The Games of Christmas '08: GPU Performance Part 1

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky GPU Performance

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky has the ability to record what we would call “flythroughs” which we believe are a complete misrepresentation of actually gameplay when used as a benchmark. Thus, we decided to use a 10 minute gameplay session during the Garbage level. Once again, framerates were recorded with FRAPS.

Please note that these are not the absolute highest available settings as when set to "Maximum" there are still some options under the "advanced" tab that may still be set higher

1680 X 1050



2560 X 1600


This game is incredibly demanding on your system so this conclusion will be kept simple. Only the HD 4870 1GB, GTX 280 and HD 4870 X2 are able to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky at the highest settings and even then only at lower resolutions. In the future, we intend to revise this test somewhat since there seems to be an issue with the volumetric lighting causing disproportionate performance losses in the mission we used.

Basically, Clear Sky seems to be a title where ATI is able to flex its muscles.