STALKER, wtf?!!

[knowledge123]

Yes, but for stalker. Your link said Supreme Commander in the discription.

Yep, all you have to is change where it refers to supcom.exe to xr_3da.exe and it will work. i remember doing it and being awed by how much more stable it was, esp. when quick saving, F5, iirc.

 

[imperialreign]

making some improvements . . . I tried running the -noprefetch command line; loads quicker, but leads to a lot of stuttering, although the game lasts quite a bit longer before it locks up . . .

turned off the 60Hz in the options window, that seems to reduce some stuttering, but still locks up

havne't tried that mem tweak yet, I'll give it a go later - does it work in XP?

I guess I should try and reduce IQ to low and then slowly raise things up from there - little perturbed, seeing as how I reduced the screen res to 1024x768 and still have a lot of issues . . . I'm just dumbfounded I could run Crysis better at the same res


Finiky game, ain't it?

 

[DaedalusHelios]

making some improvements . . . I tried running the -noprefetch command line; loads quicker, but leads to a lot of stuttering, although the game lasts quite a bit longer before it locks up . . .

turned off the 60Hz in the options window, that seems to reduce some stuttering, but still locks up

havne't tried that mem tweak yet, I'll give it a go later - does it work in XP?

I guess I should try and reduce IQ to low and then slowly raise things up from there - little perturbed, seeing as how I reduced the screen res to 1024x768 and still have a lot of issues . . . I'm just dumbfounded I could run Crysis better at the same res


Finiky game, ain't it?

It has issues that have to be overcome, more so than any other game I have ever played.

But the gameplay is definately worth it.

 

[francis511]

The dynamic lighting setting can be turned down to gain fps

 

[DaedalusHelios]

Yep, all you have to is change where it refers to supcom.exe to xr_3da.exe and it will work. i remember doing it and being awed by how much more stable it was, esp. when quick saving, F5, iirc.

I had a feeling it could be converted to work but I didn't know it would be that simple.

 

[Widjaja]

I had severe stutter issues with my X1950pro in STALKER.
No stuttering with the 8800GT.
Have you tried running the game on a single card with everything at stock speeds.

I know this game heats up my cards to max load temp pretty quick.
In the case of my 8800GT it locks up then RMA.

It's pretty rubbish how this game can stutter so badly on some cards considering it's a PC only game.

 

[Whilhelm]

On my last rig with my X1950pro crossfire setup this game was unplayable with full dynamic lighting on. Framerate would be pretty solid for a few seconds and then it would stutter like crazy every few seconds. It did this on both my current rig and old AMD 64 3700 rig with these Ati cards installed. When I changed over to my 3870X2 the stutter disappeared and everything is silky smooth. I was convinced that my old cards should have ran this game fine enough at full dynamic lighting with other settings turned down but it didn't make a difference. So I honestly think that the X1950pro may not work well with this game. It's weird because all other games ran fine with settings turned back a bit including ones that have steeper requirements then Stalker.

 

[imperialreign]

yeah, I'm starting to think it might just be something about the cards

here's an odd one . . . is STALKER optimized for Crossfire?!

I had noticed earlier that my initial attempts at the game, Crossfire was disabled, as I had never opened up CCC and turned it on . . . but, once I do enable it, actual FPS jumps up quite a bit, and will actually play; although it will slideshow every few minutes, but keep on trucking . . .

I did notice also, that I get these weird greyish bands that run up and down the screen in Crossfire, making me think that the refresh rate is out of whack, even though it's not - it looks similar to if you've ever seen a PC monitor being shown on your TV screen, like during the evening news or something . . .

 

[3870x2]

hmm, the buffer limit might be the ticket, although ive never had a problem with the program myself. The 1.006 patch should fix that, but i think they tried too hard on that patch to only fix the multiplayer.

 

[imperialreign]

hmm, the buffer limit might be the ticket, although ive never had a problem with the program myself. The 1.006 patch should fix that, but i think they tried too hard on that patch to only fix the multiplayer.

I only noticed one change that seem to be applied to the SP version.


IDK, I haven't had much more luck yet - changing lighting to object dynamic lighting instead of full dynamic lighting didn't change a thing . . . I'll bump it down one more, I guess . . .


it's starting to seriously look like it'll have to be set aside for a few months

 

[pmrdij]

your system is more than capable of handling SoC. i played it with a heavily OC'd Opty 165 and Radeon X850XT without issue after making the following changes:

make a .reg file with this and import it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"PagedPoolSize"=dword:ffffffff
"PoolU*****aximum"=dword:00000028

also i suggest looking into using version 2 of Float32: http://www.thefloatingpoint.org/

- Robert (PmR)DeathInJune

 

[DaedalusHelios]

your system is more than capable of handling SoC. i played it with a heavily OC'd Opty 165 and Radeon X850XT without issue after making the following changes:

make a .reg file with this and import it:



also i suggest looking into using version 2 of Float32: http://www.thefloatingpoint.org/

- Robert (PmR)DeathInJune

I totally forgot about floating point!!! He has got you covered!

