NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked Support and Gameplay

[Nightwatch]

Hey audioave10 sorry I didn't see your post, I must have still writing whenyou posted then. I just answered a phone call, wow, it took so long?

[Draakon]

The only thing that bothers me is the slow responding NPCs/Mutants. Any fix for it?

[nandersen]

- CTD when I ask snitch for some info on "getting to other territories":

Code: Select all

* MEMORY USAGE: 265210 K
stack trace:

001B:012B105B xrLUA.dll
001B:03BD185A xrGame.dll

- Only 10 of the 13 belt slots are usable
- Suppressor position on the inventory icon for Groza-NT is incorrect: http://zhat.dk/stalker/inventory16_1.jpg
- Groza NT zoom without a scope is the same as with the scope??
- Duty guard at garbage->bar passage asked me to bring sucker jaws... I have two but the task does not mark as completed and I can't talk to him about it.
- Random CTDs with nothing but a "stack trace:" and some .dll reference...
- Stretched bodies/mutants http://zhat.dk/stalker/stretched1.jpg (can be removed by shooting or blasting the "end" of the ...ehm... object).
- If I remove the "headpiece" from my suit using the repair kit it displays over 100% condition. I have to replace the headpiece to repair it.

Question: are the stalkers only looting bodies or are they also looting regular stashes and blue boxes?

[Nightwatch]

The only thing that bothers me is the slow responding NPCs/Mutants. Any fix for it?

I'm afraid I have to repeat the same thing, I hear that you said that you played Crysis with 512Mb RAM and 2.0 Celeron, but, you will need to get get at least 1.5 Gb RAM making your RAM 2Gb, this a must even before you start thinking about your CPU and others, like Graphics card and PSU.

Then NPCs and mutants will come after you like they do in my and others' game, a few people stopped playing because they found it very hard.

Unless you bring your spects up to the level of this mod requires, your problems cannot be resolved. Under no circumstances it's possible to bring this mod down to be playable with 512 RAM, I'm sorry. But this is the reality.

I do appreciate your interest and determination to play this mod, thank you, I wish I could do anything, but at the end of the day it's the system requirements.

You might have played Crysis and other new top games with 512 Mb RAM, but you cannot play this one.
Wuth 512 Mb RAM, your PC cannot properly handle even the shaders alone. Sorry.

[Nightwatch]

Hi nandersen

I would answer your questions on GSC forum, but just before I could post it it went down, sorry.
Thanks for coming here and asking again.

Snitch: Well, getting level transport info from snitch has been known to cause crashes on some systems, this is an old SIMBION problem. You don't need to ask level changer information and you don't need to buy them from snitch in this version 2.0 and 2.4, all the available level changers are given to the player as a reward by Sakharov upon completion of the "Turn the Emissions off" mission. you need to visit him after the mission and he'll give you all the level changers, for free.
The error displayed there, as above description, is an engine error.
orget the snitch, he's not worth it You don't need to get level cjangers from him.

Buying them from snitch has now no meaning, and actually does not quite suit the plan of the game, I'll be removing this funtion fully in the next patches.

-Belt: Yes only 10 slots (artifacts and/or else) are available. You're a programmer, I know you can do that, but I'd like advise against activating more of the slots, engine does not like it.

Suppressor: I extended the barrel, then in some cases the silencer fits on the PDA screen minutely lowered position, in your picture it looks more than usual. I'll be checking it, I may do some DDS work maybe.

Groza zoom: there you must have a glitch on some of your files. Because it should not be like that. Groza-NT zoom (without scope) is exactly same as the Groza, the base weapon. Without scope, in respect of its zoom ability and values, it's the same Groza, with or without NT or other. You can rerun your setups, it won't harm your saves.
Only when you put the scope, just the normal Groza scope, you get scope-zoom, if I put it this way, which is a bit (more than a bit ) better than vanilla scope.

Duty/jaw mission: some missions' inability to be recognized as completed is a vanilla problem, unfortunately. Old habits die hard, they say, and STALKER continues to kick whenever it feels like it.

dll: These are engine related. Your system might be getting too much stress, a thought that I had also in the light of the following problem that you point to.

