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S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart of Chernobyl

GoldenTiger said:
I don't think he was talking solely about framerate ;). He obviously meant bugs, crashes balancing, etc. as well.
Click to expand...
No crashes either, but....I've run into some bugs that are utter hilarious but not game breaking, better than Cyberpunk was the first time I played it.

And balancing could be a issue but it feels like Stalker and plays like Stalker in that aspect except the Bloodsuckers might just be worse than they were before.
Either way I'm having fun and have no regrets playing it at launch instead of waiting for patches. 🤷‍♂️
 
Its mostly smooth at 4K, but as a long time DLSS enjoyer, even Quality mode is not great. That + Framegen on Auto are required for me to play this.

That being said, many, many hours in, I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

4K
Epic preset
Motion blur 0%
DLSS Quality
Frame Gen Auto
 
CAD4466HK said:
And balancing could be a issue but it feels like Stalker and plays like Stalker in that aspect except the Bloodsuckers might just be worse than they were before
Click to expand...
I've only played on Veteran difficulty, but I can assure you that Bloodsuckers in the originals were never this vicious nor tanky. While I do appreciate they gave them much improved AI, not so much on giving them 10x more health.

The originals didn't have a difficulty setting anyway.
 
Absalom said:
I've only played on Veteran difficulty, but I can assure you that Bloodsuckers in the originals were never this vicious nor tanky. While I do appreciate they gave them much improved AI, not so much on giving them 10x more health.

The originals didn't have a difficulty setting anyway.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm saying. Same difficulty, I'm no bitch.
I've died more to them then anything else in the game.
And that includes all the times I literately killed myself hunting for artifacts.
 
criccio said:
Its mostly smooth at 4K, but as a long time DLSS enjoyer, even Quality mode is not great. That + Framegen on Auto are required for me to play this.

That being said, many, many hours in, I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

4K
Epic preset
Motion blur 0%
DLSS Quality
Frame Gen Auto
Click to expand...
These are my settings and so far very enjoyable.. no crashes.. but need to build shaders with every launch.. and reset y axis.. I got some good time in today … game is super fun to just explore and get into and out of trouble. Again that weather system is wow… I just have to pause and enjoy the show for most of it… best UE5 engine game I have seen so far.

Edit: the default pistol when hitting head shots is pretty lethal.. just need to land them shots.. I got the mag and barrel for it. It’s turned into my roaming around default.. the boomstick is nice close range..
 
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Heavy_Nova said:
I mean the TOZ-34 is a damn cannon. How the hell does a boar even survive 4 headshots!?

All the mutants and wild animals are like... like... oh hell, I'll just leave this here...
View attachment 693798
Click to expand...
Sorry double post.. airport in a rush..

Lmao … so fitting. I can drop those with my pistol with the extended mag… there’s always two though..
 
revenant said:
Again that weather system is wow
Click to expand...
I forgot to mention but this is really, really impressive! When there is a lightning storm, I often just stand around and watch. When a bolt hits right beside you its really shocking!

(sadly nothing like I see in person in HDR)

1732682168490.jpeg

1732682231881.jpeg
 
criccio said:
I forgot to mention but this is really, really impressive! When there is a lightning storm, I often just stand around and watch. When a bolt hits right beside you its really shocking!

(sadly nothing like I see in person in HDR)

View attachment 694155
View attachment 694156
Click to expand...

Just ordered a new OLED monitor on sale

Amped for the HDR and dark ass nights
 
revenant said:
Sorry double post.. airport in a rush..

Lmao … so fitting. I can drop those with my pistol with the extended mag… there’s always two though..
Click to expand...
I usually have at least 3 spawn near me when they show up. Now that I have a M860, it only takes 2 shells no matter where I aim.
 
So i did sone of the engine.ini tweaks for Stalker 2. I did it for the tree and vegetation density and pop in issues and also the lumen lighting and reflections. At the cost of about 15% FPS overall (at 4k), the forests and vegetation are seamless now (high detail, no pop in) and the reflections in the water are incredibly sharp and detailed now! I can post my engine.ini if anyone would like... I am now using DLSS Quality (vs. DLAA) at 4K to compensate and stay above 110~120 FPS, but honestly, it looks sooooo much better now, easily worth the hit.
 
