How two secret Stalker 2 hacks cut my loading time from 5 minutes to 52 seconds and got me in the Zone faster

GamesStalker 2How two secret Stalker 2 hacks cut my loading time from 5 minutes to 52 seconds and got me in the Zone fasterWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: GSC Game World)

Stalker 2 screen - soldier standing on a structure overlooking the Chornobyl exclusion zone

There’s another thing that’s also been dampening my enjoyment of Stalker 2 as well—just how long I’ve been having to wait to actually get playing it. Thanks to a smorgasbord of intro videos as well as a forced Unreal Engine 5 shader compilation every single time you boot up the game, it’s been a severe trial of patience, and especially so when trying to play on my gaming laptop, which isn’t as fast and powerful as my main rig.

But, luckily, there is now something that all Stalker 2 PC gamers can do about it, with two simple Stalker 2 hacks (both take seconds), allowing the complete removal of both the game’s forced intro videos and shader compilation. And, let me tell you as someone who has just done this himself, the results are superb. Check out the videos below for conclusive proof, which show me loading Stalker 2 on my gaming laptop both without and with these hacks in play.

Stalker 2 loading without hacks to skip shader compilation and intro videos (4 minutes, 56 seconds!)

Time to load into playable game = 4 minutes, 56 seconds

As you can see from the tortuously long video above, without any hacks in play it takes Stalker 2 almost five whole minutes from me launching the game to get to a playable state. That’s just such a downer, knowing that every time I want to jump into the fantastically atmospheric world of the Zone, I’ll have to wait for long enough for me to nip to the local shop and back. The intro videos add to the time, but the real killer is the forced Unreal Engine 5 shader compilation, which dumpsminutesonto the wait time.

Stalker 2 loading with hacks to skip shader compilation and intro videos (52 seconds!)

Time to load into playable game = 52 seconds

Now we’re talking! With the two hacks in play I’m enjoying Stalker 2 within 52 seconds of launching the game. There’s no difference in performance when playing, too, meaning this is 100 per cent a massive win. That’s a whopping reduction of 4 minutes, 4 seconds in load time or, in terms of a percentage, an 82.43% reduction in load time. Wow! Now can you see why this is a game changer for me?

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How to replicate these Stalker 2 results on your own system

OK, it’s really simple to enjoy this loading improvement yourself, too, with just two hacks needed. Here’s what you do:

How to remove forced shader compilation

C:\Users[WINDOWS USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\Config\Windows

Or here if you’re playing via Game Pass on the Xbox App:

C:\Users[WINDOWS USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\Config\WinGDK

Be sure to save this file as Engine.ini, not a .txt file called ‘Engine.ini’(Image credit: Future)

Stalker 2 screengrabs

Once in your ‘Windows’ or ‘WinGDK’ folder, open Notepad and copy the following code into the blank document:

[SystemSettings]

r.PSOWarmup.WarmupMaterials=0

Once you’ve done this, go to save the file but when you go to save be sure to click ‘save as’ and select ‘All files’ before then entering the name ‘Engine.ini’. This will save the file as a .ini file, whereas if you just click save without selecting ‘save as’ and then ‘All files’, it will save the file as a .txt file, which is no good.

Save your newly made ‘Engine.ini’ file into your ‘Windows’ or ‘WinGDK’ folder, the paths of which are detailed above. And, boom, that’s just turned off forced shader compilation when you load Stalker 2.

Grab the right file for your version of Stalker 2 here at the bottom of the GitHub page.(Image credit: Future)

Stalker 2 screengrabs

How to remove intro videos

And, boom, that’s it. Now when you run Stalker 2 none of the intro videos will run at all, which combined with the removal of the shader compilation, means you go directly to the game’s main menu, allowing you then immediately select to continue your adventure.

Simply drops the files in your main Stalker 2 directory.(Image credit: Future)

Stalker 2 screengrabs

Conclusion and final notes

Right now this is a game changer for me in playing Stalker 2, and I hope it can help you enjoy the game more as well. The speed increase from wanting to the play the game to actually playing it with these two secret hacks in place is massive, and has already saved me so much valuable gaming time, that otherwise would have been lost in a painful waiting game.

JUST REMEMBER, though, that shader compilation is actually important to making your games run the best they can on your machine, and every time Stalker 2 gets patched, or your graphics card manufacturer releases a new driver, you should absolutely re-enable shader compilation and run it once, letting your system reconfigure to the new game/driver files, before then turning it back off again. This will deliver the best of both worlds for you, letting you get the benefit from any game and driver optimisations, but also not having to suffer through forced Unreal Engine 5 shader compilation every single time you boot up the game. Happy hunting, Stalker.

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Stalker 2 loading without hacks to skip shader compilation and intro videos (4 minutes, 56 seconds!)#

Stalker 2 loading with hacks to skip shader compilation and intro videos (52 seconds!)#

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals#

How to replicate these Stalker 2 results on your own system#

Conclusion and final notes#

Stalker 2 loading without hacks to skip shader compilation and intro videos (4 minutes, 56 seconds!)

Stalker 2 loading with hacks to skip shader compilation and intro videos (52 seconds!)

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

How to replicate these Stalker 2 results on your own system

Conclusion and final notes