Extreme Performance Optimization (2.5 to 3.5 GB VRAM) (1.8.1)

This Engine.ini mod pushes UE5 to its lowest stable limits while preserving reticles and outdoor lighting, achieving optimizations far beyond anything available in the in‑game settings.

It's not meant to look pretty, it's meant to make the game run on old/weak hardware, expect 2. 5 to 3. 5 GB of total VRAM usage and around 6 GB of system RAM usage (depending on scene, this includes the ~1 GB of VRAM that Windows and the Nvidia driver reserve, so if your graphics card has around 3. 5 GB VRAM you should be more than fine, you can run the game with this Engine.ini on much less VRAM but expect stutters and frame drops when the GPU DMA-transfers data over PCIe to system RAM, so i will not recommend using this on 2 GB VRAM or lower).

Recommended minimum specs to use this mod

CPU: Intel Core i5‑2400 / i7‑2600 (2011) or AMD FX‑4100 (2011)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (2014) or Radeon R9 380 (2015)

RAM: 8 GB

OS: Windows 10 (DX12)

What to expect when using this mod

This mod forces S. T. A. L. K. E. R. 2 into an ultra‑low‑spec mode by stripping out nearly every heavy UE5 feature.

The game will look closer to a late‑PS2 title than a modern release, but performance improves dramatically on old hardware.

You should expect

• []Extremely low visual quality - very low internal resolution, simplified lighting, and aggressive LODs

  []Frequent flickering - caused by disabled shadows, missing buffers, and extreme streaming cuts

  []Occasional missing small objects - some props may not load due to tight memory limits

  []Much lower VRAM and RAM usage - typically around 2. 5 to 3. 5 GB VRAM and under 6 GB RAM

  []Higher FPS on weak systems - especially on older GPUs that normally can’t run UE5 games

  []Reduced stutter in open areas - thanks to simplified streaming

You should NOT expect

• []Full visual fidelity

  []Perfect asset streaming

  []Stable shadows, reflections, or detailed lighting

  []A “pretty” experience

This mod is designed for playability over graphics, letting older PCs run S. T. A. L. K. E. R. 2 at decent performance

1) Heavy UE5 features disabled: volumetric fog, volumetric clouds, SSGI, SSR, all Lumen features, distance fields, DFAO, HZB occlusion, fog, reflection environment, real‑time skylight reflections, light shafts, ambient cubemap, precomputed visibility

2) Virtual Textures kept ON for reticles but heavily restricted: auto‑import off, max uploads per frame = 1, tile size = 32, anisotropy = 1, borders off, max pages = 96

3) Landscape VRAM reductions: increased LOD distribution scales, reduced LOD0 screen size, increased LOD bias, disabled dynamic material instances

4) Post‑processing minimal