S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart of Chernobyl

Armenius said:
Source:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1643320/view/525329871842312365

Includes a lot of AI improvements.

A-Life fixes​

  • Fixed the issue with spawning NPCs behind the player's back.
  • Players can now encounter roaming NPCs across the Zone more often.
  • Greatly extended the distance at which A-Life NPCs are visible to the player.
  • Fixed the aggressive optimization issue that prevented A-Life NPCs to exist in Offline (out of player's visualization range).
    • In Offline mode, A-Life will continue to advance towards their goals over time.
    • Players may now have opportunities to encounter A-Life NPCs they've previously met by following in the same direction as the NPCs.
  • Improved A-Life NPCs navigation in Offline using GameGraph (global AI navigation map):
    • Fixed multiple issues where NPCs would fail to follow or find a path to their designated goals.
    • Fixed several issues with NPC being stuck in Online-Offline transition state,
  • Enhanced A-Life NPCs' motivation to expand territory and actively attack enemies and mutants.
  • Fixed issues that could result in fewer A-life NPCs encountered than intended.
  • Further contextual actions improvement to ensure seamless transitions between Offline and Online states for NPCs engaged in these actions.
  • The groups exploring the Zone are now more diverse regarding possible factions and group sizes.
  • Fixed issue that while roaming over the Zone, Human NPCs didn't satisfy their communication needs and talks.
And some other development related improvements.

AI improvements​

  • Reduced the number of summons and increased time between spawns of Pseudodog phantoms.
  • Fixed an issue when zombies would have their arms and legs twisted while knocked down.
  • Fixed an issue when large mutants would hide behind small cover, such as trees.
  • Fixed an issue when mutant limbs stretch sometimes when firing automatic weapons.
  • Fixed an issue when bloody visual effects played a few times after Rat's death from grenade.
  • Fixed an issue where NPCs quickly detected the player when he was crouching.
  • Fixed an issue where NPCs would enter doors without opening them.
  • Fixed the issue when the controller could take the main story NPCs under control.
  • Fixed an issue when Chimera would try to enter a narrow passage that it couldn't enter instead of hiding in ambush.
  • Fixed an issue when NPC was teleporting to the restricted areas such as safe zones and hubs.
  • Fixed an issue where mutants that were in cover did not change their cover when receiving damage.
  • Fixed visual effects of Burer's telepathic ability.
  • Minor combat behavior fixes for NPCs shooting from covers.
  • Fixed Burer’s throwing objects animation.
  • Fixed some issues with NPC staying idle and refusing to start mission-related dialogs.
  • Fixed an issue when mutants kept attacking zombies in knockdown.
  • Fixed an issue when NPCs are stuck in aiming animation.
  • Fixed an issue when death animation was replayed for an NPC who was resurrected as a zombie.
  • Fixed an issue when a neutral NPC stays neutral after a player hits them by melee attack.
  • Fixed an issue with some NPCs' broken arms while shooting.
  • Generic improvement of combat experience and NPC pathfinding in big fights with lots of corpses.
  • Fixed an issue when Player was able to kill the chimera with the help of carousel anomaly.
  • Fixed an issue where NPCs would clip through objects and walls when shooting from covers.
  • Minor improvements for peaceful behavior of NPCs.
  • Fixed issue where NPCs wouldn't stop combat on emission start.
  • Fixed an issue when some mutants couldn't jump off an obstacle.
  • Fixed issue when NPCs were stuck after the end of emission.
  • Fixed bandits' behaviour after emission ends during the mission Bullseye.
  • Fixed an issue where NPCs could teleport if the NPC couldn't build a route.
  • Fixed an issue where NPCs could stop talking to each other after loading a save.
  • Fixed an issue when mutant dead bodies fly to a long distance from the places where they were killed by the shotgun.
And over 50 more minor “anomalies” were fixed.
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Downloading the patch and it's installing to my Firecuda!
And I have 272GB free on my NVME where it's installed. Never seen a game do this before. I'm going to be here forever at this rate.
 
CAD4466HK said:
Downloading the patch and it's installing to my Firecuda!
And I have 272GB free on my NVME where it's installed. Never seen a game do this before. I'm going to be here forever at this rate.
Click to expand...
Same thing happened to me with a previous patch, for some reason. Installed from my HDD instead of SSD. Re-downloading the entire game fixed it. With how large this patch is, may as well just download the whole game again.
 