Finally able to play this game it's Good the ambient music is crazy in the background with Headphones. I wasn't sure how easy Story Mode but took like a entire clip to take down a mutant Hog.
Game give you F.E.A.R vibes since I never played the original so I can't compare it to the original Stalker.
 
20241127011652_1.jpg


If it looks too Dark probably it is ...I didn't want to turn up Black Equalizer to 100%.
 
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III_Slyflyer_III said:
So i did sone of the engine.ini tweaks for Stalker 2. I did it for the tree and vegetation density and pop in issues and also the lumen lighting and reflections. At the cost of about 15% FPS overall (at 4k), the forests and vegetation are seamless now (high detail, no pop in) and the reflections in the water are incredibly sharp and detailed now! I can post my engine.ini if anyone would like... I am now using DLSS Quality (vs. DLAA) at 4K to compensate and stay above 110~120 FPS, but honestly, it looks sooooo much better now, easily worth the hit.
Click to expand...
I would like that!
I downloaded one of those "ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE INI" megatweaks from Nexus but it changes a whole lot of settings doesn't seem to be doing much
 
Just got past the prologue my favorite Enemies are the guys with Trench coats I mean why are they looking around in a swamp in a Trench coat?
 
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Q-BZ said:
I can't even begin to comprehend that level of torture.
Click to expand...
Master difficulty? In Shadow I find it fun, but I'm playing Heart on the "Stalker" (normal) difficulty and generally having a harder time than Shadow on Master. I wouldn't play Shadow without at least the ZRP patch, though.
 
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Love the game but couldn't take it anymore. I downloaded mods for more sprint stamina, lower repair costs, better enemy AI, and cheaper store items.
 
NattyKathy said:
I would like that!
I downloaded one of those "ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE INI" megatweaks from Nexus but it changes a whole lot of settings doesn't seem to be doing much
Click to expand...
So, I am going to test the Ray-Reconstruction one later today for lighting/reflections to see if it is better, but this looked amazing last night, so give it a shot!

The below is what I used for the tree/vegetation AND lighting/reflection fixes.

Go to your "C:\Users\"username"\AppData\Local\Stalker2\saved\config\windows\" and Create a txt file and rename it "Engine.ini"

Add the following lines in the file...

[SystemSettings]
foliage.LODDistanceScale=3
foliage.DitheredLOD=1
fg.CullDistanceScale.Trees=2
fg.CullDistanceScale.Bushes=2.5
fg.CullDistanceScale.Grass=1
fg.DensityScale.Grass=1
r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale=0.1
r.Shadow.MaxCSMResolution=4096
r.Shadow.CSMCaching=1
r.DistanceFieldShadowing=1
r.DFShadowQuality=3
r.Shadow.FilterMethod=1
r.Lumen.TranslucencyReflections.FrontLayer.Allow=1
r.LumenScene.Heightfield.MaxTracingSteps=32
r.Shadow.Virtual.Enable=1
r.Lumen.Reflections.DownsampleFactor=0
r.Lumen.Reflections.AsyncCompute=1
r.Lumen.DiffuseIndirect.AsyncCompute=1
r.LumenScene.Lighting.AsyncCompute=1
r.LumenScene.Radiosity.SpatialFilterProbes.KernelSize=0
r.LumenScene.Radiosity.UpdateFactor=128
r.LumenScene.Radiosity.ProbeSpacing=3
r.LumenScene.Radiosity.HemisphereProbeResolution=64
r.Lumen.IrradianceFieldGather.NumProbesToTraceBudget=300
r.Lumen.RadianceCache.NumFramesToKeepCachedProbes=30
r.Lumen.Reflections.MaxRoughnessToTrace=0.4
r.Lumen.Reflections.ScreenSpaceReconstruction.RoughnessScale=0.5
r.Lumen.Reflections.SmoothBias=1
r.Lumen.Reflections.Temporal=0

Here is a picture of what it looks like after, notice the reflections, but also, the trees and grass are so uniform now, no low-res fill-ins or pop-ins!

20241126224544_1.jpg
 
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criccio said:
Its mostly smooth at 4K, but as a long time DLSS enjoyer, even Quality mode is not great. That + Framegen on Auto are required for me to play this.

