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Tuning the graphics settings for the best FPS is par for the course with new PC games, andStalker 2: Heart of Chornobylis no exception, though this game is particularly finicky with its optimization. Dialing in exactly what your rig can handle and what you’re comfortable with will depend on your preferences and how Stalker 2 works with your particular hardware.
After testing each graphics setting, we’ve presented a near-optimal setup for those with hardware from the last couple of generations. You may need to tweak things for your situation, but the settings presented here are a good start.
Best Graphics Settings
There are a few ground rules you should follow to get the best performance out of Stalker 2:
For testing,all settings in the Graphics menu were set to Mediumas a baseline with TAA as the upscaling solution, because it’s not proprietary to any GPU manufacturer. DLSS gave our testing rig better performance than FSR, but other players have encountered the opposite, and so on.
The testing area was the opening city of Zalissya during a foggy, rainy day,going up and down the main thoroughfare in the afternoon. At an ultrawide resolution with an RTX 3080, we averaged 40 FPS, and all setting recommendations are based on this baseline.
All settings in this test were increased from Medium to Epic in isolation, keeping everything else at Medium for consistency.
2-5 FPS drop with hair in-frame
1-3 FPS drop
2-5 FPS drop
Motion blur strength
0%
20%
10+ FPS improvement
Not used due to graphical artifacting
Shadow quality
5-8 FPS drop
2-5 FPS drop with lower lows than other settings
Foliage quality
1-3 FPS drop, more with more foliage present
Environmental draw distance
High
Additionally, here are the main specifications of the PC used to test these settings. Your results will likely be different, so adjust your settings from those presented as necessary.
The main differing factor here is the resolution.Playing at 1440p or other 16:9 resolutionswill likely open up further opportunities to raise your settings. If you’re using a graphics card from the NVIDIA 40 series or something like the 7800XT from AMD,you may use Frame Generation more effectivelywhich will likely add additional gains.
Lower-power cards like the 4070 and below might struggle with the heavier settingsjust as a 3080 would, and the less power a card can put out, the more it will struggle, regardless of generation.
