Stray is an adventure of a ginger cat in a small cyber city, inside which strange robotic inhabitants live with their stories and memories. The game was first presented to the general public back in 2020 (June 11), and now, finally, its long-awaited release has occurred. However, some players have already encountered frustrating problems: departures, bugs, as well as others difficulty starting.
Well, it's time to deal with the most common Stray bugs and to know, how to solve them.
Stray system requirements
First of all, evaluate your device to get an idea of its capabilities.
MINIMUM:
- Requires 64-bit processor and operating system.
- OS: Windows 10.
- Processor: Intel Core i5-2300 / AMD FX-6350.
- RAM: 8GB RAM.
- Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti, 2GB / AMD Radeon R7 360, 2GB.
- DirectX: version 12.
- Disk space: 10GB
RECOMMENDED:
- Requires 64-bit processor and operating system.
- OS: Windows 10.
- Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600.
- RAM: 8GB RAM.
- Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780, 3GB / AMD Radeon R9 290X, 4GB.
- DirectX: version 12.
- Disk space: 10GB
If the device meets the minimum or recommended system requirements, then let's move on.
Best Stray Settings for Better Optimization
All settings Stray provide the necessary tools to improve performance and increase FPS. The 13 main available items offered by the "Graphics" section can be changed according to personal tastes, preferences, or depending on the capabilities of the PC.
General visual effects settings have three available presets:
- low - visual difference:
- average - visual difference:
- high - visual difference:
As a comparison of each of them, the results of the GTX 650 will be used, which at the maximum value showed 39 FPS. When switching to the "medium" preset, FPS rose to 46, and at "low" - up to 56. Thus, based on this data, you can go through each item of the "Settings" in order to understand what results can be achieved in the process of fruitful interaction with the "Graphics" section.
Texture quality
Decreasing texture quality from high to low speeded up the average performance of the game on 3%. Definitely recommended to underestimate at least to the average.
Shadow quality
Strongly NOT underestimation of the parameter in question is recommended - even if the default settings are set to low or medium quality, go to high. Otherwise, wandering around the open spaces of the cybertown, from time to time some locations will slightly “glare”.
Mesh quality
Medium mesh quality improves performance on 3% compared to "High".
Sharpen and Motion Blur
Twisting these parameters comes down to personal preference - they do not have a noticeable effect on improving the performance of the game.
Thus, it is possible to distinguish best settings for Stray:
- Effect quality: average.
- Shadow quality: high.
- Texture quality: low or medium.
- Mesh quality: average.
- motion blur: at the discretion of the user.
- Sharpness: at the discretion of the user.
Stray won't start on Windows 7/10/11
Crashes that occur at the start of the game take up a good half of all known technical problems. Game supports at least version 10 Windows.
Their characteristic features:
- The appearance of a warning window with a description of the error;
- Instant crash after launch;
- Hanging on a black screen, etc.
Despite the large number of factors that cause errors of this type, in practice their elimination does not cause serious labor costs. Let's look at some of the causes of such problems and how to solve them.
Lack of required software
No modern program will work correctly without a set of DirectX executable libraries, the Microsoft Visual C ++ compiler and the .NET Framework 4 software platform. When downloading the application from official sources (Steam and other launchers), all the necessary libraries will be installed or updated automatically.
When using a self-installer or unofficial software to install additional software, you need to manually tick boxes opposite the respective items. The executable files of these programs themselves are usually located in the folder with the installer. If necessary, the necessary libraries can be downloaded from the official Microsoft website:
Missing .dlls
Such a problem is most often the result of incorrect installation of the game or additional software. The error is characterized by the appearance of a window with the name of a specific missing library.
Sample programs and related libraries:
To solve it is necessary reinstall the game itself or components for it. If the problem persists, you should use the free online directories of dll libraries and download the missing files manually.
Compatibility Mode
In practice, the compatibility problem occurs when trying to run old games on new systems. To do this, Microsoft has provided a whole range of measures that emulate the work of the OS of previous versions.
How to run an application in compatibility mode:
- Right-click on the shortcut of the game being launched and go to "properties".
- Select the "Compatibility" tab.
In the menu that opens, you can run the automatic compatibility troubleshooter or select the mode yourself, focusing on the year the game was released. A universal option for older products is the mode "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)". In the "Parameters" section, additional properties are set.
Stray lags, freezes, crashes, freezes
This section covers situations where an application starts but does not work properly.
System Requirements Mismatch
Despite the fact that the requirements for user systems specified by the developers have never been a reliable guarantee of the performance (or inoperability) of the game, it is necessary take them into account at the time of buying.
The lack of performance and, as a result, lags in games can be partially leveled in the following ways.
1. Change game priority
To do this, you need to run the application, open the task manager, right-click on the desired process and increase the value to the maximum.
2. Closing inactive programs and background processes that are not related to the operation of the system
To do this, in the task manager, you need to select an unused application, right-click and select "End task". If the program involves several processes, you must go to the "Details" tab and click "End Process Tree".
