Stray, a new adventure game in which you control a cat, has just been released on PC. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, it’s time now to benchmark it and see how it performs on the PC platform.
For this PC Performance Analysis, we used an Intel i9 9900K with 16GB of DDR4 at 3800Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX580, RX Vega 64, RX 6900XT, NVIDIA’s GTX980Ti, RTX 2080Ti and RTX 3080. We also used Windows 10 64-bit, the GeForce 516.59 and the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 22.6.1 drivers.
BlueTwelve Studio has added a few graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of Effects, Shadows, Textures and Mesh. There are also sliders for Motion Blur and Sharpness. Additionally, the game supports uncapped framerates, and has a resolution scale setting.
Stray does not feature any built-in benchmark tool. As such, we’ve benchmarked the game’s starting area. That area appeared to be taxing, so it can, theoretically, give us an idea of how the rest of the game runs.
In order to find out how the game scales on multiple CPU threads, we simulated a dual-core, a quad-core and a hexa-core CPU. And, we are happy to report, that Stray does not require a high-end CPU. With Hyper-Threading enabled, even our simulated dual-core system was able to provide an enjoyable experience. Without Hyper-Threading, and even though our framerate was never dropping below 60fps, our simulated dual-core system suffered from major stuttering issues.
Speaking of stuttering issues, yes, the game suffers from shader compilation stutters. These stutters appeared even on our octa-core high-end system, and there is nothing you can do in order to resolve them. We should also note that the game uses DX11. So no, these stutters are not related in any way to DirectX 12. In other words, the assumption that DX12 is to be blamed for the shader compilation stutters is not correct.
Stray does not also require a high-end GPU. At 1080p/High, most of our GPUs were able to provide a 60fps experience. Yes, even our dated GTX980Ti had no trouble at all running this game.
At 1440p/High settings, the GTX980Ti was the only GPU that was unable to run the game smoothly. We were also pleasantly surprised by the performance of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 at that particular resolution as it could offer framerates higher than 70fps at all times. As for 4K/High settings, the only GPUs that could run the game smoothly were the RTX3080 and the RX 6900XT. The RTX2080Ti came close to a 60fps experience, though there were some drops to 58fps.
Graphics-wise, Stray is a beauty to behold, and this is mainly due to the game’s pre-computed lighting which looks awesome. Since Stray does not have a real-time/dynamic time of day cycle, the developers have pre-computed GI into the textures. As such, the environments look incredibly well. And, to be honest, I prefer this over the real-time lighting. Yes, a dynamic time-of-day cycle is cool but without Ray Tracing, it usually looks bland and flat. This is also the main reason why Assassin’s Creed Unity still looks so good. So developers please, do yourselves a favor and embrace this pre-computed GI solution until your real-time lighting can match its quality.
All in all, Stray looks and runs well on PC. The game does not require a high-end system, meaning that it can run with over 60fps on a variety of PC systems. The only downside here is the shader compilation stutters. Do note that Stray is nowhere close to being described as a stutter-fest. And, to be honest, these shader stutters never really bothered me in this game as they happen infrequently. And yes, I’ll take these stutters over a console version that has noticeable performance drops below 60fps in various scenes.
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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From what i have read it has been a bit hit and miss on some systems some people with Rtx 3080 are having big stutter issues normally my system has issues with a lot of unreal games scaling to 4k and stuttering but this one seams probably the best one running at 4K max settings without motion blur and i am getting a steady 60fps 99.9 percent of the time and i have not noticed shader compiling running on Rtx 3070 Ryzen 5600x and i normally hate the unreal engine on my system but still getting 40fps adding Rtx global illumination.
You hit the nail on the head. That’s one of the biggest, most annoying factor to the shader stutters. You never know if you’re going to get it or not and you don’t know how bad it might be. I’ve been playing it on PS5 and it’s been great. Performance is near as makes no difference to a perfect 60fps. And there’s none of the stutter. I’ve seen it on a couple occasions pause for a split second during saving though. Which really shouldn’t be there on hardware like the PS5 either. Hopefully Epic gets all this mess sorted in UE5 titles.
“And yes, I’ll take these stutters over a console version that has noticeable performance drops below 60fps in various scenes”
Flark off dude
I finished the game at 60fps 4K PS5
You are a bunch PCMR MFS??
This is a PC centric site, mudcake.
Its you who should fudge off along with your conslow impoverishment
So what?
His comments are out of line dude
Call yourself a PCMR or whatever
But do not be a ??
