Clear Sky issues

[FourAces]

Please do not quote the whole message to reply to a single line. Thanks!


They have apparently pushed back the release date to around the 15th of Sept (15/9/2008). That should tell you how well this is being received, and how the Russian release was a Beta in disguise. That should mean that some of these issues will be fixed, but it also means that the release date will probably be pushed back even further. The official excuse is that they forgot to print the CD-Keys for the N.A. boxes. Right, and monkeys are going to fly out of my... There is no way to forget to print the cd-keys since it is their anti-piracy measure and random testing during the production would have caught this. That is why all manufacturers perform random testing. Nice try...

I Grabbed this from GSC's site when it was running for a few seconds today (colors added):
"3. On my Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 game runs in single core mode. It simply utilizes only one of two cores. Same problem we have with quad-core processors (tested it on QX9650). There are a 'swap file problem' that is still actual - on my 4Gb DDR2 5-5-5-12 and WinV 64bit, STALKER uses only 1.5Gb of RAM and 3Gb of swap file. And if you turn off swapping to swap file, the game won't run at all until your swap file is enabled and at least 3Gb. And there is a 'strangest-of-them-all' thing - on my ASUS 4850 512Mb CrossFire this game runs horrific (5-25 FPS) on 'Medium DX9' settings, but is 'good to play' (30-60 FPS) on 'High DX10' settings. Graphics quality and game performance sometimes depends on how (not as 'high' or 'low', but in what sequence) you will set your game detail level and texture filtering level and etc.
4. There are hundreds of quest bugs, performance bugs and gameplay bugs. Sometimes game crashes to desktop. Rarely game crashes to BSOD. And THIS IS OFFICIAL RELEASE with the latest patch installed!!!

p.s. The game was tested ~9 hours on:
ASUS P5Q Pro
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850/Core 2 Extreme QX9650
4Gb Corsair XMS2 5-5-5-12
ASUS HD4850 CrossFire
500Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 32Mb cache
22" Samsung SyncMaster 226bw 1680x1050"

This is not just a complaints thread, but also to post anything that might help those that have purchased the game. The fact that the sequence of settings is important and that BSODs are possible is information that any prospective player needs to have.

Cheers!

[FourAces]

More issues with the pre-Sept 5 patch which GSC has announced that they will be releasing.

These are still quotes from their site since it was not working all day, but seems to be fixed now. This saves you reading through the first 30 pages of the complaints thread.

Most complaints are repetitive. The largest complaint that was not made, that I could see, is the abandonment of realism. Stacking 10 mods into a weapon so that it can fire more accurately, doing more damage, with a smaller rounds at greater ranges? I think I have my first modding task.

Apparently SLI fails miserably, so do not try it (yet).

Spoiler:

But i catched really annoyng thing when i get to Red Forest and done all quests i tryed to enter Limansk...game crushed and ALL my saves crushed too...now when im loading save game crushes on deskop ((--this is the most annoyng bug wich make game uncompleteble, only few ppl completed game..i was not one of them ((

I really didn't get to spend enough time in DX10. The game crashed about every half hour for one reason or another with Vista. The patch may help but under the conditions I'm playing the game in, I can't use it. What's notable, albeit strange, is that on Vista in DX9 mode it seemed to perform better than in XP when it wasn't crashing. There are a lot of things that can be the reason for this but it's comforting that it still has a chance in Vista/DX10. Oh btw, there's some kind of bug where the game freaks out when you use an SLI setup in DX10. Not sure why.

i just found a glitch were if you shoot someone that usually plays a guitar fast enough and get to there body to search in about a second, they may have a guitar or pda in there inventory if you pick either of them up the game crashes.

Yea, and I forgot. Why not 3D sound? I hear the same for the rear speakers that by the front. Do you still hear dogs far away as if they be one metre of me? A sound is important, very important.

I got irritated with the way they managed to downgrade the capabilty of some guns damage rate- it takes sometimes 3-4 shoots in the head from "Vintores" (sniper riflle) to bring down the enemy

some bugs seems to migrated from old game (still have guys merging with the wall after they got shot down!! Shooting through the walls, etc. YOu've got to be kidding GSC! They could have corrected those! )

radio messages from the mates for help and when you start to run only to be canceled after you run like idiot from one end of the map to the other!

