**The Official S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow Of Chernobyl Thread**

Tom|Nbk said:
at which point did it crash?.
You know when you're defending a little camp of stalkers from bandits in the hangar, and you go to the far gates? I went through the far gates and was killing piles and piles of bandits, then I turned away from them to run for some cover and the PC froze.

The game was still displayed on the screen (frozen) and the sound continued for a second or two. Keys were unresponsive, as were the power/reset buttons on my case, so I had to do a hard reset from the switch on the PSU.

LoadsaMoney said:
Not getting worried are you. :p
I know I am. :eek:
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
You're thinking of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion vs. Half Life 2: Episode One here, not S.T.A.L.K.E.R. :o

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s X-Ray engine uses deferred rendering and it doesn't support multisampling or supersampling full-scene antialiasing as we know it, at all. Instead, when you activate it, it adds a blurring effect to edges of most on-screen objects. This is why the antialiasing effect in this game looks crap, and doesn't even show on some things. :)

Works when you force it in your control panel. Looks odd in some places, but works in most.



How can you tell which version of the game your running? When I click update in game it says there are none, yet I have not patched it? Don't want to mess up my saves unless I have too!
 
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dbmzk1 said:
Works when you force it in your control panel. Looks odd in some places, but works in most.
No it doesn't, I'm afraid that is completely in your head.

The X-Ray engine in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. uses deferred rendering, much like Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. It does not support real full-scene antialiasing, so it "fakes" it by adding a blur effect to edges.

This is why it "looks odd in some places," that's the first sign it's not Full Scene Antialiasing or FSAA.

The X-Ray engine simply cannot do it, I wish that people would stop kidding themselves.
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
No it doesn't, I'm afraid that is completely in your head.

The X-Ray engine in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. uses deferred rendering, much like Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. It does not support real full-scene antialiasing, so it "fakes" it by adding a blur effect to edges.

This is why it "looks odd in some places," that's the first sign it's not Full Scene Antialiasing or FSAA.

The X-Ray engine simply cannot do it, I wish that people would stop kidding themselves.

The in game sliders don't do anything for me, but if I force it on in my control panel I can see a definite difference between the two. While not perfect in (a few) places, it still makes a big difference.

Just because its methods are different, doesn't mean it is "fake" either!

I don't know how the engine works, it's not really one I've looked into much. All I know is that setting AA in my cp seems make a nice difference :)
 
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dbmzk1 said:
Just because its methods are different, doesn't mean it is "fake" either!
How is it real full-scene antialiasing if you said yourself that it's not full-scene? :confused:

Like I said, the deferred rendering in the X-Ray engine doesn't allow that sort of multisampling. Instead it blurs.

dbmzk1 said:
I don't know how the engine works, it's not really one I've looked into much. All I know is that setting AA in my cp seems make a nice difference :)
All I can say is damn I wish we were playing the same game so I could use antialiasing.

Since mine and everyone elses copy of Stalker just uses a blur effect.
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
How is it real full-scene antialiasing if you said yourself that it's not full-scene? :confused:

What? I never said FSAA. All I said is that I can see less jagged bits with it on than off :confused:

Ulfhedjinn said:
Like I said, the deferred rendering in the X-Ray engine doesn't allow that sort of multisampling. Instead it blurs.

All I can say is damn I wish we were playing the same game so I could use antialiasing.

Since mine and everyone elses copy of Stalker just uses a blur effect.

The effect of AA is that it blends the edges of a line making it looks less jagged but creating a blurred effect. Thats why some people don't like it and prefer to play at higher resolutions. Stalker just does it in a slightly different way. Still reduced jaggies though!
 
dbmzk1 said:
What? I never said FSAA. All I said is that I can see less jagged bits with it on than off :confused:
That option in your control panel is for FSAA, which does not work in Stalker. You said it yourself that it "still looks weird in places" which means FSAA is not working.