Stretched bodies/mutants: I've seen this symptom, I don't want to appear to be alarming you unnecessarily, but it seems to me that you are having, or at least at the start of having some serious Graphics Card problem. Culprit can be any one of the variety of things, but I'd consider first VRAM issue and overheating. Overheating might be easier to deal with, though. Could be also GPU problems.
Check your cards heating, what's your specs? iIs it Nvidia? You can download the new Nvidia System monitor, very good utility. But bottom line, I'd say that your card is under stress.


headpiece: When you remove the headpiece, it should not jump to 100% condition (I take that it was not 100% before the removal, of course)
You cannot repair it back to 100% I only allowed 99%. Your armor's condition (when undamaged condition of course, and the repair ability) is defined by your class and progress in the game. There is something wrong over there, whatever reason the values might have been changed in the files, maybe a cross contamination. please do not use any other mods with this one; just talking about a general possibility, nothing specific to you.
In nay case, I'd recommed that you re-run the set ups and so resetting everything into their default values.
If this is not the case, not corrects the matters, we may need to look at the processes that are running alongside and your system specs, too.

I hope these will provide some help.

PS: OK I just saw it, looting:
NPCs loot stashes as well as the bodies, I'm afraid. If you leave something in any of the -particularly easily accessible- stash boxes and go away, then you may well forget about it and should not bother to get back to look at it. The best way to protect your goods is to place them in stashes situated in high grounds, like rooftops, or very remote areas. It's like real life; they steal stuff.
Also (re:your question in GSC forum) NPCs shop at traders in off-line, you don't see them. But over the time, you will notice that they start carry items that they normally do not.
I once took photo of Barin (in-game barin, not the Forum barin ) with a Groza-NW (previous name of NT) in his inventory, I hadn't given it to any NPC. I'll find and upload the photo later.
Also: NPCs do drag bodies, but not necessarily from fires; they drag all other dead comrades (also the mutants) to some better sheltered areas. As you progress along the game you will start seeing piles of bodies, NPC or mutants alike, lined on some places like sardine. You may even start complaining about the body piles.

sorry if any spelling, it was a long post.

[Draakon]

If the above is true, whole game performance should be affected, not NPCs/mutants only.

Also, on original SIMBION mod, i don't have this problem. I think i should test tomorrow if level change changes something.

[nandersen]

Nightwatch the stretched bodies seem more like a physics problem because when you shoot "the right end" of the thing it's almost as if the body gets catapulted towards the other end - like a stretched rubber band. Once I shot a body like this in Garbage and it ended up embedded in the hangar door. I've played vanilla/ZRP, Priboi (1.0 and 1.1) and some other mods with the same VGA (NVidia 9800GTX) and I didn't see this behavior. Also, the VGA ran hotter with vanilla without any image corruption... so this makes me think that it's not image corruption :?

If only 10 belt slots are active then why not remove the remaining 3 from the inventory screen :P

Regarding stashes - I put my Groza-NT in the blue box at the Duty outpost at Garbage - nobody took it :o

About the setup... does the installer do other things than configure the gamedata folder? I installed v2.0 to a folder and then installed the 2.4 update to the same folder, zipped it, and uninstalled. Then I unzipped it into my game folder. Also I renamed the shader folder because I really don't like that distance blur... can this cause problems? Shaders are independent from the rest, right?

[Nightwatch]

nandersen

as your 9800GTX is a new card, we can atm skip the card problem. This then is a result of a vanilla matter being aggravated by some system reasons, other processes, drivers, etc. As you'd remember, during a gunfight, or similar, sometimes some bodies are thrown out at extraordinary proportions, and get stuck inside walls, halfway out, halfway in, etc. What's your CPU, Quad?

10 slots OK, doesn't hurt anyone now; but if I remove three of them now and then who knows, find a reason/solution to add three more back, then I'd be hurt twice. :wink:

You left your very expensive Groza-NT in a stash in crowded place and you walked away? You surely are a gambling man.

I didn't quite understand the procedure that you performed before installing the mod, but set up only copies the folders inside STALKER directory after (if none is existent) creating a gamedata folder. Places an uninstaller, too; though I'd admit, it's rather a gimmick, a polished appearance, because you can at anytime just delete the gamedata folder.
The entry that you'd see in your Control Panel uninstall section, is the same as what AMK does. I still have the AMK entry in my "Control Panel uninstall programs" section. When Windows sees an installer running -this one also has an uninstaller- it adds an entry there.
This mod does not modify the engine (as if I could even if I wished so :P ) or places any dlls. So, a simple deletion of gamedata folder would remove the mod, no need to run uninstaller if you don't want to.

