S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

[freakdiablo]

Figured I'd get an official thread going.

Creepy Ex S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has released. Anyone grab it yet? I already spent too much on toys this month or else I'd grab a copy.

 

[Woomack]

If anyone confirms it has a good built-in benchmark, I may get it, but I don't feel I will play it.

 

[Janus67]

If anyone confirms it has a good built-in benchmark, I may get it, but I don't feel I will play it.

Apparently, right now the game has enormous performance problems, probably worth waiting anyway.

The game itself has reviewed well/positively (for the story/gameplay) but apparently it is very buggy at the moment which I think gives reason to wait a month or so to see if that is all ironed out.

 

[freakdiablo]

Apparently, right now the game has enormous performance problems, probably worth waiting anyway.

The game itself has reviewed well/positively (for the story/gameplay) but apparently it is very buggy at the moment which I think gives reason to wait a month or so to see if that is all ironed out.

It doesn't have bugs, it has anomalies

Honestly the first few games were so buggy you'd think they were put out by Bethesda. No real surprise there.

 

[Janus67]

It doesn't have bugs, it has anomalies

Honestly the first few games were so buggy you'd think they were put out by Bethesda. No real surprise there.

Fair point, although I'm not about to drop $60 for something whether it's unsurprisingly buggy or not (I was honestly glad that I used a month of gamepass for PC to play the 10 hours of starfield that I played before getting bored and annoyed by how buggy it was)

 

[Woomack]

I would say that this is common nowadays. I'm used to seeing nearly every game released more at the beta stage than finished, and then we see patches for a few months. It seems like all AAA games have huge delays, and all push them to stores only to balance costs while they still work on them for the following year.

 

[Kenrou]

STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl - PC/Xbox Series X|S Review - Digital Foundry Tech Review

"STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl (yes that is the correct Ukrainian spelling for the town) had a troubled review period - but the truth is that while there are issues, the day one experience, covered here, is much more positive. Alex takes you through the game's technology, its audiovisual features, performance and the outlook on Xbox Series X and S consoles."

00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:13 Graphical Strengths
00:07:20 Graphical Weaknesses
00:09:24 Xbox Series X vs PC
00:13:01 Performance Analysis and Issues
00:20:00 Getting a smoother experience on PC
00:21:35 Conclusion

 

[=XAF=AfterShock]

When it's fixed or at least tolerable I'm def going to get this just because I have played the crap out of the rest of them.

 

[freakdiablo]

When it's fixed or at least tolerable I'm def going to get this just because I have played the crap out of the rest of them.

I almost impulse bought it, but now I'm thinking of waiting for the next batch of GPUs to drop and see where prices stand, take it from there.

I want something that can do highish Hz 1440p or playable Hz 4k, and my 2080 went dun gud but she's tired now.

 

[Kenrou]

Personally I don't like these requirements, but I'm willing to bite the proverbial bullet and give it a try during the weekend, I'll let you know how it runs...

 

[freakdiablo]

What's the problem? The dual channel ram and SSD requirements are...odd but I figure those are an unspoken requirement - or at least recommendation these days.

 

[Kenrou]

From the videos I watched so far, the game doesn't look like it would need half the requirements to run properly, so I assume they used UE5 which is a massive resource hog and/or RT, and they did mention that the textures are all high quality. More/faster ram and SSD would minimize the issue, but my problem is more with the use of upscaling than anything else, that is, the requirements only look so "good" because they expect you to use it, which is starting to be a really bad trend for games in general. I'm on the edge of high settings (minus the ram), so we'll see I guess...

 

[freakdiablo]

From the videos I watched so far, the game doesn't look like it would need half the requirements to run properly, so I assume they used UE5 which is a massive resource hog and/or RT, and they did mention that the textures are all high quality. More/faster ram and SSD would minimize the issue, but my problem is more with the use of upscaling than anything else, that is, the requirements only look so "good" because they expect you to use it, which is starting to be a really bad trend for games in general. I'm on the edge of high settings (minus the ram), so we'll see I guess...

Well you're right on the UE5 -

In August 2021, the developers revealed that the game was updated to Unreal Engine 5.

 

[Kenrou]

4m to build shaders, defaulted everything to Epic settings @1440p, very weird shimmer on everything that went away when I turned on DLSS, ~55fps default (~45fps drops in places with lots of reflections) ~70fps DLSS quality, frame generation works, but I assume bad idea with fps this low...

Used 11gb-14gb memory, ~7gb VRAM (on Epic), 40%-50% CPU, 90%-100% GPU so far.

 

[freakdiablo]

4m to build shaders, defaulted everything to Epic settings @1440p, very weird shimmer on everything that went away when I turned on DLSS, ~55fps default (~45fps drops in places with lots of reflections) ~70fps DLSS quality, frame generation works, but I assume bad idea with fps this low...

Used 11gb-14gb memory, ~7gb VRAM (on Epic), 40%-50% CPU, 90%-100% GPU so far.

Only watched the first part because it's really all I needed to - needs more than 8GB VRAM even on NVidia cards. It's a heavy engine...

 

[EarthDog]

Only watched the first part because it's really all I needed to - needs more than 8GB VRAM even on NVidia cards. It's a heavy engine...

Depends. This is what tpu had to say...

VRAM
Our 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. Interestingly, some AMD cards with 8 GB VRAM take a pretty big performance hit at 4K, while their NVIDIA counterparts are not affected.

 

[dfonda]

I hate radiation.

By the time I finish the 2 games I am playing, this will be discounted. If I am lucky it will come free with a new GPU.

 

[freakdiablo]

I hate radiation.

By the time I finish the 2 games I am playing, this will be discounted. If I am lucky it will come free with a new GPU.

First read that as, "if I'm lucky it will come with a free new GPU". Was wondering what cards could come free with a $60 game. Maybe one of those cheap USB docks with HDMI out? Does that count?

 

[dfonda]

First read that as, "if I'm lucky it will come with a free new GPU". Was wondering what cards could come free with a $60 game. Maybe one of those cheap USB docks with HDMI out? Does that count?

Star wars outlaws. Came free with a 4080. Playing that right now.

I understand the 5090 will come with the free firstborn child.

Not that I condone that.

 

[unsafesteagle]

Purchased this title on steam haven't got to try it yet
How yall doin?