Villans do see you even through obstacles, can shoot like sharp-shooters through bushes! Now- interface: I did not like it at all- cannot doubleclick to transfer item, can you imagine dragging 500 bullets one by one ( I am still cursing every time)

I upgraded my armor to be able to carry 65 kilos, but with the load of 45 cannot even run

with an ATI 3870 max settings under Vista 32 net 10-15 FPS!

No iron sights on pistols, but there are on all other weapons.

On the whole like the game a lot, really nice at the high settings even though for me hardly playable- hope they correct it with the patch. Ran the game in WinXP- the same slow performance, even at the lower than in Vista setting. Plus it does not look as good, so I am sticking to Vista for now. I read at russian forum that they are plannig to release the 2nd patch about 5th off Sep., so hope they correct some of the major issues!

Real Requirements from Reviewers (Benchmarks coming soon)

Spoiler:

Minimal requirements:
- Windows XP (Service Pack 2)/Windows 2000 SP4
- Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz / AMD XP 2200+
- RAM: 512 MiByte
- 10 GByte free hard drive space
- 128 MiByte Direct X 8.0 compatible graphics card / Geforce 5700 / Radeon 9600

Recommended requirements:
- Windows XP (Service Pack 2)/Windows 2000 SP4
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 / AMD 64 X2 4200+-
- RAM: 1.5 GiByte
- 10 GByte free hard drive space
- 256 MiByte Direct X 9.0c compatible graphics card / GeForce 7900 / Radeon X1950

Optimal requirements:
- Windows XP (Service Pack 2)/Windows 2000 SP4
- Processor: Intel Core2 Duo E6700 / AMD 64 X2 5200+
- RAM: 2 GiByte
- 10 GByte free hard drive space
- 512 MiByte Direct X 9.0c compatible graphics card / GeForce 8800 / Radeon X2900

This should be the setting for the above IMHO

Extreme requirements:
- Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 required)
- Processor type: Intel Core2 Duo E8500 / AMD 64 X2 6000+
- RAM: 4 GiByte
- 10 GByte free hard drive space
- Direct X 10 compatible graphics card with 512 MiByte VRAM / Geforce 9800 GX2 / Radeon HD 3870 X2

[sasha]

how is modding a weapon unrealistic? swapping barrels, replacing parts, extended mags. oh boy.

[Kill_The_Strelok]

What are the weapon mods like? I think the complaint would be valid if a mod didn't have a drawback as well as a benefit. Like a smaller caliber should do less damage, a c-mag would give you a lot more ammo, but increase the gun's weight, make it a little less accurate, and make it more prone to jamming. stuff like that.

[sasha]

Originally Posted by Kill_The_Strelok

What are the weapon mods like? I think the complaint would be valid if a mod didn't have a drawback as well as a benefit. Like a smaller caliber should do less damage, a c-mag would give you a lot more ammo, but increase the gun's weight, make it a little less accurate, and make it more prone to jamming. stuff like that.

actually a loaded c-mag would make the weapon more accurate due to the weight.

[FourAces]

Originally Posted by sasha

how is modding a weapon unrealistic? swapping barrels, replacing parts, extended mags. oh boy.

Modding a weapon a few times is not. Slapping ten mods onto a weapon would be monstrous. I cannot even imagine how you could mod ten different parts of a weapon without getting very detailed. The barrel, firing mechanism, weights, muzzle (flash suppressor/silencer), clip, scope are the basics, and Grenade Launcher for some rifles.

I am not saying the idea of weapon mods is bad, just that they went overboard (if 10 is allowable for all). I am sure it is moddable thought, so it can be 'fixed'.

One description was a weapon that used a smaller rounds at higher accuracy (a given), but with longer ranges and doing more damage. If you increased the barrel length you could theoretically get a similar range, but longer? Doing more damage is right out. I can imagine seeing SMGs converted into assualt rifles, but being held in one hand due to their SMG classifications. I just hope the incorporated the ability to take a mod off a weapon you find and use its part(s) on one of your weapons.


Update: The NA (not sure about EU) CS release date has been delayed even further to Sept. 29, 2008. This is of course subject to change, since this is the third delay. Once again, it is better patched and working than crashing all the time. Please post anything that you find that might help those who already have it, such as the proper way to configure the graphical settings (which order). Thanks!

