Stalker: Clear Sky--Is Your System Ready?

[one-shot]

I bought the game the day it came out. I was disappointed at first because of the many glitches and crashes on Vista x64. I have the most recent patch and the game is great. There is definitely room to use your imagination in this game. Overall I do no regret buying the game. It was frustrating but a decent game.

 

[crockdaddy]

A thought. These games which come out and that completely punish anything but the most elite hardware if you turn on "graphic" features hyped in the game, why is it then the game devs are surprised when sales head south? Honestly. I am still afraid to go buy Crysis. TF2 and CoDIV run very well on my 7800GTX for the last 12 months and consequently the respective devs got a sale from me. It is only just now that I am considering going back to Vista w/SP1 that I have ordered an ATI 4850 (for 140 after rebate).

I am 33, I have been playing games since the C64 days. Like most of you losers (myself included) I have owned many PCs, loved 3Dfx back in the day, and I own quite a few consoles. In the end I heave learned game play and or solid story trumps pretty graphics every time. Please devs, by all means push the boundaries if you can budget it, but make the games better and more able to run on diverse hardware ..... don't worry about making the games so damn pretty.

Sorry for the rant ....

 

[bounty]

I'd just like to add that following your notes about graphics details while trying to look at the screeshots suck when you have to click to get to a preview, then another click to actually see it. Then hit back on the other window, all while waiting for your incredibly bloated website and ads to load. A regular popup window for images would save all the time from multiple reloads of the site. This is from a fast box on a fast connection.

 

[one-shot]

I wish I could edit my comments. I just installed the newest patch and the game just crashes. Great game.....if you leave it at the store. I wish GSC could get their act together. The first game was full of bugs, the second you would think there would be less but its V1.5, not V2.

 

[Dekasav]

This is an excellent article. I'm very impressed, not only reviewed the game as a game, but as a performance piece. I'm glad to see I might be able to put on some very solid settings with my HD 4670 at low res. I was worried.

 

[Guest]

You put 5 tiny screenshots on one page? You expect us to click all of them? Twice? I gave up. Why can't you post decent images anymore like you used to?

 

[Antman56]

Is this an Nvidia "The Way It's Meant to Be Played" game? If so, expect ATI to do some serious improvements in frame rate over the next couple of driver updates. Not locking arms with the developers during the games creation has its consequences.

Suggestions: Maybe a 1 GB 4850 and 1 GB 4870 can be included along with a big-dog 4870X2 and a High-End Geforce 9800GX2 in a future benchmark. Maybe getting updates for ATI drivers will be a good step...

 

[Guest]

whats considered playable?

anyway... i'm sorry to say this... but this game frankly looks like sh*t... graphics wise atleast.. and the performance isn't even close to crysis... its 50 % more performance... for 200% better looking gameplay...

why didn't they just pay a little bit more for coders instead of just getting cheat a**ed stuff... I mean come on... this could have been great... It could have had great atmosphere but... how can you have atmosphere looking at graphics that look so out dated... it doesn't look good at all... even cod 4 looks 10 times better and has literally has 2000% more frames then Stalker clear sky... at 1920 by 1200 the 4870 only gets like 5 fps... in cod 4 at max... AND with all other things in CCC set all the way up... i get 100 fps....

i mean seriously... actually code something well instead of making a potentially great game and then making it suck automatically with 5 year old graphics... technology is so much farther ahead of it... and yet it still performs terribly because they can't code

 

[Guest]

edit: ignore all spelling, grammatical and other mistakes please 😀

 

[Tizoc]

I think the EVGA 8800 GTS is gonna get d/c'd. Anyone else having trouble finding one in stock?

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]wonderer[/nom]Why are they always testing Ati hardware with old drivers. 8.9 has been available for ages.[/citation]

*smacks forehead*

 

[BeakerUK]

Love this game. I've not played it in a week or so, and the fact that repatching the game messes stuff up annoys me. However I have to admit I find it a facinating game still. I played SOC to death, and loved it. CS really is a little slicker in places, though I'll admit is did cause some issues when I 1st installed it with the 8.6 Hotfix Cata drivers. Since then I've had very few issues, and those I did have related to Mods that didn;t work correctly.

 

[fadirocks]

this is a good article and very informative
STALKER as a game is great but IT'S NOT FOR CHILDREN or any halo junky!!!

 

[emp]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom][/citation]

Well, even though I know that guy did not read where it stated that you used 8.8 drivers, one thing I'd like to know is why your performance with Ati cards is so low when AA is on? It's nothing like that on my system. (I'm using Cat 8.9, E7200, HD 4850, 4GB of Ram, and Vista 64)

Are you using the ingame setting to set the AA? I use 2 or 3 clicks into the slider and get the same FPS as no AA, and if I set the slider all the way to the max I lose about 4-5 fps max (I used fraps, I have that habit of checking my performance).

Also my last question is how can you tell how much AA is applied (i.e. you stated 4x AA set ingame)? Are you counting each step on the slider as 2x AA?

 

[warlordsagan]

Something I noticed. Clear Skies runs alot smoother on my PC on the highest settings compared to warhead on the 'gamer' setting.

 

[anonymous x]

is it just me, or does this game look like half life 2 episode 2 with much less performance?

 

[Guest]

Crysis is still boss! Courtesy to Crytek's lousy coding and optimization, the game is too graphics demanding. Ok, Ok, you're getting falling trees and collapsing houses, so what? HL2 will run on an EeePC and still delivers the same effect.

 

[Domestic]

Just another ATI bashing,my hd4850 with AA works lovely,I suggest if you cant get it working correctly then get a different job boys...

 

[taskforcetiny]

Just play WoW instead!
That is all.

 

[ahslan]

Warhead is short and shallow. Not a bad game but anyway. If you're talking about Stalker:SOC then you would do well to look at the modding community which really made the game the memorable experience it is to many. (Notably the oblivion lost mod)

I've played and finished both crysis games. They are in no way comparable to the atmospheric freedom that the stalker games have. You just can't compare them. Change the point of view to multiplayer and things might be different. Otherwise I you comment comes across as poorly thought out and shallow.

Ouch...I'm sorry my opinion insults you but it remains my personal opinion...I really have enjoyed Crysis and Warhead and comparing them to SOC (out of the box...no mods) they blow Stalker out of the water...If any of my friends buy this new Stalker, I'll be more than willing to give it another go...

I never did play any of the mods from Stalker:SOC...I only played the game for a little bit (about an hour or two on my friends rig) before I either got frustrated, lost interest, or both...

 

[Guest]

It doesn't make sense that the 8800 GTS scores are higher than the 9800 gtx scores. Aren't they the same chip with higher clockspeeds on the 9800gtx

 

[Ahumado]

It's nice to read a thorough review rather than one that reads as if from a template. Hey magicandy 24 pages? What is that too many for you to read ? And to dmaf1985 you're an idiot.

 

[tj_the_first]

Good article, thanks for the info and I'll be tuning the game appropriately when I get around to playing it. Why I bought it when I don't have the time to play it is a mystery even to me.

 

[mr roboto]

The only real knock I had with the first stalker was the save game issue. I mean you play for so many hours with bugs and constant crashes and then when you finally have an opportunity to play bug free and you have to start a new game. It's just retarded to me.

 

[magicandy]

[citation][nom]dimaf1985[/nom][/citation]

And you're obviously a biased fool.