STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl (2007) - Retro Test GPU

BASIC GAME INFORMATION

   

Year of construction: 2007
Genre: FPS/RPG
developer: GSC Game World
Publishing house: THQ 

 

STÁ.LKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, formerly also known as STALKER: Oblivion Lost, is a first-person shooter computer game developed by the Ukrainian company GSC Game World and published on March 20, 2007 in the USA, Canada and March 23, 2007 in Europe and the CIS. The game genre is defined by the manufacturer as “Survival FPS” with RPG elements: it implies, along with the elements of a regular 3D shooter, the presence of a constantly hostile environment towards the player, which, accordingly, should significantly complicate the conditions of survival. Additionally, the player must complete various missions to reach the ending, although this allows the player some freedom of choice. The main feature of this series of games are game locations created on the basis of documentary filming made in the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

As of March 24, 2007, the STALKER project occupied eighth position in the sales chart for various platforms, and first among PC games according to the ratings of the British organization ELSPA. And a year later - on February 12, 2008 - information was provided about the game's circulation: 950 thousand copies in the CIS and 700 thousand in the West. 

THE GRAFICAL PART

This subsection of our review highlights the main graphical aspects of this game. Particular attention is paid to the version of the graphics engine used, the version of the API used, graphic settings and the quality of development of the main visual aspects.

Supported OS and graphics API

STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl is supported by major operating systems Windows, which includes Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Other operating systems are not currently supported by developers and will not be supported. 

 

The priority and main graphics API for STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl is DirectX 9. 

Game engine

The game is based on X-Ray technology - a game engine created by the Ukrainian computer game developer GSC Game World for the game STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. The engine was presented to the public back in 2001. It was originally designed for DirectX 8, but was subsequently developed many times to fit its time. Thus, support for DirectX 9 appeared in it, and with the release of STALKER: Clear Sky, DirectX 10 was added. After the release of patch 1.5.07 for STALKER: Clear Sky, support for DirectX 10.1 appeared in the game. STALKER: Call of Pripyat now supports DirectX 11 in the engine.

Programmers Oles Shishkovtsov and Alexander Maksimchuk worked on the engine (they also worked at 4A Games on the Metro 2033 project based on the book of the same name by Dmitry Glukhovsky). The graphics engine, the core component of the X-Ray game engine, uses deferred lighting and shading technology, which allows for high fidelity lighting rendering in high geometric scene complexity. High dynamic range floating point rendering is supported.

Initially, the engine was focused on DirectX 8, but subsequently it was modified many times to fit its time. Thus, support for DirectX 9 appeared in it, and in the game STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl the user could select the version of the graphics API in the game’s graphics options. In version of the X-Ray engine 1.5, which appeared in the game STALKER: Clear Sky released in 2008, the developers abandoned DirectX 8 and added support for Direct3D 10. Patch 1.5.07 for this game added support for Direct3D 10.1 to the engine.

On September 9, 2009, AMD-ATi senior marketing manager Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton published an article on his blog “DirectX 11 - What to expect!”, in which he described the advantages and main features of Direct3D 11. In this article, he stated that "STALKER: Call of Pripyat", along with "BattleForge" and "Colin McRae: Dirt 2", will use DirectX 11. The lighting system is completely dynamic and per-pixel. Soft shadows are supported and Screen Space Ambient Occlusion technology is used. The relief texturing technologies used are Normal mapping and Parallax mapping. 

Advanced Game Settings

STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl has a wide range of graphic settings, which made it possible to customize the game to almost any gaming configuration of that time. All graphic settings are located in two menu sub-items - main and advanced.

 

Below we have provided screenshots of the game at various graphics settings, where our readers can see the difference between the minimum, medium and maximum graphics quality settings. 

Various quality modes

We see the greatest difference in graphics quality when moving from low to medium settings, which is a consequence of the transition from DirectX 8 to DirectX 9.

