GSC Recreation World’s S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. has continued to offer among the most genuine post-apocalyptic survival experiences through the years, and the workforce has been working actually laborious for S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2: Coronary heart of Chornobyl for fairly a while now. After a turbulent improvement cycle crammed with delays and setbacks, the sport has lastly arrived on Xbox Sequence X/S and PC.
Constructed utilizing Unreal Engine 5, S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 flaunts among the greatest visuals in its class ever because it was unveiled fairly a while in the past. And now that we now have the ultimate product in our fingers, we will’t wait to unearth the sport and break down particular person points to know how GSC achieves this picture high quality on consoles, and the way that implementation differs from what we get on PC together with efficiency profiling and extra.
Engine particulars
As talked about beforehand, S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2: Coronary heart of Chornobyl was one of many first video games to modify to an Unreal Engine 5-based rendering pipeline. In fact, the various delays did cease the sport from being one of many first Unreal Engine 5 video games to have come out available on the market – but it surely makes good use of the engine’s toolset to create visually compelling vistas that may simply go neck to neck with among the greatest video games in its class.
S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 flaunts some nice use of Unreal Engine 5 options like Lumen for lighting, Nanite for geometry, and far more. Utilizing a third-party engine like Unreal Engine 5 is nice for decreasing strains associated to optimization and the perils of cross-platform improvement, however GSC Recreation World has undoubtedly left a number of tough edges in terms of efficiency optimization on PC which we will likely be discussing intimately later.
Check PC specs and PC Graphical Settings
S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 recommends gamers have at the very least a Ryzen 7 5800X or equal CPU, 32 GB of RAM, and RTX 3070 Ti. For our testing functions, we examined the sport on a system comprising an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti, and 32 GB RAM which is sort of a bit over what the sport recommends for itself. We additionally put in the sport on a PCI e 4.0 NvME SSD to get a extra apples-to-apples comparability between the PC and Xbox Sequence X variations.
Beginning issues off with a fast take a look at the settings menu, S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 presents us with a variety of sliders that can be utilized to search out the proper steadiness between efficiency and graphical constancy. That being mentioned, it’s a slightly barebones settings menu at its core – and it doesn’t actually present variables like VRAM utilization or useful screenshots to higher perceive the distinction between the various settings on supply.
The sport does supply choices for upscaling with assist for each AMD’s FSR 3, Nvidia’s DLSS, and Intel’s XeSS alongside body era choices. For our checks, we knocked the settings all the way in which to Epic at a decision of native 4K. DLSS upscaling was turned to High quality, which places the interior rendering scale to 66 %.
PC Efficiency
Loading the sport on PC first entails compiling shaders which might take up round a minute or so. Loading instances equally can take round 20 to 30 seconds which is fairly lengthy for a current-gen solely sport.
As for the moment-to-moment gameplay, S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 does impress when it comes to graphics high quality which we will likely be discussing intimately in additional sections. Every little thing from the foliage to the character fashions and post-processing pipeline appears to be like nice, however that prime degree of constancy additionally brings efficiency observations to the desk.
The advisable {hardware} specs enable the sport to focus on 1440p at 60 frames per seconds. However our take a look at construct was capable of max out every part at Extremely at 4K with DLSS in High quality mode. We noticed body charges round 40 to 60fps relying on how taxing the results had been. Having VSync and body era choices could make issues loads smoother, however so far as our construct was involved, we’re okay with the efficiency and given there may be an choice to lock the body fee to 30, decrease finish {hardware} would possibly be capable of run the sport at a secure body fee.
Xbox Sequence X Efficiency
Over on the Xbox facet of issues, we get to decide on between two distinct modes – Graphics and Efficiency. The graphics mode turns all of the bells and whistles with a decision of 4K, and it appears to be like actually beautiful. Every little thing from the textures to the post-processing results appears to be like fabulous, however the efficiency isn’t the most effective. The body fee is capped at 30fps, however there is a component of inconsistency to your complete affair that may bitter the expertise for some.
