NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked Support and Gameplay

[Nightwatch]

Alright, Rock. It needs to be done on the web structure. I'll get to it as soon as I've got some dinner and swallowed two aspirins, heh he, winter winds have started to bite here.

DONE!

[Component Actual]

Component Actual
First of all, you must not delete the entire textures folder. As this mod is not a mini mod that only changes a couple of elements in the vanilla game, but it comes as a full-add-on and it offers so many things that vanilla does not have; and naturally those things come with their textures. Therefore, if you delete the textures folder, then when the game tries to spawn those things it can't find their textures, so it crashes.

secondly, this mod uses Sky Graphics textures, you say you have used them before. Also this mod provides superb graphics as available to be seen on "Player Pictures from the game" on NEWSA site -Players Corner- and also videos available on the Utube.

Anyway, I wouldn't try to refute that your PC is having a problem and that you don't seem to be happy about it. OK, let's try this, delete textures\grnd folder (only the grnd folder, not the whole texture folder. "grnd" folder contains highly enhanced a few ground-grass textures. The game will automatically start using vanilla textures in place of those. Rest of the grass and ground textures, a great majority of it are still vanilla anyway.
But, it's important to note here that other textures from other texture folders cannot be picked and deleted with the same ease.

If you still have problems on your PC, you may try to delete the shaders folder as well, but do this as a secondary measure please.

But, before all these, I would recommend that you delete your gamedata folder, reinstall the mod -but do not install the "Mid_ResolutionPC InventoryHelp" patch, because your PC, with those specs as you put them so, should not need this patch. Try like that once, and if you're still not happy, then proceed with the above.

Hope you'll enjoy your gameplay.

Thank you again putting so much interest and effort towards this mod.

Thanks for the suggestions, but I found the problem. Well for me anyway. I have a GTX 480 with the 260.89 Nvideo Geforce WHQL driver or what not, and was running the game with full dynamic lighting (dx9) and all in game video settings maxed out except for Antialiasing, which I left disabled (slider bar all the way to the left).

In the Nvidia Control Panel I had Ambient Occlusion set ot Performance mode, Anisotropic Filtering set to Application controllled (x16), Antialiasing set to Application controlled (off), Antialiasing Gamma correction set to On, and Antialiasing Transparency set to On.

After messing with these features a little bit I found that the Antialiasing Trransparency setting is what was causing the black polygons around the grass/foliage models. I guess thats what the grass is since it can cast a shaddow, a model. Anyway after turning the antialiasing transparency setting off I seee no more goofy black polygons.

I am about to download the new 260.99 nvidia driver and test to see if the AA transparency setting still causes this problem, and will post update sometime within next 12 hours.

OH by the way, best mod I have played for Stalker SOC. Although too difficult for me me had to go down to Horror Lite, which worries me that I am missing out on something because of the extra 35mb that it takes to install the Extreme version. Am I missing a substantial amount content by playig on this easier difficulty?

[Component Actual]

Well I didn't have a chance yet to see if Transparency Antialiasing still causes the black polygons around grass with the new 260.99 driver as, I was just too anxious to play the game. And I must say it is awesome. The gun battles and the sheer amount of enemies is just incredible, this mod will be sure to keep me buzy and very interested in STALKER for some time to come. I am playing on novice with the Horror Lite installation. Followed instructions to the T, and now I am running into a new problem. It seems that much of the text dialoge that was added to the game by the mod isn't working correctly. For instance look at the picture below:

http://cid-43924233190b3164.office.live.com/embedphoto.aspx/.Public/Dialogs%20missing.jpg

(click on this link and it will take you to a blank page with nothing but the picture, which just so happens to also be a hyperlink to the Public Skydrive folder whee I store the image, if you have a Windows Live ID or Hotmail Account you can leave comments on that page and or see my email address and send me Windows Messenger friend request and the such and we can share files, such a config files and the such very easily through the Windows live service. I suggest everyone check it out, I think it may even be able possible to host the mod in one of these public folder since I am allowed 25GB of storage space with the free acccount. I don't know what the file size restrictions are but we could break it down into smaller downloads need be. Anyway Im way off topic now, but if anyone has any suggestions with these dialogs please help me out. Thanks



When speaking with any number of NPC's at the Cordon Base I have as one of my dialogue options, "actor_need_help_dialog_0" or where the final "0" in that sequence may be a 10, 101, 1010, 10100, or 10105. This does not seem correct as no one would speak in such a way in any language, and could not be the result of a sort lost in translation meaning sort of thing either. It looks more like the game is actually displaying the reference code for a particular dialog instead of the actual dialogue itself.