Armenius said:
Same thing happened to me with a previous patch, for some reason. Installed from my HDD instead of SSD. Re-downloading the entire game fixed it. With how large this patch is, may as well just download the whole game again.
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I remember.
After it downloaded, it then installed itself from my Firecuda to my NVME.
It wasn't taking up any HDD space while it was over there, so I'm thinking it was in virtual memory, then it dumped it.
Maybe it's over 270GB when it's uncompressed and there wasn't enough room to decompress?
 
CAD4466HK said:
I remember.
After it downloaded, it then installed itself from my Firecuda to my NVME.
It wasn't taking up any HDD space while it was over there, so I'm thinking it was in virtual memory, then it dumped it.
Maybe it's over 270GB when it's uncompressed and there wasn't enough room to decompress?
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IIRC Steam wants the size of the game + the size of the uncompressed patch to install it, so maybe 270 isn't enough? The game is around 150GB on disk.
 
Armenius said:
IIRC Steam wants the size of the game + the size of the uncompressed patch to install it, so maybe 270 isn't enough? The game is around 150GB on disk.
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That explains it, at least I have more than one library drive for it to play with before it starts fuckin with my System drive.
 
Ok so now I am getting a CTD when I hit the play button. I guess this is a known issue and GSC is working on a hotfix. Just a heads up for people.
 
Official discord is filling with issues completing a shader compilation after the patch. Then many seem to have an issue with save games not loading without errors or crashes if they do though it.

Going to be a few hours until I can give it a shot. I might backup my save game directory and remove my mods beforehand.
 
criccio said:
Official discord is filling with issues completing a shader compilation after the patch. Then many seem to have an issue with save games not loading without errors or crashes if they do though it.

Going to be a few hours until I can give it a shot. I might backup my save game directory and remove my mods beforehand.
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If it turns out that mods made previous saves unusable, then yikes!

I've got side-quests that are bugged out and can't be completed and some take cover from emission markers that won't go away. Will be interesting to see if those go away.

Edit: I'm having issues with shader compilation. It stops progressing at a certain point. I've killed the process and restarted 5 times and haven't made it all the way through yet. Gonna wait until they hotfix this.
 
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Has anyone tried turning off upscaling entirely in this game? It looks crazy bad, like everything is covered in static. What's going on? Running at native res in 1440p. This is with AA on Epic as well.

Even with upscaling, the distant foliage looks awful and like a weird pixellated mess.

1643320_47.jpg
 
MavericK said:
Has anyone tried turning off upscaling entirely in this game? It looks crazy bad, like everything is covered in static. What's going on? Running at native res in 1440p. This is with AA on Epic as well.

Even with upscaling, the distant foliage looks awful and like a weird pixellated mess.

View attachment 698840
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This looks gross, I use DLAA at 4K, but I guess that is "technically" using upscaling at 1:1.

Have you tried this trick to improve graphics?

https://hardforum.com/threads/s-t-a-l-k-e-r-2-heart-of-chernobyl.1960646/post-1046003860
 
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MavericK said:
Has anyone tried turning off upscaling entirely in this game? It looks crazy bad, like everything is covered in static. What's going on? Running at native res in 1440p. This is with AA on Epic as well.

Even with upscaling, the distant foliage looks awful and like a weird pixellated mess.

View attachment 698840
Click to expand...
I don't know what the standard antialiasing option is using, but that looks like FXAA with how bad it is. FXAA doesn't really work well in games using deferred rendering techniques, which is practically every game released in the past 10 years.
 
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III_Slyflyer_III said:
This looks gross, I use DLAA at 4K, but I guess that is "technically" using upscaling at 1:1.

Have you tried this trick to improve graphics?

https://hardforum.com/threads/s-t-a-l-k-e-r-2-heart-of-chernobyl.1960646/post-1046003860
Click to expand...
I was using that before, but after the recent patches I went back to stock .inis in case things changed in the patches and were conflicting. I'll try it again and see. I think it has something to do with how the game is rendered, though. It's actually hard to tell how bad it is in that screenshot, it's way, way worse in motion.
 
Pretty much all games do that nowadays though. They use -plenty- of low res effects everywhere, and TAA/TSR is are some of the tricks used to hide them. Now you also know why some games don't let you disable "AA" if you don't use an upscaler :p

Upscalers like DLSS (or DLAA) can hide such better than TAA, without blur, though sometimes things go wrong for one reason or another.

That's why hating on upscalers and praising native doesn't make sense anymore. Native in most games looks literally bad.
 
