S.T.A.L.K.E.R

[ezeht]

hi

stalker was 7years in the making. it was made originally for dx8 static lighting. you do not really notice a lot of difference.. with static lighting you can see your shadow and water looks right.. 7years and it was still cut up and incomplete and put out early and messed up and still is over a year later.. oh ya. dx9 was out near 3 years before stalker came to market and the last nvidia drivers had been out a year before stalker came to market. stalker was still and still is all messed up. i could play it high settings and dynamic lighting and no lag even with my bfg 7800gtoc. you might have to lower a slider or 2.. but to record it i had to drop to static lighting. but i gain clear water and could see my shadow. looks good in videos. with a high end system and least 2gigs of memory you should have no lag. maybe your vid card is forcing both aa and af. or your shadows slider is set to high. dynamic.. i ran light distance a lil over half way and shadows right at half or a lil less.. it plays smooth for me.

i would wait until clear sky is on sale. i have no faith in gsc doing the right thing. they are incompetent and inconsistent period..

its 7 endings to stalker.. skill settings dont mater. but you do have to do certain things per different ending..>

There are a total of seven endings in STALKER. Five of them are Wishgranter endings, usually resulting in a
full body explosion (you die). If you want to see the different endings in the game, you actually need to micro-
manage how you play the game right from the start, since that determines values for the fake endings.

''I want to be rich'' -- Requirement: Have a total of 5O,OOO or more rubles when meeting the Wishgranter. Most
players will probably get this ending if they start selling artifacts and unused weapons to the traders. Without
trying, you can probably amass several hundred thousand just incidentally selling items. If you need to, buy
several expensive suits and armors to reduce your money, and destroy the items by stashing them on corpses,
then leaving that map.

''I want the Zone to disappear'' -- Requirement: Achieve a rank of top stalker (requires 1OOO rank points) when
meeting the Wishgranter. This is an easy feat if you start exploring the game thoroughly. Rank points are earned
by completing side jobs, main jobs, and eliminating enemies. Check your ranking on the PDA to see where you
stand. The PDA will give you a point system to follow as well. Completing many missions and requests, as well as
killing many experienced stalkers will up your score immensely.

''I want to rule the world'' -- Requirement: Lukash and Voronin are both dead before reaching the Wishgranter. The
leaders of the Freedom and Duty factions must be killed for this to occur (not sure if this is superseded by having
too much money). Killing Lukash is fairly easy; several grenades in that small room should do the trick (you should
silently kill the two guys downstairs first). Killing Voronin is a bit more difficult, since there're more people in Rostok
and the medium range streets give the A.I. the advantage; however, if you start whacking people in the city, you
should be able to pretty much work your road of death to the Duty base and level it.

''I want mankind to be controlled'' -- Requirement: Get a rotten stalker rating by getting a high negative rank score
when meeting the Wishgranter. This is a harder ending than it sounds, since killing NPCs will increase your score.
What you need to do is to start failing missions (apart from the half dozen you need to do to get to Chernobyl). You
don't want to get the decoder (increases score), so you might want to make a new save or play a new game just to
see this ending. If you take on side jobs and then proceed to refuse to do it, you can lower your score greatly at
each trader or mission giving NPC. Not sure, but some people maintain you need negative 1OOO rank points to get
this one!

''I want to be immortal'' -- Requirement: Do not have any of the above requirements fulfilled by the time you meet the
Wishgranter. This is meant to be the default ending, which you can find annoyingly hard to get if you start to drop a
lot of the Monolith butt wads in the base. Have a score in the low hundreds (about 500) so wiping out the 40
Monolith soldiers inside the NPP should not increase your ranking appreciably. The high ranking of the soldiers at
the NPP is what contributes greatly to your stalker score.

''One of the C-mind'' -- Requirement: Take the door decoder in Pripyat and meet the C-mind in the secret lab.
Joining the C-mind will put Strelok in a Matrix coffin (made in Russia) and end the game. Do this if you like the Borg,
being assimilated, or generally hate being your own man in an ideal republic.

''Make your own future'' -- Requirement: Take the door decoder in Pripyat and meet the C-mind in the secret lab.
Refuse the C-mind and you have to fight through the Monolith soldiers guarding their masters' cryo-coffins. This is
the best ending of the game, depsite what you (or pther people) may think otherwise.

good luck see ya

[Bannik]

Well thanks for the info on the extra endings, but apart from the inability to use anything other than basic lighting, I have no other problems with the game what-so-ever, except for the occasional NPC falling through the floor once I've killed him so I can't search his corpse, GRR!

I run Vista 64-bit and a Dual Core CPU, both of which S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is said not to support without issues other than what I've explained above.

I have read a lot of complaints about the game, Mr Chris posted a link to the Abit Forums in which, at first they praised the game (before they bought and played it) and then completely blasted it once they actually bought it and played it, I know a lot of people have had problems, but this happens sometimes.

Same thing happened with F.E.A.R., when it first came out, people were like:

"Hey, what gives, my PC is top of the line and can run Half Life 2 and Doom 3 on maximum settings with no issues, this sucks!" but what they needed to remember was that F.E.A.R. wasn't Half Life 2 or Doom 3, it was a completely new game and they made a bit of a mess, but it was popular none the less and prompted many sequels plus console releases.

