3040's Zone -Hello from 3040

[3040Krag]

Hello!

I first played STALKER at the 1.0003 patch level, good game but buggy.

About 3 months ago I stumbled onto the OL mod and decided to revisit STALKER. During that gameplay, I then discovered Priboi Story. Both fine and enjoyable mods to STALKER SoC, thanks so very much to the authors Kanyhalos and dez0wave - and ALL the other modders who have taken STALKER to a new level.

Played both, then started looking for another, SIMBION seems nowhere to be found but I grabbed NEWSA+Simbion. Though a bit concerned it wouldn't play, it's been enjoyable so far!

My concern? System specs of a mobile Athlon OC'd to 2.2 Ghz, 1 gig ram, Radeon 9600 all on a DFI NF2 motherboard. Tweaked pretty heavily as I used to O/C for a hobby, but still far below Nightwatch's minimum! Graphics settings on medium, static lighting, full screen at 1024x768 on a 1400x900 monitor looks OK, not exactly eye candy but playable.

Well, Cordon played nicely, as did Garbage. Dark Valley was a bit of trouble as my inventory pictures scrambled. But it unscrambled after coming I sold a pseudogiant brain to Barkeep. Lot's of surprises in DV!!! Gameplay was smooth, NPC's all were quite aggressive.

Bar plays well, but wow! It can sure be a hellhole with exo Mercs or Soldiers invading from AW and Bandits from Garbage at the same time. Plenty of fun for everyone! Though my framerate drops into the 10's during that kind of action.

Army Warehouses really put a slam on the game and my system. I almost gave up. Framerates were often less than 1!! The script engine couldn't keep up with my movements, so NPC were often in a pseudo-zombie state. It took 2 real days of gameplay to coax an end to the errant Dutyers (thankfully a blowout took them out!) before the level was even marginally playable! It still has low framerates and stuttering but I did the snitch mission from Lukash in one go.

Something happened between AW and Cordon, Syd only does two things now: trades and tells me to hide, he won't buy any Army from me. So, two jobs Syd assigned will Fail because there's no "I'm here for the job" dialogue. It hasn't seriously affected the gaming but like Nightwatch has said, you need a decent rig to play this mod.

Wild Territory and Yantar played about as smooth as vanilla, the only hitch was having to reload multiple times to get a spawn that didn't have a whirligig directly in Krugolov's path. Met my first Dark Stalker there, sorry to see him lying dead on a second visit Bugged a bit, on my second visit to WT I generated a CTD every time I opened inventory. So I had to eat a lot before entering and make sure my weapon slots were good to go before entering the switch. Inventory worked mostly OK on second visits to Yantar but triggered CTD on occasion. I could only safely open inventory right after trading with the Professor.

I'm now back at bar after turning off the brainscorcher. Imagine my surprise to find Duty base almost intact but the whole of the rest of the Bar was occupied by Army! 20 or so to be killed before it quieted down, but as soon as Army was wiped out Bandits thought it was prime picking, so almost out of ammo, I had to help Duty with a raid. Arnie is dead, so no more Arena action. Only Snitch, Baldy and Barkeep are still alive. Sevka Goblin also bought the farm. I was a bit shocked at that since he was listed #1 Stalker in ranking, plus I'd given him a medkit once so he was my only Duty friend. Blasted military!

I have doubts I'll be able to finish the game, it sounds like Stancia will kill my system if Prypiat doesn't. I'll be finding out soon enough.

Anyway, many thanks to Nightwatch and all the other contributors to NEWSA+Simbion. Great fun!

[3040Krag]

Since that first post, Syd has somehow regained his composure and dialogue is back to normal. He's realized his rep will suffer if he doesn't keep his end of the bargain! As hard as it was to protect the Duty camp at the DV switch, I was thinking serious harm toward Syd!

I found the cause of inventory open CTD: if I a loot the corpse of a placed NPC, the trigger is set. If I keep items from the corpse, CTD is certain on inventory open. I can trade them to Barkeep and the bug goes away, or enter a switch - once in another map it's safe to inventory.

The VAL's Sin I looted can't be traded or stashed. Only kept in inventory or dropped since it doesn't show in inventory on trade or stash. Since the only player I've seen with a Sin was the Dark Stalker I met in WT. Is there a dark stalker trader somewhere who's the only buyer? Guess I'll have to find out.

