How does Stalker2.exe work: technical condition of the game, optimization, graphics, bugs (2024)

Finally, the fans have waited for the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl and have already overload Ukrainian providers on the day of release. As expected, the game turned out to be ambiguous, with its own technical nuances, so in this short review we will evaluate Stalker2.exe from the technical side, without going into the plot, because later we will have a classic article about it. Is it as bad as critics say? Let’s look at the example of several PCs.

Test computers

We looked for bugs, evaluated the quality of graphics and measured the performance of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl on such systems:

• AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX + 32 GB DDR5 6000CL28 + SSD;
• Intel Core i7-10700K + AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT + 32 GB DDR4 3200CL16 + SSD;

The first PC fully covers the recommended requirements, and the second is the golden mean available to most gamers. Unfortunately, the video cards MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16G GAMING SLIM STALKER 2 EDITION was no longer available at the time of writing this review, so it was not possible to test the DLSS.

Compiling shaders and running them for the first time

When you first launch the game, it takes a long time to compile shaders. On a computer with AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, it took almost six minutes (with the processor heating more than in the Cinebench 2024 stress test). Older systems take even longer to compile shaders. It seems like there is no problem at all because it is enough to go through this procedure once, but no.

When switching graphics profiles, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl asks you to restart the game to fully accept all the changes. After that, the shader compilation restarts, and you have to wait a few more minutes. This happens every time. You don’t have to restart the game, but then you’ll still have textures of the current quality.

During the first launch, Stalker2.exe offers to select the language and basic screen settings. Officially, Russian is present, but only for the game text and subtitles. The voice acting is available in Ukrainian and English.

Support for Super Wide and Ultra-Wide monitors

The game works on wide monitors without any problems, but with one caveat — game videos are still displayed in 16:9 format, which leaves frames around the edges. On the one hand, it’s unpleasant, but some 2024 games don’t work at all with wide monitors (Spacemarine 2), and some work only in 21:9 ratio (Hellblade 2).

Smart upscaling, smoothing

By default, the game doesn’t set any antialiasing, which makes it look incredibly artificial. The sharpness is so high that it literally pokes your eyes out. The image looks like a photo from some Chinese smartphone, with its inherent oversharpening. The game just begs to be set to TAA, or even better, AMD FSR, Intel XeSS, or Nvidia DLSS smart antialiasing, depending on the user’s video card.

Although AMD FSR Quality gives us a higher frame rate on the RX 7800 XT, the picture quality is noticeably worse. Intel XeSS Ultra-Quality (66% scaling) works better, produces a softer image, but without severe losses in image quality, and the detail is noticeably higher.

XeSS Native(100%) vs FSR Native(100%) – Imgsli

At 100% scaling, XeSS also performs better, producing a more realistic image. The edges of sharp objects are properly smoothed. This is clearly visible in a static image and when the character is moving. With AMD FSR, the image is more artificial.

XeSS Balanced(50%) vs FSQ Balanced(58%) – Imgsli

The lower we go in terms of scaling, the bigger the difference becomes. With a 50% profile, Intel XeSS still looks good on a Quad HD 27″ monitor, but with AMD FSR, the grass turns to mush.

XeSS UltraQ(66%) vs TSR Q(65%) – Imgsli

The TSR upscale works almost at the level of XeSS, but in this example, the fog has disappeared using this technology. XeSS is still softer, subjectively more pleasing to the eye, but only in static because TSR works more stably and gives a clearer picture while driving.

So, modest owners of Nvidia RTX video cards should definitely try DLSS first, and for proud owners of AMD Radeon (and old Nvidia GTX), it is better to choose between XeSS and TSR because FSR in Stalker2.exe is implemented weaker. With 65-75% scaling, the picture won’t be nice because the game has an overstated sharpness by default, which is painful to look at.

Face, facial expressions

The facial details of the game characters are not bad, some better, some worse, but that’s where the advantages end. In this regard, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl is identical to Robocop Rogue City. Both games are on Unreal Engine 5, both have a similar level of graphics and similar problems with facial expressions. The sound doesn’t hit the lips, and other facial emotions are poorly implemented, to put it mildly. This is the level of 10-15 years ago, but not the AAA project of 2024.

You can justify the developers that this is an open-world game, not a corridor game, but there is a counter-argument for this case. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl is primarily an atmosphere game focused on realism, so we put curves and low-quality facial animations in a fat minus.

Textures

Most of the textures in the game are of high quality, and there are a lot of details (for example, the protagonist’s untrimmed nails and the dirt under them), but there are places where the picture looks mediocre. The game will often provoke the player to stealth passage, so we will see enough of low-quality textures of leaves and surrounding objects.

The fire looks like something out of a PlayStation 2 game, but it’s not a decoration, and it harms the character if the player decides to step into it.

The main thing is that the characters are made with high quality, the detail is at the level of modern games, but due to the fact that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl takes 150+ GB on the drive, the secondary textures could be better. After the textures in Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2017), the Ukrainian game has nothing to surprise. In the same demo on Unreal Engine 5 The Matrix Awakens, the detail of environmental objects is higher.

Interaction with the world, collision, physics

Most of the objects in the game are chained to their location, but some small objects (cans on the ground, for example) can be moved. Stabbing a tree with a knife leaves realistic marks, but branches and bushes do not react to the character’s movement, as they did in the legendary Crysis of 2007 or Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light of 2010.

