Technical Experts Test S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 and Recommend Limiting Frame Rate on PC

The Digital Foundry team has published a technical review of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. Expert Alex Battaglia praised the impressive graphics with lots of fine details but pointed out various shortcomings, such as the lack of dynamic shadows and issues with the Lumen technology.

In terms of optimization, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 suffers from stuttering on both PC and Xbox. Performance depends heavily on CPU power, causing frame time fluctuations throughout the game. Battaglia mentioned that the situation was even worse before the day-one patch.

The number of NPCs also affects performance. In settlements with many characters, the game becomes unstable even on high-end systems like the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. On Xbox Series X/S, the frame rate can even drop to zero—Battaglia observed this when entering Zalissya.

To avoid issues on PC, the expert recommended limiting the frame rate—30 FPS for Ryzen 5 3600 and 60 FPS for Ryzen 7 7800X3D. On consoles, it's better to choose the quality mode with 30 FPS.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 released on November 20. Developers have already confirmed that they are working on fixes.