S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

 (unofficial) Add-On
NEWSA.SIMBION.(aka ABC.AMK.SRP)_Tweak

 

 

 

 

 

Main Page Installation                                                                                                                                                

 

Help & Tips

 

TECHNICAL

 

Specifications


This Mod is Highly resource demanding and attempting to run it on low-range or low-to-mid range PCs would be quite unsatisfactory. In such cases when PCs cannot provide the resources what the software (game, in this case) demands, it will be then inevitable that the performance will be severely affected.


(Minimum) Recommended PC specifications -the higher the specs above this point, the better your performance and visuals will be.
Pentium D (3+ GHz)
Or Core 2 Duo (2.4+ GHz)
2 Gb RAM DDR2 (For Windows Vista OS)
(for Nvidia series 7) Nvidia 7900GT -- (or ATI equivalent) or above
(for Nvidia series 8) Nvidia 8600GT -- (or ATI equivalent) or above


You must have a Power Source (PSU) providing enough power for your system. For any system configurations as above, the recommended PSU will be one which provides not less than 450W power, at least 380w of which coming on 12V rail (preferably on dual 12V rails.)

Any power inefficiencies affect PCs severely and causes series Frame Rate Drops and may lead to CTD, as well as stressing your other components and reducing their live spans.

 

Tips for Running the Game & Troubleshoot

 

QUAD-CORE Users:  As STALKER is NOT optimized for Quad-Core Processors, those who have Quad-Core CPUs on their system are prone to experience "Delayed Spawns" in their game. In order to work around this matter, as much as it is possible, I recommend that users should "save-and-reload" their game quite often (such as quicksave-quickload). This will help release one or more unloaded processes stuck/passed on one (or more)  of the cores. 

The mod plays very well on a suitable system as above. However, though rarely, you may still experience occasional crashes, which would be (if no hardware or driver problems are present) mainly due to the fact that we have been putting more and more weight on the shoulders of the game engine, which -in fairness- has been designed to run only the vanilla STALKER and not prepared in mind that it would be loaded by modders with weights up to, in instances,  five times that of vanilla STALKER.

 

 
In this game (vanilla STALKER) NPCs do travel "offline" to new destinations who are set to appear on certain levels when needed upon your arrival there. During such occasions, when they are taken from "offline" condition to "online" condition, engine may fail to initiate the NPC on a safe point/location, such as: when an NPC was travelling over the game coordinates "offline" and if this NPC's path was just passing through the (e.g.) buildings on game map when he is called to switch to online status (to appear in game) he may quite possibly get stuck inside the walls, or similar conditions occur.

This unfortunately leads to a CTD in STALKER as the engine instead of dropping the "stuck NPC" in such a situation and continue the game as it is, it aborts the game.

 

The similar situation may be witnessed when an NPC's path coincides with an unmovable object (or collides with another NPC). In such case, the engine may fail to steer the stuck NPC around the obstacle, or upon failing to perform this function, may not abandon the stuck NPC on its position and continue the game as its, instead it aborts the game.

 

This symptom do increase proportionately (even more) when significantly more NPCs and other elements than vanilla STALKER numbers are introduced into the game scene.


In such situations, I would recommend that you re-load a previous save and try again, preferably choosing a little different route on the same direction, or proceed faster than what you did earlier. The game always throws things in different order and quantities each time, and many compositions in the game changes in relevance to what you have been doing up to that point. So, making a change of actions may indeed affect the response you get from the game.
Sleeping during an occurrence of any such incident would also be beneficial for skipping the compilation off-line events that lie behind the cause.
All such events would be recoverable and non-repeating.

 

 

As seen from the reports of various players, systems with AMD CPUs appears to be more sensitive and susceptible to encounter problems.

 

Also it has been verified that, with experiments carried by players, ATI X1950 Pro cards -due to the reasons yet unknown, whether driver or otherwise- hampers the game progress. Other ATI cards so far seem to function satisfactorily.


Thank you.
 

