S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Release Version) Performance Issues

I

iToast

n00b
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
30
Hello all,

Here is the issue I just picked up Stalker a few hours ago and installed it with great excitement only to find it is running like a '87 Corsica on my box. Here are the specs at present.

AMD Athlon X2 4800+, ASUS A8N SLI-Premium, 4GB OCZ PC 3200, Raptor 36GB, 250GB SATA II, NEC 16x DVD-RW, EVGA 7800GTX.

I used to have SLI until one of my cards bought the farm so I am now down to 1. The game runs like crap on even 1280x1024 and is barely playable at 1024x768 (I have a 1920x1200 Display). Drivers are up to date and I am running on XP X64 edition. Has anyone else had a similar experience if so what have you tried to resolve it. With 4GB of RAM I do have my page file turned off as it isn't really needed, but doubt that is related to my present issue.
I have been waiting for this game for quite some time and am a bit displeased that it runs so poorly on my box which I don't believe is really THAT outdated. When the good old tax return arrives I'll pick up an 8800, but then the question is GTX, GTS, or GT. GTX if I get the cash, but is the GTS faster then this 7800? Thanks for the posts ahead of time.

-iToast
 
Yea I also have a 7800gtx and it runs like shit. The game must be poorly optimized just like all the rest this year.
 
Video Card

It ran slow for me at 1280x1024 max in-game settings, I was getting upper teens/lower 20's

Tried it with an 8800 GTX, runs as smooth as butter
 
Definitely worth trying enabling the page file--whether or not you "need" it, Windows often thinks it does and performs accordingly if it's gone.

I have also heard of many odd performance problems related to running 4 GB of RAM--some apps just react weirdly to that kind of address space, dual-channel mode seems to work poorly when all RAM slots are populated, etc. etc. If you have 4 one-gig sticks, try it with two (in the appropriate dual-channel slots, of course).

XP 64-bit may not play nice with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Don't know if you want to mess with trying to set up 32-Bit though.

Finally, a single 640MB 8800GTS should make you weep with joy compared to even SLI'd 7800GTX's, let alone one.
 
Yeah I heard that unified pixel shaders are clearly the way to go by means of performance. I might go pick me up some 8800's later this week and see how much better it performs. I have tried now both pagefile on and off to see performance difference, but no dice on that one. It does amaze me however that it would run so poorly considering the X-Ray engine was developed in the days of the 6800 series cards. It may be time to retire my 7800 and bite the bullet, but I fear that the moment I buy my 8800GTX that Nvidia will push out the dual core version or something far superior as I have heard some news on the horizon of a new nv series card. Anyone know of the performance of the 8800GTX in Linux?
 
Now STALKER is artifact laden and is barely playable. Any news on why maybe?
Tested the card in Prey and F.E.A.R. and everything checked out. But no dice in STALKER I wish I could play this wonderful game.
 
PLEASE LORD!!! Say it aint so!!! Not another bad F*****G optimized game!!!! Son of a B***h!!!!
 
Try different drivers. I was using the 93.71s with my 7900GT and the game ran like crap. I'm now using the 94.20s and the game runs great.
 
Installed the new BETA Drivers and it stills seems to be artifact ridden, but no other game exhibits these symptoms.
 
Running on my sig rig @ 1920x1080 like butter using 97.02 drivers.
 
According to the game box, the recommended requirements are a 7900 series graphics card.

Pretty steep. Obviously the minimum is alot lower, but still the game is a pig.
 
I'm thinking about getting this game. I'm hoping that the sig rig will get me through it ok. I'm not upgrading until Yorkfield and better Vista drivers.

I'm currently using the 93.71's, latter ones were causing me problems with Media Center.

So, any 7950 QUAD SLI people around? If its that bad, I'll just get one 8800GTX to hold me over if I have to.

Opinions please!
 
Seems like its been established that an 8800 will handle it.

Is anyone here running it on a 7950GX2 with good results, using the current WHQL 93.71 drivers?

Thanks!
 
With all game settings set to medium on the machine in my sig, I'm getting 30-ish FPS at 1680x1050.

More or less playable, but could be a heck of a lot better.
 
