I need to talk about performance...

[Ezio Greggio]

Really, I'm one of those that have waited Stalker 2 for like more than a decade, and I was super happy when it came out and to be fair I'm still super happy with the game we got, really.

But man, I really can't stand the performance situation: Stalker2 (even at 1.1 patch) is probably the one that angry me the most, but its not the only one: Silent Hill 2 has the same problem and WuKong Too. I have a PC with and RTX 3080, 32Gb of ram, a Ryzen 5800X and a pcie4.0 SSD, its a PC that just 3 years ago would be described as a PC-dream machine that I've built both for gaming and for work since I'm a VR developer.

Like, there are games (even failry heavy ones like Borderlands3) that used to run maxed-out a 100+ FPS in 2K, my current monitor resolution, and even games that are still visually top-of-the-line like Cyberpunk2077 runs at like 80+ FPS with RT On, high settings and bare minimum compromises. Unity development environment runs extremely smooth too and even UE4 is totally fine to work with.

And now? SH2, Stalker2 and similar games runs at like 40-ish FPS, coming up to 55-60 with like every performance booster activated and details tuned down, with frametime so unstable that sometimes the 1% drops to 18-20fps. and Thery're not even so much visually better than other games that runs with more than double of the framerate on the same machine at the same resolution!

and ppl says "just enable DLSS + FrameGen and get your precious 100+fps anyway" but man, thats not the point: I've spent a lot of money on hardware that was rated high or super high-end at the time I bought them, which was not so long ago, and I did't changed my old PC just to run games at 900p resolution AI upscaled with fake (and fairly glitched) FPS interpolated just to have a playable experience. This is pure performance madness, like ok now I spend 2K more and get a 4080Super and a 9900X or a 7950X3D: what happens next? games runs good for 18-24 months more at max and then we're back here? is PC gaming a 1000EUR/year subscription to Nvidia and Epic Games now?

I really hope for this trend ends soon and to see AA and AAA developers really getting their ♥♥♥♥ toghether spending time and resources to properly make an optimized production pipeline with their techs, because in 15 year of PC gaming I've never seen a situation like this, really: Hardware requirements are skyrocketting while visuals are even degrading.

Sorry for the WoT, this is like the first Time I write something on Steam forums but I really had to address this out.

[Mechanique]

Both your CPU and GPU are 4+ years old
If you want performance in modern games you need the modern hardware

[Sparhawk122]

Originally posted by Mechanique:

Both your CPU and GPU are 4+ years old
If you want performance in modern games you need the modern hardware

The current gen consoles are much older...

[Mervin]

Originally posted by Sparhawk122:

Originally posted by Mechanique:

Both your CPU and GPU are 4+ years old
If you want performance in modern games you need the modern hardware

The current gen consoles are much older...

And they are ♥♥♥♥♥.

[Ezio Greggio]

Originally posted by Mechanique:

Both your CPU and GPU are 4+ years old
If you want performance in modern games you need the modern hardware

4 years on hi-end hardware are not enough to justify a 50-80% performance decrease in games that are not even so much visually better than the others and that doesn't bring any major technological advancement, that's the point. It's just gatekeeping and forced obsolescence at this point

[FranбушекTemp]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq2sdrJVEMU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M00DGjAP-mU

[Bandy]

Originally posted by Mechanique:

Both your CPU and GPU are 4+ years old
If you want performance in modern games you need the modern hardware

RTX 3080 release 4 years ago.

Rub those two brain cells and think before you post next time...

[Zulu]

So you're saying you can run 5 year old Borderlands3 with 100FPS...

And wondering why STALKER 2 runs at 50?

https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/1h4k15c/stalker_2_easily_takes_the_award_as_the/#lightbox

[edwvee]

Originally posted by Mechanique:

Both your CPU and GPU are 4+ years old
If you want performance in modern games you need the modern hardware

1. Stalker camps are super unstable on any CPU.
2. SH2R stuters inside apartments/hospital/prison/etc on any CPU.

That's just developers that don't unsterstand how to use UE5. Besides they both use 5.1, when there are tons of improvements in current versions (5.5 is the latest as I know).

I would update GPU to 4080. But these games (and many others such as Hogwarts Legacy) has broken perfomance CPU wise. They need to be fixed at first, before we can talk about how old is the gear. In current state we need 10 years of CPU progress to run them smoothly at reasonable FPS.

[Coolverine]

I have almost those exact same specs and the game runs just fine at 2560x1440.

[Ezio Greggio]

Originally posted by Zulu:

So you're saying you can run 5 year old Borderlands3 with 100FPS...

And wondering why STALKER 2 runs at 50?

https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/1h4k15c/stalker_2_easily_takes_the_award_as_the/#lightbox

Dude, thats not the point, I cited B3 but again thats one among many, even among more recent ones, the point is that in the last 4 years performance have vertically dropped down while visuals haven't drastically changed. And that's a problem for everyone, even the one that today has a RTX4090.

Like, we're not stupid right? everyone is expecting some performance degrading year after year, I surely do not pretend to play top 2024 games at 120fps RT on maxed out. The problem is born when in the time of half of a console generation games totally breaks down, running at 1/3 or less of the framerate with half (or less) of the details enabled, with even companies suggesting that the "minimum and suggested hardware" is the one showed in the store page as long as you play with half of the resolution and possibly with frame generation active.

Basically, telling that a 2024 500-ish (like, lets say, a plain 4070) card is ok as long as you play the game in 720-900p resolution, and as long as you're prepared to throw it in the trash in a couple of years. That's the point of the discussion, I mean are you guys really ok with the situation where companies who develop engine and cards force you to change basically everything at this rate?

[BlaezeL]

I'm surprised by the negative responses you are getting here. I agree, I think system requirements went up unreasonably and without returns the past couple of years. Newer games have in general worse image quality than a few years ago. There are a lot of new technologies being rolled out (mainly ray tracing in various forms) but the gains are small or nonexistent and we are losing a lot by having to resort to using upscalers and other forms of trickery to make things just playable. I hope for a future where optimization gets more priority but right now the trends are grim.

[Darmspoeling]

Bro you have 10gb VRAM, what are we talking about here :)
Lol in this case I am going to say your system and especially your obsolete (Thanks Nvidia) 10gb is the issue here.

[Stalker2010]

Originally posted by Bandy:

Originally posted by Mechanique:

Both your CPU and GPU are 4+ years old
If you want performance in modern games you need the modern hardware

RTX 3080 release 4 years ago.

Rub those two brain cells and think before you post next time...

It's a single cell and it is here to miserably player-blame.

[Sparhawk122]

Originally posted by Darmspoeling:

Bro you have 10gb VRAM, what are we talking about here :)
Lol in this case I am going to say your system and especially your obsolete (Thanks Nvidia) 10gb is the issue here.

Agreed. Planned Obsolescence by limiting the amount of VRAM on their GPUs. NVidia is very good at making buyers have to constantly upgrade. Even their upcoming RTX 5080 will only have 16GB of VRAM. And this game can already hit that limit...

[Zulu]

Originally posted by edwvee:

1. Stalker camps are super unstable on any CPU.
2. SH2R stuters inside apartments/hospital/prison/etc on any CPU.

1. I have 7800X3D, perfectly stable.
2. It doesn't, it runs solid at 145 FPS (FG on) in crowded areas.