STALKER 2 Graphics Evaluation: One of many Greatest-Trying Video games of This Era?

GSC Sport World’s S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. has continued to offer a number of the most genuine post-apocalyptic survival experiences through the years, and the group has been working actually onerous for S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2: Coronary heart of Chornobyl for fairly a while now. After a turbulent growth cycle crammed with delays and setbacks, the sport has lastly arrived on Xbox Sequence X/S and PC.

Constructed utilizing Unreal Engine 5, S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 flaunts a number of the finest visuals in its class ever because it was unveiled fairly a while in the past. And now that we have now the ultimate product in our arms, we will’t wait to unearth the sport and break down particular person elements to grasp how GSC achieves this picture high quality on consoles, and the way that implementation differs from what we get on PC together with efficiency profiling and extra.

Engine particulars

As talked about beforehand, S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2: Coronary heart of Chornobyl was one of many first video games to change to an Unreal Engine 5-based rendering pipeline. In fact, the numerous delays did cease the sport from being one of many first Unreal Engine 5 video games to have come out in the marketplace – however it makes good use of the engine’s toolset to create visually compelling vistas that may simply go neck to neck with a number of the finest video games in its class. 

S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 flaunts some nice use of Unreal Engine 5 options like Lumen for lighting, Nanite for geometry, and rather more. Utilizing a third-party engine like Unreal Engine 5 is nice for lowering strains associated to optimization and the perils of cross-platform growth, however GSC Sport World has positively left just a few tough edges with regards to efficiency optimization on PC which we shall be discussing intimately later. 

Take a look at PC specs and PC Graphical Settings

S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 recommends gamers have no less than a Ryzen 7 5800X or equal CPU, 32 GB of RAM, and RTX 3070 Ti. For our testing functions, we examined the sport on a system comprising an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti, and 32 GB RAM which is kind of a bit over what the sport recommends for itself. We additionally put in the sport on a PCI e 4.0 NvME SSD to get a extra apples-to-apples comparability between the PC and Xbox Sequence X variations.

Beginning issues off with a fast have a look at the settings menu, S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 presents us with a variety of sliders that can be utilized to seek out the proper steadiness between efficiency and graphical constancy. That being mentioned, it’s a relatively barebones settings menu at its core – and it doesn’t actually present variables like VRAM utilization or useful screenshots to higher perceive the distinction between the numerous settings on provide. 

The sport does provide choices for upscaling with assist for each AMD’s FSR 3, Nvidia’s DLSS, and Intel’s XeSS alongside body technology choices. For our assessments, we knocked the settings all the best way to Epic at a decision of native 4K. DLSS upscaling was turned to High quality, which places the inner rendering scale to 66 p.c.

PC Efficiency

Loading the sport on PC first includes compiling shaders which may take up round a minute or so. Loading occasions equally can take round 20 to 30 seconds which is fairly lengthy for a current-gen solely sport.

As for the moment-to-moment gameplay, S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 does impress when it comes to graphics high quality which we shall be discussing intimately in additional sections. Every little thing from the foliage to the character fashions and post-processing pipeline appears nice, however that top degree of constancy additionally brings efficiency observations to the desk. 

The really helpful {hardware} specs enable the sport to focus on 1440p at 60 frames per seconds. However our check construct was in a position to max out all the pieces at Extremely at 4K with DLSS in High quality mode. We noticed body charges round 40 to 60fps relying on how taxing the consequences had been. Having VSync and body technology choices might make issues quite a bit smoother, however so far as our construct was involved, we’re okay with the efficiency and given there may be an choice to lock the body charge to 30, decrease finish {hardware} may have the ability to run the sport at a secure body charge.

Xbox Sequence X Efficiency

Over on the Xbox facet of issues, we get to decide on between two distinct modes – Graphics and Efficiency. The graphics mode turns all of the bells and whistles with a decision of 4K, and it appears actually beautiful. Every little thing from the textures to the post-processing results appears fabulous, however the efficiency isn’t the perfect. The body charge is capped at 30fps, however there is a component of inconsistency to all the affair that may bitter the expertise for some. 