Hard to believe that. I tried 1680 x 1050 and it looked like a slideshow. Runs fine with high settings @ 1280 x 1024 for me with a 7800 GS
 
It doesnt run great on my rig either, i have AA on but ingame some parts still look as tho AA is turned off ? and it lags and stutters at times, unoptimized game if you ask me..
 
Getting hard here to determine what's going on. So we have EVIL-SCOTSMAN with an X2 4800+ and an 8800 GTX and having performance issues and belmicah with a Barton AGP system and saying that at 1280x1024 max settings he's getting good performance.

What are your settings EVIL-SCOTSMAN?

I love PC gaming, but this is the part I hate!

Thanks for the info!
 
Good game bud, I play at 1280x1024 4xFSAA 16xAniso max settings.... runs visually smooth, minus some lag from caching.

x800GTO^2 600/600
 
Turn HDR off? That's something my brother mentioned. I haven't even touched the game yet, but I'm going to buy it this weekend. Hopefully my baby here will play it alright.
 
I know you guys with 7900GTX's are pissed at this.. this is pretty much the first game you can't really play with all the whizzbangs and dooodad's turned on full. This engine is terribly optimized because its been so long in the pipeline that apparently they decided to add those next-gen effects to 'keep up'. Well it seems like maybe that's why its so terribly optimized. I found that I couldn't play it on my 6800GT whatsoever so I turned off the next gen effects and it played drastically better..it was dogshit ugly but it played well.

It kind of makes sense then.. those effects are reaaallly dragging it down unless you are rocking an 8800...
 
Borgschulze said:
Good game bud, I play at 1280x1024 4xFSAA 16xAniso max settings.... runs visually smooth, minus some lag from caching.

x800GTO^2 600/600
Click to expand...

Thanks!

You've got a bit better CPU but hopefully my better GPU's will make up for it as I want to run it at 1680x1050.

Seems that at least some people are doing ok on good but not state of the art hardware.
 
dunno if its just an nvidia issue but with the system in my sig i can run at 1024*768 at maximum settings with only the occassional hiccup from loading up a new area....

it runs so well i am actually suprised when it doesnt slow down in firefights and you can see all the fantastical graphicness flying around on the screen.
 
Reading about all the people having issues with this game at NVnews, I think it might be an Nvidia driver problem. I have an 8800GTX on the way, I'll install the game tomorrow and try it first with my X1900XTX and then I'll try it with my 8800GTX when it gets here and compare them to see if it's a driver issue.
 
I'd like to see if my system can handle this game. I might pick it up this weekend. Personally those of you with 7800's, my feeling is those cards were pretty disappointing perforamnce wise. I was not impressed going from 6800 to 7800. When I switched from 7800 to 7900 I did notice a jump.
 
Wait for the patch, obviously a poor optimized game. Forgot the review sites name, but even they did not give Stalker its final score due to game problems.
 
MelonSplitter said:
PLEASE LORD!!! Say it aint so!!! Not another bad F*****G optimized game!!!! Son of a B***h!!!!
Click to expand...

God I hate this - that's why so many people are leaning towards consoles :( including me... a bit - simply becasue everything is so easy on the consoles, but as I can't use the analogue sticks it's not for me...

P.S. - I would really love R6V if I could play it with everything turned on and without FPS drops... but since it run's pretty shit on my PC with the specs I ve got... then that's not good.

P.P.S. - GRAW which IMO looks similar to R6V runs fine all the time *god damned console ports grrrrrrrrr*
 
scwam said:
I'd like to see if my system can handle this game. I might pick it up this weekend. Personally those of you with 7800's, my feeling is those cards were pretty disappointing perforamnce wise. I was not impressed going from 6800 to 7800. When I switched from 7800 to 7900 I did notice a jump.
Click to expand...

I don't know why. I had two 6800GT's in SLI and going to one 7800GTX kept me at the same performance level. After adding another 7800GTX things were much better. There was a nice jump in performance by going to 7900GTX's, but I'd hardly call the 7800's dissappointing.
 
Single 8800gtx here running 1920 resol'n without a hitch...well, almost without a hitch. I can turn almost everything on maximum detail with the slider bars. I had to turn down distance just a tad since I"d notice some little hiccups here and there. I love the game and am glad I"ve got a gtx to keep up with it.
 
