NEWSA+SIMBION_tweaked Support and Gameplay

[Nightwatch]

OK, STALKER is working again.

Thinking the possibility of that anyone might have had a similar problem in the past or they may have one like this in the future, I decided to write my experience on it, though it's not guaranteed that root of the problem will be same or the solution will work on every case with exactly the results. Nevertheless:

The game was loading properly, as well as loading any one of the old saves (with any mod or vanilla, tested the same) with the same ease and it was playing alright, but when I tried to load another save, the game was crashing instantly. I saw that it was giving such an error message:

"001B:723F537A MSVCR80.dll, memcpy()
001B:05B76F0A xrGame.dll"

After some thinking and just before I was about to ask NatVac's help, the crumbles of knowledge that I might have on PCs suddenly kicked me in the right place and made me remember that the MSVCR80.dll sounded like Microsoft C Runtime Library DLL stuff and the memcpy() was a function that copies bytes from place to place. So, first thing, it was not copying well enough and the Runtime library stuff (which comes with many software) also STALKER uses in its bin was in some kind of trouble. Thinking that I had been re-installing many software and any one of them might have damaged the DLL, I downloaded the .NET Framework 3.5 from Microsoft and reinstalled it. Fortunately, (and possibly luckily as well) it seemed to have done the trick, for now I'm able to reload as many old saves as I like, just like before.
So, this .NET Framework stuff may need to be kept in mind to remember as a possible solution for this kind of problems.

OK, now, I need to rush through Yantar to reach back to AW, as I have lost the saves from Bar to AW during the (Vista related) problems occurred after the rebuilt.

And, another thing: This time military attacked the Bar, instead of monolith. Bastards came inside the 100 Rads bar again and shot me, yes...again!! LOL It took me half an hour to get out of the bar after many reloads. They seemed that they didn't give a damn if I was in a hurry or not. I'll make them pay for it.

[Grump642]

You need to play your mod more! I never go into the Bar without my shotty "locked and loaded". Been having enemy Loners gunning for me. Must have killed one of their friends? Had one turn "red" in the middle of a blowout once. Now I always keep my face towards the door. Keeps you on your toes, as it should be.

[fiznerpin1962]

Military wouldn't make it to the bar if Duty was on their toes.... I lend a hand now & again - but the body piles are usually between the arena and the building you go through to get to the bar, or outside the south entrance with the dogs. Maybe they are all going for a Vodka.

[Kaidonni]

You know how I've said I've never left Cordon? Well, yesterday I reloaded to one of my earlier saves, no problems since. I was again clearing out the disused farm of mutants. Those blasted Firebites! They keep knocking my weapons out of my hands, and they keep mauling me to death, sometimes in pairs. I'd swear some of them were married couples, but decided to take out their anger on me instead of arguing with one another...

The amount of Firebites, though...sheesh! They really soak up my ammunition. It's a good job I'm selling just about every weapon I can get my hands on, because I'll need to buy lots more ammunition. That's one thing I like, actually, about this mod - you can make money 'easily,' but moments later, you find that you have to spend a fair amount of it to survive. Some of the prominent ammunition types are quite expensive. I like that (no being able to loot bodies and get your ammunition that way - the weapons of the dead don't always unload because there is nothing to unload ).

[Balious]

I never had problems in Cordon when I was playing... Ok I did.. But only a few! Such as the damn APC at military outpost and that giant thingy ambushing me before I could go eat shotgun. I don't remenber having any money problems though as I always seem to have ammo left. Perhaps its because I used 4 different types of weapons at once using one thing for another (shotgun on mutants, the groza or whatever its called can't remenber who gives you it on humans, pistol for backup and.. that explosive wep you get in garbage incase of vehicles).

On Military going to Bar. Maybe as fiznerpin1962 said they wanted vodka and decided to go bar. I personally only seen dogs that are enemies in the bar and that dog wanted the dog food the barkeep was hiding. This makes me think Duty are quite crap at what they do as everyone always seems to get in the place. Im amazed they own the place with the amount of times they get beaten (only win cause of me). Perhaps they all drunk and think they playing a game like we are Be interesting when I finally see Freedom fight Duty. Then I can just sit back and watch the action as close as possible without risking anyone to walk up to me and gun me in the face.

[Nightwatch]

You need to play your mod more! I never go into the Bar without my shotty "locked and loaded". Been having enemy Loners gunning for me. Must have killed one of their friends? Had one turn "red" in the middle of a blowout once. Now I always keep my face towards the door. Keeps you on your toes, as it should be.