I will buy S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky regardless of the complaints I read about it, because it will still be a good game to play.

[ezeht]

what patch are you using. patches 10004 and 10005 is the best. id say 10004 best and more mod options. but they was supposed to help with multi core support. im not sure about xp64.. i know the 320mb 88 cards was supposed to get a boost from drivers.

good luck see ya

[Bannik]

Patch 10005 of course, latest Patch, I thought it would fix something, my bad and I'm not really interested in Modding, I think the game has a sound concept as it is.

Anyway, XP 64-bit I don't care for, lack of support and drivers, I run Vista 64-bit.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it said not to support Vista at all, let alone the 64-bit versions and it is said to have numerous problems with Dual and Quad Cores, none of which I have experienced I'm pleased to say.

The 8800 GTS 320Mb runs the game quite well, not sure how it will handle Clear Sky, but I was planning an upgrade soon, at first to a GTX 280, but they're too expensive, so now I'm thinking a GTX 260 instead.

I think we can write off S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl now, I don't think they'll release anymore Patches for it, I think instead they will concentrate on Clear Sky and cut their losses, which is a shame for those people who thought the first game had a lot of potential but then couldn't play it.

[ezeht]

ya thq dropped gsc and stalker like a hot rock. id guess steam will in the future. thq did quality control on patches etc. thq should have never released the first patch. and gsc gave them hell for holding up the patches. well they was junk and broke as much as they was supposed to to fix. and thq was doing its job. but gave in .gsc passes the buck. its all thq fault stalker is a poor made game.. thq said hell with them and dropped them..

i really doubt steam will put up with any garbage at all out of them..and again id wait until clear sky is on sale and had a patch or 2. or id feel extra stupid if clear sky was even more bugged out then stalker ever was.. its just common sense stuff for me. and gsc wants something for nothing.. free working moders to fix its junk.

see ya

[Mr. Chris]

Bannik, I really like my new GTX260, but to be honest, it's not much better than my 9800GTX was. It's also huge and weighs a lot. Actually my 8800GT 512 G92 core was a nice card. There's a lot of options out there right now, including ATI (which for my own reasons I won't buy). Great bargains everywhere.

If you do get a GTX260, if you get the EVGA card, you can trade up within 90 days to the GTX280.

As for Stalker, I never really got into the game. Too mush busy work. I'm more of a run and gun person, too much thinking to play a game takes all the fun out of it.

I'm addicted to that damn ET:QW play it most every day. Anyways, have fun at whatever you play is all I can say. Chris.

[Bannik]

Yeah, I don't know what to do graphics wise, I might wait for the next generation of nVidia cards (don't want to buy ATI) and just upgrade my CPU to the Q6600 instead.

The GTX 260 looks nice, I was thinking of the BFG GeForce GTX 260 OCX actually, slightly cheaper than the EVGA card, the 280's are just too expensive.

When I built this system I was hoping to put an 8800 GTX into it but I couldn't with my budget, in fact I'm sure that if I could have obtained an 8800 GTX within my budget, I would not be seeking to upgrade it now, it's just because my 320Mb 8800 GTS is beginning to struggle, especially on Vista 64-bit.

There's no point in upgrading to another card in the same generation, that would just be a waste of money, instead I was going to go for the latest generation, I was thinking the 260 because they are cheaper and because, well, I have gone for the second best card in a generation before (8800 GTS instead of 8800 GTX) so now second card in this generation, hence the GTX 260.

It needs more thought, thanks Chris.

[ezeht]

i think from what i read. you really need a 7850 or 790 mobo and even ddr3 to really get full use from them vid cards. and the 9800 on up have the added features of low power management and hybrid sli. the mobos that have the 88 chip. the on board runs normal graphics. surfing etc. if you start gaming the 98 etc kicks in.

id like to see nvid perfect the ageia to work on the vid cards or said g92 chips on up.. im not sure but i read they can do it for other gpu's and ati etc. but they have it for the 26 and 28 but i think its buggy or mostly for ut3 or something.. but the g92 is the 88gt on after.. the first 88's was the g80. i think the 82-86 was a g82. i think i remember right.

i will only buy nvid and only from the top 3 because of the life time warranties. i will pay a lil extra for the lifetime warranty. and they seem to knock ati out of the box since the 88 came out. and i dont have to worry about drivers every month.

[Mr. Chris]

Antoher thing that I found out last night thanks to a friend that did a little digging, the only advantage that a GTX280 has over the GTX260 is if you want Uber high resolutions or are planning on a BIG widescreen. Otherwise, the 280 is a waste of money.

My flattie is only a 20" and highest res I run is 1600 x 1200 so I'll just stick with the 260. It is a really nice card for what I paid. $319 after rebate free shipping.

The new nVidia chipset boards do look interesting but I would never use the Hybrid SLI feature because all my high end nVidia cards run the new Folding @ Home GPU client. So they run at 100% 24/7. I do have to shut the client down for gaming but otherwise these cards are work horses. Chris.

[Bannik]

My Motherboard is fine, the only problem with my graphics card is with it's lack of memory really, the 640Mb cards perform better, I've seen it.

All I want to do is upgrade my E6600 to a Q6600 and my 8800 GTS to a GTX 260 and I'll be set, with the 260 I don't need to upgrade my PSU or anything else and with the CPU, all that is needed is a BIOS update.