Particle Enhancement

[jamie1992]

It does, but i have it on many accounts that its a biatch to get working in Vista, hence why i stuck to XP, and had my Vista on Daul boot, very very handy.

[EggChen]

Thanks Jay, I have resisted dual boot, though I thought about it at first....

So far I have got every game working perfectly on Vista, with some minor hiccups along the way. I'll need to install the SDK on this new machine, have not touched it for months.

[jamie1992]

Your welcome mate, just thought i would share my little thought.

Yeah games work well on vista, but the performance, i find is less that that of XP, maybe i just got an old rig and it cant handle it beats me, i can run crysis almost max on XP, but on Vista, getting it to even run stable on minimum is like flogging a dead horse.

[Grump642]

Yeah, I have not been able to get it working yet on my new rig with Vista. But I could "steal" my old comp back from my granddaughter long enough. She was playing Stalker the other day. 15 yrs old, but badly handicaped. Some brain damage but pretty damn good on a computer. She keeps me on my toes trying to fix what she has done.

[EggChen]

Me niece is hooked on multiplayer GTA, my bro has to stick gaffer tape over the chat area so she cannot see any profanity.... she's 10.

To be fair she only goes on the freeplay servers, not Deathmatch!!

[jamie1992]

So i take it like, on freeplay they just drive around, and mess about in general or something, and good idea with the tape, seems most multiplayer chat is full of stuff, not sutible for a young'un so to speak, i remember a funny game of arma, we was meant to be pincer'ing a town, instead we all just sat there typing about random stuff, ranging from rubbers, to cars, and was total randomness, was quite funny actualy.

[EggChen]

Yeah, stunts and things, but there are weapons.... you get drive-bys and things like that.
My bro was having a moped wheelie race on someone and got sniped from a rooftop.

I used to join a FEAR server where we always ended up chatting, then after a bit, someone would type....

"Fight?"

[Grump642]

Got your files, thanks. The bind_stalker caused a CTD, maybe because I am using _qo_bind_stalker from Quest Overhaul mod. Maybe I can merge? I will try anyhow.

[EggChen]

Don't use that bind_stalker, it includes some custom stuff!!

I only included it as I merged the Campfire mod bind_stalker into it, and it may help you do the same to see where it went in mine. Start with the Campfire mod bind_stalker, and use winmerge to compare it to the QO bind_stalker....

[Grump642]

OK, I see the kampfire stuff at the end of the script. Merged it over and will check it out.
Merged it with bind_stalker from ZRP, left _qo_bind_stalker alone since it was made for a single purpose. Worked like a charm, thanks.

[MeanderingBeing]

Hey Eggchen! I've narrowed this down to your particle enhancement for ol 2.2...
In the Arena i get some serious performance kill.
I mean, my game runs at 2-5 frames per second...
I think its because of the particle effects coming out of the broken pipe on the right side of the room, but I may be wrong.
Any idea on how to fix this?

[EggChen]

I have an idea, but its not particle related. I didn't touch the effects for any steam or pipe... the only effects of mine you would see in the arena are bullet impacts, which are minimal. I did look at some of the environmental effects, but gave up because of the engine, you just cannot get smooth fading of particles.

The arena is a common problem, I found my own solution some time ago when I noticed it was worse the longer the game session had been and the more levels I had visited. If your going into the arena, save your game in the Bar level, exit Stalker completely, then reload. I found it silky smooth after that. I'm guessing there is some memory leak/bad cleanup issue, especially when switching levels a lot.

[MeanderingBeing]

All right. Thanks!