Shaders: Then you're running the vanilla ones now, if you've made shaders folder inactive. You can use the Sky4CE 1.6 shaders that comes with version 2.0. I've upgraded the shaders to v1.78 in (mod) version 2.4; you can extract the version 2.0 into a separate folder and get the 1.6 shaders from there if you wish. Well, tastes do chnage from person to person, of course, but vanilla shaders do end up quite plain in comparison with Sky4CE shaders, imo.

[audioave10]

I've had those elastic bodies before but it doesn't seem to be a problem.
I suspect it could be part of a collision defect or a part of the body has
fallen through the map. When I clic the inventory and loot it I've had one
shoot so far away I could never find it. LOL

[busetibi]

PS: How many controller kissed their as**s goodbye by now, btw?

well the story behind my current score outweighs the running tally.
Last time I posted on GSC board I think I had 75, but when I loaded my last quick save it was borked, so I went back to my last hard save when I was on 71, I was having a lot of crashes trying to find my "lost 4 " so I left Pripyat, but.............
on entering RF from the Pripyat switch, I was faced with five Monolith and a Controller (I'll be damned, aye) so I've no shotgun or Magnum XPSN ammo left after this little set to, I ran down and through the Forest, I get to the guard house before AW switch, and shit me if another Controller is under attack from the guards, so I take them out with the Vintar and try same with him, then I was attacked by psedodogs with a firebite amongst them (christ what have I done to deserve this) so I'm back peddling down the road being chased by the dogs, take them out and head back for the controller, damn he was hard to kill with the Vintar, so I'm clearing up the mess and I feel another attack, walking down the road from AW switch as cool as you like is another controller!!
take him out, just before I get to the switch (I was checking out the secret stash on the right) more psedodogs came through the switch followed by, yep, another controller
backed off, killing the dogs as I retreated, got through them then headed to the switch and the controller, killed him, hard saved then went through into AW to be greeted with............
a Horror Time, thankfully Freedom took most of them out as by now I'm out of ammo, HT ended and I'm looking around getting zombie hands and...............
another controller, again freedom took him out.
(lol, all this happened in about an hours game time (irl) )
I've had another one in DV,and one close to the bandit base in Cordon,I'll be loading up the Cordon save tonight and I await to see what is going to greet me.
what ever it is, its dead :twisted: 'cause I'm fully stocked with ammo and ready for anything
a little heads up, you can not kill a controller with a knife before he kills you with his attack.
edit:
79 :twisted:

[nandersen]

nandersenas your 9800GTX is a new card, we can atm skip the card problem. This then is a result of a vanilla matter being aggravated by some system reasons, other processes, drivers, etc. As you'd remember, during a gunfight, or similar, sometimes some bodies are thrown out at extraordinary proportions, and get stuck inside walls, halfway out, halfway in, etc. What's your CPU, Quad?

LOL I wish... nah, it's just my "good old" C2D E6750 @3GHz :|
At least it's rock stable.
Maybe there are some changes to meshes or collision detection in simbion?
Another thing is that is seems to occur offline only - when I revisit a level I might find these "body-bars". Like if something is going on in offline mode that is not happening in vanilla, Priboi etc.

10 slots OK, doesn't hurt anyone now; but if I remove three of them now and then who knows, find a reason/solution to add three more back, then I'd be hurt twice. :wink:

I know that Priboi is running OK with 16 slots so are you sure that the game doesn't like it? ;)

You left your very expensive Groza-NT in a stash in crowded place and you walked away? You surely are a gambling man.

Man, I'm soooo rich that it doesn't matter to me. Also, I turned expert shortly after doing agroprom mission and now I have repair kit, nanosuit and a load of stuff that I don't know what to do with I'm considering to make an inventory screen with smaller grids so that I can easier access all the junk that I'm carrying :P
With all the money I'd wish that I could buy all level changers. I'd still be the richest stalker in the zone.

