S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is one of the most highly anticipated PC game releases of the year, a sequel to one of the most groundbreaking first-person shooters ever made and a game that has been in development for several years over at GSC Game World. In it, you once again take on the role of a lone stalker, exploring the dangerous 64km-squared radioactive zone of post-apocalyptic Chornobyl.
Powered by Unreal Engine 5, the game's photorealistic seamless open world is set to test even the most high-end rigs. With the game launching with DLSS 3 and Reflex support, NVIDIA has provided internal benchmark results for gaming running on various GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards - and it looks like this is one game that requires Frame Generation to run with Max Settings.
At 4K, not even the mighty GeForce RTX 4090 can hit a native 60 FPS - it delivers an average frame rate of 52.4 FPS. However, turn on DLSS 3 (or go RTX On), and this number jumps to an impressive 123.9 FPS. Even the popular GeForce RTX 4070 manages to hit a respectable 73.6 FPS at 4K with DLSS 3.
Here's a look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2's 4K performance. On average, DLSS 3 delivers a 2.4X increase in performance.
Switching the resolution to the 1440p sweet spot, everything from the GeForce RTX 4070 and up hits triple-digits. The GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER hits an impressive 114.6 FPS, while the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER hits 135.7 FPS. On average, DLSS 3 delivers a 2X increase in performance at this resolution.
Lowering the resolution to the mainstream 1080p and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 with Max Settings still requires DLSS 3. Here, the GeForce RTX 4060 hits an average frame rate of 85.5 FPS, while the RTX 4060 Ti hits 96.2 FPS - for another 2X increase in performance at this resolution.
As seen in the DLSS 3 trailer above, the game looks stunning. It'll be interesting to see how the GeForce RTX 50 Series handles the game; based on what we've heard, the GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 should have no trouble reaching a native 4K 60 FPS.