Has anyone else run into this, and more importantly does anyone know how to fix it.

It is not only these actor_need_help_dialog..'s either, there seem to be many other like that. Like when I give Tolik a first aid kit when he is injured outside the Loner Base in Cordon, right before the helicopter attacks you, I spoke with him and he had quite a few lines that looked similar to these but not the same. Clicking on one, actually opened up some sort of side quest or somethigng to do with the ARMY outpost, as the word "ARMY" in big beige letters appeared at the top of my screen.

Any help would be appreciated, and I look forward to returning such favors once I know my way around this mod a little better.

[Nightwatch]

Hi Component Actual, thanks for the detailed info as a recovery guide for the visual problems (that you've found out to be ) originating from Nvidia driver/card. Great help, thanks.

Also, thanks for the praises you offer for the mod. Glad to see that you enjoy it.

As I'm on mobile phone connection (it was difficult to establish, mobile networks have problems today I guess) I can't get too much into the details right now, and I'll be back in an hour or so for more details on the subject, but for now, I would recommend that you later try "Extreme" mode as well. Because , once you've played the mod, then there's not too great difference in difficulty levels between the modes. (there's of course, but, after playing it once, player gets the ways around) And because, Extreme mode offers significant changes and additions to the game, from missions and therefore weapons distribution/allocation to new APC and Heli involvement, all of the added elements play on different, custom to the mode, scripts; etc.


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That dialogs on the picture surely not correct. Must be a glitch. I guess you said that you'd made sure that there was no contamination from other mods. it's not known to happen; I don't remember that this kind of glitch has been reported before, but in PC games there's no impossibility for anything. I'll come back to it later.

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EDIT //continuation:

Yes, on the dialogs symptoms, going through the textbook, the first advice would be to delete the gamedata and reinstall the mod on the same chosen mode. (say, if playing Horror-Lite, then Horror-Lite needs to be installed. Otherwise game either does not play at all or the new game containing on the saves from another mode do not respond well, at best -depending on the difference between the modes. In short, new playing mode= start a new game.
BTW, gamedata needs to be fully deleted before changing the mode of the mod. Installer is simply, it does not clean; it just copies all the mod files to the game directory safely and in orderly fashion.
It seems, XML engine doesn't respond fluently to the demands. There could be many reasons, ranging from even a slight intervention from some other processes, services, drivers, to hardware incompatibility with Xray (it surely does not mean the hardware could be inferior, no, even very high spec ones -as you witnessed on your Top Nvidia Card matter- can develop some incompatibilities; hard to judge and spot.

---
Back to the Extreme mode: yes, traders lists change, on top of their dynamic adjustments to your in-game progress, in extreme mode, you find rather different supplies at the traders than what are found in the other modes.
Many games apply a very simple rule when offering a Hard/hardcore, etc, mode of their game: Increase the resistance of the enemies while reducing the player's; and, less ammo/less medkits! Few games offer serious "gameplay" changes that would make the game a different and more challenging experience. This is the path that I chose.

Web site gives some documentation on the matter to an extent, but another short reminder here: Bullet ballistics have been recalculated to reflect true or near-true dynamics of bullets, not only "in-flight" (which takes into account of gravitational force as well) but also their impact values, too.

More enemies, better armed, more creatures, a new bloodsucker version, etc; New heli/APC positions, which run on hellish-aggressive and intelligent custom scripts designed for this mode (Extreme) ; and whole lots of other things. Check the website, it'll be too long to continue here.

