Upgraded My Laptop for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2! ft. GOODRAM

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that I wouldn’t be reviewing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. However, I didn’t say anything about recommendations or impressions. What’s the difference? I’m approaching S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 not as a reviewer, but as a player with personal preferences and goals. And yes, I upgraded my ASUS ROG Scar 15 laptop specifically for the game, boosting its RAM with two GOODRAM 32 GB SO-DIMM CL22 modules.

Video: Upgrading My Laptop for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

If you don’t want to read, watch the video:

Why RAM is important

Let me say this upfront: I don’t care if you play the way I do. Right now, I wasn’t even planning to go through the story mode. I’ve set everything to the lowest settings—to the point it’s almost painful to look at—selected the easiest difficulty, and I’m playing on Alt-Tab, alternating 15 minutes of video editing with 10 minutes of gameplay.

This is how I play almost all the games currently installed on my PC. I played Fallout 4 like this until it started corrupting my saves. I played Anomaly the same way and clocked nearly 100 hours. I approached Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds the same way. The same goes for Elex 2 and Generation Zero.

I’m the last person to tell you that this is the right way to play games. But for the next few years, my priority isn’t pretending to live a “normal” life. My focus is on earning for my family, which means sacrificing sleep schedules, skipping outdoor activities, and dedicating myself entirely to reviews. And yet, I manage to keep up. Since I deal with attention issues or ADHD, I need to break up dull tasks with something engaging and exciting to stay on track.

There are moments when video editing or filming feels exciting. But I produce far too much content to pour creative energy into the routine projects. For the past 1,000 days, I’ve been forcing myself to work. I was already burned out before the full-scale invasion began. Now, I’m running at a deficit when it comes to health. And yet, I’m okay with it—as long as I can work and earn money, as long as I can be useful. Playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 on Alt-Tab is just another part of my workflow. Without it, the work wouldn’t get done.

System requirements

For me, the main issue with the game isn’t even its poor optimization, the catastrophic input lag, or the unpredictable shader compilation times. The biggest problem turned out to be something else entirely—when I have both DaVinci Resolve and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 running simultaneously, the standard 32 GB of RAM simply isn’t enough.

The game doesn’t consume much video memory—about 5 GB on minimum settings at 2K resolution. It does put some load on the processor, but for my current workflow in DaVinci Resolve, the CPU is rarely a bottleneck. As for storage, yes, I could use a larger SSD, but with modern large-scale games, 140 GB has become the standard.

Laptop upgrade

So, the only critical component in my system that needed an upgrade for my specific use case turned out to be the RAM.

Actually, it’s not a single module, but two separate GOODRAM 32 GB SO-DIMM CL22 sticks. They’re not record-breakers in terms of timing, but with a speed of 3200 MHz, that’s the baseline for a modern system.

However, in modern systems, RAM is either DDR5 or, in the near future, will be CSODIMM. I’ll explain what that is later, but briefly—RAM frequencies will be two or even three times higher than they are now. But in reality, 32 GB per stick is the maximum for DDR4 SO-DIMM.

It’s also nice that the ASUS ROG Scar 15 is still a gaming laptop, not an ultrabook with soldered RAM. If it had soldered memory, I’d be stuck. For example, the Zenbook S 14 and Zenbook S 16 max out at 32 GB.

What I was lacking, though, was the plan to create a full piece on how I upgraded my Scar 15 with the help of Goodram. My goal was to get 64 GB of RAM, a 4 TB SSD, and even swap out the old low-quality MediaTek Wi-Fi card for a top-tier Intel AX210.

However, since it turned out to be too difficult to get a 4TB disk, I only replaced the RAM and the network card. In the case of the ASUS ROG Scar 15, it was also important not to tear off the RGB strips — but fortunately, to replace the RAM, I could simply lift the cover upwards without removing it completely.

One recommendation is to always disconnect the battery when disassembling a laptop. I once managed to damage my previous one by forgetting to do so.

Game optimization

Next, I would recommend avoiding the use of FSR 3.1 Frame Generation. The input lag in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is already quite significant, and enabling this feature only makes it worse. For example, I died twice in the storyline to a bloodsucker because I couldn’t aim at it—inside a narrow corridor. After that, I almost deleted the game, to be honest.

Also, DLSS in any mode other than balanced doesn’t provide a good experience, as the crosshair on the optical sight for the AK becomes almost invisible.

In the game, there is no zoom feature for non-optical sight elements. This means that firefights beyond around 20 meters will be done blindly. To avoid this, quick spoiler: the AK-74 with optics is located in a stash that becomes available when you take the first quest from the bartender, Molfar, to collect money from a newcomer. Never give up this weapon—practice on bandits, and keep it for yourself.

Impressions of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

Overall, based on my first 15 hours (I only just reached Sidorovich around this point), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 feels like a professionally made open-world shooter. Mechanically, in terms of gameplay cycle, it’s very much like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., while the shooting mechanics are more reminiscent of Survarium, for those who might remember that game.

The balance here is different from previous entries – even on the “Novice” difficulty, your STANDARD pistol with BASIC ammo can take out soldiers with headshots without much difficulty.

Also, for the first 20 hours of the game, missions are non-linear. I can enter the Sphere for information through the back door, or I can go straight in. The mission doesn’t break or bug out, and even the markers get updated when I leave the base the right way – through the back door.

Stealth, when it works, is not any worse than in Skyrim. Seriously, when you have a silencer and take out enemies with a single shot, even the mutants don’t notice you. Also, and I hope this continues, there are no QTEs. The story cutscenes are just cutscenes. You can skip them, and there’s no need to press a button to kill an enemy.

Conclusions

Even despite the input delay, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is my personal game of the year. I mean, in any timeline, it would still be like this, right? But even ignoring everything GSC Games World went through, such a result, even if unoptimized, is an achievement I can personally compare only to a human’s first step into outer space.

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