Imagine being so butthurt and offended over a goddamn opinion about a video game. The soy is strong with you and you should just go ahead and procure a rope.
yeah, dunno who said that. I prefered the ps5 over my rtx3080, due to the stuters. the game looked great and was running 99% of the time rock solid stutter free 60fps
Read the article and it’s last line
Look who’s talking
Shithead?
I got it
It stinks to have *shit* in your name
I will be praying for you???
I can understand your frustrations with that kind of name, Lol
You started the name game
?
See, at last you reveal your racist face
Gotta dude???
You said it yourself
And, for one god damn moment, can’t you say anything other than curse words?
It’s like your mouth is just a dustbin filled with such words…?
oooohhhh, “Real Conversation”
Flark off, kiddo
I thought we made clear this website was forbidden to curry eaters?
Eh??
Damn !!! Your grammer man?
Dude posts a lot of sh*t emojis because a street sh**ter like him is an expert on the subject.
See, homophobic too
Thanks buddy – awesome review/info as allways ?
Cant wait to jump into it. Sure it will shine on my CX55 and 2060S, even at 4K. Well or else there is allways NIS – when no DLSS!
Totaly agree about the lightning to.If no RT they can just use this insteed of dicking around with other more heavy lightning that will looks worse!
Actually, John, there is:
Valve specifically implemented a Linux server farm that pre-compiles Vulkan shaders for use by DXVK & VKD3D-Proton, which are used to translate DX9-DX11 & DX12, respectively.
Of course, they made that investment specifically for the Steam Deck, so that its customers could have a console-like experience where shaders are pre-compiled for the specific hardware in question.
But that very same shader system “in the cloud” can also collect Vulkan shaders already compiled by other Steam users.
So if you happen to own the same GPU & driver version as another user that has already run the game, then Steam can download those pre-compiled shaders specific to your GPU and use them to avoid the shader-compilation stutter.
Of course, if game developers weren’t so dumb in general, they would offer users to pre-compile all shaders on first start-up, solving this dreaded problem once & for all.
But since Valve is perfectly aware this won’t happen anyway, they atleast managed to solve this problem on their end…
who are you talking to
Call of Duty has actually done something great in that regard. It did come with a long initial loading (during the cinematics). I am pretty sure you are familiar with RPCS3 & XENIA. I am used to dumping shader files so that next time I don’t have to pan my camera all around to collect the shaders. But looks like every game featuring UE4 these days are completely missing out on this fundamental technical aspect (not to mention FF 7 Intergrade had a disastrous performances). Is it Epic or, the devs? Assetto Corsa Competizione however runs great.
Unreal engine 4 is notorious for this and sadly it seems unreal engine 5 also suffers from it
great game. and it’s only $14 from where I live.
Interesting 580 results. Daniel Owen got high 60’s to high 70’s max settings at 1080p with a gtx 1060. And with the 3080 topping the 6900 xt it seems that this game is better optimized for nvidia hardware.
Stray: Who Needs Gameplay
so how much reddit is this game?
no memes or globohomo rainbow propaganda, so like 2/5 reddits at most. but it’s a walking sim.
Personally I don’t think it being more of a walking sim than a traditional game is a bad thing necessarily, especially if it’s pozz-free. It’s nice to have a small relaxing game to indulge in after a stressful day of work for instance. With that said, I’m going to wait for a deep discount. I can’t really justify spending nearly 40 canuck bucks for something like this.
beautiful game but performance is unacceptable, plus not really a “game” any way. just walking sim.
I didn’t get the shader cache stuttering on my system and I played through it at 4k on my TV from my couch.
System: Windows 11 fresh install a couple weeks ago with a 5950x, 3090, 64gb (4x16gb gskill b-die) 3600mhz 14-14-14-30, 2tb sabrent gen 3 m.2 boot drive, installed on a 4tb Gen 4 m.2 game drive.
TV: Samsung qled 65″ 4k 120hz
Only place where Stray stuttered like crazy was that factory level, at thefinal puzzle area where you take the thing you came for. Won’t go into more detail to avoid spoilers. But there it wouldn’t stop stuttering. It wasn’t unplayable, I could get through that section. But dunno if it was just me or something was messy there. Got GTX1070, Ryzen 5 2600X with 2x8GB of 3000Mhz RAM and Stray ran off SATA SSD.
Other than that, I didn’t really notice any issues and it all went pretty smoothly. Which is why I was surprised with factory stutters.
It isn’t really walking sim, it is way more akin to old adventure games. Since there are puzzles to solve, towns are bit more free roam and you do more interacting with things. But game really is linear and more about atmosphere, story and playing as cat. And this isn’t necessarily bad, it isn’t for everyone, but not all games have to be purely is about gameplay, I love more story oriented experiences more.