Comparison of FullHD and 4K

In 4K STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl looks simply amazing, previously such image sizes were inaccessible to ordinary mortals...

Comparison of anti-aliasing modes

Activating full-screen anti-aliasing does not do anything, since due to the nature of the deferred lighting and shading technology used, the engine cannot simultaneously use it in conjunction with full-screen anti-aliasing on DX9 rendering.

General visual design and game physics

 It cannot be said that STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl was a technologically advanced game at the time of its release in 2007, and the graphics themselves, and especially the animation, looked simply poor in some places. The game stood out for its other qualities, namely its atmosphere and scale, where in this regard it simply had no competitors at that time...

 

Manufacturability is manufacturability, and the implementation of game optimization itself at that time left much to be desired. It could drive the top-end systems of that time into a stupor, but at the same time it could also be played on “old” machines with DirectX 8.1 video. So, in essence, STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl covered a very wide range of PC gamers of that time, with almost any gaming configuration. 

 

Next, we will move directly to gaming tests and determine what impact this game has on modern computer hardware. 

TEST PART

Test GPU

All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. The average and minimum FPS were taken as performance indicators. Below is a video of the test segment:   

Our video cards were tested at separate screen resolutions of 1920x1080, 2560x1600 and 3840x2160 at maximum graphics quality settings allowed by STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl. SLI and AMD CrossFireX are currently well supported by the game, showing good scalability.

Testing at resolution 1920x1080

       

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

 

With these settings An acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon HD 7770 or GeForce GTX 650 Ti level.

Testing at 2560x1600 resolution

 

Testing at maximum quality settings 2560x1600

 

With these settings An acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon HD 7770 or GeForce GTX 650 Ti level. 

Testing at resolution 3840x2160

  

Testing at maximum quality settings 3840x2160

 

With these settings An acceptable FPS indicator was shown by video cards of the Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 660 level. 

Testing of video memory consumed by the game was carried out by the program MSI Afterburner. The indicator was based on results on top video cards from AMD and NVIDIA with separate screen sizes 1920x1080 and 2560x1600 with different anti-aliasing settings.

Testing at maximum memory quality settings GPU

 

The recommended amount of video memory usage for a resolution of 1920x1080 will be 512 MB of video memory, for a resolution of 2560x1600 - 768 MB of video memory and for a resolution of 3840x2160 about 1280 MB of video memory. 

Micro-Stuttering Test

Introducing our testing of FPS output latency on a Micro-Stuttering monitor. The indicator was based on the results on multi-chip configurations of video cards from AMD and NVIDIA at a resolution of 1920x1080 with maximum image quality settings.

Testing at maximum Micro-Stuttering quality settings GPU 

 

Micro-Stuttering latency indicators for video cards are within normal limits.

CPU test

      

We tested processor dependence on 15 models of basic configurations that are relevant today. The test was carried out in those places where the video card value for the game is minimal and its load was less than 99%, this time at a resolution of 1920x1080 with maximum graphics quality settings. 

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 

 

CPU performance in the game is quite good at the moment.

Loading of processor coresat maximum quality settings 1920x1080 Intel% 

 

Loading of processor cores at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 AMD% 

 

STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl fully utilizes at most 1-1.5 processor cores.

RAM test

The test was carried out on the basic configuration of Core i 7 3970X@4.9 GHz with 16GB DDR3 2400 MGz pre-installed memory. The entire used operational memory was taken as an indicator. The RAM test on the entire system was carried out on various test benches without launching third-party applications (browsers, etc.).

Testing the game's RAM consumption at various quality settings 

 

As we can see, with various quality settings, the amount of RAM consumed in STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl is at the level of 1200-1400 megabytes.  

Testing system RAM consumption  

 

If you have a system with 4 gigabytes, STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl consumes about 2.2 gigabytes of RAM. In the presence of a system with 8 gigabytes, the RAM consumption of all RAM was 2.4 gigabytes. With a 16 GB system, the total memory consumption was almost 3.1 gigabytes.