Stray: PC system requirements and the best settings

I've been anticipating Stray for years, mostly because of the fantasy adventure plot, but also so I could take in more of its wonderful presentation. Even while the final product (as reviewed by Katharine) isn't nearly as glossy as the 2016 test film, it's still a wonderfully lit, impeccably detailed piece of cyberpunk, and the PC version can run silkier than a Maine Coon's coat. Since Stray doesn't have a ton of visual options, this performance tuning tutorial will be rather brief. In fact, you may not need to decrease any settings at all at 1080p and 1440p if you have one of the top graphics cards or very modern, mid-range, or above equipment. According to BlueTwelve Studio, although Stray uses a "subset" of ray tracing, you don't need specialized, RT-capable GPUs to achieve the optimum lighting and reflections. High framerates at 4K and ultrawide resolutions are also feasible.

Stray system requirements and PC performance

Even the suggested CPUs are many generations old and were lower-midrange when they were first released, making both the minimum and recommended specifications somewhat low. Also, you only need 3–4GB of VRAM, which is something that all modern graphics cards have plenty of.

Stray minimum PC specs

• OS: Windows 10
• CPU: Intel Core i5-2300 / AMD FX-6350
• RAM: 8GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti / AMD Radeon R7 360
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 10GB

Stray recommended PC specs

• OS: Windows 10
• CPU: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
• RAM: 8GB
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 / AMD Radeon R9 290X
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 10GB

I tested Stray with my standard Intel Core i5-11600K and a mixture of GTX 1050 Ti, GTX 1060, and RTX 3070 GPUs because I don't actually have any low-spec CPUs and GPUs sitting around. Full HD monitors can coexist peacefully with low-cost hardware, as shown by the first of those, which averaged 47fps on top settings at 1080p. A modest step up to the GTX 1060 achieved 48fps at 1440p and 78fps at 1080p, but 1440p proved to be too much for the GTX 1050 Ti, where it dipped to 28fps. Again, that's on high with every setting.

Premium GPUs like the RTX 3070 isn't inherently powerful either if you have one of the finest gaming monitors with a higher refresh rate. With the same settings, this card produced 147 frames per second at 1440p and a fluid 79 frames per second at 4K. On the Steam Deck, which is at the other end of the hardware spectrum, I also gave Stray a try. It runs smoothly with all high settings while maintaining a frame rate of 30-35 frames per second, but switching the Effects quality to Medium increased the frame rate to 40-45 frames per second. Not to give away the next section of this post, but the same settings modification also significantly improves performance on desktop PCs.

Overall, Stray is not awful considering how sparkly it appears to be. I'll admit that, prior to actually playing it, I had practically gaslit myself into believing that it used ray tracing effects of the correct RTX caliber. In actuality, the Kowloon-inspired setting gives the impression that more advanced technology is at work thanks to the usual screen space reflections, wonderfully dramatic lighting, and neon-drenched style. As these use partially similar techniques to ray traced reflections to reflect things that aren't otherwise visible on screen, they could account for the "subset" comment. I saw a few things that might have been planar reflections, which might explain why the comment was made.

Best PC settings to use Stray

Both of those, however, are transient problems that, at the very least, are unaffected by the PC graphics and visual settings you chose for Stray. There are settings for 30 frames per second, 60 frames per second, or uncapped framerate, a toggle for V-sync, and fullscreen or windowed mode. These are simple yet effective. There are just four distinct quality levels, no presets, separate sliders for motion blur, and a sharpening filter. Here is how Stray's PC performance is impacted by their using benchmark results from the GTX 1050 Ti as a reference. Keep in mind that this averaged 47 frames per second with the highest settings...

Effects quality: Changing the setting to Medium from High resulted in a considerably smoother 66 frames per second. As a result, the lighting quality suffers slightly. For example, in the pictures above, matte surfaces like cobblestones and metal shutters mysteriously brighten up on Medium. Nevertheless, it is simpler to ignore in motion, and Medium looks far better than Low, which obliterates the always-exquisite ground reflections. Since Low "only" averaged 70 frames per second, the performance boost from Low to Medium isn't as big as the change from High to Medium.

Shadow quality: Again, there are three options for this: High, Medium, and Low, but when I tested them, there was no noticeable performance difference between any of them. You can leave this one on high as they all produced the same frame rate of 47fps.

Texture quality: Lowering texture quality has no positive performance effects. In actuality, the average frame rate for Medium and Low was 46fps, which is one frame less than the first High result. Strange, especially since all of the textures on the Low setting show a clear drop in quality.

Mesh quality: Again, adjusting the mesh quality will have little to no performance impact. Just leave Mesh on High as well, since Low and Medium both yielded 48 frames per second for me.

So! That was strange. The only quality setting that has any impact on performance is effects quality, which can only be decreased to medium if you're using an outdated GPU and want a smoother ride. Or Low, in a pinch, though Stray's gorgeous lighting and reflections would be lost if you did that. Though, as always, that would be the most extreme alternative, I suppose you could drop the resolution as well. However, Stray will really run smoothly on the majority of PCs, and if at all possible, I'd advise choosing High quality for everything. Set the motion blur and sharpness to your liking. I chose no blur and about 25% sharpening because they didn't change the frames per second much.