That would make a good example for the sating: "Never trust anything or anyone." Lol, but it may lead a nervous breakdown at the end.

Military wouldn't make it to the bar if Duty was on their toes.... I lend a hand now & again - but the body piles are usually between the arena and the building you go through to get to the bar, or outside the south entrance with the dogs. Maybe they are all going for a Vodka.

This is a recent photograph taken at the Southern Duty Checkpoint:


(PS: believe me, you don't wanna see the picture from the Nothern Checkpoint. )

Those blasted Firebites! They keep knocking my weapons out of my hands, and they keep mauling me to death, sometimes in pairs. I'd swear some of them were married couples, but decided to take out their anger on me instead of arguing with one another...

Lol
As they say: Never get into the argument of married couples.

Im amazed they own the place with the amount of times they get beaten (only win cause of me). Perhaps they all drunk and think they playing a game like we are Be interesting when I finally see Freedom fight Duty. Then I can just sit back and watch the action as close as possible without risking anyone to walk up to me and gun me in the face.

Movie time:

[Kaidonni]

Okay, remember that CTD I mentioned BugTrap found before, but I didn't post the error log for, only the BugTrap report? Well, I went into the error log this time, and caught it. It happened when I was searching a dead body (a Military guy).

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : assertion failed
[error]Function : CUILine::GetLength_inclusiveWord_1
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\ui\UILine.cpp
[error]Line : 410
[error]Description : pos.word_1.exist()

The other time, on Wednesday, it was a dead Bandit. This CTD is separate to the two others because this one was caught by BugTrap. I assume it's the same error, anyway. Both times searching a dead body.

I sure hope someone can help me on this. Thank you in advance.

[Nightwatch]

First of all, I need to ask if you are using any other mods (even mini mods) alongside?
Thjis error massage is known to happen before, though very rarely, and seen in vanilla cases as well. NatVac previously said that it mostly should point to an empty string, but I haven't encountered any empty string in the mod files which would be relevant to the place where the error occurred (previously) Plase let me know where it happened.
It could well be due to some driver/service/programs conflicts running in the background. Otherwise, everyone would have the same error on same places. For example, hunters that you can see in underground car park after NPP (freeplay) have an error -repaired in v3.0- and if you speak with them, regardless of the PC and programs you may be running, it's a definite crash there.
But, I'll be checking the situation further, that'll be even easier if you give me location sof those crashes. Thanks for reporting this.

__________________

I have now completed the Yantar/X16 mission and returned to Bar. A few hours later, I'll be in AW. So, I'll have caught the same point I had been on before Vista punished me and lost two area saves in the aftermath of a Vista attack. We hav elost just one week now.

Meanwhile I've witnessed a very worrying situation regarding the Quad-Core CPUs!
QUAD-CORE CPU ALERT

After I've changed my old Pentium D with an Intel Quad-Core, I've noticed that in the same areas I played jus last week, spawns are now in a "terrible delay " situation. Has anyone who has Quad-Core noticed this?

I'm not quite sure, if it is the case because I'm continuing the same game that was started on Pentium D and in the middle the CPU changed to Quad-Core, or this delayed spawns are always a symptom of dual-cores. It upsets the game. I checked on vanilla as well, same places, same delays.
Does it mean that this STALKER game cannot be played on dual cores?
Frankly I hadn't checked the literature on this quite much, maybe did not bother too much (while I should have) because I hadn't have a quad-core then, but now I wonder if there is a known cure that could make quad-cores more efficient on STALKER?

On ething I noticed though, when you enter a level, if you wait about two minutes, most of the spawns still manage to open up under the quad-core.
Also, if you quick asve and the reload, materials that hadn't come out of the stash boxes, now appear in front of you, as well as the NPCs and mutants who hadn't spawned when they should.
So, waiting a bit and relaoding a quick save seem to a be (at least) a solution at an extent for these Quad_Cores at the moment.

I got very tired with dealing with this, I'll check into the situation more, and try to write more later.

[cobra428]

Hi Nightwatch how are you doing, there is a program that i have been been using that might be of help. It is called PriFinitty and here is the link( http://www.geocities.com/edgemeal_softw ... /index.htm), been using it with vista and it works just fine. It does seem to add some fps when using it with a quad core processor and running Stalker.
I will diffidently be checking out version 3.0 when you get it done.

[Nightwatch]

Hi Nightwatch how are you doing, there is a program that i have been been using that might be of help. It is called PriFinitty and here is the link( http://www.geocities.com/edgemeal_softw ... /index.htm), been using it with vista and it works just fine. It does seem to add some fps when using it with a quad core processor and running Stalker.
I will diffidently be checking out version 3.0 when you get it done.

