Multiplayer?
Clearly we’re in the same boat at Camp AnawannaUninstallVista, Kinthalis. You should do what any irrational gamer would do in this situation. Get another computer of similar spec and load it with XP, like I did with my XPS M1710. 
That or, if you’re into partitioning, a dual-boot setup of XP and Vista. Personally, I can’t be bothered with dual-boots. Been there, done that. Too much hassle. Sadly, I have to agree on the Vista complaints. Every game I’ve run on Vista has been “playable” … but not nearly as quick to load or smooth to play as it was on XP, even with the most recent Creative and nVidia drivers loaded.
Nice of Argent to be giving us all the insight. Now where is that damn Stalker demo? Don’t make me go buy it!
I picked it up on Wednesday and gave it a whirl. So far I’m pretty underwhelmed.
The bugs aren’t as bad as I’d heard, but they’re there, and can be very annoying considering the way the save system works (more on that momentarily). During one mission I approached the NPC to talk to him, and he responded with a long paragraph of text… which immediately disappeared to make room for the “Mission complete!” text (I forget the exact wording, but that’s the gist of it). Ok, that’s a pain, but not game-breaking, I can just read it in my PDA. I pull it up and wade through the options to find it and start reading. I don’t get through a sentence before I’m torn up by an attacking group of evil dogs. Grrr.
That brings me to the main menu where I can load up a game I had saved. Of course, it had been a long time since I’d done so, so I had lot of ground to recover. Maybe I’m spoiled by other FPS games, but it’d be nice if they tossed an autosave in there once in a while (maybe after completing a mission).
And a note to anyone having trouble quick saving - apparently there’s a bug that causes the function to malfunction if your Windows username has a space in it. Whoops.
The graphics are good, but they certainly could use some optimization. I have a decent system (E6400@2.8GHz, 7900GS, 2GB RAM), but I can’t really play with full dynamic lighting without hovering around 30fps. That’s not terrible in and of itself, but in this mode the game also feels just the slightest bit laggy, where my actions aren’t controlling the movements with precision. This effect coupled with the head-bob motion end up making me fell sick after playing for a while, so I had to crank things down to accomidate. And you certainly can see a difference between the lighting modes if you know where to look (Try a building with rafters over your head for example).
The weapons that I’ve used so far are a big letdown. The pistol you start with sounds like a water gun. And to aim with it you press the right mouse button to hold it in front of you, which blocks the entire screen. I jumped for joy when I found a machine run to replace that sucker.
The accuracy of the weapons is confusing too. I pointed the handgun at a wall using the right-click aiming and unloaded the clip into the brick. Despite the fact that the gun is flailing all over the place on the screen (and blocking even more of the view), the bullets all landed in the same precise spot on the wall, and left only one mark. Conversely, I can aim the same way with one of the machine guns and there’s no predicting where the shot will land. I understand there will be some spray involved, but even the first shot seems to come out askew.
Finally, I think what bothers me the most about STALKER is that it just seems kind of… well… old. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I can give an example or two of what I’m talking about. I wandered into a small building that had a teapot on the stove. I shot it, and it make a small bullet mark on the pot. Maybe my expectations are unreasonably high, but this is 2007. I want that teapot to go flying. And the respawn rate for the enemies is annoying. At least once I’ve seen a baddie spawn right in front of me. So much for that immersion.
So overall I’m pretty unimpressed, but I’ve admittedly only given it a few hours (it wasn’t nearly compelling enough to keep me away from Supreme Commander). Hopefully the story and action will pick up, and they’ll patch up a few bugs and it’ll get better.
edit:
Nonexistant that I’ve seen. I’ve tried three times. Once I locked up. The second time there were no games available. And the third time there was only a couple servers that were all full.
Oh snap. :eek: 
I think this is what it’s going to come down to for a lot of people. Personally, I’m still playing Mafia, which is half a decade old, because the skies and textures and vibrant colors are more interesting for me to look at than the dynamic-lighted, bump-mapped, polygon-shaded grays and whites of F.E.A.R. I don’t mind that it’s old as the hills, by gaming standards, or that it doesn’t have the latest graphics. I still keep a laptop around with Windows 98 for playing 3D Realms games like Blood and Shadow Warrior.
So, graphically, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is indeed dated. But even so, I think it pulled off the gritty, realistic, broken down look really well.