Then there’s the Efficiency mode the place the decision and results are knocked down, however the body fee is bumped to 60fps. Having additional frames helps loads with fluidity, particularly in fight sequences, and customarily, that is one of the best ways to expertise what S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 has to supply on console. There are specific points with texture pop-in and degree of element swapping which is actually surprisingly contemplating the sport makes use of UE5’s inbuilt Nanite for world streaming – however the sport works nicely sufficient in broad strokes.
Nonetheless, a recurring concern within the case of S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 is the loading instances. Regardless of being constructed for current-gen consoles and PCs with Home windows DirectStorage API, GSC Recreation World hasn’t optimized the sport for SSDs, and S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2’s load instances can simply take anyplace between 30 to 60 seconds which isn’t a very good exhibiting at a time when most AAA releases available on the market typically load below 10 seconds.
A Graphical Behemoth
Beginning off with the character fashions, S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 contains a actually sturdy set of rendering methods which are used to create lifelike character fashions with sensible animations. Fashions exhibit excessive polycounts and punctiliously drawn pores and skin meshes, and parts like hair have fantastic strand textures with minimal artifacts alongside the sides. Clothes supplies are created out of bodily based mostly supplies, and animations additionally look sensible with what appears to be like to be full-body movement seize – more than likely created via assistance from UE5’s MetaHuman creator.
Then there’s the lighting. S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 makes use of a Lumen-based lighting resolution for its direct and oblique lighting wants – and it really works to nice impact within the sport’s case. International lighting and oblique lighting work in tandem to create breathtaking vistas with correct bounce lighting powered by ray tracing. Reflections are additionally equally correct with excessive resolutions which clearly replace with the change in perspective, and you’ll see beneficiant cases with loads of puddles scattered throughout the bottom and glass panes lined throughout makeshift homes.
GSC Recreation World additionally makes use of Nanite to provide great-looking terrain with a excessive quantity of geometric complexity as well. Environments in S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 are typically composed of various props like stones, constructions, and foliage that are made from high-quality supplies. Utilizing Nanite additionally handles points with LOD swapping and world streaming, and S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 typically works nice in that regard.
Then there’s the post-processing pipeline which includes a collection of high-quality results that assist in creating a delightful picture to the eyes. We get to see in depth use of volumetric smoke fog and smoke volumes, alongside high-quality movement blur and depth of discipline results. Alpha particles are additionally generously utilized in tandem with flames and weapon results which rounds out this sturdy put up processing pipeline.
Xbox Sequence X vs PC
Trying on the Xbox Sequence X and PC model facet by facet, there isn’t a lot of a distinction when it comes to the rendering methods used within the presentation of each variations. Each characteristic the identical implementations in terms of textures, Lumen for lighting, and Nanite for world era amongst others. The one distinction between the 2 variations comes within the high quality of these results.
Unsurprisingly, Xbox’s high quality mode resembles the closest to our PC model – although the latter inches additional with marginally crisper picture high quality. Textures are a bit sharper; world streaming works a bit higher as in comparison with the console launch whereas reflections and post-processing results stay fairly related throughout each variations.
The decision cutback on the Efficiency mode does decrease down the picture high quality, and whereas the anti-aliasing does a fantastic sufficient job of upscaling – it clearly pales compared to the PC launch. Textures can look a bit muddy in consequence, and alpha results akin to fireplace and different particle results additionally endure from related cutbacks in high quality.
Conclusion
GSC Recreation World’s S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. 2 is a graphical powerhouse, and it makes good use of Unreal Engine 5’s suite of options to create a sensible rendition of a post-apocalyptic world. Its implementation of Lumen and Nanite have a few tough edges with texture pop-in, but it surely all comes superbly collectively to create a convincing picture via and thru. Efficiency points exist throughout each variations, and there may be actually room for enchancment when it comes to loading time optimizations and decreasing the shader compilation time on the PC launch.