Fox is still alive even now. Still killing dogs but he has a little stalker camp that have moved in with him. A small pile of bodies says it's not fun there, he ought to move.

Bes is also still around, but firebites have taken over the junkyard and his band now live in the former bandit camp behind the junkyard. They're keeping the bandit population nicely under control.

NPC's occasionally still enter a pseudo zombie state. I had a conversation with an Army Captain in Cordon, just before I knifed him in the head. Made getting the Army base papers a walk in the park. Actually, a walk in a blowout. I bought the nano suit just before heading to the brain scorcher so Cordon blowouts only hurt a little.

I need to look for more Bar stalkers, the drunk Dutyer didn't die, just nearly so. So I gave him a medkit and the bar isn't quite as lonely now. The family rifle stalker is definitely dead. His family rifle is now in my war chest, I'll never sell it (actually, I can't sell it). I won't get to do the bloodsucker lair side mission, either!

[Nightwatch]

Welcome to the forum 3040Krad and good to see you enjoying the NEWS.SIMBION mod alongside STALKER

Thanks for the stories from your expedition into the Zone, they are great pleasure to read.
(ps: Dark Stalker weapons -Sins- cannot be sold, it's the default, so that's normal. In the current release version, there's no Dark Stalker Trader, but there'll be one in future updates.)

[3040Krag]

Thank you Nightwatch, for the warm welcome.

(you need to enable my post in the NEWSA mod thread, it looks now like you're talking to Ghost and not 3040Krag )

I precisely figured out the cause of the CTD on Inventory open. In your mod thread (I'm up to about page 30 reading it all) you mention that anomaly detectors are bugged. That thought rattled around in my head, but nothing gelled. Then, I picked some dosimeters and anomaly detectors off of corpses to sell to Barkeep. When I went to sell, they were never there. I was wondering if the zone had made me a bit crazy, I was SURE I'd picked a nice, light and fairly expensive piece of kit off bodies every time I saw one.

So, I took my hard save without the CTD bug and started picking one piece of equipment at a time while looting, then did an inventory. Bingo! Dosimeters and Anomaly detectors trigger the bug every time for me.

I know my system is way below spec, so am not going to ask for support, that's a given. In Vanilla Stalker I normally get 25-50 fps performance except in AW where it dropped down to 15 or so. Using latest OL, I was getting 20-40, with AW a bit awkward at times, being in the 10's. Priboi, about the same as OL. All other levels were quite playable, with stutter only at known (to me anyway) stutter points like when first entering Bar from Garbage. I know I'm playing with fire using such a poor excuse for a PC, don't worry, I won't come begging at your door. It's too good to stay away from NEWSA+Simbion, though. The AI is tuned so very well, it's often quite unpredictable! Plus, sometimes even AW plays smooth, like silk. Though most times, my system struggles to let me squeak by on that level.

Back to the story, losing Arnie and the Family Rifle loner was sad, but looting a dead Dutyer after the Army was kicked out of Bar, I found a nice little treasure!
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/ ... 05_bar.jpg
I wonder where that Dutyer has traveled to and what chain of ownership that piece of equipment has had! Maybe I might meet a similarly experienced Dark Stalker as I travel the zone.

Wanting to build up some cash to buy ammo for the push to Prypiat, I took on the job of clearing the bandit camp at Agroprom. I've only been there once before, imagine my shock when I discovered the loner killing field there!
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/ ... 3_agro.jpg
This is a CTD minetrap, if I start looting it'll likely crash my poor rig, so this is now hallowed ground, I don't tread there!

Fox is still looking strong, though Guide died just as I reached him. Too bad, I never got to know him but his PDA was a helpful legacy.

I've decided that Sidorovich has become bipolar. Though I wrote he realized he must talk with me if he gives me jobs, he's back to telling me to hide and something about the Army. So, Skinflint's ammo needs go unfulfilled and I'm carting around excess baggage until Sid seeks medical attention and takes his meds!

[3040Krag]

Well damnit! My uber-gheto PC specs have finally bit me low and hard, worse than any controller. My inventory, trader, stash and corpse screens have become completely garbled, not just fuzzy.

