Stalker 2 PC system requirements revealed: 32 GB RAM, 160 GB storage and a GeForce RTX 4070 recommended for an optimal experience
S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart of Chronobyl (hereby referred to as Stalker 2 in this post), is set to launch on PC and Xbox Series X|S on November 20. GSC Game World, its developer, has revealed its PC system requirements. Like every other AAA game released this generation, they're pretty hefty. Then again, it is expected of an Unreal Engine 5 game.
While you can technically run Stalker 2 on older machines, you should stick to 1080p because anything above that requires 32 GB RAM. This, plus its 160 GB storage requirement, will also make it tricky to run on handheld consoles such as the Steam Deck.
Thankfully, the game supports both DLSS and FSR, so you can skirt around the requirements a bit by playing around with in-game graphics settings. It is clear the game is more taxing on the GPU than the CPU, even at lower resolutions.
Nvidia put out a blog post explaining how Stalker 2 will perform with its GeForce RTX 4000 series graphics cards. At 4K with the 'Epic' preset (paired with an Intel Core i9-14900K and 64 GB RAM), even the top-spec GeForce RTX 4090 cannot hit a stable 60 FPS without DLSS. And these are first-party benchmarks, so it'll probably be worse in the real world.
The situation is more or less similar at 1440p and 1080p, where DLSS 3 is almost necessary to achieve playable frame rates on recommended hardware. Plus, Nvidia hasn't mentioned if ray tracing is enabled in either scenario. That will undoubtedly bring even a RTX 4090 to its knees.
Things are marginally better on the laptop side, particularly at 1080p. Even an entry-level GeForce RTX 4050 can play Stalker 2 at max settings. With a few compromises, you can easily get a steady 60 FPS on last-gen RTX 3000 series hardware.
It is clear that Stalker 2 will be one of the most demanding games launched this generation. While the current generation of hardware might struggle with it, the next-gen GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 might have an easier time, more so when it is paired with something like a Ryzen 9 9950X3D.
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