I already knew this though, because the X-Ray engine is not capable of it.

dbmzk1 said:
The effect of AA is that it blends the edges of a line making it looks less jagged but creating a blurred effect. Thats why some people don't like it and prefer to play at higher resolutions. Stalker just does it in a slightly different way. Still reduced jaggies though!
I know what antialiasing is, and the X-Ray engine doesn't do it. All the X-Ray engine does is adds a literal blur on edges, not actually supersampling them like antialiasing, just blurring them.

This is why the antialiasing in Stalker looks so horrid, and why it looks less effective in some places.

It uses the same method as Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, and it looks poor.
 
Doesn't matter now anyway. I have just installed the patch and I don't get the effect at all now. Slider or control panel, AA or even AF doesn't seem to make any difference at all. Though I never really tested AF before.
 
well since i clocked it a moment ago i have to say i feel let down by this game.........how can u spend six years on something and have it turn out like this........bloody shameful...........time to take it back to virgin for a prompt exchange for supreme commander!
 
Archibald0 said:
i dont see why everyone is moaning, i run at 1280 x 1024 and it looks fine

i dont buy a game to analyze for jaggie edges, i enjoy the game the way it is
Sounds to me like you wouldn't mind trading your 8800GTX Superclocked for my spare X300SE then.

P.S. Just out of curiosity, why on earth do you use a macine like that to play in 1280x1024?
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
Sounds to me like you wouldn't mind trading your 8800GTX Superclocked for my spare X300SE then.

P.S. Just out of curiosity, why on earth do you use a macine like that to play in 1280x1024?


I have never understood this either, people spend a fortune bit on a rigg but use a 19" screen :confused:, cant see the point in having a GTX if you dont at least have a big screen.
 
schnipps said:
I have never understood this either, people spend a fortune bit on a rigg but use a 19" screen :confused:, cant see the point in having a GTX if you dont at least have a big screen.

Im the other way around :) i have a Viewsonic 22" But only have a Geforce 6200 turbocache..I know i should get a better card like the 8800 but that meens i would have to update my amd 3500 (And no i dont bother to overclock them)
 
schnipps said:
I have never understood this either, people spend a fortune bit on a rigg but use a 19" screen :confused:, cant see the point in having a GTX if you dont at least have a big screen.

Why not!!?? :confused:

If I have a choice to either get a 8800 or a 24" widescreen I'd much prefer the graphics card because games in the next year or two will inevitably be increasingly demanding for a 8800GTX even at resolution as "low" as 1280*1024. Getting a screen on the other hand also means you need a beafy GFX just to play all current games at max resolution.
 
steve258 said:
Why not!!?? :confused:
Anybody with a rig like that is obviously made of money if they use it to play in 1280x1024 and "don't care what the game looks like." They won't care about upgrading to the next best thing in a couple of years (months?) time.

In fact, I would be bold enough to call anyone with a rig like that who says they "don't care what the game looks like" an absolute bald-faced liar. Either that, or they just have far more money than sense.
 
steve258 said:
If I have a choice to either get a 8800 or a 24" widescreen I'd much prefer the graphics card because games in the next year or two will inevitably be increasingly demanding for a 8800GTX even at resolution as "low" as 1280*1024. Getting a screen on the other hand also means you need a beafy GFX just to play all current games at max resolution.
You are kinda right, but by the time a GTX will have an advantage over a GTS at 1280x1024 there will be a newer videocard released anyway that is even faster.

If I would have enough money to buy a top end rig I would deffo get a screen larger than 19" but (luckily) we are not all the same.

Anyway, I played for 2 hours yesterday and have not had a crash, IQ problem or any other error.

Maybe STALKER is sensitive to CPU/GPU overclocking?
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
Anybody with a rig like that is obviously made of money if they use it to play in 1280x1024 and "don't care what the game looks like." They won't care about upgrading to the next best thing in a couple of years (months?) time.

In fact, I would be bold enough to call anyone with a rig like that who says they "don't care what the game looks like" an absolute bald-faced liar. Either that, or they just have far more money than sense.

Blimey, this thread is getting a bit heated and hostile!

I'm off to discuss the Care Bears game on the CBeebies forum!
 
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