I tried to regain some sanity in the display by reinstalling and starting a new game. Same garbled icons on the screen. I even nuked every SoC, mod and related file on the PC for a completely fresh install. Even cleared the pagefile then shutdown before booting back up and reinstalling.

It was a lot of fun while it lasted, from Cordon to the Brain Scorcher and back to Cordon. You can bet I'll be back when I have the system specs to do the mod right, NEWSA+Simbion rocks! Thanks for putting up with me, Nightwatch and anyone else who took a peak at my experience.

So long for now, but not forever!

[MeanderingBeing]

Try re-installing your graphics drivers, I had the same problem a while back while playing Gears of War. Turned out it was a bug in the driver, so re-installing the drivers might just be the solution you need! Cheers! Hope this helps!

[3040Krag]

I'll give it a shot. While I'm at it, will replace the DX driver, as well. Thanks!

[3040Krag]

Unfortunately, uninstalling the driver, booting in safe mode, running driver sweeper, rebooting and installing the latest Catalyst drivers for my card didn't do the trick. But thanks for looking and it *was* GOOD advice!

[3040Krag]

Hah! Living vacariously in the NEWSA mod thread I read what EggChen said about graphic glitches in inventory here, viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3&start=1140 about a texture/mipmap "feature." I noticed some of his SS were identical to mine. I tried setting textures all the way to the right (High) in Options. Yes! No blurry/scrambled icons in inventory/stash/etc anymore!

Before:

After:

It's too late tonight to play but Prypiat better watch out tomorrow! You da menzes, EggChen and Nightwatch! Represent!

Edit, I'm toast, celebrating with wodka!

[Balious]

Oh that thing. Can't remenber the exact file name that does it but theres some kind of problem it does. I get it randomly on a few mods and I think Newsa was one of them. After doing something with the file in photoshop or something it fixes it. Glad setting graphics high fixed it for you.

Speaking of that file where is it on the servers?

P.S: Nice Equipment you have there

[3040Krag]

A small vignette, one I didn't have the heart to post before when the game inventory and I didn't see eye to eye.

Preparing for Prypiat, I got tired of side missions and decided to try alchemy for a while. Time to finally see how artifact transmutation worked! In Wild Territory, I was edging close to a fire anomaly and deep into my PDA in the truck garage near the snork camp, when a bandit came around the corner from the train yard and lobbed a grenade with no more than a nasty taunt.

Landing near me before I could put the PDA away and run, my nano suit protected me from death, but my ears were ringing and I was too dazed and hurt to move.

I could hear cursing and shooting, though. As focus came back to my eyes, imagine my surprise to see a rookie loner defending me from a veteran bandit! It ended in a Mexican standoff, both dead from each opponent's final shot.


What was this young, unseasoned rookie even thinking to come into Wild Territory? He should have been back in Cordon with Wolf guiding him. I almost cried over how his mother would grieve.

He did die honorably, and stood bravely against definite superior skill and cunning!


I'll take some time tonight to write his mother, explaining the brave end to her son and my appreciation for his having saved my life!

[Nightwatch]

OK, nice try and finding a solution, 3040Krag. Actually, there's a patch available to enable low-t0-mid spec PCs to play the mod without having a side effect from very highly defined texture quality. I should've asked before if you had installed it or not, I just assumed that as you are using a PC with below the required specs, you had already installed the patch (which is available on the Downloads page of the mod website, alongside the main body of the mod), well, I shouldn't have assumed and i should've asked.

you can do well by downloading an installing the Mid_ResolutionPC InventoryHelp Patch, available on the same download page as said. Three servers available, though I haven't checked them today, at least one of them should be ready to offer the download.
=============

PS: I think this patch is also what you ask, MeanderingBeing?

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I'll be moving these last couple of posts to NEWSA thread.

[3040Krag]

All I did was to try something mentioned by EggChen. The STALKER knowledge and expertise here is amazing!

Thanks for the mention of the medium spec system patch, Nightwatch. I'm downloading it now and plan to give it a spin. Gaming is slowed here now, although unemployed for over 8 months, I was asked to take a pre-employment drug test this morning and hadn't even returned home from the clinic when I received a call to report for work ASAP.

It's a tough manual labor job and only temporary but very important to both my pride and my pocketbook!