[Grump642]

If I can help with the problem of non-spawning snipers in Pripyat, drop me an e-mail. I use patch version 05. If I have the same problem this play-through, I may try re-installing using patch 04 and see if that makes a difference. Plus I found a very good spas_shoot sound I may add in. Just for the Newsa super shotgun.

[Nightwatch]

Thanks, Grump Good to know, I'll keep that in mind. As I mentioned to you earlier, I've found a way-around that should stop/bypass the game's dropping of an info-portion in RF section on some PCs -reasons not fully established- which then, when entered Pripyat through RF as normal, causes that "Snipers-Alley first wave Monolith" sometimes fails to spawn. But on my PC as seen on Utube videos all go so smoothly.
However, I've found another PC that mimics the symptom and now I'm testing this new solution on it. It may take a few weeks to be honest, as the hours that I can spare for modding is a bit limited currently; home, job, family, name a few.

Great news for the Sound that you found for NEWSA auto-shotgun. Send it to me at your convenience please. I've already implemented two sound files from you for another two NEWSA weapons, Groze_NT silencer sound and Nite-1-SP (Desert Eagle modified). Sound files incorporated into the game under your files names.

[Component Actual]

Well I found a problem that could end up being the solution to some of my other problems. Let me explain... In my user.ltx file the top line is "_preset Extreme" but I am playing the lite game mode. How do I go about fixing this? Do I need a new user.ltx file or do I just need to change the preset line? What should that line say for the horror lite version?

[Nightwatch]

Good investigating skills, but I have to disappoint you in this; just ignore it, it's not related to the "mode" of the mod that you're playing. It's your chosen game settings, machine-wise. Everything alright there.

[Component Actual]

Okay, well I uninstalled Stalker and deleted the Gamedata folder, the the Stalker-SHOC folder in public documents file, and reinstalled STALKER, redownloaded Newsa, repatched to 1.004, and reinstalled the Mod, this time using the Extreme mode, as that seems to be the most popular. And still have the exact same problem with the "need help" dialogs. Another problem I am having is that whenever I talk with an NPC half the dialog is in russian and the other half is in English. Like at the very beginning of the game when Marked One is in the Bunker talking to the Trader and the Trader asks him to find an Artifact for him, them Marked One asks where to look the Trader will say somethin like,

"It was seen near (&*()&))(%% car park if &*#$(&@__"

Where all the symbols represent russian text, I will upload a picture when I get a chance.

Another thing I encountered which seemed a bit strange is that when the weather cycles change they do so very abruptly, it will go from raining to perfect cloudless sky with sunshine in a split second and vice versa, is this how it works for everyone?

[Nightwatch]

Congratulations on your in-game promotion, to the Extreme mode. With this "mode" of NEWSA.SIMBION_T , STALKER becomes one of the most challenging games around.
Now the answers:
Firstly, yeah, weather patterns are like that, dynamic weathers, reflecting the havoc occurred in the balance of the natural climate in the affected area that we call the Zone.

Secondly, although there are still a few Russian text remaining in the 830 Mb size mod (and hopefully will be able to sort of the last of the translations with next upgrade) , however, when you happen to notice them, they come as full lines, not as of half of line in Russian and the other half of in English. As naturally, as you'd agree, a sentence is either translated or not, it's rather very difficult to translate half of the sentence and then leaving the other half of it in the original language, be that Russian, or French or German in that effect. So, as I know the files, it's certainly the case that there is something stifling your XML process. Try the game on another computer, I'd recommend, if there's any such possibility exist; like other friends, or another family member's PC, etc. There could be a kind of incompatibility of the CPU cores with STALKER, a certain delay in one or two of them when dealing with STALKER engine? (that does not mean they are normally slow. STALKER is demanding and slowing down various processes in the game and this mod makes it even much heavier to handle.) There may be cases that some instructions are being abandoned if the response/dialog was not received in time. Difficult to judge from here.
When I upgraded from single core to dual-core on VISTA, spawnings (modded or non-modded game) became so slow, you could go and brew a cup of tea while waiting. Then upgraded again, Quad-Core on Windows 7 64, now everything is like a dream. Sometimes cores and STALKER do not quite play ball. Some other PC, even if a lower specs one, may provide a better experience.

