Stray PC Performance Review and Optimisation Guide

Conclusion – It’s not purr-fect, but its a good port

When looking at Stray’s PC version, there is only one major flaw that I can level against the game, and that’s shader compilation stutters. Every now and then, Stray freezes momentarily and then returns to normal. While this issue is far from game-breaking, it is enough to break immersion, and enough to prevent us from giving Stray and overwhelmingly positive review. That said, there are many games that exhibit this kind of issue in a much more troublesome way. 

Thankfully, BlueTwelve Studios has recently confirmed that a patch is in the works that should address this stuttering issue. That said, we can only comment on the game as it sits before us. 

The good news is that, for the most part, Stray is easy to run on PC. All of the graphics cards that we tested could achieve stable 60 FPS gameplay at appropriate resolutions, with the obvious exceptions being when this game stutters. For a more stable experience, PC gamers can choose to lock Stray’s framerate to 60 FPS in-game or set a custom framerate limit using your GPU drivers. On high-end systems, framerates can vary massively when moving from GPU-limited to non-GPU-limited areas. Huge framerate variations can look and feel strange during gameplay, so setting a framerate cap should allow the game to run more consistently.

Another thing that we will note here is that Stray is designed to be played with a gamepad. While mouse/keyboard controls exist, Stray plays best when using a controller. We have also heard reports that stuttering is more frequent when using mouse/keyboard, giving controller users a smoother experience.

If you want some optimisation tips, our main one is that setting effects to Medium can net gamers a huge performance boost over High. At 4K on our Radeon RX 6800, our average framerate was boosted by 45% by changing this setting alone. If you need more performance, change this setting first. All other settings offer minimal performance differences by comparison.  

At 1080p, older graphics cards like AMD’s RX 480 and Nvidia’s GTX 1060 can run Stray at a steady 60 FPS framerate with all settings set to high except effect, which we set to medium. With these settings, and a framerate cap of 60 FPS, we were able to get a very smooth gameplay experience. By today’s standards, these graphics cards are pretty old, which means that most PC gamers should be able to run Stray on their systems. 

For 1440p 60 FPS gameplay at the same settings, graphics cards like Nvidia’s GTX 1660 SUPER and AMD’s RX Vega 56 will deliver a smooth 60 FPS experience, and at 4K, most of today’s high-end GPUs should be able to achieve average framerates of 60 FPS or over.

With an asking price of £23.99, Stray’s issues on PC are not deal-braking. That said, fixing these issues would add a good level of polish to this indie darling. While we would also like to see upscaling features like FSR 2.0 or DLSS come to the game, addressing Stray’s stuttering issues must be a top priority for BlueTwelve Studio. Fixing this will make Stray a lot more appealing to PC gamers.

I hate the fact that a lot of this conclusion is focusing on the negatives, but stuttering issues are a big issue for PC gamers, and a lot of developers need to work to address this problem. Stray is a fun game, and I look forward to playing more of it, but PC gamers need a fix for this. Perhaps this will come in the form of a forced shader compilation screen when players first play the game, or some other optimisation. Either way, this issue needs to be addressed, as it is holding Stray back from having more positive coverage. And lets be clear here, this game deserves positive coverage.

Let’s hope a patch for Stray’s stuttering issues arrives soon. It’s a fun game that (aside form the stutters) runs well and look beautiful. If you want something different to play, Stray is a good game to try, especially given its low asking price. 

You can join the discussion on Stray’s PC version on the OC3D Forums.