Ive ordered stalker!!!

It should run fine on your system, but max settings? I seriously doubt it, but only because it's such a badly optimised and buggy game to begin with. It even struggles on 8800s.

Luckily you have no idea what this game is about, so you can't be as disappointed as most of us. ;)

Enjoy it. :)
 
You should be fine except disable dynamic lighting as this will kill your system. :o

It doesn't look so good but will boost your fps big time. :)
 
I've noticed something puzzling, i can run this game on bordering highest settings on a pretty high res in win XP when my system isn't exactly a powerhouse:

athlon 3800 64bit
2 gig of DDR1 ram
7800 GTX

Yet my housemate with an identical system, apart from a 1900xt, can barely run it on the lowest settings. The only difference i can spot is the fact hes running it in vista. I knew the game has bugs in vista, but performance hits that massive seem strange.
 
Black Dog said:
You should be fine except disable dynamic lighting as this will kill your system.

It doesn't look so good but will boost your fps big time.
Click to expand...

DONT disable dynamic lighting if your computer runs it playably (25+ fps all the time), disabling it can really kill off some of the immersion in the graphics, and its really worth a slower framerate to appreciate that.

I think a lot of the reason people complain about the graphics in this game is down to having turned off Dynamic Lighting; the terrain detail and parallax mapping work hand in hand with the DL to create some really amazing effects, and simply dont look as good with it off, you lose a lot more than people might have you think, and when you consider all the little details in the lighting (moving detailed shadows on dark walls near fires etc) it really adds up to a great package, its just very demanding on hardware, and we all know people dont like games to push thier uber hardware ;)

Im not saying the game doesnt need a few patches etc, but IMO, its a very good if slightly buggy game, thats demanding on machines because of some of the levels of detail in the way the lighting works in the game, and think it may well still look pretty good in a year or two, when more people's computers have caught up with the more realistic requirements!

<PS MAKE SURE YOU GET THE 1.001 PATCH BEFORE STARTING PLAYING, OLD SAVES ARENT SUPPORTED, AND IT FIXES A LOT OF THE BUGS, AND SOME PERF ISSUES>

Some screenies (not too amazing due to jpeg compression, looks quite nice when actually moving! 1680x1050 res) I am running the 'high' graphics preset, slightly tweaked, not maximum etc ingame, with Dynamic Lighting Enabled:
stalker4.jpg

stalker6.jpg

stalker10.jpg
 
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There must be some bad 8800 issues because I'm finding it very enjoyable and graphically pleasing playing at max details (slightly lowered grass density though) and at 1280*800. This is on a 1900xt 512Mb + Opty165.

It may be 20-34fps in the first camp in the whole game (compared to 50-60 with static lighting) But I've never felt like it has compromised the experience.
 
Streeteh said:
I've noticed something puzzling, i can run this game on bordering highest settings on a pretty high res in win XP when my system isn't exactly a powerhouse:

athlon 3800 64bit
2 gig of DDR1 ram
7800 GTX

Yet my housemate with an identical system, apart from a 1900xt, can barely run it on the lowest settings. The only difference i can spot is the fact hes running it in vista. I knew the game has bugs in vista, but performance hits that massive seem strange.
Click to expand...

Same here. All I have done is turn down the grass density and tweak shadows a bit and I never have a problem.

x2 4400
1gig Corsair (second stick died just before this arrived, grrrrr)
7800GTX
XP Pro
1280x1024

I don't what people do to have all the problems they do. BF2 was the same. People seem have all these issues, yet it has always been fine for me :/
 
No it isn't Dx10 otherwise you would have buckleys running it on XP, as XP can't do Dx10, and you only have a Dx9 card. :D

Will run fine on your x1950 XT, cracking game. :)

The only reason theres 8800 probs is through Nvidia's lack of driver support, im using the beta 101.02 drivers here and Stalker belts along, runs great maxed out on my GTS. :)
 
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I've been able to run it fine in both Vista and XP using an 8800. I've had some problems but nothing to do with graphics - for some reason, my minimap doesn't show anything except me. Had some saving problems but those cleared up with the patch.
 
how do i turn down grass density ?

