graphical mods can make STALKER look better than everything (except for crysis)

Id take some more pics of it but my game keeps screwing up.. i think its the 1.5 patch.. im just gonna reinstall adn download sky mod again.. ill show some more pics of it tomorrowArsenal325

Are you sure it's not the sky mod?

In the top 5 graphics in the world, best fps of 2007, anyone who hasn't played it is really missing out. It's longer and more free than Crysis, more sophisticated than Call of Duty 4 and has gameplay equal to or imo exceeding both of them. I love it, and everyone should experience the dread and isolation of the zone. screamingdoom

If you're saying that you think that the gameplay not including the RPG elements is better than Crysis, I'm going to have to disagree with you. The gameplay itself is nothing special, although it is a great game.

[QUOTE="Arsenal325"]Id take some more pics of it but my game keeps screwing up.. i think its the 1.5 patch.. im just gonna reinstall adn download sky mod again.. ill show some more pics of it tomorrowRK-Mara

Are you sure it's not the sky mod?

well i took the sky mod off and i started it a new game.. it worked but then it started doing the same stuff where shadows started getting weird and showing up in places they werent.. then the screen flickers gray in ccertain areas.. im putting stalker back on and gonna get sky mod again.. i want to see the sunset

Better than Crysis? :lol: NO. Those screens look terrible comepared to Crysis.Cedmln

Better than Crysis? :lol: NO. Those screens look terrible comepared to Crysis.Cedmln

STALKER has great graphics, not because it has technical powress, but it represents the worn and weathered countryside that many of us are used to (not to say that we all live in a radioactive wastelands). Crysis's environments are something that many of us are distanced from (especially if you're like me and you live in the UK), which makes it feel less realistic, despite the fact that it's the best engine released (from a technical standpoint).

That's the appeal of STALKER for me, with added DX10 support and other improvements promised in Clear Sky, STALKERS prequel will be one of the best looking titles of 2008.

In the top 5 graphics in the world, best fps of 2007, anyone who hasn't played it is really missing out. It's longer and more free than Crysis, more sophisticated than Call of Duty 4 and has gameplay equal to or imo exceeding both of them. I love it, and everyone should experience the dread and isolation of the zone. screamingdoom

Also, it has a much wider range of graphics, so even seriously low powered computers can play it. I was trying it out on a computer with an integrated graphic card and it still worked, a few FPS dips but stil lworked.

[QUOTE="screamingdoom"]In the top 5 graphics in the world, best fps of 2007, anyone who hasn't played it is really missing out. It's longer and more free than Crysis, more sophisticated than Call of Duty 4 and has gameplay equal to or imo exceeding both of them. I love it, and everyone should experience the dread and isolation of the zone. DragonfireXZ95

If you're saying that you think that the gameplay not including the RPG elements is better than Crysis, I'm going to have to disagree with you. The gameplay itself is nothing special, although it is a great game.

No it's core shooting gameplay mechanics aren't as good as Crysis, but I did enjoy them greatly indeed. I loved the ai, the locales that you fought in and the feel and touch of the weapons. I also loved the suspense and intensity of the game and feeling of needing to survive. I guess it's not really fair to compare Crysis and stalker because they do do completely different things that can't really be compared. I guess I just tend to bag all the first person games that put a gun in your hand into the genre of fps and compare them but that's not really fair, as stalker is a hybrid game of fps and rpg. That said, the overall gameplay elements combining the action, adventure, atmosphere and rpg elements in stalker gave me more enjoyment than the gameplay of Crysis. And I guess also that's why I love stalker so much. It's original, it's fresh, and it's a fps, yet so much more. Crysis is still excellent though. In fact I think its pure fps mechanics are as perfect as we've seen, but as I've said, stalker is more than a pure fps, and it's those extra gameplay features that put it above Crysis for me.

Its a shame the game is so buggy...because that does look good.TheSystemLord1

It wasn't THAT buggy... Besides, there is a patch that fixes most of those.

I really thing those graphics are ugly. First off, the gun models and hand models are pretty terrible. You stare at them a damned lot, and they look pretty bad. The trees also look pretty bad. I don't like the lighting, but it is VERY atmospheric. I just don't like that type of atmosphere. The lighting is good in that game, so is the atmosphere. The game itself is addictive. I just think it looks ugly.Manly-manly-man

I, sort of, agree.

Its a shame the game is so buggy...because that does look good.TheSystemLord1

I beat Stalker a long time ago with 56 hours logged into it on xfire, here are some pics I took when I was playing, 1280 x 1024 res with full settings 7600GT P4 Processor 3.0ghz and 2GB ram, it did lag a bit in the cave with the flashlight on while fighting waves of enemies.

Considering this game released last year, the graphics do require alot of praise

This is a VERY nice topic, because the game itself, for one, deserves a LOT of praise, like some people already said, and the 1.005 patch deserves even more of it and so do some of the really nice mods.

I use the following (in order of installation; no bugs have occurred ever since):

1. STALKER Ultra_graphic_mode_v1.1_fixed.zip (from GameSpot)

2. S.W.O.v2.0_FULL (Weather Overhauled - comes with a sharper texture pack as well, really worth checking out, because I've noticed NO performance drops with it, just longer level load times)

3. STALKER aliVe 1.6 for 1.0005 (changes AI, adds tougher wildlife and also modifies weather cycles&related graphics somewhat)

Now, the thing is, when stalker came out a year ago, I had this rig: Pentium D 2.6, 1GB RAM and Radeon X1600 Pro (an outdated gpu even then, just like the whole system). And that original game on that rig even with the 1.003 patch really sucked balls for me, because even on static lighting and all the settings at lower than mid, the game more than often crashed, XP restarted, I even had suspicions of gpu overheating or RAM problems.

Now today, I'm playing the 1.005 patch and the aforementioned mods on 1024x768, MOST settings on max (excluding FSAA), WITH dynamic lighting, I kid you not - ON THE VERY SAME SYSTEM (only modifications are newer ATI gpu driver - no OC has been done). While I do suffer really long level load times, the fps drops below 15 only a couple of times in action right after loading the game, rarely afterwards. So this is my experience with Stalker - and I must say that if my Ukrainian neighbours are given the resources they need (beta-testing and optimizations-wise) for Clear Sky, they'll do one heck of a job on it. Think Crytek job on Crysis after Far Cry ;)

And I'll allow myself to express my opinion on AI as well and even compare it to Crysis:

Stalker's AI was just good-nothing too fancy, but generally well done, while Crysis was prolly the dumbest one I'd seen in a recent FPS. I played the whole game on delta and the ONLY place I experienced difficulty was when I had to escort Prophet (cause he'd freeze-notice that no AI was involved). I had a laughably easy experience and AI stupidity was sometimes truly horrendous.