The game gives you the shitty weapons early on so that when you get the better weapons later, you can really appreciate the difference. I think this was done deliberately. (In Far Cry, for instance, you start the game off right away with what is essentially the best all-around weapon in the game, the assault rifle. )
Ahh, but the question is, do you lose all your weapons halfway through the game and have to build them back up. 
Slacker, and everyone else - here’s what to do. I found this on the Stalker forum on Gamefaqs. Some extremely dedicated person posted these tweaked settings, which will allow you to get maximum - and I mean MAXIMUM - performance from the game.
Go into your user.ltx file in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\STALKER-SHOC (make a backup just in case) and replace what is there with the following:
_preset Default
ai_use_torch_dynamic_lights on
unbindall
bind jump kSPACE
bind crouch kRCONTROL
bind crouch_toggle kSLASH
bind accel kLSHIFT
bind sprint_toggle kX
bind forward kUP
bind back kDOWN
bind lstrafe kLEFT
bind rstrafe kRIGHT
bind llookout kQ
bind rlookout kE
bind cam_zoom_in kADD
bind cam_zoom_out kSUBTRACT
bind torch kL
bind night_vision kN
bind wpn_1 k1
bind wpn_2 k2
bind wpn_3 k3
bind wpn_4 k4
bind wpn_5 k5
bind wpn_6 k6
bind artefact k7
bind wpn_next kY
bind wpn_fire mouse1
bind wpn_zoom mouse2
bind wpn_reload kR
bind wpn_func kV
bind wpn_firemode_prev k9
bind wpn_firemode_next k0
bind pause kPAUSE
bind drop kG
bind use kF
bind scores kTAB
bind chat kCOMMA
bind chat_team kPERIOD
bind screenshot kF12
bind quit kESCAPE
bind console kGRAVE
bind inventory kI
bind buy_menu kB
bind skin_menu kO
bind team_menu kU
bind active_jobs kP
bind map kM
bind contacts kH
bind vote_begin kF5
bind vote kF6
bind vote_yes kF7
bind vote_no kF8
bind speech_menu_0 kC
bind speech_menu_1 kZ
bind use_bandage kRBRACKET
bind use_medkit kLBRACKET
cam_inert 0.
cam_slide_inert 0.25
cl_cod_pickup_mode 1
cl_dynamiccrosshair on
g_always_run on
g_autopickup on
g_backrun on
g_corpsenum 10
g_eventdelay 0
g_game_difficulty gd_stalker
hud_crosshair on
hud_crosshair_dist off
mm_mm_net_srv_dedicated off
mm_net_con_publicserver off
mm_net_con_spectator 20
mm_net_con_spectator_on off
mm_net_srv_gamemode st_deathmatch
mm_net_srv_maxplayers 32
mm_net_srv_name BLACKBOX
mm_net_srv_reinforcement_type 1
mm_net_weather_rateofchange 1.
mouse_invert off
mouse_sens 0.32
net_cl_icurvesize 0
net_cl_icurvetype 0
net_cl_interpolation 0.
net_cl_log_data off
net_cl_pending_lim 3
net_cl_update_rate 30
net_dedicated_sleep 5
net_sv_log_data off
net_sv_pending_lim 3
net_sv_update_rate 30
ph_frequency 75.00000
ph_iterations 24
r1_dlights on
r1_dlights_clip 10.
r1_glows_per_frame 16
r1_lmodel_lerp 0.1
r1_pps_u -1.
r1_pps_v 0.
r1_ssa_lod_a 64.
r1_ssa_lod_b 48.
r1_tf_mipbias 0.
r2_aa off
r2_aa_break 0.800000,0.500000,0.000000
r2_aa_kernel 0.5
r2_aa_weight 0.250000,0.250000,0.000000
r2_allow_r1_lights off
r2_gi off
r2_gi_clip 0.001
r2_gi_depth 1
r2_gi_photons 16
r2_gi_refl 0.9
r2_gloss_factor 1.4
r2_ls_bloom_fast off
r2_ls_bloom_kernel_b 0.7
r2_ls_bloom_kernel_g 3.
r2_ls_bloom_kernel_scale 0.7
r2_ls_bloom_speed 100.