[Soul_purifier]

Originally Posted by FourAces

Please do not quote the whole message to reply to a single line. Thanks!


They have apparently pushed back the release date to around the 15th of Sept (15/9/2008). That should tell you how well this is being received, and how the Russian release was a Beta in disguise. That should mean that some of these issues will be fixed, but it also means that the release date will probably be pushed back even further. The official excuse is that they forgot to print the CD-Keys for the N.A. boxes. Right, and monkeys are going to fly out of my... There is no way to forget to print the cd-keys since it is their anti-piracy measure and random testing during the production would have caught this. That is why all manufacturers perform random testing. Nice try...

I Grabbed this from GSC's site when it was running for a few seconds today (colors added):
"3. On my Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 game runs in single core mode. It simply utilizes only one of two cores. Same problem we have with quad-core processors (tested it on QX9650). There are a 'swap file problem' that is still actual - on my 4Gb DDR2 5-5-5-12 and WinV 64bit, STALKER uses only 1.5Gb of RAM and 3Gb of swap file. And if you turn off swapping to swap file, the game won't run at all until your swap file is enabled and at least 3Gb. And there is a 'strangest-of-them-all' thing - on my ASUS 4850 512Mb CrossFire this game runs horrific (5-25 FPS) on 'Medium DX9' settings, but is 'good to play' (30-60 FPS) on 'High DX10' settings. Graphics quality and game performance sometimes depends on how (not as 'high' or 'low', but in what sequence) you will set your game detail level and texture filtering level and etc.
4. There are hundreds of quest bugs, performance bugs and gameplay bugs. Sometimes game crashes to desktop. Rarely game crashes to BSOD. And THIS IS OFFICIAL RELEASE with the latest patch installed!!!

p.s. The game was tested ~9 hours on:
ASUS P5Q Pro
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850/Core 2 Extreme QX9650
4Gb Corsair XMS2 5-5-5-12
ASUS HD4850 CrossFire
500Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 32Mb cache
22" Samsung SyncMaster 226bw 1680x1050"

This is not just a complaints thread, but also to post anything that might help those that have purchased the game. The fact that the sequence of settings is important and that BSODs are possible is information that any prospective player needs to have.

Cheers!

I know it's shitty isn't it?

HOLY SHIT MAN DID THEY DELAY THE RELASE TO 29th?!?! FUCK FUC KFUCK.

[Kidslovesatan]

Originally Posted by FourAces

22" Samsung SyncMaster 226bw 1680x1050"

Did you have any issues with the ironsights not lining up with the the cross hairs at that resolution? I have a SyncMaster 223BW and at the max resolution the ironsight is off.

[FourAces]

Originally Posted by Kidslovesatan

Did you have any issues with the ironsights not lining up with the the cross hairs at that resolution? I have a SyncMaster 223BW and at the max resolution the ironsight is off.

Sorry, but I was just quoting a thread from GSC.com since their site is down half the time. I have been trying to get onto it for about 5 hours now, and have not been able to. Did you try enabling V-Sync? If that does not work, then drop it down to 1280x800 and let me know if it is still misaligned. I cannot hit 1680x1050, but I can do 1280x800, so I could add it to the list of things to do when I get it on the 29th. If you have any other issues with it, or have any info on how to get it running properly let us know. Thanks!

[Kidslovesatan]

Originally Posted by FourAces

Sorry, but I was just quoting a thread from GSC.com since their site is down half the time. I have been trying to get onto it for about 5 hours now, and have not been able to. Did you try enabling V-Sync? If that does not work, then drop it down to 1280x800 and let me know if it is still misaligned. I cannot hit 1680x1050, but I can do 1280x800, so I could add it to the list of things to do when I get it on the 29th. If you have any other issues with it, or have any info on how to get it running properly let us know. Thanks!

The V-Sync had no effect. I also get misalignment on 1280x800, its most noticeable on the Viper 5 as the ironsight is quite a bit down and slightly right to where the cross hair dot comes in un-zoomed. However neither 1280x1024 or 1024x768 is suffering misalignment. BTW scaling is switched off.