I got it today w00h00t

Gonna download the patch now....

Do you think it would help if i OC my conroe upto the ram slowdown mark, which i believe is 2.8ghz ????????

its currently jogging along on 1.8.......
 
thinking about going down to the shop and buying this now, but im really worried about having vista and its gonna run ****.

jsut wondering how many hours do you reckon you would play in this game before you got bored? baring in mind i love open ended games like oblivion and stuff, and this is an open world shooter?
 
I've noticed this game is poorly coded for outside areas, especially for trees/grass.

Max settings, dynamic lighting @ 1280x1024
Outside : 25-35FPS.
Large viewing distance, trees, grass etc.

Indoors : 50-70 FPS.
Smaller viewing distance than outdoors, but dynamic lighting is 75% more noticable when indoors compared to outdoors. Not only this but the textures look much better.

Max settings, static lighting @ 1280x1024
Outside : 70-100FPS.
Large viewing distance, trees, grass etc. Lighting is hardly noticeably different from dynamic when outside.

Indoors : 100+ FPS.
Smaller viewing distance than outdoors. The graphical hit indoors with static lighting compared to dynamic is huge. The textures are almost identical, but the lighting is terrible COMPARED to dynamic. The lighting in this game is what makes the game so atmospheric and graphically pleasing. So only use static lighting if you can't play stalker with dynamic at 25+ fps.
 
It runs fine maxed out on everything, full dynamic lighting :D :D :D

at 1280 x 1024 for reference.

BUT.....im s*** lol!

I cant manage to kill the bandits, im only playing it on Stalker level of difficulty. theres too many of them!!! :(
 
There's one below it ('Easy', I think), out of four in all. But yeah...I never expected the second difficulty level to be so hard, although I think the main challenge is getting back into almost a Thief style of playing, rather than going in and killing everything in sight.
 
alexisonfire said:
I've noticed this game is poorly coded for outside areas, especially for trees/grass.

Max settings, dynamic lighting @ 1280x1024
Outside : 25-35FPS.
Large viewing distance, trees, grass etc.

Indoors : 50-70 FPS.
Smaller viewing distance than outdoors, but dynamic lighting is 75% more noticable when indoors compared to outdoors. Not only this but the textures look much better.

Max settings, static lighting @ 1280x1024
Outside : 70-100FPS.
Large viewing distance, trees, grass etc. Lighting is hardly noticeably different from dynamic when outside.

Indoors : 100+ FPS.
Smaller viewing distance than outdoors. The graphical hit indoors with static lighting compared to dynamic is huge. The textures are almost identical, but the lighting is terrible COMPARED to dynamic. The lighting in this game is what makes the game so atmospheric and graphically pleasing. So only use static lighting if you can't play stalker with dynamic at 25+ fps.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure every game ever made runs slower outside simply because there is a lot more stuff for the card to render. That's generally why some developers avoid outdoor areas. It's not all about it being "badly coded".
 
dbmzk1 said:
Pretty sure every game ever made runs slower outside simply because there is a lot more stuff for the card to render. That's generally why some developers avoid outdoor areas, like in Doom 3 for example. It's not all about it being "badly coded".
Click to expand...
Stalker is badly coded though, dynamic lighting in this game is quite obviously tacked-on.
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
Stalker is badly coded though, dynamic lighting in this game is quite obviously tacked-on.
Click to expand...

Just because something makes a game run slower does not make it "tacked-on" the last time I checked. Not that it matters either way.

Now I'm not saying STALKER is coded perfectly or even fully optimized, I'm sure they could improve it, but generally full dynamic lighting makes it run slower because it has a hell of a lot more to do. Same reason outside goes slower than inside. Simple really.
 
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