r2_ls_bloom_threshold 0.001
r2_ls_depth_bias -0.0003
r2_ls_depth_scale 1.00001
r2_ls_dsm_kernel 0.7
r2_ls_psm_kernel 0.7
r2_ls_squality 0.5
r2_ls_ssm_kernel 0.7
r2_mblur 0.
r2_parallax_h 0.04
r2_slight_fade 0.05
r2_ssa_lod_a 96.
r2_ssa_lod_b 64.
r2_sun on
r2_sun_depth_far_bias -0.00001
r2_sun_depth_far_scale 1.
r2_sun_depth_near_bias 0.00001
r2_sun_depth_near_scale 1.
r2_sun_details off
r2_sun_focus on
r2_sun_lumscale 1.
r2_sun_lumscale_amb 0.5
r2_sun_lumscale_hemi 1.
r2_sun_near 12.
r2_sun_near_border 0.75
r2_sun_tsm on
r2_sun_tsm_bias -0.01
r2_sun_tsm_proj 0.3
r2_tf_mipbias -3.
r2_tonemap on
r2_tonemap_adaptation 1.
r2_tonemap_amount 0.7
r2_tonemap_lowlum 0.0001
r2_tonemap_middlegray 0.6
r2_wait_sleep 0
r2_zfill off
r2_zfill_depth 0.5
r2em 2.
r__detail_density 0.44
r__geometry_lod 1.2
r__supersample 4
r__tf_aniso 12
renderer renderer_r2
rs_c_brightness 1.
rs_c_contrast 1.
rs_c_gamma 1.2
rs_fullscreen on
rs_refresh_60hz off
rs_stats off
rs_v_sync off
rs_vis_distance 1.
snd_acceleration on
snd_cache_size 32
snd_efx on
snd_targets 24
snd_volume_eff 0.8
snd_volume_music 1.
sv_anomalies_enabled 1
sv_anomalies_length 3
sv_artefact_respawn_delta 30
sv_artefact_stay_time 3
sv_artefacts_count 10
sv_auto_team_balance 0
sv_auto_team_swap 1
sv_bearercantsprint 1
sv_client_reconnect_time 60
sv_console_update_rate 1
sv_dedicated_server_update_rate 100
sv_dmgblockindicator 1
sv_dmgblocktime 0
sv_forcerespawn 0
sv_fraglimit 10
sv_friendly_indicators 0
sv_friendly_names 0
sv_friendlyfire 1.
sv_hail_to_winner_time 7000
sv_pda_hunt 1
sv_pending_wait_time 10000
sv_reinforcement_time 0
sv_remove_corpse 1
sv_remove_weapon 1
sv_returnplayers 1
sv_rpoint_freeze_time 0
sv_shieldedbases 1
sv_spectr_firsteye 1
sv_spectr_freefly 0
sv_spectr_freelook 1
sv_spectr_lookat 1
sv_spectr_teamcamera 1
sv_statistic_collect 1
sv_statistic_save_auto 0
sv_timelimit 0
sv_vote_enabled 1
sv_vote_participants 0
sv_vote_quota 0.51
sv_vote_time 1.
sv_warm_up 0
texture_lod 2
vid_mode 1280x1024 (or whatever resolution you’re using.)
You should re-bind your keys if you made special settings.
Do this, and the game will run 5,000 times better, and look 5,000 times better. Trust me - I just did it, and it worked for me. Many thanks to whoever it is that came up with this adjustment.
Argent,
Any word whether these optimized settings also have the same effect on the game running under Vista? I assume you’re running XP, but was wondering if anyone else on the forum said they helped under Vista.
Unfortunately, I think the many problems with Stalker running on Vista will not be helped by this adjustment. Other people on the forum reported no change, or even more problems, with Vista.
Dagnab it. This thread got me interested enough to go out and buy the game, only to learn that my machine’s page file size is currently inadequate for the task. No doubt there’s a simple solution, at least for people who know how to appease the magic lightning living inside the computer box. Good thing I know exactly what a page file is, he lied shamelessly.
My contraption appears to be offering me some helpful advice on how to resolve the problem, which is very thoughtful of it… too bad it’s in flippin’ GERMAN! Seriously, what the hell? “Die page datei ist deaktiviert…” Okay, something isn’t working somewhere, thank you so much for that. Sadly my smattering of German was acquired before the advent of the Information Age, and even then consisted mostly of profanity.