Hi Cobra428, nice to see you here again. Thanks for the info and the link, I'll definitely check it. Frame rates are superb to be fair, but spawns are delayed awfully. As STALKER is not optimised for multi-core processors, it doesn't go well with Quads, as it appears to be. I had been warned by the guys in this forum before I went for Quad, but I had to update the system anyway and it was a considered decision, but I hadn't frankly expected so lowly performance from STALKER on Quad-Core.

If anything is to be found helping, it'll be helpful for anybody who use Quad-Core, possible Dual Core, too.

[Grump642]

Nightwatch; While Stalker is not optimized for multi-core, I believe I remember they added support for duel core. But even still, at worst you should not get any increase in performance. But not a decrease. The Q8300 is so much better then your old "D" that even clock speed should not matter. Comparing the two, only. I would bet that you are using 2 out of 4 cores. I know that I use both cores in this game.
Kaidonni: Wait till you get attacked by 5!!! later in the game. You better be carrying the Newsa shotgun! Oh, what joys await!!

[fiznerpin1962]

Kaidonni: Wait till you get attacked by 5!!! later in the game. You better be carrying the Newsa shotgun! Oh, what joys await!!

ain't that the truth! Well, like I always say:

[Kaidonni]

Well, the CTD happened first in the car park/abandoned factory of Cordon, when I was searching over a dead Bandit. The moment I pressed the button to search him, CTD. The second time, it was around the rocks beyond the train track, in the vicinity of the abandoned building where you meet Fox, and I was going to search a soldier. In the trees, towards the fence. You'd be looking eastwards from the rocks. I'd already searched other dead NPCs in both situations prior to the CTD.

I am using 1.0005, no other mods. I had had Priboi story installed prior to this, but the gamedata folder for that was removed, and I had also installed OL 2.2 with a few other modifications - but the gamedata folder for that was also removed. The only files in my Stalker directory happen to be plain old vanilla Stalker files, and the gamedata folder for Newsa+Simbion. As far as I can see, there are no other files and folders, anyway. In the gamedata folder, I do see a number of extra files - the uninstall files (the .dat and .exe files), the readmes (2x.pdf, one for 2.0, one for 2.4), ~full install arhive.txt (should be archive ), and particles.xr.

It is strange that, in that same folder, I have subfolders such as scripts, yet when I go into config, I see another scripts subfolder. Maybe I have done something completely out of place? I mean, in the main gamedata subdirectory, aside from the files mentioned right above, I have anims, config, levels, meshes, scripts, shaders, sounds, spawns, and textures as subfolders. If I venture into the config subfolder, I see creatures, gameplay, misc, models, mp, prefetch, respawn, scripts, text, ui, weapons, and weathers, and a whole bunch of .ltx files. There are two prefetch.ltx files, one with a _ in front of it.

Maybe I have somehow installed part of the mod incorrectly, and that is why I'm having the errors? I mean, it is strange that searching a dead body would cause this. It has never happened to me in any other mod at all.

Plus I hope I don't have to reinstall Stalker, just in case part of a mod somehow didn't get uninstalled. I remember reading about one person who uninstalled OL, only to end up with that mod's main menu reappear later on after loading Stalker a number of times (even though they had uninstalled all components of that mod) - maybe something is interfering with Newsa+Simbion in the same manner?

I'll post some specs, too:
Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
Main Driver: nv4_disp.dll
Version: 6.14.0011.6267 (English)
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64x2 Dual Core Processor 5000+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Page file: 3100MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Using XP with Service Pack 3 installed

I hope some of the above helped. Around April last year, this computer was built. Initially had an 8800 GT or something, but that caused some serious problems with locking up and not allowing certain games/applications to be run. Couldn't even view Quicktime files on the internet without it locking the computer up...

Edit: Had the CTD a third time, again in Cordon. This time I was at the Military Outpost at the south of the map, and finished off an injured soldier. The moment I searched his body, the game froze, then I had the CTD. Same error in the log as the last time.

[Nightwatch]

Kaidonni

Thanks for the very detailed answer. First of all, files order look alright, yes, there are two scripts folders, one inside gamedata (as a main scripts folder ending with .script) and also another of scripts folder in config folder, contents of which this time end with .ltx. It's OK.
Secondly, you should not have a CTD when you're searching a body in Cordon. There is something wrong with either with the structure of your game from the beginning, initiated with a underlying defect possibly (like a symptom called "cold game" ) or -as you point out to the matter which hadn't known before- uninstallation of OL might have caused a problem as you say that it has done someone else, on this point I cannot make any comments as really I do not know this matter; but may need to be kept in mind.

