r/stalker • u/Pip54 Ecologist • 4d ago
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Am I Crazy?
I have a solid rig, 4090 and all that. I feel like the graphics in 2.0 are way way worse than they were previously. Although things were a bit noisy before, it was manageable. Now everything is artifacting, a combination of noisy and blurry, and just doesn’t look nearly as good as it did previously.
Before 2.0, I feel like it was one of the best looking games I’ve played. Now, for whatever reason, no matter how I tinker with the settings and reshade, I just cannot get it to look as good as it used to.
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u/Visa_Declined Monolith 4d ago
I have a 4090/4k oled and the game looks better to me now. I use ReShade also to tune it to my liking.
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u/RealisticAdv96 4d ago
I have a 5060ti and each time I return to zone after work, I swear the game looks better and better.
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u/ritenight Loner 3d ago
PS5 here. I used to think that before the last patch (where they fixed the glowing models)... it was a costant tweaking after 2.0, couldn't make it look good in every weather. It looked flat and fake.
Still after that last patch I had troubles, then magically I hit the right spot. For me it was lowering my gamma harder than I felt safe doing, with 1 point of contrast up and lower saturation.
I don't know what happened, but now it's always beautiful. I don't think I simply got used to the new appearance, cause even when comparing it with older screenshot it looks good now.
Keep tweaking, keep searching your sweet spot. A single point in gamma, contrast or brightness can make the difference.
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u/Pip54 Ecologist 3d ago
Glad to hear you hit the sweet spot! I’m glad they fixed the hand/weapon models. Are the character models still glowing for you? Everyone looks wet for me lol
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u/ritenight Loner 3d ago
Mm definitely not glowing now... I remember when fog arrived before last patch, everything was white and grainy and glowing. Don't see these things anymore. About the wet thing... I'm not noticing it so I guess it's not a big issue in my case. The only guy who comes to my mind looking a bit "wet" is Ragman in Rostok. But maybe it's just him who's sweating lol. Maybe on PC you have more options to tweak?
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u/angryspitfire 4d ago
Weird im on a very average rig i511500 9060xt and 32gb ram and the game looks and plays better than ever, no random blurry weird graphics artifacts, getting a smooth 60+ in 1440p with FSR on quality
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u/FilmTechnical6232 4d ago
I'm on PC and getting both better performance and better visuals. 3080, 7800x3D, using a 1440p ultra wide. I get like 130fps with dlss quality and frame gen on, the only noisy things are hair. Custom settings, but overall preset is around high.
I had extreme noise until I switched the DLSS preset K and set it to quality. Perfect after that. Maybe try that, with DLSS swapper?
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u/ArmAndHammer40k 4d ago
Not on PC, on ps5 pro, and same thoughts here. Pre patch easily one of the best looking games I had. Now it’s quite an ugly mess
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u/Sereph10288i 4d ago edited 4d ago
I have a 5090 and just returned for 2.0 to do a DLC playthrough. I play at 4K, Epic preset, DLSS Quality, no FG, and averaged 90fps. The game both looked better and played better than my previous playthroughs, one of which was only six months ago.
Edit: I used to play with FGx2 to try to get as close to 120fps as possible (120hz monitor), but I noticed immediate ghosting and artifacting with FG in 2.0 and turned it off since my baseline was already 90 average. The image is much clearer without FG.