 

[imperialreign]

your system is more than capable of handling SoC. i played it with a heavily OC'd Opty 165 and Radeon X850XT without issue after making the following changes:

make a .reg file with this and import it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"PagedPoolSize"=dword:ffffffff
"PoolU*****aximum"=dword:00000028

also i suggest looking into using version 2 of Float32: http://www.thefloatingpoint.org/

- Robert (PmR)DeathInJune

as to that registry tweak . . . should I add those keys in manually? If I make a .reg file from notepad and attempt to import that, regedit is stating that all the values and entries within \Memory Management\ will be deleted - which is cause for me to back off for the moment . . .

 

[pmrdij]

as to that registry tweak . . . should I add those keys in manually? If I make a .reg file from notepad and attempt to import that, regedit is stating that all the values and entries within \Memory Management\ will be deleted - which is cause for me to back off for the moment . . .

you could add it manually but executing that .reg shouldn't touch any other setting under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management.

however, #@%!, i just noticed that for some odd reason part of the quote was dorked up (i had to find this via the .net as i wasn't at home during the time of which i posted (i use this exact info in my .reg after a format/reinstall of XP64).

this is the proper info to paste into a blank .reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"PagedPoolSize"=dword:ffffffff
"PoolUsageMaximum"=dword:00000028

hope you didn't pull the trigger on that code from earlier and if so a thousand apologies.

- Robert (PmR)DeathInJune

 

[Widjaja]

your system is more than capable of handling SoC. i played it with a heavily OC'd Opty 165 and Radeon X850XT without issue after making the following changes:

Thing is neither you or anyone should have to make registry tweaks to get this game running smooth as it's a PC only game.

Especially imperialreign with his setup.

But hey if it work Kudos to you.

 

[pmrdij]

Thing is neither you or anyone should have to make registry tweaks to get this game running smooth as it's a PC only game.

totally agreed, however, this was done so that i could play with everything maxed out at 1280x1024 on my beloved, but dead, X850XT.

- Robert (PmR)DIJ

 

[imperialreign]

Thing is neither you or anyone should have to make registry tweaks to get this game running smooth as it's a PC only game.

Especially imperialreign with his setup.

But hey if it work Kudos to you.

I completely agree, also - pretty sad, I think . . . I will say that in the readme file, it does mention about heat issues with the 1600, 1800 and 1900 series ATI cards, but still . . .

this is the proper info to paste into a blank .reg file:


Quote:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"PagedPoolSize"=dword:ffffffff
"PoolUsageMaximum"=dword:00000028

hope you didn't pull the trigger on that code from earlier and if so a thousand apologies.

s'all good; I hadn't entered those entries yet, so no worries - anyhow, I typically back up the registry before fiddling anyhow, and asides, those additions might help with other applications further down the road.



As of right now, STALKER seems to run decent with full dynamic lighting and med/high quality IQ (although I still think I should be able to raise it a bit higher) 30+ FPS average, sometimes dips into the low 20s; still only using one card, though . . . going into crossfire mode leaves me with dark bands that travel from the top of the screen to the bottom - I don't think the game is properly optimized for Crossfire, or there's something else causing it, oh well . . . Only stuttering I have anymore is when textures are being loaded to the card, which isn't too often, so . . .

 

[Widjaja]

Been playing STALKER on my 8800GT.
What a difference in performance.
How mauch did nVidia pay the game devs to make STALKER run crap on X1950's.
I can understand if this did happen, at the time X1950pro's were owned by many.

Off topic:-
Just been playing DiRT and it really does feel like something is missng in the IQ with my 8800GT and I have the detwail on high.
I think the HDR isn't as bright as the X1950pro.

Lol
Just taking the piss out of the ATi/nVidia IQ thread.

 

[imperialreign]

Been playing STALKER on my 8800GT.
What a difference in performance.
How mauch did nVidia pay the game devs to make STALKER run crap on X1950's.
I can understand if this did happen, at the time X1950pro's were owned by many.

Off topic:-
Just been playing DiRT and it really does feel like something is missng in the IQ with my 8800GT and I have the detwail on high.
I think the HDR isn't as bright as the X1950pro.

Lol
Just taking the piss out of the ATi/nVidia IQ thread.

s'all good. Yeah, though, I wouldn't be surprised if STALKER was one-sided in it's optimizations. That's why the float32 bit above struck me - I remember Doom3 had a very similar issue when it was first released . . . the game was optimized for how nVidia processed textures, and it left ATI cards running horribly.

I swear, if I could get both my cards to run the game without any issues, I'd be able to play with almost full IQ with decent FPS.

 

[DaedalusHelios]

totally agreed, however, this was done so that i could play with everything maxed out at 1280x1024 on my beloved, but dead, X850XT.

- Robert (PmR)DIJ

Did it Die in June?

 

[pmrdij]

Did it Die in June?

well it began to struggle with graphic anomalies and or causing my system to lock/reset early last year so i decided to replace it with an eVGA 8800 640MB GTS. wish at the time that nVIDIA didn't refer to the GT as being a "mid-range" product coming in the 4th quarter but as it so turns out i did order the GTS on June 11th so yes you could say its death was in June . it never worked even a bit in any system after i pulled it out (would produce artifacts even in the BIOS of the same machine it had been in for years).

- Robert (PmR)DeathInJune

 

[imperialreign]

not sure what I did, but finally got STALKER running great - Crossfire works without a hitch, full IQ and all eye candy enabled - running 1440x900 screen res. Averaging FPS of 35-60.

I also noticed, for some odd reason, the game seems to run better on my setup the higher I take the resolution

Still dealing with the audio/video synch issue, which still confounds me . . .