[Component Actual]

Okay thanks for the info, I guess what I will do is first try disabling hyperthreading in my system BIOS, and if that does not help, I will disable multi-threading via the Nvidia control panel so that the game should only be processed by a single core. I understand the weather should be dynamic, but what I am talking about is in a single second going from full thunderstorm to perfect sunny day conditions. It seems like there should be some sort of transition from one weather state to the other like it stops raining first then the clouds start dissappear as things slowly brighten up until the full sunny state is achieved, maybe taking a minute or two in real time. But from what I have read about this mod it seems that it is possible that the mod can sometimes give the engine more instructions than it is really set-up to process, and when you combine that with the fact that I have a pretty extreme CPU setup that I have overclocked as well it may be that my system is just running through the instruction sets too fast and thus instead of getting a transition I get a switch, if that makes sense. (do you know if the weather transition scripts are synchronized to the processor's clock cycles or in game time?) if it is the former I may need to take my processsor back down to stock speeds, but I think I will continue to overclock my graphics card as I really like maxing out the graphics of the game and soaking in the beauty of the zone, and I can't do that at the card stock speeds without experiencing stuterring, and I dont think that should interfere with game too much. [I hope i don't sound snobby when I brag about my computer, but it really is my pride and joy and trust me its the only Ferrari so to speak in my life, lol]

I have multiple harddrives on my computer, and have made several backups of the game directory, and have recently been experimenting with playing from one directory that is patched to 1.0004 and from another patched to 1.0005 and storing the "STALKER-SHOC" files in with that installations directory until I am ready to play it so that they don't share the same "STALKER-SHOC\saved games & user.ltx" files and what not, as I figured that would be a recipe for disaster, but I was wondering if their were any other files that two seperate STALKER directories may be sharring, that may be causing my problems.

In essence I guess what I am aking is if one wanted to do a complete manual uninstall of STALKER what all files would need to be deleted? All that I know of is the program files\THQ\Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl directory and the public douments\Stalker-SHOC files, is there anything else?

[Nightwatch]

Good points; but on the double installation of STALKER, I wouldn't recommend that, no matter you separate their respective files and folders/addresses, it's still risky as registry is also involved.
your route for the full manual uninstallation of STALKER is quite alright. Some registry search may also involve, but unless one is very experienced in this (then they wouldn't ask anyway) I would not recommend as it can cripple your PC or makes even unbootable.

Weather... yes it works like that. Sudden, unannounced weather changes to the extreme. No soft transition. One of the visions behind this mod. (this is one hard core rebellious weather. )


PS: a note, if I may; keep your V-sync is ON.
Reason?
Here I'm talking on general approach, not for your case in any way:
In contrast to some belief, having a higher rate FPS than the refresh rate of your monitor is prone to problems. The resulting problem is called "Tearing Effect" and people say and try all sorts of things on it without realizing the simple cause of problem in front of them, which is their our doing. For anyone, having a piping hot Graphic Card, which produces "very high quality images" is one thing (and very enviable) but having a situation in which the Graphics Card produces MORE frames than the monitor opens the door and accepts for every given second is quite a different thing.
In a very simplistic example: Say, monitor refreshes 60, and graphics card pumps/draws 90 frames per second. Then what? When the monitor refreshes the second time, it has already missed the third of the drawn frames and now the Card -at the time that the monitor opens the door and accepts new frames- drawing frames some further away in procession for the monitor. Then comes the so-called "tearing effect" Monitor rate and Card frame rates must syncs.
All manufactures advice that V-sync should be kept enabled unless the player tries bench-marking to test his card's maximum abilities, not necessarily the the quality of the game.