Then there’s the Efficiency mode the place the decision and results are knocked down, however the body charge is bumped to 60fps. Having additional frames helps quite a bit with fluidity, particularly in fight sequences, and customarily, that is one of the simplest ways to expertise what S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 has to supply on console. There are particular points with texture pop-in and degree of element swapping which is truthfully surprisingly contemplating the sport makes use of UE5’s inbuilt Nanite for world streaming – however the sport works effectively sufficient in broad strokes. 

Nevertheless, a recurring difficulty within the case of S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 is the loading occasions. Regardless of being constructed for current-gen consoles and PCs with Home windows DirectStorage API, GSC Sport World hasn’t optimized the sport for SSDs, and S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2’s load occasions can simply take wherever between 30 to 60 seconds which isn’t an excellent displaying at a time when most AAA releases in the marketplace usually load underneath 10 seconds.

A Graphical Behemoth

Beginning off with the character fashions, S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 encompasses a actually strong set of rendering methods which might be used to create lifelike character fashions with real looking animations. Fashions exhibit excessive polycounts and punctiliously drawn pores and skin meshes, and components like hair have high-quality strand textures with minimal artifacts alongside the sides. Clothes supplies are created out of bodily primarily based supplies, and animations additionally look real looking with what appears to be full-body movement seize – probably created by the help of UE5’s MetaHuman creator. 

Then there’s the lighting. S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 makes use of a Lumen-based lighting answer for its direct and oblique lighting wants – and it really works to nice impact within the sport’s case. International lighting and oblique lighting work in tandem to create breathtaking vistas with correct bounce lighting powered by ray tracing. Reflections are additionally equally correct with excessive resolutions which clearly replace with the change in perspective, and you’ll see beneficiant cases with loads of puddles scattered throughout the bottom and glass panes lined throughout makeshift homes. 

GSC Sport World additionally makes use of Nanite to supply great-looking terrain with a excessive quantity of geometric complexity besides. Environments in S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 are usually composed of various props like stones, constructions, and foliage that are product of high-quality supplies. Utilizing Nanite additionally handles points with LOD swapping and world streaming, and S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 usually works nice in that regard. 

Then there’s the post-processing pipeline which includes a collection of high-quality results that assist in creating a lovely picture to the eyes. We get to see intensive use of volumetric smoke fog and smoke volumes, alongside high-quality movement blur and depth of subject results. Alpha particles are additionally generously utilized in tandem with flames and weapon results which rounds out this strong submit processing pipeline. 

Xbox Sequence X vs PC 

Trying on the Xbox Sequence X and PC model facet by facet, there isn’t a lot of a distinction when it comes to the rendering methods used within the presentation of each variations. Each function the identical implementations with regards to textures, Lumen for lighting, and Nanite for world technology amongst others. The one distinction between the 2 variations comes within the high quality of these results. 

Unsurprisingly, Xbox’s high quality mode resembles the closest to our PC model – although the latter inches additional with marginally crisper picture high quality. Textures are a bit sharper; world streaming works a little bit higher as in comparison with the console launch whereas reflections and post-processing results stay fairly comparable throughout each variations. 

The decision cutback on the Efficiency mode does decrease down the picture high quality, and whereas the anti-aliasing does a high-quality sufficient job of upscaling – it clearly pales compared to the PC launch. Textures can look a bit muddy because of this, and alpha results equivalent to hearth and different particle results additionally undergo from comparable cutbacks in high quality. 

Conclusion

GSC Sport World’s S.T.A.L.Okay.E.R. 2 is a graphical powerhouse, and it makes good use of Unreal Engine 5’s suite of options to create a sensible rendition of a post-apocalyptic world. Its implementation of Lumen and Nanite have a few tough edges with texture pop-in, however it all comes superbly collectively to create a convincing picture by and thru. Efficiency points exist throughout each variations, and there may be definitely room for enchancment when it comes to loading time optimizations and lowering the shader compilation time on the PC launch.