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kalston said:
Pretty much all games do that nowadays though. They use -plenty- of low res effects everywhere, and TAA/TSR is are some of the tricks used to hide them. Now you also know why some games don't let you disable "AA" if you don't use an upscaler :p

Upscalers like DLSS (or DLAA) can hide such better than TAA, without blur, though sometimes things go wrong for one reason or another.

That's why hating on upscalers and praising native doesn't make sense anymore. Native in most games looks literally bad.
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It seems to be a UE5 thing, specifically, based on what I've been reading about it. I guess the engine isn't designed to use without some sort of AA or upscaling.
 
MavericK said:
Has anyone tried turning off upscaling entirely in this game? It looks crazy bad, like everything is covered in static. What's going on? Running at native res in 1440p. This is with AA on Epic as well.

Even with upscaling, the distant foliage looks awful and like a weird pixellated mess.

View attachment 698840
Click to expand...
I've been playing 2560x1440, no upscaling @ 120hz... Mine has been fine, but I could also have terrible eyes.
 
criccio said:
Official discord is filling with issues completing a shader compilation after the patch. Then many seem to have an issue with save games not loading without errors or crashes if they do though it.

Going to be a few hours until I can give it a shot. I might backup my save game directory and remove my mods beforehand.
Click to expand...
So, like many people my shader comp just stalled on first boot after the update. I had to manually do the Nvidia shader comp off/reboot/on/reboot dance along with manually purging the folders in AppData/Nvidia but I completed a shader comp fine after that.

I only tinkered around a bit after that but everything seems to be working.
 
I have never noticed a game update nearly peg my CPU before. The entire time this game was updating, Steam was using 80% or more of my CPU.
 
jobert said:
I have never noticed a game update nearly peg my CPU before. The entire time this game was updating, Steam was using 80% or more of my CPU.
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It was modifying large files for the patch, probably why it was so heavy. I've seen it happen before on games that use large single files rather than lots of smaller ones.
 
MavericK said:
Has anyone tried turning off upscaling entirely in this game? It looks crazy bad, like everything is covered in static. What's going on? Running at native res in 1440p. This is with AA on Epic as well.

Even with upscaling, the distant foliage looks awful and like a weird pixellated mess.
Click to expand...

Yes, I noticed this too. At 4k, DLSS Quality looks much better than native. I also notice the "pixelated static" effect with any kind of sharpening applied.

Awesome game by the way, bugs notwithstanding. I've poured 40 hours into it, doing a lot of unnecessary exploring and side missions, and it feels like I've barely scratched the surface. Only at the the Slag Heap now in line with the main missions. I just get lost in this world.

As a side note, this is the first game I've played where frame gen runs smoothly and adds to playability. There are some hiccups but overall I am impressed. Can't wait to load up the new patch and see what breaks this time around. :)

Edit: Nothing appears broken with the 1.1.1 patch. No shader compilation issues or mod conflictions (I have about a dozen of them). I'm running Intel if that means anything.
 
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FG still adds a noticeable amount of input lag for me, but it does make the game a lot smoother. I didn't really notice any improvement performance-wise with the latest patch.
 
Seems this is a thing that bit me last night. https://steamcommunity.com/app/1643320/discussions/3/603016959722853536/

Minor spoilers for the Down Below mission, one of the last few in the main story. I had to employ the UETools fix to get past it that's documented in that thread.

I've got 110 hours in this save so I've been trying to just explore everything but now I'm shooting for the finish line so I can move to Indiana Jones.
 
NukeDukem said:
Edit: Nothing appears broken with the 1.1.1 patch. No shader compilation issues or mod conflictions (I have about a dozen of them). I'm running Intel if that means anything.
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The shader compilation issue still exists even after the 1.1.1 patch. It's a roll of the dice if I'll make it through without it stalling or freezing. They definitely changed something with 1.1 and now it's unstable.

Not complaining too much on that specific issue because of all the other stuff they fixed or added outweigh its annoyance. A-Life has a bigger bubble now, which is much appreciated. I actually heard a pack of dogs and fleshes fight it out as I ran past a barn. Now the world doesn't feel nearly as lifeless.

I still have a bugged side-mission that will not complete and a handful of emission markers still aren't going away.
 
Hotfix is supposed to fix shader compilation getting stuck.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1643320/view/525330030617690487
  • Fixed some issues with shader compilation being stuck, leading to infinite wait time or crash.
  • Fixed some issues with loading saves.
  • Fixed a crash, that occurred during exiting the game
  • Added the functionality of back-up saves, that will be saved and stored automatically and last for 4 days (For PC only).
You can find the back-up saves here: C:\Users\%username%AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\Backup
 
Man, not sure whats up but I crash right when I hit the play button or exe. No mods or anything either. I even tried removing all my saves and turn off cloud gaming. So, not even sure whats up.
 
