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

[onelifecrisis]

I see that several people here have played the game!

I want to ask, did the developers fix all the bugs in the end? Every review out there - every review - talks about bugs, bugs, bugs. I know lots of patches were released, so, did they do the trick? If I buy the game right now will I get a finished product or not? Also, did any of the patches affect the performance/framerate for better or worse?

I always liked what they tried to create with this game, but I hate bugs.

Thanks for any advice.

[kiwi_2005]

Well you should get a bug free version by now, all i can say is i played the game right through while it was buggy as hell. When i finished it patches were still coming out.

[larrysellars]

I've only played the first STALKER, so if you're talking about the second one (Clear Sky) then disregard this post.

I bought and played the game about a year after it was released, and the version I played was pretty stable, but not perfect. I had several CTD's (most of which occurred while loading a new area), and there was one area where if you failed to save someone's life, you couldn't continue the main quest at all (and the game fails to inform you of this somewhat important fact). This happened to me initially, but I had several previous saves and just reloaded one of those.

Obviously, save often and in several different files, and your frustrations should very limited.

As far as performance goes, I think there was only one area where my framerates dropped significantly, but everywhere else was fine. And that one area had a ton of shadows, lightning, rain, and a perpetual gun battle. It was easy enough to bypass, and if I wanted to fight the battle, sniping from the perimeter (my preferred m.o. anyway) kept the framerates up high.

Overall, the game was well worth those minor annoyances. I played the Vanilla version, but I know there are several major mods out there that enhance nearly everything (and I assume stability and bug squashing), so you could also try one of those. But as I said, even with plain ol' Vanilla, I liked the game a lot, and would recommend it.

[Wolfehunter]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

I see that several people here have played the game!

I want to ask, did the developers fix all the bugs in the end? Every review out there - every review - talks about bugs, bugs, bugs. I know lots of patches were released, so, did they do the trick? If I buy the game right now will I get a finished product or not? Also, did any of the patches affect the performance/framerate for better or worse?

I always liked what they tried to create with this game, but I hate bugs.

Thanks for any advice.

Stalker SOC was never finished. To bad too because it is the best of the bunch.

There are many modders who have done there best to fix as many bugs as they can. Problem is some just can't be fixed. Many players don't know that so they first assume its the modders fault.

GSC has long given up on Shadows of Chenobyl. There working on two new releases.

One is suppose to come out soon.

I think they should just go back to there first and finished it properly. They will make much more money off that one.

Many fans are worried that the newer release games will flop like CS did.

We will all soon know.

[onelifecrisis]

Hmmm this is not what I was hoping to hear. Thanks guys for the info.

[Arclight]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat site launches.

Minimum System Requirements
Intel Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz / AMD XP 2200+

512 MB RAM
128 MB DirectX 8.0 compatible card / nVIDIA GeForce 5700 / ATI Radeon 9600

Recommended System Requirements
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 / AMD 64 X2 5600+
2 GB RAM
512 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible card / nVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX / ATI Radeon HD 4850

[kiwi_2005]

Gamershell custom version 2009 of Stalker with mods:

Required PC specs : AMD Athlon 64x2 4800+ or Intel Core 2 Duo, 1Gb RAM, 3D Hardware Accelerator Card Required - 100% DirectXR 9.0c compatible
256MB (Geforce 7800,

