STALKER - Visual upgrade advice

dan653

dan653

dan653

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plan on playing through stalker once i finished crysis, and worried its going to look a little dated; i'd heard that there are plenty of unofficial hacks and patches to improve performance, stability and visual impact, however can seem to find a decent and upto date guide to which are the best

anyone care to share their views on the subject

please bear in mind this will be my first time playing it through as opposed to something that will breath new life into a game which has grown boring, appearance and fixes as opposed to gameplay mods
 
The patches that have been released offer no IQ improvment, only better stability and perhaps better performance.

The biggest IQ enhancement you do do is to run with Full Dynamic Lighting.

But I can't remember if ATI cards had performance issues with STALKER or Nvidia cards, I think one or the other was a lot worse compared to the other, but maybe with a 3870 it doesn't matter as it is much faster than cards that were available at launch.
 
Look for SHARPER, Float32 and better sky map (can't remember what it is now)

If you do a search its been discussed before. What STALKER lacks in visuals compared to Crysis more than wipes the floor with Crysis with game play. I have never been so let down by a game as Crysis. And so immersed as a game as STALKER.
 
the original float32 thing was added to an official patch (.4 or .5 iirc)

SHARPER - is very good.

but if your machine is a monster and you don't run at massive resses then try enabaling global lighting
http://www.tweakguides.com/STALKER_7.html

tells you how is quite simple.

means when light is reflected of a surface (any surface like concrete woodetc) it is much more real looking and impart colour etc, makes underground iliuminated areas (where light bounces round a lot) run quite slow though.
 
cheers for the replies, i'll check them out

what do class as 'monster' resolutions, i either run at 1600x1050 (native) or 1280x900?

as for crysis, its quite good so far (just got out of the core), but the thing that annoys me is that theres been no true scenarios where using your powers in a particular way gains you a distinct advantage
 
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Vanilla Stalker with full dynamic lighting on
ssneil052907235032l12stue6.jpg


Stalker with "Stalker Weather Overhaul (S.W.O) mod intergrated with Oblivion Lost 1.3.3. SWO includes SHARPER and Stalker Skies, full dynamic lighting mode on, no float32.
ssneil042708173816l12stke4.jpg


Another shot with those mods
ssneil042708173319l12ston4.jpg


Last shot with those mods
ssneil042708165000l12stff9.jpg


Stalker, one of my top 5 games.
 
dan653 said:
cheers for the replies, i'll check them out

what do class as 'monster' resolutions, i either run at 1600x1050 (native) or 1280x900?
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should be fine on those try turning it on (tweak guide shows you how) it's looks awesome, makes dynamic lighting poor in comparison.
 
stalker was an amazing game, tempted to replay it with some different mods, would like to try the vehicle mod, anyone got a link to it?
 
EddScott said:
Bubo - whats Oblivion Lost like? Been thinking of installing it.
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When I was planning on playing through again I tried various mods. I tried to get Faikes working but no joy, then I tried the weather overhaul mod on its own and the step change in graphics quality made me decide whatever mod I was going to use had to be compatible with that. At that time the most popular mods, AMK, Oblivion Lost, ABC Inferno weren't compatible with it. I tried ABC V1.0 whch was compatible but that was riddled with bugs, e.g. it was not uncommon to have like 100 mutants chasing you in Cordon after a few saves. I stumbled upon the mod "Stalker Rebalanced" which included the weather mod and it was pretty good, but still had the odd niggle. I then tried Obilvion Lost with default weather and the mod itself was very good but the dull graphics were a non starter for me, though the author actually said that was intentional as he wanted to maintain a depressing atmosphere, what with it being a nuclear desolation zone and that. Infact he is quite protective about that, Kanyhalos I think he is called, is probably the most touchy mod writer out there, he hates the weather overhaul guy with a passion for sprucing up his drab graphics. Anyway as luck would have it just then the weather mod creator released a compatbility pack for Oblivion Lost. That was for OL 1.3.3 which I have just finished playing through, it was like a different game. Kanyhalos has just released OL 2.0 and a compatible weather overhaul mod has just been released also, to the dismay of Kanyloos. Its quite funny reading the GSC forums and seeing Kanyhalos ranting about this. I would guess that OL2.0 is at least as good as 1.3.3, I haven't really looked at what the differences are tbh.
 
I'm in the same boat - after a lot of reading I settled on the Oblivion Lost mod and I'm hooked. It's awesome! The new weather mod is great. The darkened nights scare me silly (even with Seva night vision I still find myself creeping about in the woods at night wishing I'd slept till morning). The artifact modding is a nice touch that I'm still exploring. The Blowouts are great - brilliant fun watching everyone run for cover when the horn goes :). The difficulty has been tweaked and I like it - not hardcore, but fun, you can't just charge around any more.

The only disappointment for me are a couple of the monsters that the mod puts back into the game - you can see why they left them out - the cats just look wrong!

Oh yes - the vehicles are great - the small size of the levels make them more of a novelty than a useful item, but fun!

Get it, install it, love it (with the official 1.5 patch)
 
I played 15 mins of stalker and turned it off. I thought it was tedious and boring and soooo like every other 1st person shooter.

The only 1st person shooter I've enjoyed for probably over a year is COD4. At least that had variety and atmosphere.....
 
I think you need to play Stalker for a while to get into it, it started of slowly for me, pretty boring etc..., but afte playing a while, and getting further into it (new areas etc...), i started to enoy it, got better.:)
 
Oblivion Lost is great up until the very end of the game where i'd say it broke it. As mentioned above it returns some really poorly designed monsters to the game. The cats look ugly and the rats are annoyingly small but the worst are these horrible cloaked psi monsters that look like Jabba the hut. They're just weird looking and at odds with both the graphical style of the game and the feel of the mod. Imo the best thing the mod did was up the weapon damage making the fire fights more lethal, satisfying and interesting. These guys take three or more grendes fired into their face without blinking. Combat against them just isn't fun and the level inside the NPP is lousy with them.
It's their Psi attack that kills the game though. Anyone who has played condemned 2 will know the frustration of trying to fight with a thousand different screen obscuring effects going on. Shaking, blurring, flashing different tints and rocking back and forward plus white noise blaring out of the speakers isn't fun and doesn't create atmosphere. It's too excessive to be anything other than annoying. What's more it does damage to you. Their attack affects you by proximity so even through four or five walls they do damage. With the twisty nature of the corridors I was dead before I even got close enough to fire at them most of the time. After about 30 attempts I had to giveup in disgust and frustration.
The mod is worth trying but if you intend to finish the game don't bother.
buggeredqq4.jpg

A pic from the last level. It's impossible to even walk straight let alone shoot.
 
LoadsaMoney said:
I think you need to play Stalker for a while to get into it, it started of slowly for me, pretty boring etc..., but afte playing a while, and getting further into it (new areas etc...), i started to enoy it, got better.:)
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Yeah I agree stalker is a bit of a slow starter and, to be fair for a game that has such a large playing area, has a few dull bits, but as you play more you find it is a quite deep and ejoyable game. Not for instant gratification types though.
 
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