Gold: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

[SpeedDMN]

That game has some SERIOUS draw on resourses. It was choking the E6600 (OC 2.9g) + 7900gt machine. It's making me want a G80. I will try killing the dynamic lighting and see what happens.

[Wingit]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

just picked up the game at my local Best Buy for $39.99...will fire it up later tonight...

good to see you around Wingit...I remember your posts from an earlier S.T.A.L.K.E.R thread from a few years back and how high you were on the game back then....until the delays came along and dampened your enthusiasm somewhat for what could have been a groundbreaking game

Nice to be around, polony....yes..I did see Stalker as the next great game, but the increasing appearance of vaporware syndrome and the continuous stream of feature-drops was a tad demoralizing. Now that Hell (or at least Chernobyl) appears to have frozen over, I am looking forward to seeing what Stalkers final evolution has become...I hope it's an interesting ride!

[shaihulud]

Installing did not take long. It was a bit over 5 minutes. Playing, so far, has not been any issue with my system (E6700, 8800GTX, 2GB memory) with everything maxed out. I have not experienced any loading issues either. Such as a delay during game play or to load a previous point in the game. The peak memory usage, so far, for the couple hours I have played is 1.5GB. I have already accumulated a stash a weapons from bandits, my first artifact that was not given to me, and completed a few quests.

It is interesting, but I can see how it is outdated. This does not matter to me as much due to other particularities that make up for this and bring you to a type of disbelief. The flashlight actually illuminates-it is almost if not perfect! At the moment the sun is setting and flashlights are being used. I saw one far away and used my nocs to spot what was an enemy.

I have a feeling it will get better as the game progresses.

[John64]

well i "bought" this game and at least with Vista, it is totally unplayable, way too slow. I am going to try it on XP.

I was new here when that game was supposed to come out, 4 years ago :O

[polonyc2]

geez the installation took forever...longest installation for any PC game ever...took over 10 minutes for me...don't know why it took so long but the game installed fine...will try to get in some game time later tonight but since I gotta work manana I might not be able to until tomorrow night

[zapionics<alt>]

Originally Posted by shaihulud

Installing did not take long. It was a bit over 5 minutes. Playing, so far, has not been any issue with my system (E6700, 8800GTX, 2GB memory) with everything maxed out. I have not experienced any loading issues either. Such as a delay during game play or to load a previous point in the game...

Are you using the dynamic lighting or static lighting? I've got everything maxed out on static lighting and its pretty smooth. There are no long ingame loading times, only a second or so as far as I can see and it doesnt freeze at those points, just slows for a sec. Loading a previous point takes about 30 seconds on this rig but starting the game for the first time it takes about 90 seconds to load the last save.

Updated my ccc and driver to 7.2, but it hasnt made any difference, dynamic lighting results in very slow framerate and crashes.

Originally Posted by shaihulud

...It is interesting, but I can see how it is outdated. This does not matter to me as much due to other particularities that make up for this and bring you to a type of disbelief. The flashlight actually illuminates-it is almost if not perfect! At the moment the sun is setting and flashlights are being used. I saw one far away and used my nocs to spot what was an enemy.

I have a feeling it will get better as the game progresses.

The is a good deal of variety to the scenery and the atmosphere is good.
Plenty of fun firefights to get into, and I'm interested in the story, want to find out what the heck my character is doing here! So at this point I'm enjoying it.

Wish there was a separate slider for voice level. And where the heck is the quicksave! Could really use that!

[traveler]

Originally Posted by John64

[snip]

and at least with Vista, it is totally unplayable, way too slow.

[snip]

Why am I not surprised.



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[zapionics<alt>]

I've spent a couple more hours at Chernobyl today.

Well, its worth stating that the AI is really very good. When in a team and either attacking or defending there is a lot going on there and I found the combat in these situations to be excellent. Flanking, sneaking, jumping out and tactics appropriate to the situation. As a lone wolf the combat AI is still pretty good, although it has a strong weakness to flanking. The animals and mutants also behave very realistically.

So its very disappointing when NPC's sit around the fire while their buddies are getting blasted not 20 meters away... not very good.

I dont know whats up with the PDA, but its really flaky, data goes missing or gets reset. Actually some of the missions seem to completely reset, especially if you travel between the levels. NPC's you've already taken out will be resurrected to have another go at you.

I found the diary and contacts features of the PDA to be critical to help move the story along, but things seem to get triggered too early, for example even before I've spoken with the relevant NPC his comments might appear in the PDA and other information would magically be inserted for no apparent reason, even quests might be added there for no reason. The PDA is really critical for the player to learn and understand the world he's in, but due to these flaws it usually just adds confusion.

