Path: ...!local-4.nntp.ord.giganews.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!local-3.nntp.ord.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2024 15:21:03 +0000 From: Spalls Hurgenson Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action Subject: Re: STALKER 2 is out Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2024 10:21:03 -0500 Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 96 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-jfXFhg1yGSaq3QfnNPtj1sDIUnarQOTqDcbMtkHf9nrZeVjyv9k83ImXPlg8Nlo/MinE6aj8FKns/o/!eJE0xg0HNOgeYDyzO/aw6EsmrWVvJWPpsHlgeMFfOSaHmiE6OceHktW27vXg+ZmKs2g206aw X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 Bytes: 5152 On Wed, 27 Nov 2024 09:38:56 +0000, JAB wrote: >On 26/11/2024 19:46, PW wrote: >> On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:23:51 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson >> wrote: >> >>> It happened. It really happened. STALKER 2 finally released. More >>> unexpected things have happened this year, but not more welcome. >>> >>> Not that I'm buying it. Not yet at least. Not that I besmirch the >>> developers getting paid for their hard work, but I just don't feel >>> like paying $60 USD for a game in a franchise I've only lukewarm >>> feelings toward. >>> >>> (Much less $80 or $110 USD for the Deluxe or Ultimate versions, >>> respectively. Honestly, the division of the game into these various >>> editions annoyed me enough to kill any desire to pay even the $60 USD >>> asking price for the standard edition). >>> >>> Reviews are -unsurprisingly- overwhelmingly positive, although I'm >>> sure that has more to do with nostalgia for the franchise than any >>> actual, honest appraisal of the game (anyway, it's a huge game and how >>> anyone could honestly make judgement on the game after only a few >>> hours is a mystery to me). Also, this being 2024, I'm sure the game >>> released full of bugs and with poor optimization; it's worth waiting a >>> few weeks (or months!) just for all that nonsense to sort out. We'll >>> see what people really think about the game in February. >>> >>> Still, congrats to GSC Gameworld (the developers) for finally >>> releasing the game. That's a hard struggle for a small developer with >>> an outlandishly large reputation under any circumstances; expectations >>> are unproportionally high. But having to do that while your homeland >>> is literally under siege and on fire... it's an impressive feat. My >>> hat is off to you, gentlefolk. >>> >> *-- >> >> I didn't get very far into the game but was really liking it! However, >> I have to wait at least 5 minutes before the game is playable due to >> not only the compiling shaders thing (which takes forever and the >> adjustments to the video card setting does absolutely nothing to speed >> up the process), but the splash screens beforehand. >> >> And then after that finishes, it still takes about a minute or so for >> "press any key" to actually load play the game. >> >> In addition, the settings are not saved - after the game actually >> starts, I have to go back into the settings in order to invert Y. Even >> though I press F to save and am told the settings saved, they are NOT! >> >> I did like that there was a quick save command (but not quick load) >> and old-fashioned manual save spots in addition to auto-saves! >> >> Too bad. Going to move on to something else. Probably God of War >> Ragnarok but now I need to figure out how to stop the lengthy >> cutscenes that are happening all the time! They are so long! :-) >> >> I guess I am now an old you know what when it comes to playing games. >> Pretty demanding, eh? hehe >> > > From what I've read there are quite a few technical issues >(particularly optimisation) and bugs currently but the devs. are working >on fixing those. So probably best to move on until your first experience >of the game will be a good one. I mean... it _is_ a STALKER game. If you didn't want the bugs, why did you buy it before it's at least three years old? ;-) *** To skip shader compilation, create a new file called ENGINE.INI in your {appdata}local\stalker2\config folder, and added the following lines: [SystemSettings] r.PSOWarmup.WarmupMaterials=0 (If you change GPU or drivers, you'll want to re-enable shader recompilation though) *** To skip the intro movies, there's a mod for that (of course) https://github.com/Lyall/STALKER2Tweak/releases Extract to your STALKER2 director and the intro/logos should be gone (the mod also adds various config tweaks. Oh, and I just noted it has an option to disable shader compilation too)