3. Fine tune graphics settings
Modern games are equipped with a flexible settings menu that allows you to choose the perfect balance "performance-quality". In addition, we often publish collections of graphic settings for computer assemblies from different price segments.
An alternative to manually adjusting settings is to automatically set the settings based on a performance test that should be performed before the first launch of the game.
Similar functionality is provided by the GeForce Experience companion application, which automatically optimizes the game.
4. Defrag HDD
In the process of using a hard disk, the information contained in its partitions is subject to fragmentation (split into separate parts). This slows down the speed at which the system accesses files and can adversely affect the performance of the game.
With free tools like Wise Disk Cleaner, you should run the defragmentation process to organize the file location and speed up your PC.
5. Overclocking the frequencies of the processor and RAM
This process deserves special attention, since it is associated with great risks. Frequency overclocking is carried out by increasing the voltage supplied to the processor and increasing the clock frequency of its operation. Utilities of the type allow you to engage in such manipulations. MSI Afterburner.
6. Update PC parts
A radical but effective way to deal with lags, freezes and brakes in games. If the upgrade was made relatively recently, we recommend starting small: adding RAM sticks or changing the HDD to an SSD.
If the system requirements of the game correspond to the PC configuration, and the above methods for improving performance did not have the desired result, you need to look for the problem further.
Legacy video card software
Statistics show that the release of each sensational game is accompanied by the release of a special driver for NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon video cards. Initially developed for the novelty, it is designed to provide the highest possible performance in the early days of the post-release period.
To install the latest graphics driver, you need to download the companion software from your graphics card manufacturer:
Sometimes a new driver version can degrade the performance of both the game itself and the entire PC as a whole. In such a situation, we recommend using older versions of the software downloaded from the official archives. NVIDIA и AMD.
Conflict with antivirus or firewall
Some programs that provide user protection on the Internet can destabilize the operation of online projects. To avoid this, we advise you to initially add new applications to the antivirus exclusion list and allow them to fully function in the firewall the first time they are launched.
The procedure for adding a game process to the Windows Defender ignore list:
Start - Settings - Update and Security - Windows Security - Open Windows Security - Virus and Threat Protection - Allowed Threats.
If Windows Defender detects an unwanted or potentially dangerous program, an entry will appear in the protection log and you will be able to change the actions applied to the file.
Adding a file to the list of programs allowed by the firewall is carried out in the "Windows Security" service in the "Firewall and network security" tab. The main functionality is hidden under the "Allow applications through the firewall" button.
Bad optimization
This is one of the consequences of the mismanagement of time, misjudgment of one's own strengths, management problems and crunch that studios, young and old, have been guilty of over the past few years. The players can only hope for a conscientious attitude of the developers towards their own audience and expect the timely release of fixes and patches.
Insufficient cooling
Exceeding the temperature of a video card graphics chip or processor die above the values declared by the manufacturer not only has an extremely detrimental effect on performance, but also reduces the life of all equipment. The appearance of artifacts, flickering and image freezes are the first overheating syndrome.
A bunch of utilities MSI Afterburner и RivaTuner allows you to not only monitor temperature indicators and the degree of PC workload in real time, but also influence on the rotation speed of the coolers to improve the performance of the cooling system.
General recommendations
To prevent incorrect operation of games and applications, you must remember about OS features when installing new games.
Run as administrator
By giving the application unrestricted access to the system, the player automatically gets rid of a number of unwanted problems.
Time and date
Due to the incorrect display of the date and time, the work of some games that track this parameter may be disrupted. To prevent this from happening, it is recommended to set up automatic time synchronization with the Internet.
The name of the root folder of the game
Spaces and Cyrillic characters in the name of the root folder of any program or game often cause problems with their launch. It is important to check the correctness of the path to the executable file before installing the software.
Malicious software
There is always a possibility of a negative impact of potentially dangerous programs on a computer. Therefore, it is so important to periodically initiate anti-virus checks, clear the cache, control autorun, and scan the registry for invalid entries.
Drivers for external devices
For the correct operation of third-party devices (gamepads, mice, keyboards), specialized drivers are still needed. IN Windows 10 most of this software is installed automatically. If this did not happen, and the equipment did not work, we advise you to visit the official website of the manufacturer or look for a disk / flash drive with an installer in the box from under the device.
Read on:We hope that our recommendations will help you stabilize the work of any game. Also write in the comments about other problems that you had to face and their possible solutions. Maybe your advice will be a way out of a difficult situation for someone!
Tell me, please, what to do if, when descending into the sewer at the beginning of the episode "Dead End", the turn stops working and the cat can only run straight?
While I'm walking around the site, everything is fine, the camera and the character turn and obey the instructions. But when we slide down to where the Zurks attack, the cat cannot turn either to the right or to the left, it can only move straight ahead. Naturally, when he rests his forehead against an obstacle, he is quickly eaten.
Licensed, all technical requirements met, keyboard and mouse.