Armenius said:
Hotfix is supposed to fix shader compilation getting stuck.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1643320/view/525330030617690487
  • Fixed some issues with shader compilation being stuck, leading to infinite wait time or crash.
  • Fixed some issues with loading saves.
  • Fixed a crash, that occurred during exiting the game
  • Added the functionality of back-up saves, that will be saved and stored automatically and last for 4 days (For PC only).
You can find the back-up saves here: C:\Users\%username%AppData\Local\Stalker2\Saved\Backup
Click to expand...
Was about to post here that they fixed the shader compilation issue but it stalled at about 60% on my first try with this patch. At least they are aware of it and are actively trying to fix it.
 
After 1.1 I stalled on shader comp but doing the old school Nvidia shader comp dance resolved it, that and using Disk Cleanup to wipe the DirectX shader cache.
 
criccio said:
After 1.1 I stalled on shader comp but doing the old school Nvidia shader comp dance resolved it, that and using Disk Cleanup to wipe the DirectX shader cache.
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For shits and giggles, just tried that. Nope. None of that stuff reliably works as a workaround in my experience. Just killing both tasks and persistently retrying is the only thing that works, which is not really a fix.

The only way this gets fixed is if the devs fix it themselves.

As a software developer, the issue behaves like a race condition. Which would explain why it will randomly get through the shader compilation. Like I said earlier, it's a roll of the dice if it will make it all the way through.
 
Absalom said:
For shits and giggles, just tried that. Nope. None of that stuff reliably works as a workaround in my experience. Just killing both tasks and persistently retrying is the only thing that works, which is not really a fix.

The only way this gets fixed is if the devs fix it themselves.

As a software developer, the issue behaves like a race condition. Which would explain why it will randomly get through the shader compilation. Like I said earlier, it's a roll of the dice if it will make it all the way through.
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Not saying it's the issue, but if your signature is up-to-date, I would seriously look at upgrading your CPU. It would speed up the time it takes for shader compilation.
 
Armenius said:
Not saying it's the issue, but if your signature is up-to-date, I would seriously look at upgrading your CPU. It would speed up the time it takes for shader compilation.
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I'm aware of my dated CPU. Upgrading is on the plans for 2025. However, once I get into the game, I have no game-breaking issues such as crashing, etc. It's just this shader compilation issue, which is a new issue, that I feel I need to report on. Others following this thread might run into the same issue and may think something is wrong with their hardware. It's probably not your hardware, that's all I'm saying.

Looking at Reddit and Steam forums, I'm not alone here in my reporting. And this is even with the 1.1.2 hotfix.

They'll get it fixed, eventually.
 
Meh, the glitch with the sawmill quest isn't fixed for me yet.

I'm starting to assume I'll have to do a full restart :cry:
 
Absalom said:
Not complaining too much on that specific issue because of all the other stuff they fixed or added outweigh its annoyance. A-Life has a bigger bubble now, which is much appreciated. I actually heard a pack of dogs and fleshes fight it out as I ran past a barn. Now the world doesn't feel nearly as lifeless.
Click to expand...

I highly recommend the Shay's Living Zone mod if you want the zone to become far more active. You will hear distant gun battles, see various squads fighting mutants and other factions, and come under attack far more often. Even post 1.1.1 - it makes a world of difference, and feels like you're in an active war zone. You can also try out A-Life Extended - although I don't have personal experience with this one.
 
Like some others have said, after downloading the latest patch (hotfix), the game crashes as it's going through the shader exercise. Never had that problem before. Game for me is tanked until this gets fixed in another hot fix/patch. :hungover:
 
Suppose I should launch the game see if I'm safe.....The Big Patch was ok for me from a few days ago.
 
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It loads even with my Hyperthreading Disabled on my 13700K I have it Disabled for lower Temps otherwise SOME games that are air cooled they don't like my air cooler. 100 degree stuff with Hyperthreading on. Took about 20 seconds to load Shaders I want to get one of those 5.00 bracket for the LGA socket but some people reported memory errors and the bracket is so sharp it rips on the tracers on the MB with pressure I suspect from the mounting force of the air cooler.
 
I've had no issues with any of the patches. Shaders have been compiling fine each version over here. Played 3 hours solid last night, such a fun game to explore...
 
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