As soon as I read our official I knew I needed to play this long-in-the-making sequel. However, like many PC gamers will no doubt have experienced, it's not exactly been smooth sailing at launch, with would-be Stalkers having to fight through a plethora of game-breaking bugs and mega patches to find fun and immersion.
There's another thing that's also been dampening my enjoyment of Stalker 2 as well—just how long I've been having to wait to actually get playing it. Thanks to a smorgasbord of intro videos as well as a forced Unreal Engine 5 shader compilation every single time you boot up the game, it's been a severe trial of patience, and especially so when trying to play on my gaming laptop, which isn't as fast and powerful as my main rig.
Stalker 2 loading [[link]] without hacks to skip shader compilation and intro videos (4 minutes, 56 seconds!)
Time to load into playable game = 4 minutes, 56 seconds
As you can see from the tortuously long video above, without any hacks in play it takes Stalker 2 almost five whole minutes from me launching the game to get to a playable state. That's just such a downer, knowing that every time I want to jump into the fantastically atmospheric world of the Zone, I'll have to wait for long enough for me to nip to the local shop and back. The intro videos add to the time, but the real killer is the forced Unreal Engine 5 shader compilation, which dumps minutes onto the wait time.
Stalker 2 loading with hacks to skip shader compilation and intro videos (52 seconds!)
Time to load into playable game = 52 seconds
Now we're talking! With the two hacks in play I'm enjoying Stalker 2 within 52 seconds of launching the game. There's no difference in performance when playing, too, meaning this is 100 per cent a massive win. That's a whopping reduction of 4 minutes, 4 seconds in load time or, in terms of a percentage, an 82.43% reduction in load time. Wow! Now can you see why this is a game changer for me?
How to replicate these Stalker 2 results on your own system
OK, it's really simple to enjoy this loading improvement yourself, too, with just two hacks needed. Here's what you do:
1. How to remove forced shader compilation
Firstly, navigate to your AppData folder (note: this may be hidden by default, so be sure to show hidden folders in your WINDOWS USERNAME folder), and then onto the 'Windows' or 'WinGDK' sub-directory of the 'Stalker2' folder. This will either be here if you are using Steam to play Stalker 2:
C:\Users\[WINDOWS USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\Config\Windows
Or here if you're playing via Game Pass on the Xbox App:
C:\Users\[WINDOWS USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\Config\WinGDK
Once in your 'Windows' or 'WinGDK' folder, open Notepad and copy the following code into the blank document:
[SystemSettings]
r.PSOWarmup.WarmupMaterials=0
Once you've done this, go to save the file but when you go to save be sure to click 'save as' and select 'All files' before then entering the name 'Engine.ini'. This will save the file as a .ini file, whereas if you just click save without selecting 'save as' and then 'All files', it will save the file as a .txt file, which is no good.
Save your newly made 'Engine.ini' file into your 'Windows' or 'WinGDK' folder, the paths of which are detailed above. And, boom, that's just turned off forced shader compilation when you load Stalker 2.
IMPORTANT NOTE! Turning back on shader compilation is to be advised whenever the game gets a patch, or whenever your graphics card manufacturer releases a new driver update. This is done by simply moving the 'Engine.ini' file out of the 'Windows' or 'WinGDK' directory (such as just plopping it on your desktop), or by opening the file and changing that 0 on the end of the code to a 1. Then simply run the game once post-patch or new graphics driver, let the shaders compile once more, then go back in and turn shader compilation back off again. Easy peasy.
2. How to remove intro videos
Now to deal with those forced intro videos. This step is even easier than the first, requiring us to simply mod, which has helpfully been created by talented gamer Lyle and released via his GitHub page. Depending on your version of Stalker 2, download either the 'STALKER2Tweak_v0.0.7_Steam.zip' file, or the 'STALKER2Tweak_v0.0.7_Xbox.zip' file from Lyle's page, extract its contents, and then place the files in your main Stalker 2 directory, which can be found either in:
Steam = C:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chornobyl
Xbox = C:\XboxGames\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chornobyl
And, boom, that's it. Now when you run Stalker 2 none of the intro videos will run at all, which combined with the removal of the shader compilation, means you go directly to the game's main menu, allowing you then immediately select to continue your adventure.
Conclusion and final notes
Right now this is a game changer for me in playing Stalker 2, and I hope it can help you enjoy the game more as well. The speed increase from wanting to the play the game to actually playing it with these two secret hacks in place is massive, and has already saved me so much valuable gaming time, that otherwise would have been lost in a painful [[link]] waiting game.
JUST REMEMBER, though, that shader compilation is actually important to making your games run the best they can on your machine, and every time Stalker 2 gets patched, or your graphics card manufacturer releases a new driver, you should absolutely re-enable shader compilation and run it once, letting your system reconfigure to the new game/driver files, before then turning it back off again. This will deliver the best of both worlds for you, letting you get the benefit from any game and driver optimisations, but also not having to suffer through forced Unreal Engine 5 shader compilation every single time you boot up the [[link]] game. Happy hunting, Stalker.