I didn't quite understand the procedure that you performed before installing the mod

This is simple: I installed, backed up my installation, and then uninstalled.
Then I restored gamedata from the backup. This way I shouldn't have any entries in "Add/remove programs"

but vanilla shaders do end up quite plain in comparison with Sky4CE shaders, imo.

The plain vanilla shaders seem to match what I see on my way to work every day, so I'm quite happy with them
I'm considering float32 however, as I heard that it should improve performance - anybody tried it with this mod yet?

[Draakon]

Does anyone know if SIMBION mod itself is english or russian?

[Ultradad]

Hello there

I wanted to say thanks a million for this great mod nightwatch , the time and effort yourself and other great modders put into this game have made it a very polished and exciting game :P

I finished the main plot and i am now doing freeplay . I made sure i was loaded down with the best kit and weapons before going to the reactor and made it out with my ass in a brown paper bag :lol:

On the way back out everyone and everything was beating the crap out of each other, large packs of dog were tearing the ass off anything they ran into, freedom was having a stand off with the military and monolith troops and thats what i love about your mod the best :P, you dont know whats around the next corner 8)

[busetibi]

you dont know whats around the next corner 8)

either a chopper or a controller = usual result........... death.
/me loads last save :twisted:

[nandersen]

The controllers are quite fun actually... they are so easy to kill and they carry these valuable things on them that I can sell again and again and ....

I wish the helicopters also dropped some valuable stuff, maybe some avionics modules etc. that you could take to the trader ;)

[Nightwatch]

Great busetibi Another great read You should publish these memoirs in a Zone Chronicles, or something, I'm sure it'd very popular. 79 controllers? Wow, you've on a roll.

audioave10 and nandersen,

there is no changes in how NEWSA-SIMBION handles collison effects from what is in vanilla, it may be the case, on some systems particularly (not necessarily the system is low, though) things do not go well when engine is put under a heavier stress level than that of vanilla. Anyway, they don't hurt the gameplay even they occur.

nandersen
yes a very good CPU you look like you really would like to have a belt with 13 slots. And it's good to hear taht you've become so rich in the Zone, with that money you could've made a good killing in today's stockmarket.

Float32 works OK. but please do not enetr noprefecth in the command line (starting icon), Float32 advises against it. In my experience, and others, it looks like Sky4CE is better than Float32, but if you wish you can try it.

Ultradad wrote:
you dont know whats around the next corner


either a chopper or a controller = usual result........... death.
/me loads last save

The controllers are quite fun actually... they are so easy to kill and they carry these valuable things on them that I can sell again and again and ....

I wish the helicopters also dropped some valuable stuff, maybe some avionics modules etc. that you could take to the trader

When shoot them down, they drop all their parts. If only you could sell them.

Draakon
original SIMBION is Russian. There have been several works done over the time by many people to transate it on top of the translation that had come with ingredient mods of ABC, AMK and SRP. This mod is NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked which includes those translations (some of which have been edited by me since then) and also offers, on top of those, some extensive translations done by me through the versions 1.0. 2.0 and now to 2.4. Now only a couple of paragraphs remain here and there, which are not defining in missions and gameplay (which I am still translating while improving the mod) and even when the priority order of things are not taken into account, I think this should be seen as a successful outcome in a 760+ Mb Mod.


Ultradad

Hello there

I wanted to say thanks a million for this great mod nightwatch , the time and effort yourself and other great modders put into this game have made it a very polished and exciting game

I finished the main plot and i am now doing freeplay . I made sure i was loaded down with the best kit and weapons before going to the reactor and made it out with my ass in a brown paper bag

On the way back out everyone and everything was beating the crap out of each other, large packs of dog were tearing the ass off anything they ran into, freedom was having a stand off with the military and monolith troops and thats what i love about your mod the best , you dont know whats around the next corner

Welcome to the mod and to the forum. Thank you for your compliments, I'm very happy that you've found the mod entertaining enough. Also very good reflections from your experiences. We all would like to hear more of them, as you find time for it.

[rockingmtranch]

The plain vanilla shaders seem to match what I see on my way to work every day, so I'm quite happy with them
I'm considering float32 however, as I heard that it should improve performance - anybody tried it with this mod yet?

I use Float32 with every mod.