Also, you are using 1.0005 STALKER, and although there comes a 1.0005 compatibility patch with the mod, however it has not been extensively tested as it has been done with 1.0004, as the mod originally based on 1.0004 STALKER. having said that, I haven't heard any such similar problems from people who are playing the 1.0005 patched mod. Particularly Cordon has never seen such a (particularly repeated examples of) crashes before.

Frankly, that example you gave on OL uninstallation sounds a bit worrying to me, and when I now heard of it, I should recommend a full reinstallation of STALKER, but before that, you can try to restart the mod, by deleting the gamedata folder and reinstalling the game, however if you have the same problem then toy may need to reinstall STALKER, so it's your decision of course.

Also, a last moment thought: I remember that you said you started your mod on a 1.0005 STALKER without putting the 1.0005 compatibility patch at the start, then you noticed and added the patch. Well, due to that reason there might have been some problem developed in the game (starting as 1.0004 mod on 1.0005 STALKER) and this may be the fallouts of that problem. So, a reinstalltion of the mod with inclusion of 1.0005 patch before the start, may resolve the problem without necessitating the re-installation of STALKER. Hope things go well. Please do tell us how they went.


Grump642

Ye I've got a very significant increase in performance, in general, after putting the Quad-Core, but the problem is -as I have heard it before- is the late spawning of things, NPCs, items, start of the events. Yes, GSC optimised the STALKER for dual core with 1.0004 patch, but they haven't done it for Quads and I suspect that they will ever do that. So, for those who use Quad Cores, there is a problem here.
Unless there is a workaround for this optimization problem (which is now causing late spawns) from the masters like NatVac and others, we the Quad_Core users are a bit doomed, as it seems.

Not software solutions, but as of seen in my experience, a short-term workaorund (which I'm not sure how effective in the whole of the things) is to wait a minute or two upon the entry a new level, and save and reload in order to kick start (so to speak) the delayed spawns in delayed cores of Quad.

For example, after you've spoken with Max in AW, the initial stage of the heli/APC battle starts which later turn to the Actor/Freedomers.
This takes about 30 seconds to activate as normal (I need to move one of the APCs, I remembered, too close to Max group, they're wasted as collateral damage). It was like that when I was using my old dual core, but now the event takes long minutes to initiate under the Quad_Core. (I haven't changed even a single thing, sequence as same as it was in dual core testing).

But, the strange thing, when I reload (either due to dying there or not) and play the same mission again, then this time they come as it was supposed to, no delays, nothing, everything works OK. So saving and reloading in the level seems to be kick starting those delayed events, spawns under the Quad-Core (same goes for the empty stash boxes which are otherwise full -reload and te items are in front of you)

I need to write some guidance for Quad_Core users with the release.

(PS: I've put the CS nightvison in the game, thanks )

[Kaidonni]

Oh, I didn't use any saves from before I noticed I'd missed the 1.0005 compatibility patch. I basically saved over those saves with a new game after reinstalling the mod.

I'm going to try something. I'll move the gamedata folder and just try vanilla Stalker 1.0005. I remember that it was reported that, for that one person, after a number of loads of the game, it reverted to the OL main menu. If it does that for me, it would definitely reveal a lot. But I think, after reinstalling Stalker, they may have experienced problems too, although I can't be certain.

[Nightwatch]

Good thinking, would like hear the result of it.

[Kaidonni]

After a number of reloads, nothing seems to have changed. It still loads the vanilla Stalker menu...

There is one more thing - I am using, apparently, the US version of Stalker. Only the US patches would install. I, of course, purchased it through Indigostarfish, on Amazon.co.uk, one of their retailers. But it seems to be the US version...not worldwide, and I expected the worldwide version. Maybe that is the cause of the problem?

I may aswell reinstall and just patch to 1.0004 I suspect. Should fix the problem. I hope.

[Nightwatch]

No, I don't think that the US version could be the cause, for there are several otehr guys here from the US and, I'd expect so, they have US versions as well. Only STALKER patches are difrerent between the versions and you wouldn't be able install an incompatible patch on it anyway.

Possibly your STALKER has got a damage of a kind for many of the reasons. I think a reinstallation of STALKER might seem to be a better idea.

[Kaidonni]

Well, it appears that the 2.0 version of your mod is no longer available from Filefront. Just the 2.4 tweak...