i5 9400f, changing hair settings from epic to low made it go from 5 fps up to 50 fps in town, it's just amazing how much impacted only that setting

[@staskozak8118]

@@javiervazquez8057, typo with 5fps?

[@HybOj]

@@staskozak8118 nah, it actually cripples the performance in some scene for some ppl this much, its not the 1st report of this behavior Ive seen.

[@rayres1074]

Intel Ultra 9 something something, 32 GB, RTX 4070, notebook. Things were actually quite smooth in all set to low... Except A LOT of thermal throttling. Will try your configs in 30 min gaming bouts. Thanks!

[@Хорошийигровойканал]

03:06 there is a difference. Look at smoke thickness.

[@ddannyable]

Thank you Captain.

[@przemeklewandowski7476]

Nice video bro, but I can't play game anyway - constant crashes every few seconds in first camp and there seems to be no fix atm.

[@LairOTech]

Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure enabling XeSS without an ARC gpu will use a generic algorithm. With and ARC gpu it will use Intels own algorithm and machine learning data, running on the XMX engines in the GPU. So if you have an ARC, definitely use XeSS. It looks amazing.

[@krejn]

This is all great, but all motion blur and DoF settings go to off or lowest setting possible since your eyes focus on things on their own already.

[@C17H23NO2]

I think Texture and Object Details has a huge effect if you are in buildings with many small objects. That is also the most "demanding" time for anything with 8 GB Vram or less. Epic settings are really choking the Vram. I am playing with a mix of high and medium at 1080p with my 3070 haha. FSR 3 Frame Gen is really nice, but sadly at the moment still not always working flawless. Hiccups and visual artifacts prevent me from using it. Very sad, cause if it works it helps a lot.

[@LEON_13]

Спасибо, отличный гайд

[@formerussecretarygeneralba738]

sorry if this is dumb but did you mention sharpness in the video? Been scrubbing for a bit and can't see it. Does sharpness even effect fps anyway? Im not sure. Thanks for the great video tho!!

[@igorlukyan206]

Sharpness doesn’t effect fps, it’s more like an applied filter

[@DiegoAraujoOficial]

It seems enough to me to risk a 1440p with the 3070 + the framegen mod, since the native implementation generated such a big lag that it made Mk unplayable, I managed with the controller for a few minutes until I risked the mod and it went from water to wine, in addition to less input lag it generated more frames than the native implementation of the fsr3 frame gen, there are many technical things to be fixed in this game, but it seems promising.

[@BALLUTA1]

I have a 6750XT which is the competitor of the 3070. And I noticed the same thing as you. The frame generator is decent. So I set everything to epic and set the limit to 30 fps (with the frame generator it stays at 60). I didn't notice any delay in gameplay. Sometimes the foliage gets a little distorted, but it's rare to happen (or notice)

[@BRAVosZ]

Thank you very much

[@ZykopathOfficial]

You are welcome!

[@SoyismaAlgunPedo]

amazing video

[@ZykopathOfficial]

Thanks!

[@CrazyAfk-yh7iu]

tnx awsome❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@spiraling69]

What settings should we use for max quality?

[@brzimtrco6142]

25fps vs 46fps in intro is native vs upscaled. You are comparing apples to oranges, everyone know how to turn on upscaling. There is no big defference between max and your settings, and that is not your fault, but still not an excuse for a clickbait.

[@raimandooo]

for me, using a rx 7900xt, ryzen 5 7600x and 32gb ram, fsr 3 on native AA works the best, all the rest are on Epic but Shadows on Medium and no motion blurr, im getting over 100 fps, around 80-100fps all the time, only in towns it sometimes gets below 80, the game does need some patches as it does not have the best optimization..by far, thanks for the video

[@alejandrocanadasgomez8701]

rycen7 5700x 3D, Rx 6950xt, 32gb ram, UW 1440p monitor.I play on high and tested the FSR with and without frame generation. Works PERFECT on outdoors 70 to 100 fps On indoors stutters like crazy! Near loot boxes drops to 15/20 fps. Making the game unplayable on some areas.

[@hku5574]

Great video! What's the name of the music playing in between scenes?