That being said, many, many hours in, I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

4K
Epic preset
Motion blur 0%
DLSS Quality
Frame Gen Auto
Click to expand...
Frame gen makes the game feel like absolute dogshit to me. Not that I know what dogshit feels like, but I imagine it's similar to frame gen in Stalker 2
 
III_Slyflyer_III said:
I am going to test the Ray-Reconstruction one later today for lighting/reflections to see if it is better
Click to expand...
As I understand it, and I may be wrong, but RR isn't a thing in this game as the RT is all done in software by Lumen, not on hardware RT cores.

WilyKit said:
Frame gen makes the game feel like absolute dogshit to me. Not that I know what dogshit feels like, but I imagine it's similar to frame gen in Stalker 2
Click to expand...
Its noticable but imo necessary for a playable framerate at 4K, even with a 4090 and DLSS.

I did the mouse smoothing disable change and it helped a bit.

"C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\Config\Windows\Input.ini"
Click to expand...

[/script/engine.inputsettings]
bEnableMouseSmoothing=False
bViewAccelerationEnabled=False
Click to expand...
 
pendragon1 said:
or maybe turn down settings? the 4090 clearly isnt enough for it...
Click to expand...
Doesn't make much of a difference, or enough of one to justify the IQ losses. More than happy to keep DLSS Quality and FG on and have it look amazing. Still getting ~100fps or so out in the world and 70's in towns.

I really enjoyed this writeup laying in bed this morning, seems to go along with my conclusions after 30 hours in game myself. Nice look into whats going on under the hood.

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-...pc-performance-testing-and-settings-analysis#
 
criccio said:
As I understand it, and I may be wrong, but RR isn't a thing in this game as the RT is all done in software by Lumen, not on hardware RT cores.
Click to expand...
I believe the idea is to use the RR denoiser vs. the lumen one... it also may help frames on nvidia cards as well.

WilyKit said:
Frame gen makes the game feel like absolute dogshit to me. Not that I know what dogshit feels like, but I imagine it's similar to frame gen in Stalker 2
Click to expand...
See, for me, it feels really good, and i doubt I'm the only one. I think the key is, you need to be getting 50 FPS or more consistently without it, or you will feel some latency or stuttering. I can't see myself playing at 4K without it, it feels great. 110~120 FPS, fully maxed, with tweaks, at 4K? Hell yeah. That's with DLSS Quality as well, not that performance crap... lol.
 
III_Slyflyer_III said:
I believe the idea is to use the RR denoiser vs. the lumen one... it also may help frames on nvidia cards as well.


See, for me, it feels really good, and i doubt I'm the only one. I think the key is, you need to be getting 50 FPS or more consistently without it, or you will feel some latency or stuttering. I can't see myself playing at 4K without it, it feels great. 110~120 FPS, fully maxed, with tweaks, at 4K? Hell yeah. That's with DLSS Quality as well, not that performance crap... lol.
Click to expand...
Yeah I agree about the FG being good in this game, a lot better than Cyberpunk and AW2's implementation of it.
 
This might sound kind of crazy, but at one point when performance tanked in town I turned down the res to 1440 on my C2 just to get through selling/repairing/resting which worked, and I ended up leaving it because I can tell almost no difference whatsoever.
 
w35t said:
This might sound kind of crazy, but at one point when performance tanked in town I turned down the res to 1440 on my C2 just to get through selling/repairing/resting which worked, and I ended up leaving it because I can tell almost no difference whatsoever.
Click to expand...
This.
I could technically play @ 4k with an average of around 75, but it just felt all like shit, especially in cutscenes.
1440P w/ all Epic settings, no Mb with DLSS on Quality and FG nets me a very enjoyable experience and I can't tell either except for the way better performance increase.

The only gripes I have are the sun beams indoors driving me batshit and the fuckin Crysis like physics breaking chairs and crates, launching bottles and rolling cans non-stop when ever I walk indoors.
 
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I’m approaching the 50 hour mark and still having a total blast. I have however ran into more issues as I’ve progressed, the worst of which is a certain quest that got bugged. The quest was one where you’re supposed to defend a settlement, I raced there, got close and heard shots everywhere, but there were no shooters to be found. The settlers were huddled inside, all doing weird shit. The door to this building was half open but locked and I couldn’t get inside. I reloaded and tried again, same deal. Hoping that over time it would sort itself out I continued, then got a message over the radio that the town was toast. That one hurt.