Well I played for just a little while today and so for with my X1900XTX (Driver Cat 7.1) I experienced no problems at all. During the day, night and rain it ran smooth as butter. No problems with quick save, ESC or anything else.

I'm running the game at 1600x1200 with no AA, Full AF, Full Dynamic Lighting and MAX distance. All in game settings (if you're forcing settings in the control panel, then that's your problem right there).

I haven't checked what FPS I'm getting yet, but I'll do so when I get back this afternoon.

I hope the game runs this smooth and trouble free, or hopefully smoother (as it's suppose to), when I install the 8800GTX.
 
GEN3RIC said:
I know you guys with 7900GTX's are pissed at this.. this is pretty much the first game you can't really play with all the whizzbangs and dooodad's turned on full. This engine is terribly optimized because its been so long in the pipeline that apparently they decided to add those next-gen effects to 'keep up'. Well it seems like maybe that's why its so terribly optimized. I found that I couldn't play it on my 6800GT whatsoever so I turned off the next gen effects and it played drastically better..it was dogshit ugly but it played well.

It kind of makes sense then.. those effects are reaaallly dragging it down unless you are rocking an 8800...
Click to expand...

I can personally say this is true. The dynamic lighting has a MASSIVE effect on your performance. If you have a 6 series card, set the lighting to static, then set the preset to maximum. I'm running at 1280 like that and I get 40-80fps. It's very smooth like that, but is far from pretty. To all the 7 series, you're on your own. You're probably gonna have to lower the lighting settings.

To everyone, I'd rather that this game came out un-optimized rather than not come out at all, which there was a point where that was a possibility.

 
Try lowering the Texture size slider from max to one notch below max, that sent my FPS from 10-15 upto 60-80.
 
I'm running in Vista64 on an overclocked 320MB 8800GTS, 3.1Ghz c2d, and 4GB DDR2, and it runs craptastic. By craptastic I mean pure utter crap until I disable HDR and instead enable "object lighting", then it runs maybe 30fps on average @ 1600x1200 w/ everything else max but no AA on. If I drop the res down to 1024x768 it runs nice but looks crappy. I believe this game is probably unoptimized and also the nVidia Vista drivers need more work.
 
DarkOneX said:
I'm running in Vista64 on an overclocked 320MB 8800GTS, 3.1Ghz c2d, and 4GB DDR2, and it runs craptastic. By craptastic I mean pure utter crap until I disable HDR and instead enable "object lighting", then it runs maybe 30fps on average @ 1600x1200 w/ everything else max but no AA on. If I drop the res down to 1024x768 it runs nice but looks crappy. I believe this game is probably unoptimized and also the nVidia Vista drivers need more work.
Click to expand...

i think its more you running on Vista64 than the game being 'unoptimized'
 
I'm running a [email protected]. Single 8800GTX in Vista 32bit.. resolution is 1920x1200.. all in-game settings maxed out... it runs sluggish.. I'd say 20-30FPS in some places... still playable but I had to turn some in-game settings down to get it smooth.. booooo! :mad:
 
8800GTS and the game plays "fine" when it's not quick save crashing in Vista.. or not quick saving at all in XP. Performance seems to degrade over time, too. Maybe 30 minutes into playing and I can feel it getting sluggish. Quiting and restarting restores performance.
 
leemik said:
I'm running a [email protected]. Single 8800GTX in Vista 32bit.. resolution is 1920x1200.. all in-game settings maxed out... it runs sluggish.. I'd say 20-30FPS in some places... still playable but I had to turn some in-game settings down to get it smooth.. booooo! :mad:
Click to expand...

Maybe it's Vista.. I'm still with XP, Vista kept messing with me, so I killed it.
I am running C2D E6600 with max in game settings and supersampling in the driver. Getting mostly in the mid 50's and in the high 50s to 60s some times.
Isn't this supposed to be multi-core enabled? Only one of my core is at work for some reason. Do I have to enable it somewhere in the game? I don't see an option for that.

Forgot to mention, this is at 1920x1200 on the Dell 2407 monitor. I really should update my profile...lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top