[Component Actual]

Thanks for the advice on the multiple installs, I am betting that is probably what is skrewing things up. And I have installed and uninstalled so many times now, there is no telling what may be going on. I have a dual boot system with XP 32bit and Windows 7 64bit, I guess I will try a single install in the XP partition and see if that clears up my issues. (I hardly ever use the XP partition so it should be clean) A note on the weather system though, yesterday I did a repair install of Windows 7 64bit because, I was having issues with internet explorer and a few other things, any way after the repair installation it seems the weather does now seem to transition more, and less of the sudden change. And before I only saw two weather states sunny or raining, and now I see thunderstorms, as well, and have experienced my first night. I think something was wrong before because it never became night time, the weather as it is working now feels much more immersive and enemy spawning and AI seems to be working better as well. The only problem I am still really experiencing is the mixed english with russian dialogue and the actor_needs_help_ dialogues. And well, to be honest with you I may just play through the game like this, as I can still get the basic drift of what they are saying when the mixed russian lines come up, but most of the dialogue is still in english, except for the news updates those are all half english half russian.

Oh yeah, after the repair install of windows 7 the game kept crash to the desktop when I launched it, then by accident I happend to close MSI After Burner and there was no problem after that. It use to work without crashing the game but not anymore, don't know whats up with that, but it makes me suspect it could have been causing prolems before, an I just didn't know it. So if anyone else uses MSI After Burner and are having problems I would try turning it off.

But man dude I really gota commend you and anyone else who participated in the makings of this mod, I have been searching for the best for quite some time, and this one is really the pinnacle of achievement in my opinion anyway. I guess its because it takes all the best features from the best mods then adds to them, that it is so good. But I really just love how much more action there is now. What use to be just a big long run accross an open field, is now zig zag through anomalies, which may or may not chase you, zombies and monsters plunging towards you, and bandits or soldiers shooting at you from covered positions. Oh yeah and the freakin helicopters circling around overhead! It is so intense that I feel like I am really there. Where before I was just going from point A to point B to complete a task, now I feel like I am really in the zone struggling to survive, as I inch my way further into the zone.

[Nightwatch]

You've been very thorough with your PC as it seems, and the positive results show it. Congratulations.
All those tips and warnings towards reaching a better running game must be kept handy as reference; it should be included in the new "Problems and Solutions" thread as well, at the first available instance.

Also, I'm happy to see that you are enjoying the mod. It's a grand mod which is a tribute to the wisdoms of many grand mods and modders.

[rockingmtranch]

All those tips and warnings towards reaching a better running game must be kept handy as reference; it should be included in the new "Problems and Solutions" thread as well, at the first available instance.

This one is a bit tricky to dissect.

[Nightwatch]

Yeah, true, I was meaning that maybe Component Actual might want to post a cumulative solutions for the problems arising from some new hardware/software in that new thread.

[Component Actual]

Okay I will do that as soon as I get a chance, but I can't verify that the problems I am experiencceg and the solutions I have find to them will hold true for everyone, these could be phenomena particular to my specific setup.

On the Antialiasing Transparency issue, I have done some more testing and it seems the problem is dependent upon what level Antialiasing as a whole you choose and what level of Antialiasing Trasparency you use as well. One solution to be sure you don't experience it is to either just not use Antialiasing Transparency or if you do, be sure you are using the same level of Antialiasing as well. For example if you use AA Transparency x4, then use AA x4 as well and you should not see the black polygons.

Another solution I found to the problem of shadows in the corners of the screen is if you still see them after adjusting R2_SunNearBorders to 1.0 in the user.ltx file, then adjust the R2_SunNear value (the value directly before R2_SunNearBorders) down from 14 to 10 or 11. This fixed my game to where I no longer see the shadows in the bottom of the screen.

On a differnet note or problem, at night I am the only stalker I have seen using a flashlight. I know it says not to adjust any of the settings in the gamedata folder, but I went to the gamedata\models\objects\ folder to have a look at the nightlight.ltx file when I noticed that there were also a file called SIMBION_nightlight.ltx. I did a little experiment with adjusting alll the range values of the SIMBION_nightlight.ltx file, but it seemed to have no affect in game. I then moved the nightlight.ltx file to the desktop and renamed the SIMBION_nightlight.ltx to simply nightlight.ltx. Immediately I noticed a much longer flashlight range it increased from 13 to 50 meters, and I noticed many of the stalkers in the rookie camp now were using their flashlights. Then a few moments later the night itself took on a very blue early morning sort of tint. I am not sure if the differnet night setting was a result of my changes or if it was just a normal progression of time sort of deal.