Edit: Forgot to add, except NEWSA. I don't need to tweak Nightwatch's work.

[EggChen]

I use an early version of Float32 (1.527a I think), gave me the best performance boost, and increases detailing like texture bumpmaps, and deepens shadows etc. It does make the colours a bit too much, so I just tone down my screen to compensate :wink:

[Nightwatch]

The plain vanilla shaders seem to match what I see on my way to work every day, so I'm quite happy with them
I'm considering float32 however, as I heard that it should improve performance - anybody tried it with this mod yet?

I use Float32 with every mod.

Edit: Forgot to add, except NEWSA. I don't need to tweak Nightwatch's work.

Thank you, rockingmtranch, it's very kind of you to say that.

____________________

nandersen
A quick note that I remembered that I had posted before, but possibly you haven't seen it because it was several weeks ago.

The Cold Game Syndrome in STALKER, that effects vanilla, too, of course.
I think this term was first used by fatrap, not very sure though. If it belongs to someone else, I apologize.
Now, when you notice that somethings are not going as they should have at the opening moments of the game, then it's highly possible that you've got a "cold game."
Things like, Sidorovic dialog does not play full, either you're in font of him, or leaving him; Wolf doesn't call you : "come over here" sort of thing; he doesn't radio to his buddies right after he spoke with you; Sid does not offer all the side missions that he usually offers at that stage; and any other symptoms in that effect.
Then, in this case, it's highly recommended that the player should start a new game until these work properly in order to have a fully and correctly enabled game.


shaders:
If you don't like the Depth of Field offered by Sky4CE 1.78, as I said before, you may use the Sky4CE 1.6 shaders in the NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked version2.0. Sky4CE 1.6 doesn't have Depth of Field. Things appear flatter.
The original SIMBION (non NEWSA+SIMBION-tweaked) at one stage used Float32 shaders. In my experince, I hadn't seen a noticeable difference, other than some visual quality improvements in comparison with vanilla shaders, though there was a darkening of colors.

==============
This is for information:
==============

Sky4CE offers technically and visually a significant improvement and I quote: introduces advanced shader technology known as Parallax Occlusion Mapping into S.T.A.L.K.E.R, never seen in any videogame before (except some next-gen games which are still in development, e.g. Crysis , Unreal3 and others).

More detailed reading is from Sky4CE documentation:

quote<.:: Sky4CE SkyGRAPHICS Mod v1.78 ::.

This mod introduces advanced shader technology known as Parallax Occlusion Mapping in the game of S.T.A.L.K.E.R, never seen in any videogame before (except some next-gen games which are still in development, e.g. Crysis , Unreal3 and others)
The mod is based on the original Parallax Occlusion HLSL code (Policarpo2005, McGuire2005, Tatarchuk2006), heavily modified by Sky4CE to allow for a considerably higher performance and maximum optimization.
You might have heard of Parallax Occlusion Mapping being referred to as Steep Parallax Mapping, Per-Pixel Displacement Mapping With Distance Function, Relief Mapping, Interval Mapping - all of those are alternative names for Parallax Occlusion Mapping. This technology creates a very close-to-life illusion of true relief , turning flat textures into something that looks much like an actual relief made of polygons. A similar effect can be achieved via Bump Mapping or Parallax Mapping, but the difference between Parallax Occlusion Mapping and these two is utterly astonishing.

Also Mod adds Motion Blur, which does not blur the weapon, and Depth Of Field.
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- WARNING! -

To get this stuff working, make sure that:

1. You've got a graphics card that supports DirectX 9.0c (Pixel/Vertex Shaders 3.0 or higher). DX8 cards are incompatible with this mod due to obvious technical reasons.

2. You are running the game using the DX9 renderer (adjustable in the graphics options, also known as 'dynamic lightning'). The mod won't work with DX8 and it incompatible with this DX8 (`static lightning`)

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Possible compatibility issues:

This mod is incompatible with any other shader mods, but campatible with any non-shader mods !

If you are experiencing performance issues, you can try to run the game with the -noshadows command line parameter. Just find the game shortcut on the desktop, open its properties and add -noshadows after X3_RDA.exe, e.g. "D:\STALKER\bin\XR_3DA.exe" -noshadows
This will kill all dynamic shadows in game, but improve performance. >unquote