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(Image credit: GCS Game World)
Jump to:Quick summaryResolutionTexture qualityObject detailGlobal illuminationReflectionsShadow qualityFoliage qualityDraw distanceTweak or preset?
Jump to:Quick summaryResolutionTexture qualityObject detailGlobal illuminationReflectionsShadow qualityFoliage qualityDraw distanceTweak or preset?
I’ve been testing Stalker 2 for a week now and I’ve experimented with every graphics option the game has to offer. While the performance you get will mostly be down to the hardware inside your gaming PC, there are some things you can do to make it run as best as possible, without sacrificing the visual fidelity.
If you just want a quick rundown on what to do, that’s just below here, but if you want a bit more knowledge about some of the more important settings, read on for the full skinny.
Quick summary
Just use one of the game’s quality presets (Low, Medium, High, or Epic).
For fine-tuning,increasethe settings fortexture quality,object detail, andglobal illumination. Thendecreasethe settings forshadow quality,foliage, andenvironment draw distanceto get the performance required.
In all cases, make sure you’re usingupscaling(DLSS, FSR, or XeSS) in Quality mode to get the best overall performance.
Avoid 4K resolution, unless you have a genuinely powerful gaming PC, with a high-end GPU (e.g. RX 7900 XTX, RTX 4080).
SPONSOREDZotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 Super Amp: A high-demand game requires gear that meets you in the middle. This GPU delivers smooth 4K gameplay with hyper-realistic visuals thanks to the 16GB GDDR6X memory and NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture. You want every inch of the irradiated wasteland you’re exploring to be detailed and specific. A powerful graphics card like this is your first step.View Deal
SPONSOREDZotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 Super Amp: A high-demand game requires gear that meets you in the middle. This GPU delivers smooth 4K gameplay with hyper-realistic visuals thanks to the 16GB GDDR6X memory and NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture. You want every inch of the irradiated wasteland you’re exploring to be detailed and specific. A powerful graphics card like this is your first step.View Deal
SPONSOREDZotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 Super Amp: A high-demand game requires gear that meets you in the middle. This GPU delivers smooth 4K gameplay with hyper-realistic visuals thanks to the 16GB GDDR6X memory and NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture. You want every inch of the irradiated wasteland you’re exploring to be detailed and specific. A powerful graphics card like this is your first step.View Deal
SPONSOREDZotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 Super Amp: A high-demand game requires gear that meets you in the middle. This GPU delivers smooth 4K gameplay with hyper-realistic visuals thanks to the 16GB GDDR6X memory and NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture. You want every inch of the irradiated wasteland you’re exploring to be detailed and specific. A powerful graphics card like this is your first step.
SPONSOREDZotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 Super Amp: A high-demand game requires gear that meets you in the middle. This GPU delivers smooth 4K gameplay with hyper-realistic visuals thanks to the 16GB GDDR6X memory and NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture. You want every inch of the irradiated wasteland you’re exploring to be detailed and specific. A powerful graphics card like this is your first step.
SPONSORED
SPONSORED
SPONSORED
Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 Super Amp: A high-demand game requires gear that meets you in the middle. This GPU delivers smooth 4K gameplay with hyper-realistic visuals thanks to the 16GB GDDR6X memory and NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture. You want every inch of the irradiated wasteland you’re exploring to be detailed and specific. A powerful graphics card like this is your first step.
View Deal
View Deal
View Deal
Resolution
Stalker 2 uses Unreal Engine 5’s software Lumen ray tracing for rendering all lighting, shadows, and reflections. The good thing about this is that your GPU doesn’t need to have dedicated hardware for handling ray tracing; the bad news is that this mode involves an awful lot of asynchronous compute shading.
If your gaming PC has one of the latest and greatest graphics cards, you’ll be fine (within reason) but if it’s a couple of generations old, then this level and type of shading will be very demanding for it.
The way to manage this is easy, though: Reduce the amount of shading it has to do and the best way to achieve this is to lower the resolution. Stalker 2 looks perfectly fine at 1080p and in some ways, gives off an originalStalker: Call of Pripyatvibe.
Medium preset, 1080p resolution, no upscalingCore i7 14700KF, RTX 4080 Super, 32 GB DDR5-6400
Depending on your hardware, things become more serious at 1440p but again, it’s manageable. However, 4K is the preserve of the very latest, high-end graphics cards, even if you use lots of upscaling and frame generation.
Performance boosters such as DLSS, FSR, and XeSS lower the resolution at the game renders everything before scaling it back up to be displayed at your monitor’s resolution. Stalker 2 does look best natively but it’s so sensitive to how many pixels it has to process, that you’re better off using upscaling anyway.
Some individual graphics settings are worth paying attention to, though, as some can be raised without much of a performance impact, whereas others will hit your frame rate quite hard.
I’ve used aRyzen 5 5600Xgaming PC, with aRadeon RX 6750 XTgraphics card and 32 GB of DDR4-3200 CL16 RAM to capture the images below, using the medium quality preset as the baseline setting.
Texture quality
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Stalker 2 isn’t especially demanding on your graphics card’s VRAM. If you have 8 GB, then that will be enough to cope with the epic preset at 1080p, the high preset at 1440p, and the medium preset at 4K. In my testing, I recorded no higher than 11 GB of VRAM being used, although that’s not to say no part of the game will demand more than this.
The benefit of the relatively light VRAM load is that you can pump up the texture quality without much of a performance impact, if at all. You can see in the gallery above that the low setting is somewhat fuzzy but clears up nicely at medium or higher.
There’s not a wealth of difference between high and epic, but since the RX 6750 XT displayed no difference in frame rates between the two settings either, it should be fine to use the maximum texture setting at all times.