I’ve also ran into a side quest scenario where I’d complete it, turn it in, get the dialogue, but it wouldn’t complete, and I wouldn’t get the reward. Also map markers leading to side quest destinations where a door would be locked when it’s not supposed to be, or the person you’re to meet (or item to collect) just wouldn’t be there.

I’ve also had quite a few CTD’s as well as the game locking up on the loading screen after death, one of which happened on all of the recent saves and had to backtrack a bit.

I’ve installed some QoL mods which is something I generally never consider doing on first time runs, but it needs some balance. If anything I’d say mod it now and do a vanilla run once it gets properly ironed out.

It needs some polish for sure, but not enough to keep me out of the zone.
 
w35t said:
I’m approaching the 50 hour mark and still having a total blast. I have however ran into more issues as I’ve progressed, the worst of which is a certain quest that got bugged. The quest was one where you’re supposed to defend a settlement, I raced there, got close and heard shots everywhere, but there were no shooters to be found. The settlers were huddled inside, all doing weird shit. The door to this building was half open but locked and I couldn’t get inside. I reloaded and tried again, same deal. Hoping that over time it would sort itself out I continued, then got a message over the radio that the town was toast. That one hurt.

I’ve also ran into a side quest scenario where I’d complete it, turn it in, get the dialogue, but it wouldn’t complete, and I wouldn’t get the reward. Also map markers leading to side quest destinations where a door would be locked when it’s not supposed to be, or the person you’re to meet (or item to collect) just wouldn’t be there.

I’ve also had quite a few CTD’s as well as the game locking up on the loading screen after death, one of which happened on all of the recent saves and had to backtrack a bit.

I’ve installed some QoL mods which is something I generally never consider doing on first time runs, but it needs some balance. If anything I’d say mod it now and do a vanilla run once it gets properly ironed out.

It needs some polish for sure, but not enough to keep me out of the zone.
Click to expand...
This is the reason I am waiting for the next patch. When games bug like this, I generally walk away and never play again.
 
FrgMstr said:
This is the reason I am waiting for the next patch. When games bug like this, I generally walk away and never play again.
Click to expand...

Yeah if you have any patience whatsoever that’s what I’d recommend. I have little to spare though and have looked forward to this for years. As I was currently without anything else to play the day one purchase decision was an easy one for me. My previous post honestly makes it sound worse than it is sans the settlement debacle. The quest reward I missed out on was a mere 2000 coupons.

I don’t regret it at all. I was luckily off this week with my better half NOT off so I’ve been able to hit it pretty hard, which offered plenty of incentive. I’ll easily get hundreds of hours out of this one, already planning on how to approach future play-throughs.
 
I hope they can fix the performance, it runs really bad once you get into a town, and that's with DLSS on. Frame gen seems like higher FPS, but the latency is really noticeable.
 
I just had a quest bug out. Had to choose between two groups, one group got killed by a random rat swarm, which apparently fucked up the quest progression because I'm supposed to be able to talk to the other group and get a reward, but he's stuck saying the same line of dialogue over and over.

I guess I'm waiting for a patch. I'm barely an hour into the game and already this.
 
MavericK said:
Frame gen seems like higher FPS, but the latency is really noticeable.
Click to expand...
Depends on your base fps. If your base fps is 60ish or higher, typically frame gen is great. Just my experience with it in a lot of games, your mileage may vary in stalker. :)

If I get this game, definitely waiting awhile for a sale and bugs to be worked out. It's single player so there's no rush.
 
I just finished up the second area. I've got 35 hours in. Two crashes and no quest bugs yet. I decided to use the .ini tweaks posted above and force DLSS quality mode. Solid performance on my setup. My FPS are capped at 116FPS and in the garbage area my FPS moves between 110 and 116. Even the scrap heap is smooth. I hope I don't run into a quest that breaks my game but so far I'm having a great time. The spawn system could use some improving but overall I'm happy with this game's performance and gameplay. It's had a few quirks but considering it's size, I'm happy with the quality of the game at this time. I hope they continue to work on it and polish the remaining bugs and help improve performance for less powerful systems than mine.
 
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