I found further problems where sometimes missions could not be completed because critical characters had been wounded. At one point a character I was supposed to get some info from treated me like an enemy and refused to talk to me (red indicator), but the necessary info still appeared in the PDA as if we had chatted.

For some reason the PDA green icon itself keeps popping up on my screen with a beep and when I go to it theres nothing new on it. Driving me a little crazy that one.

Sadly, the game is very linear. The first impression is that its open like Oblivion, but that soon wears off as you realise how you are being led down a certain path at all times. Either fences or anomalies block your way always herding you in one direction. After a while it becomes easy to recognise the way you're supposed to be going and then it feels very contrived. It all feels like it was designed before Oblivion and before Far Cry. Those games introduced mechanisms to deal with these issues that the designers of this game dont seem to have been aware of.

Some of the areas appear to be set up for multiplayer, not single player. Structures and buildings you can climb and hide in but there away from the main action and not much point to them. I know that the game is carefully based on the real location, but I think they could have been more creative with bandit placement.

Now you dont have to traverse levels, you can go back and explore, but theres no point to that because you cant level up or anything. Any useful items you gain, such as health or ammo, are counterbalanced by the expenditure in backtracking and fighting for the stuff in the first place. Anyway, the same items can usually be found in the next section.

The UI continues to annoy me. I find it very cumbersome to use, especially since I need to be in there quite a lot getting bandages and health packs and chicken soy meat and swapping guns, etc.

The graphics are often very nice but they remind me of SOFII for some crazy reason. Probably because they're mostly dark and dirty and that fog effect that washes things out. Sometimes they remind me of HL2, but not often, I think HL2 is much brighter and nicer looking.

I am still enjoying the game a lot, sorry I sound so negative. Firefights, which is really what its all about, are a lot of fun and the story still intrigues me. I wouldnt be recommending this game to any rpg fan, but certainly FPS fans can enjoy it.

[shaihulud]

Yes, Direct 9 mode (Full Dynamic lighting) at 1280x960 120Hz is being used. I have everything at its maximum distance and have enabled grass shadow-Everything at max or what I can enable. I was a bit worried from what I read from you that my experience may be similar, but it has not been so. The only issues I have is that even though the grass distance is high, I can still see it being drawn in the distance. When the wind kicks up and creates a dust cloud there is no controlled clipping. It looks a bit fake in other words, specially when passing through a building that I am occupying inside with no way for the dust cloud to come in. Also the wind creates a Jaccob's Ladder effect with the grass. Kind of funny really. But as I said I can get past this.

Everything I use for hard drives and optical drives is SATA with the AHCI driver installed. I have to admit the the ST3320620AS drive has shaved off time for installing and loading from the previous drive I was using. I have been very pleased and must say that it does have a high throughput. The Lite-On DVDRW SH-16A7S is fast too. A little slower than my previous Lite-On DVD-CDRW, but I was reaching up to 20MB/s on the installation. BTW, in the lower right hand corner you can see a loading icon while in game. It is a black floppy disk with a blank white label that has a red border. When I have watched it it sporadically flickers.

I do think the voices carry further than they should. Every time I made some distance I can hear the bandits attacking the camp in which I rescued Nimble from. I do not mind much since I can use the ammo. The weapons sounds seem a bit muffled on some weapons. I think they need to be a bit more sharp and louder.

The AI is “interactive.” I would not say it is perfectly intelligent, but it will know you are close if you snap a twig. Which you can use to your advantage too. A head shot basically kills in this game. Let the enemy know you are close, and it can be easy hunting. For someone who has been playing FPS games for over 15 years it is not too disappointing, but the tactics can be formulated easily for what I have encountered. Obfuscating is easily achieved to. The meter on your display can inform you if you have cover or cannot be seen.

I like it, there are some things I would do better. But I have always favored the post apocalyptic, or apocalyptic games. Therefore this game is enjoyable to me, anyhow. I can't recommend it yet, for I have not gone far enough into the game. But if someone was to ask I would say go for it, it's $40.00. You may enjoy it.

[zapionics<alt>]

Originally Posted by shaihulud

Yes, Direct 9 mode (Full Dynamic lighting) at 1280x960 120Hz is being used. I have everything at its maximum ...

Congrats, thats fantastic. It seems that my gaming system is now well and truly obsolete, (875P Canterwood + Northwood and AGP). I'm hoping a driver update for my vid card will yet allow me to enable dynamic lighting in this game, as it should not be as choppy as it is I think, (ATI).

Originally Posted by shaihulud

... When the wind kicks up and creates a dust cloud there is no controlled clipping. It looks a bit fake in other words, specially when passing through a building that I am occupying inside with no way for the dust cloud to come in. Also the wind creates a Jaccob's Ladder effect with the grass. ...