However, if you do get stutters as you’re moving about the open world (aka traversal stutters), then it might be worth knocking the texture quality down a notch.
Object detail
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Another setting that has a subtle change in both the visual fidelity of Stalker 2 and how well it runs is object detail. From my testing, it would seem that you can set this as high as you can with relatively little cost in frame rates.
However, I say this with one large caveat. The performance impact of using a higher object detail setting will become more pronounced in areas that are packed full of structures, buildings, debris, and so on. Large factories and urban areas being prime examples.
Increasing object complexity may also increase the load on the CPU and GPU, if you’re using an especially high setting for the shading quality, as this seems to affect how good an object’s self-shadowing appears.
Global illumination
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The RX 6750 XT coped perfectly well with GI up to high, before dropping a few frames per second when set to epic. It does look the best set to that value but in more complex areas that the one shown above, it can grind down mid-range GPUs.
You might be tempted to set GI to high or epic, and drop down everything else to maintain performance, but you’re better off balancing against what the other graphics options are set to. Pretty lighting doesn’t really help if your shadows are all blotchy.
Reflections
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One of Stalker 2’s weakest aspects, in terms of graphics, is how well it handles reflections. You might think that because it’s all ray-traced it’s done to perfection but while the reflections are physically correct, they’re sampled at quite a low resolution.
That’s because the software Lumen mode used in Stalker 2 evaluates lighting where rays interact with a surface cache (a dataset of what an object’s materials are like from different views), rather than on a per-triangle basis.
The quality setting for reflections seems to just increase the sampling quantity but at least the performance impact isn’t huge. Depending on what other settings one uses, it can be too small to be unnoticeable but if you have, say, a high level of foliage detail and shadow quality, then the reflection setting will matter.
Just as with GI, you’re probably best off using the same value for reflections as you do for object detail, shadow quality, and foliage.
Shadow quality
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At maximum settings, shadows are sufficiently sampled to appear smooth and consistent from a distance, but up close they just soften into quite a mushy appearance. Or rather,someshadows do.
It seems that static objects, such as buildings, generate quite sharp shadows. However, if the objects move, such as NPCs, enemies, and trees, then the quality of the shadow it casts varies quite a lot (with trees being the worst).
Unless you have a high-end GPU, you should stick to using the medium or high value for shadow quality, and put up with the somewhat fuzzy appearance.
Foliage quality
Image1of4(Image credit: GSC Game World)(Image credit: GSC Game World)(Image credit: GSC Game World)(Image credit: GSC Game World)
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The foliage quality setting in Stalker 2 greatly changes how much grass you’ll see in the open world, as well as the overall appearance of trees and bushes (though to a lesser extent than with grass).
Just as with shadow quality, it looks best with the epic setting but it does affect the performance, especially when coupled with high settings for environment draw distance, shadows, and global illumination.
There’s not a wealth of difference between the medium and high settings, though, so if you’re looking to save a bit of performance while using the high preset, then it’s worth knocking this one down a touch to claw back a few frames per second.
Environment draw distance
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Environment draw distance is the last quality setting that I think is worth playing around with. If you’re using the medium preset, like I have to get all the images in this guide, then you can set it as high as you like and enjoy the full desolate beaty of the Zone as GSC Game World intended.
However, if the foliage quality setting is high or epic, then increasing the draw distance will incur a larger performance hit. For example, with the RX 6750 XT, using an epic value for the draw distance with the medium preset showed no drop in the frame rate.
But with changing foliage quality along with it produced a 10% drop in frame rate (low vs epic). Like many of the quality settings in Stalker 2, you’re best off matching the environment draw distance to whatever you’re using for foliage and shadows.
Tweak or preset?
This guide has been based on a review code sample of Stalker 2 and during the period of pre-release testing, the developers issued multiple patches (two of which were both over 130 GB in size), so there’s a possibility that none, some, or even all of the guidance offered won’t be totally relevant in the official release version.
That said, with the use of ray tracing setting the scope of what level of performance is achievable on any gaming PC, changing just one quality setting is unlikely to ever make much difference. Instead, you’ll need to tweak multiple values to get things exactly as you want them, and some of them require you to restart the game if altered.
Epic preset, 1080p resolution, no upscalingCore i7 14700KF, RTX 4080 Super, 32 GB DDR5-6400
Outside of performance vs graphics settings, Stalker 2 has a decent FOV option (70 to 110°, in the Display menu) which is handy for offsetting any motion sickness you might get while playing. Likewise, there’s a sharpness slider, with a default value of 20%, which I found can also help (12% worked best for my sickness).
On the whole, my advice is to just use the presets and head on into the Zone. You might not have the very best possible frame rate or the perfect balance of graphics, but once you’re caught up in the weird and wonderful world of Stalker 2, you won’t really care.
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HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review: An anarchic treasure trove of jokes and skits2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review—like juggling chainsaws on horseback3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review4Ikea Utespelare desk review5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review: An anarchic treasure trove of jokes and skits2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review—like juggling chainsaws on horseback3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review4Ikea Utespelare desk review5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS
1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads
1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads
1
Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads
2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop
2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop
2
Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop
3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most
3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most
3
Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most
4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands
4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands
4
Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands
5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested
5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested
5
Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested
1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review: An anarchic treasure trove of jokes and skits
1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review: An anarchic treasure trove of jokes and skits
1
Thank Goodness You’re Here! review: An anarchic treasure trove of jokes and skits
2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review—like juggling chainsaws on horseback
2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review—like juggling chainsaws on horseback
2
Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review—like juggling chainsaws on horseback
3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review
3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review
3
WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review
4Ikea Utespelare desk review
4Ikea Utespelare desk review
4
Ikea Utespelare desk review
5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
5
Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