 


Technical Reference

Some references from the main computer on which the Mod has been successfully run on extensive testing phase:


Core 2 Quad Q8300, Yorkfield  2.50GHz, 1333MHz
ASUS Motherboard PQ5
4 Gb RAM -Corsair Dominator PC 8500 C5D (1066 MHz) with cooler
1 Terabyte SATA HDD
EVGA GTX260 (216 Cores) 55nm SSC Edition (675MHz core, 2304 MHz memory, 1458MHz shaders)
ASUS LION Square CPU Cooler
CORSAIR HX 520W PSU (40Amp on 12V)

IncreaseUserVa 3072 switch has been activated on Windows Vista OS in order to enable over 2Gb Virtual Memory usage to deal with extremely large Memory demand as (particularly) seen with "quicksave" situations. Please do a search on the forum about this issue.

 

 

 

 

 

Gameplay Tips

 

 

 

 


     Gameplay Tips
 

  • Always save before speaking with a character (NPC) who gave you the mission, following successfully completing that mission. Unexpected attacks can take place and you may not be able to collect your award after the ensuing fights, and it would be particularly disappointing if the mission commissioning NPC were to die there.
     

  • Manage your food stocks carefully.
     

  • GPS-beacon (the yellow device) can be activated by dropping it onto the ground at the point where you want to remember later and entering a line of text (give a name to the spot) into the PDA/text box that opens on the screen, and then hitting the button "Place Marker" on that text box. Do NOT collect the GPS-beacon back. Leave it there. It will place  a red circle on your PDA with the text that you entered. You can identify various places by these beacons, but you should not bother with identifying anomalies, because as they move dynamically in this mod, any such anomaly will not be in the same place when you come back next time, anyway.
     

  • Heli Ride at the beginning of the game, in Cordon where you save Tolik, is a bonus fun based offer and not a part of the game story. If you wish to do so try it, do not forget to SAVE before you do so. The only way of getting off the helicopter is to "reload a previous save"  either a quicksave or a named hard save done before that event. Please keep in mind that, as this is not primarily a flying game, the controls are limited as well as the experience is so.

  • Surviving in Ultimate-Blowouts:

    In a few places in the game there will be some Ultimate-Blowouts, under which it will be almost impossible to survive when caught up in the open field even if you are wearing a highly protective suit like Nano-Suit. Therefore, it is imperative to shelter in a well-enclosed place during such blowouts. Places such as basements are among the best choices.

    Though they will be random and at varying levels along the characteristics of this mod, one such event may be expected in the     Dark Valley, quite possibly after saving Bullet from the bandits and the ensuing gunfight with other bandits inside the complex. Another one may hit in Army Warehouses level, at the Freedom Base during your first entry to the Base.

    In     Red Forest area of the game, it is highly likely that you will have another one of these events. On all these occasions it’s “highly” advisable to seek shelter in well contained areas with thick walls, preferably some underground places if there is one in the vicinity.

    --In     Dark Valley (if it hits you in front of X18 building after saving Bullet’s friend): Kill the bandits, get inside the building, go down the stairs nearby the door, through which you would later enter the lab after getting its keys.

    --In     AW, one of the best places is to run inside one of the barracks and find shelter in one of those small rooms in the back.

    --And in     Red Forest, (it’s the most dangerous one, because you’re in a well exposed situation with virtually nowhere with the required description to hide; and you are under heavy enemy fire): There is still such a place to hide. A bunker ahead offers good protection. But, there is an enemy sniper standing in front of it. Timing of engaging with enemies must be in such a suitable sync until the correct position is gained, so that the remaining time should be enough to reach the “bunker” there.

    The bunker is the one on the further up on the left, in front of which the sniper remains positioned. It will be necessary to pass through the enemy lines and kill the sniper, go through the cut in the fence, climb up the ladder and enter the locked “bunker.”

    This is the code:       1287975
    (In case the code cannot be acquired from found PDAs up to that stage due to the continuously moving NPCs.)