Yes, and some clipping of the NPC's with doors occasionally. I had a rant about this in some other game before. I hate clipping issues. I know what u mean about the Jacobs Ladder effect, heh. (The wind must be quite strong in Chernobyl.) I like the wind, wasnt enough wind in Oblivion or Far Cry.

Originally Posted by shaihulud

... BTW, in the lower right hand corner you can see a loading icon while in game. ...

Yes, its very small but very obvious and annoying. No way to turn it off.

Originally Posted by shaihulud

The AI is “interactive.” I would not say it is perfectly intelligent, but it will know you are close if you snap a twig. Which you can use to your advantage too...

Yes, I like to lead the AI to some flank, then double back and go around the other way, they will continue to hunt in the place where I left them.

[mtek]

picked it up yesterday, put about 5 hrs into it, had to turn dwn grass
shadows and back off to 10 X 7 to elliminate stutter. all else is maxed.
am at the third level starting to get my but kicked by AI. after quite a
feww restarts/ reloads the game is getting to be enjoyable.does seem
a bit dated, but, I like the gfx. am getting a handle on controls. as an
avid FPS'r this game is giving me a little more substance, my feeling is
$40 was worth it. will probly screw around a little more, then start
game from beggining , side quests seem over simplified but are still
enjoyable. sneaking up on enemy is fun. overall I like it.

[zapionics<alt>]

The AI is good and the difficulty level is excellent. I haven't felt this challenged in a new game in some time! Stealth tactics are important depending on the map. The AI doesnt seem to use nades, which is a big weakness, at least I havent seen it happen yet.

I like the rpg elements, makes managing inventory important again since you can only carry so much and objects have different properties and value. Many of the artifacts are useful too but have to be chosen carefully as there are pros and cons depending on the situation and how much weight you are carrying.

I continue to encounter difficulties with the PDA. It just doesnt make sense sometimes. That annoying beep everytime a PDA comes into range is driving me crazy as well. I notice that text that I've already read gets reset green again so I cant see the difference between the new and old information and my contacts details changes depending on what mission I'm on.

I managed to locate the quicksave and load, F5 and F6 but its not documented in my user manual.

I failed a couple of missions but couldnt tell you why. Messages sometimes are displayed for so short a time you cant read them and have to go back into the dreaded PDA to find out what they were about. The game keeps playing while you have the PDA open but not the inventory screen?

At one point I'd turned the sound up because I wanted to hear all the ambient sound effects, but then I fired the smg I was carrying and nearly burst the windows out of my room! not to mention my eardrums ... heh

[shaihulud]

I continue to encounter difficulties with the PDA. It just doesnt make sense sometimes. That annoying beep everytime a PDA comes into range is driving me crazy as well.

This is when you find a stash. On some of the bodies you will hear the PDA beep and in the lower left hand corner, not in perfect view, a message will be displayed about a stash. On the map you will see the purple circle with three triangles in it. This is the marker for the stash. I am yet to really find one, when I am there.

I had to restart for Fox did not trigger the event that was to take place, because the radiated dogs were already dead, I think. So I started over, and got there real fast. The exact thing happened as you describe. There was talk and then poof before I can read.............oh rabid, radiated dogs! I have had the same thing happen to me. I also have an issue with, does it matter if particular characters die? Should I fight these bandits, and why do they always keep on spawning back? Am I playing Quake or Stalker? After killing 12 bandits I begin to get board because I can't move much and enjoy the game. Then more bandits come.

Good find on the quickies it was not even in the read me.

[zapionics<alt>]

Originally Posted by shaihulud

This is when you find a stash. On some of the bodies you will hear the PDA beep and in the lower left hand corner, not in perfect view, a message will be displayed about a stash...

Ah, thanks for that explanation! It seems to beep a lot.

Originally Posted by shaihulud

......does it matter if particular characters die? ...

I think it must in some cases, but so far I'm progressing ok. I had one character die but then the information was in my PDA as if we had spoken.
I read that some people cannot complete the game successfully because the main quest was broken, but they didnt find out until the ending! Also; there are supposed to be alternate endings depending on how you play.

Originally Posted by shaihulud

...Should I fight these bandits, and why do they always keep on spawning back? ...

I dont think its necessary to fight them again, however I have failed a couple of sub missions and I dont know why yet so maybe its because of this issue.

[edit] oh yeah, and I discovered that the contacts list only shows NPC's in the immediate area around you, which is why it keeps changing.

[SpeedDMN]

Graphics are sweet. Turning down the lighting effects did let it run smoothly. I guess you need a G80 or something to run full out. The game itself seems to be more RPG then FPS which to me is a little disappointing. I don't want to talk to any elves and such I just want to destroy! Oh well I will give it more chance.