The character interacts with most objects quite realistically. The foot is on a fake bench, a tire, stones, a car, but some objects still pass through the main character’s texture.

The interaction with water is terrifying in the truest sense of the word. Puddles on the asphalt reflect the image, but they are a flat texture, like glass that does not break. Moving on the water does nothing, you can see the reaction in the video.

Is this the AAA level of a 2024 game? Maybe it should be Stalker2.apk and not Stalker2.exe?

In deeper waters, the situation is somewhat better, although still far from realistic. The level of Cyberpunk 2077, but not Red Dead Redemption. Jumping creates only minor splashes, but not waves on the water. The physics is C- with a big minus.

Parkour in the game is available in limited places, so don’t be surprised when you can’t climb a 90-centimeter-high fence or climb on the roof of a car. The character has a limited number of movements and interactions with the world.

The intelligence of NPCs is low. They don’t react well to the player, don’t hear his or her footsteps, and are deaf, which makes them easy to deceive.

Sometimes there are bugs with non-player characters that walk in a loop or lose collision.

Stalker2.exe is one of those video games that tries to draw the player in with realism, but in reality, we have mechanics only slightly better than Counter Strike, ported to a modern engine.

The following physical features can be briefly highlighted:

• The character has almost no inertia, you don’t feel the mass of a cardboard character;
• Movement is somewhat «wooden», lateral movements are too sharp, jerky;
• It’s impossible to overcome small obstacles, catch on ledges, etc;
• Shooting is inaccurate and requires careful aiming;
• The open world is large (+-20 square kilometers), but interaction with it is minimal;
• Water has primitive physics, especially if there is not much of it;

Lighting, shadows

The game is atmospheric, beautiful, but too dark. And it’s not because the developers wanted to, but because of critical errors in the game’s creation process. The light in Stalker2.exe just doesn’t behave the way it should.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl has a very serious problemwith lighting. It seems that the Unreal Engine 5 engine shouldn’t suffer from this (we’ve never seen this in any game), but some areas are not just dark, but literally black. The exposure is broken, and the light sources behave unrealistically.

It’s annoying when there’s a strong light source (fire or lamp) a few meters away, and in the corner of the next room it’s dark, like in a black hole. It’s been a long time since there was an AAA video game with such lighting bugs as in Stalker2.exe.

While we’re standing indoors, it looks like a bright sunny day outside, with a warm color temperature, light and clear, but as soon as you step out the door, it’s night. There will be a lot of similar things in the process of passing, which greatly spoils the impression of the game, does not allow you to immerse yourself in the atmosphere.

Shadows are also problematic. This is what you first notice when switching from maximum to minimum graphics because the shadows become sharp. But this is not the only drawback. Do you remember the terrible shadows of the main character from Cyberpunk 2077? They are no better here.

The animations of the protagonist’s shadows look simplistic when he moves, his arms seem to be clasped behind his back and turned in the other direction.

When jumping or stabbing with a knife, the situation is similar. It’s a good thing that the game is in first-person and the player doesn’t see such bad character animations, but only his shadows.

Productivity

There were no performance issues on the system with AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, but I would like to see a higher FPS with such graphics. The ultra-demanding Alan Wake 2 game without ray tracing produces almost twice as many frames as similar scenes in Stalker2.exe, although the latter has an open world and a different engine.

In Ultra HD and Quad HD resolutions, Intel XeSS Quality was used, and for Full HD, no upscaling was required. Also, let’s not forget that Wide Ultra HD 5120x2160p contains 33% more pixels than classic Ultra HD 3840x2160p, so owners of 16:9 4K monitors with a similar graphics card can add at least 10-15% FPS to find out the performance on their system.

With such a video card, you can confidently run 4K Ultra HD with Ultra graphics settings, but it’s worth noting a small difference between the minimum and maximum graphics. That is, owners of budget systems lose almost nothing.

The AMD frame generator will come in handy, but only if the initial FPS is high. For example, raising the frame rate from 35 to 60 FPS is not a good idea because delays and visual artifacts will be a problem, but from 70 to 130 FPS is another matter. 4K doesn’t require much video memory, but the game consumes a lot of RAM. Owners of video cards with 8 GB of VRAM don’t have to worry at all if they have 32 GB of RAM in their system.

Reducing the resolution does not improve performance too much, at least for the RX 7900 XTX with a wide bus. The processor fully loads the GPU with any graphics settings and resolution. Interestingly, in 1080p without XeSS/TSR, the picture looks worse than in 1440p with smart anti-aliasing.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is for the majors, that’s clear, but is there something for the masses, for ordinary computer gamers? On a computer with AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT and Intel Core i7-10700K (the whole PC is cheaper than a single RX 7900 XTX graphics card), the game runs just as well. Just don’t go into Ultra HD 4K territory and everything will be fine.

The game is also demanding on the processor. While there will be no problems with AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, older top-of-the-line systems will not always deliver stable 60 FPS. For example, the Intel Core i7-10700K often drops below 60 FPS. But this is not a problem because for such cases there is a frame generator that is still comfortable to play with.

The gameplay of Stalker2.exe is relatively slow (it’s not an eSports shooter), so input delays at 90-100 FPS are not critical. Frame Generation is a lifesaver not only for the GPU but also for the CPU.

But owners of old DDR3 systems (even HEDT) can forget about smooth gameplay in this game. Also, don’t forget to lower the graphics profile, experiment until you get the best ratio of image quality to smoothness because ultra The graphics are not worth it, and neither is Stalker2.exe.