Stalker

[Dr.Jeckyl]

having a weight limit and consequences to being overloaded is alo a welcomed reality. i'm constantly battling myself on what to keep or drop. i do have almost 2000 pistol rounds which could be a problem.

[MONOLITH]

So I started checking it out this morning.

Graphics are better than I had anticipated. The gameplay seems to be sort of Oblivion, but in a horror setting.

I have to say though, seems unstable as hell. It's locked up on me several times this morning.  Nothing to do with graphics, seems ot be my CPU. Still on a Intel P4 2.4.

Surpasses the minimums, but reccomended is a Dual Core.

I'll keep trying though.

[Dr.Jeckyl]

increase your pagefile MONO. that worked for me.

[MONOLITH]

Yeah, I actually did that.

When it did the install, the first time you start it up it gives you that system check, it said my paging file was an issue, even though my paging file was up to 1543 mb.

I bumped it up to 2000mb on two different drives (4000 total).

Still locked up on me.

Seems to happen whenever an AI change kicks in. For example, in the beginning you meet up with two dogs near that bridge underpass. When the dogs are just milling around doing their thing, no problem. As soon as they see me and start to attack, my cpu locks up just as it has to calculate what the AI has to do next.

It also happens when you met up woth Wolf's boys and go to clear out the bandits at that first location. All the AI NPC characters interacting with each other seems to lock me up too.


What is your paging file set too?   Maybe my hard drive is too slow to feed enough data , regardless of my page file size.

This is sucking because I think I could really get into this game.

[Dr.Jeckyl]

2300 only on c drive. tis a shame if you can't get this going. i too think you'd really enjoy this one.

[shiver]

Hey Mono,
 How much ram do you have on that machine ? Evidently it's not enough whatever it is,
but I'm just curious as to whether I might need to add more to play this.

[MONOLITH]

Another example... Still in the very beginning, when you first leave the beginning village to meet wolfs men. You come across the two stalkers on the ground on the left, one's dead, the other needs the dead guys medkit.

As I was walking up the road, as soon as the injure stalkers Ai was triggered (by my walking up the road), it locked up.

Like I said, I even have a large paging file on the drive where the game is installed. Still no go.


Shiver... I have 1 gig ram. My aging Dell Dimension 4550 won't hold more than that. I guess that could be it as well.


Oh well. An excuse to start building that new rig.

[shiver]

I might be able to squeak by, but another gig of ram sure wouldn't hurt.

[Dr.Jeckyl]

@MONO: give this a try. run this app before you fire up STALKER. don't worry, i use it all the time and it's kosher. what it does is shuts down all running programs that are not essential ie: anything other than anti-virus and firewall software. if you are unsure of your security, disable your internet before you run the app. before you resume normal computer activities you can reboot and everything should turn back on as normal.

click the double X icon and not the double skull icon:

[MONOLITH]

Cool App Doc. I'll give it a try tonight and report back.  

Thanks.

[deadsanchez]

i've had that happen a few times. I'm thinking its something harddrive related, it may be too full at the moment.

[Dr.Jeckyl]

also MONO, have you tried the patch?

wait on this... i just got an error saying my saved game is corrupt from the patch.... will investigate.

.... yup, according to the patch readme your saved games are not compatible with the new patch. lucky for you MONO since you're not too far into it.

back up these files just in case you decide to patch anyways and then change your mind.
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\STALKER-SHOC\savedgames

i'm reinstalling now and will report back if mine still work.

[Dr.Jeckyl]

side note: if i can play without too much issue any modern box should be able also.

[Dr.Jeckyl]

i'm reinstalling now and will report back if mine still work.

mine work again.

[MONOLITH]

Damn Doc, on your specs, you're right, I should be able to play it.

One thing someone told me to try was use the default install location (C drive). I have mine on a seperate drive. But that's how I do all my games and never had a problem before.

At the same time, the same person told me he's also having CPU loading issues with a 3.4 ghz HT. So who knows what the heck is going on.

Your 3gig paging file, is tha on the same drive as the game install? Maybe I should try that.


Oh, and I'm playing with the patch.

[MONOLITH]

Oh, I tried that APP last night. The App works great and i will use it when I'm gaming for sure, but it didn't help with STALKER.

In fact, last night the game locked up the minute I walked out of that first cellar and headed towards the first group of guys you encounter.