Best settings for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 on NVIDIA RTX 3060 + Intel Core i5-12400F

1080p
43 fps estimated
Shooter
16 GB RAM

A NVIDIA RTX 3060 paired with a Intel Core i5-12400F lands around 43 fps in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 at 1080p with Medium textures, Low shadows and DLSS Performance. Ray tracing is left off on this pairing. These values come from the same model the interactive optimizer uses, applied to this exact hardware pair rather than a generic preset.

Based on benchmark data and community reports for this hardware combination — treat as an estimate, not a guarantee. How we calculate this.

Recommended settings

43FPS
Playable
GPU Load86%
CPU Load68%
VRAM (12 GB)8 GB
RAM (16 GB)13 GB
DLSS
FSR
Ray Tracing

Core Settings

Resolution
1080p
Textures
Medium
Shadows
Low
Anti-Aliasing
FXAA
Ray Tracing
Off
Upscaling
DLSS Performance
View Distance
Medium
Effects
Low

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 — Specific Settings

Volumetric Fog
Low
Grass Density
Low

Tips & Notes

  • Unreal Engine 5 — Nanite/Lumen can tank FPS on lower-end hardware

About S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 on PC

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is one of the most CPU-hungry games released in years. The dynamic A-Life system simulates NPC behavior across the entire Zone, which puts constant load on your processor regardless of where you're looking or what graphics settings you've chosen.

Lower graphics settings often won't raise your framerate much because you're CPU-bound. Make sure RAM speed is set correctly in BIOS (XMP or EXPO), close background apps, and target 60 FPS rather than 144. On a Ryzen 5 5600 or Core i5-12400, even pairing with a 4070 you'll be CPU-limited in busy zones — and that's expected behavior, not a misconfiguration.

Targets the patched PC release. Busy settlements and simulation-heavy scenes are used as the CPU-bound case rather than quiet indoor areas.