- Panoramic Mod 2.1 + S.W.O 2.2 + Vivid Sunsets 0.7:
visually beautiful creative merge of 3 different graphics & weather mods created by several artists, including myself, large view distance, horizons, proper sun travel according to location, enhanced HDR, wet surfaces, morning due, multiple weather cycles, darker nights, moonlight, different types of storms from fast to slow, stars constellation, water animation and many more implementations, all by staying within the mood of the game.
- SkyGRAPHICS-MOD v2.0 RC4.1:
this mod introduces advanced shader technology known as Parallax Occlusion Mapping seen in Crysis and very recent games, creating close-to-life illusion of true relief, Depth of Field, Motion Blur, Sun Shafts (optional) and Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO), which creates an enormous difference in the way the game looks (mod has been fine tuned from it's default state to avoid excessive rock relief and contrast)
- Photorealistic Zone 1.0 (aka Argus Texture Pack)
this is a 6 months of reworking every texture in the game by Argus, special attention has been paid to preserving the original look of materials while textures have been replaced with equivalent higher quality photographs with manual bump editing and partial use of original files, heavily optimized to reduce performance drop.
- Photorealistic Zone: Living Creatures:
now creatures with open wounds have soaking wet flesh showing through, it?s almost disturbing. Adds bump details on most uniforms, wrinkles, etc.
- Vehicles Retexture Pack
selected vehicles now look extra rusty and abandoned but only the ones that been parked there for 20 years.
- Zone Reclamation Project 1.05 (aka ZRP 1.05) :
adds numerous bug fixes, creates dynamic camp fires that act as a source of light, removes head bobbling, mutes annoying characters - "Get out of here Stalker", adds ability to save level game, to repair weapons, change quest time, and many other settings you can control yourself, see ReadMe.txt for details.
- ABC Sleeping Bag:
it?s always in your inventory, lets you sleep in the game.
- Particle Enhancement 3.0:
this mod enhances many of the particle effects in Stalker, sparkles, anomalies, smoke, explosions, etc.
- Ragdoll Mod 1.3:
adds natural death and hit physics, kills will no longer cause corpse ragdoll to fly backwards.
- Bulbs Soc (aka Lampochki Soc):
now you can shoot the bulbs and the lights will go out!
- Argus Add-ons:
new quality Google Earth type map updated with Clear Sky locations, halogen flashlight, gloves, knife with signs of sharpenning (very cool).
- AI Pack 10005:
adds the following set of abilities to NPCs: removing bodies from camp sites, throwing grenades, changing armor, healing other NPC's.
- Hades Real Gore Mod 1.0:
textures to simulate real blood and gore, wet blood look, bits of guts, bullet sprays, all done classy without exaggeration.
- Sound Overhaul 1.07 RC2:
replaces most weapon sounds, anomalies, equipment clatter, footsteps, nightlife, bullet fly-by sounds and more with quality equivalents.
Most sounds are properly OGG-commented to prevent any issues.
- Harmonica Mod:
NPC's can randomly play harmonica between guitar sessions.
- Authentic Music:
adds a few acoustic guitar songs in authentic language in the mix, but not too many.
- Asphalt 2.0:
quality asphalt texture.
- Medkits:
quality medkit textures.
- Chernobyl TV 1.1:
smooth TV animation, actual footage about Chernobyl.
- NWT 0.6.1:
quality weapon textures.
- TS Nades:
quality grenade textures.
- Elite Nightvision 1.1:
black & white nightvision based on the psy_antenna postprocess effect.
This one really makes you see in the dark.
- Stalker Forever HD Foodndrinks 1.0:
authentic vodka and energy drink skins, food textures stay original.
- Normal Accuracy Plus 1.0:
the set of tweaked weapons configs that slightly increases your chances of hitting the target without ruining the game's original award-winning ballistic system.
- Rules of Engagement 0.1:
removes the ability for NPC's to notice you at unrealistically large distances, 500m and up.
- 1154HUD 1.2:
a clean and minimalist hud from early game development as oppose to final ornate style hud. I retouched it to fit game style a bit.
- Freeplay:
after you beat the game with "good" ending, you'll get the dialog that will let you continue the game in freeplay mod, allowing creatures and NPCs migrate freely, it will be a living and breathing zone with A-Life, unscripted events and no quests (not fully tested).

[Egan]

I've only got the original but i've never had much trouble with it. I think I enjoyed it so much i never really paid that much attention to the bugs, to be honest. Didn't have any crashes that I remember. I reinstalled and patched it up recently on my new machine and it's been fine. The only thing that really ever annoyed me about it is I could never get FSAA to work on it and thats with Nvidia and ATI cards both. I think thats down to how the rendering engine works, though, rather than a bug.

[Wolfehunter]

ZRP's is the best for playing vanilla style. ZRP team has fixed alot of the bugs and restored much content that was removed. Or you can play my supermod pack and pray your rig can handle it.

Details,

http://gsc-game.com/index.php?t=comm...7287&sec_id=17