So does anyone know what the deeal is with these two files? They both seem to reference the same attributes though each one has different values for each attribute.


Yeah I try to be thorough as I want to get the very best experience possible from the first play though with this mod. I have never actually played all the way through stalker SOC cuz I wasn't made aware of the game until CLear Sky, and after I beat clear sky got I got about half way through the vanilla version of SOC when COP was released. So I switched over to playing COP with the SMRTER mod, which was intense but nothing like this I might add. Main problem with that mod is the enemies always regenerate in the same spot as the same enemy so it gets repetitive and feels less immersive. So anyway after beating COP, I went back to SOC but wanted to start a new game and figured it was good time to use a mod, and I was afraid of starting the game and not finishing it doing to boredom from too much exposure, so I wanted to make sure I used the very best mod possible, and to really make sure I have it configured correctly before I get halfway through the game and decide I don’t like the mod I am using anymore and just quit. On that note I really think yall should post a link to this mod on Filefront and/or moddb as I looked for quite some time and experimented with many mods including OL, LURK, and AMK, Rebalanced, and other OL variations before even hearing of NEWSA_SIMBION. So I think a lot more people like me might enjoy this mod if they knew of it.

[Component Actual]

Okay, I can't find the "problems and solutions" thread can someone please post a link. And I played for a good bit yester day with the change I made to the nightlight and Simbion_nightlight.ltx files I mentioned before. Its hard to say if its had an adverse aeffect on the game, since I haven't played it with this mod enought to know for sure. But it does kinda seem like enemiy regeneration is a little less random than before but it could just be that I know the level now so when I see an enemy it is not the first time for me to him there I duno. But there is definitely stilll some randomness going on as I will reload the same save, and one time there no mutants and the next a whole herd of cats clawing me to death, so I don't think it broke anything.

One frustration is that I think Nimble wondered down to the army base at the north of the cordon cause that is where he shows up on my map, and I have an artifact that I am suppose to give him to complete a task, but I think he probably got killed, but I can't get anywhere close enough to verify. If he dies shouldn't the task fail?

Does anyone konw how the fsgame.ltx file logic works. Like does first True/false value represent or the second one represent? Im not talking about the first two lines im talking about how have like two "trues" on one line.

At first I hated the helicopters and thought they were just an annoyace and got in the way of the gameplay, but now I see how it affects your actions, like when I was trying to get through the bridge by picking off the soldier one at a time then the helicopter shows up and I am forced to rush in there gun blazing so I can get to cover, its pretty cool how it can make you take a differnt approach than what you had planned.

[Nightwatch]

Thanks Component Actual for deciding to post your solutions for those specific problems, as they are rather rare very specific hardware and software related) and thus the solutions, therefore the solutions would be quite valuable if anyone were to hit same kind of problems. The new thread reserved for such matters is under the All Pc section, on the index(entry) page of this forum. The link is here:http://www.stalkermod.net/viewforum.php?f=34

On the mod subject: It's great that you enjoy this Extreme mode as well, it's the mode in which this NEWSA.SIMBION_T comes to life at full force. I don't know if you've checked the mod's page (address is in my sig) which gives some moderately detailed info about the mod. As this mod behaves in a way which is described as "symbiotic" or organically progressive, and many many things are based on the way the player plays the game. The game here responds organically. It's not the same things happening on each player's game, in fact not everything happens exactly after you've tried the same section again.
Many files and many variables in them do check each other and the patterns of the game is shaped on this basis. So, playing around with files are extremely dangerous and hazardous to the outcome of the game.
Also, fsgame.ltx is not a logic file; it's a rather "functional" file. The change that you do when installing any mod is just to make sure (instruct) the game that it should first check the new/altered files in the new gamedata and give them priority as possible; so the mods do and can play. If any other things were to be changed in the fsgame, then the whole STALKER may be broken at an extent that a re-installation can be the only solution.

Also, as an example for the previous subject, if the game is played in an attacking style, the game will hit you back in a way, it can even make the player sorry.