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Technical News & Discussion => Gamers' News & Discussion => Topic started by: mrapoc on Apr 18, 2007, 21:35:45

Title: About to try stalker - shadow of chernobyl
Post by: mrapoc on Apr 18, 2007, 21:35:45
Will give you guys my opinion after a nice long session with this big boy  :laugh:
Title: Re: About to try stalker - shadow of chernobyl
Post by: mrapoc on Apr 19, 2007, 16:43:10
Well the graphics arent stunning. Not really half life 2 quality actually but with more HDR and shadows. It runs very poorly considering the lack of "wow" graphics. The gameplay seems interesting enough, incorporating both RPG and FPS in one game but until further tweaking, it really is unplayable (coming from what I would call a above standard pc)

Core 2 duo e6300 @ 2.5ghz
2gb of ram
ATI x1900gt with latest omega drivers
Title: Re: About to try stalker - shadow of chernobyl
Post by: Rik on Apr 19, 2007, 16:45:00
You realise I didn't understand any of that till I reached Core 2 Duo, Sam. :)

Have you grabbed your new email address?
Title: Re: About to try stalker - shadow of chernobyl
Post by: AvengerUK on Apr 20, 2007, 09:37:05
I think he has (his status on msn last night said so ;), not that i can remember it...)

Theres been alot of problems with STALKER, although not with your setup...that was with 8800's i think. It "should" work fine, but if its not its proberbly your drivers (its known to be picky!)

Graphically i dont see what everyone is cherping on about!
Title: Re: About to try stalker - shadow of chernobyl
Post by: zimmerframe on Apr 20, 2007, 13:12:00
Quote from: mrapoc on Apr 19, 2007, 16:43:10
Well the graphics arent stunning. Not really half life 2 quality actually but with more HDR and shadows. It runs very poorly considering the lack of "wow" graphics. The gameplay seems interesting enough, incorporating both RPG and FPS in one game but until further tweaking, it really is unplayable (coming from what I would call a above standard pc)

Core 2 duo e6300 @ 2.5ghz
2gb of ram
ATI x1900gt with latest omega drivers

If its unplayable on that spec, I will probably give it a miss which is a shame as I would probably enjoyed it. 

Off topic a bit but has anyone had any news on the next HL2 installment?  I thought it was imminent but it all seems to have gone a bit quiet
Title: Re: About to try stalker - shadow of chernobyl
Post by: stevie0573 on Apr 27, 2007, 21:05:03
I have this game aswell but ive had to cut down the settings (i.e turned lighting effects down mostly) it runs ok on my Amd 4200 X2, 2 gig ram, nvidia 7600gt just not as pretty but perfectly playable. going to look great on my new 8800 gtx when it gets here :)
Title: Re: About to try stalker - shadow of chernobyl
Post by: stevie0573 on Apr 28, 2007, 21:17:38
Ok just been messing around with stalker and its looking amazing.

My rig

Amd64 4200+ dual core socket 939
2 gig ddr 400
Asus A8N-sli se
nvidia 8800gtx
vista 32bit

Its a little bit old now and out performed by the intels core2 duo chips (most of them i think lol) but add the new card really does make one hell of a difference just a shame its bottlenecked by the rest of the system but its smooth and playable (i heard some where that you can counter act the bottleneck by making the card work harder i.e full anti-aliasing)

Anyways a few screen shots (if its worked) i did use a cheat just to get the shots :( bad me

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: About to try stalker - shadow of chernobyl
Post by: mrapoc on May 07, 2007, 19:05:54
Ok, got it working now, all maxed out  :P

Overclocked a bit further...and formatted lol

Quite an interesting game but needs patches desperately
Title: Re: About to try stalker - shadow of chernobyl
Post by: Abra on May 10, 2007, 13:20:25
It runs ok on my ageing music studio rig :

Barton 2800
1gb 266mhz DDR Ram
Radeon 9800XT
Abit KD7-Raid
4 x Maxtor 250gb Sata HDs

My advice for the best performance is to start the game with the -noprefetch switch on it, this (surprisingly I know) turns off the prefetch. Prefetching was something that they going to integrate into the game, possibly its there for a possible online game?, but they never did and consequently it just sits there and loads information about the next map before you get there, but then chucks it all away and reloads it anyway, so yeah might as well turn that off!

As for the technical side of the game - flaky would be an understatement, it's an odd game, that they may fix or may not fix.

As for the gameplay side of the game - it's not really anything special, yeah it looks pretty, yeah it has multiple endings. But they're all pretty rubbish and as for story in the game, you basically spend the whole game going what? huh? who? WHY??? and then right near the end its all explained to you, movie style, and you end up going, erm ok then! I've managed to complete it, and there's little to no replayability, so I took it back to the shop and got 3 games for a tenner and 2 games for fifteen quid, and I still have £10 credit with them :D

So my advice on this game - take it back to the shop, get your full refund, buy a good game, then in 3 months or so when they've patched it up buy it in the bargain bin and have a laugh, but this is not a game that will change your life ... even though it should have been  ???