STALKER pretty mod

AlmightyCushion

I found a mod for stalker that claims to make it look better and increase the frame rates of the game by 25%. Can any one verify this for me? You can find it here

Rhyme

It could be the one that makes the sigposts more legible.

...or the people who released those mods for Oblivion which apparently made a dramatic difference in the character models.

Dooom

Is this the Float32 thing? The site scared me and didn't tell me anything useful so I'm assuming it is.

It works, didn't notice a massive boost in fps, but definately no drop either.

AlmightyCushion

Dooom wrote:

Is this the Float32 thing? The site scared me and didn't tell me anything useful so I'm assuming it is.

It works, didn't notice a massive boost in fps, but definately no drop either.

Cool must give it a go.

0ubliette

this works, btw. Makes the game look alot nicer but with no FPS drop. I now have nice lighting effects! The indoor sections crippled my pc at first, having to use the torch to look around killed my fps, i had to drop all settings to medium, and my res to 1024 x 768 just to complete the first underground section!!
now with this mod i got tot he underground laboratory, and its flying alonf with a lovely framerate and full lighting, 1280 x 1024

Cuddlesworth

hmm, I can't believe that you get something for nothing.

projectmayhem

krazy_8s wrote:

hmm, I can't believe that you get something for nothing.

i can't believe that if this mod is doing what it's supposed to how the actual dev team didn't manage to do this sort of stuff before release (or even in the patching process)

0ubliette

krazy_8s wrote:

hmm, I can't believe that you get something for nothing.

ehh...yeah, exactly.

Cuddlesworth

projectmayhem wrote:

i can't believe that if this mod is doing what it's supposed to how the actual dev team didn't manage to do this sort of stuff before release (or even in the patching process)

Exactly, its hard to believe that a independent team of coders could completely optimize the game like that. I would be more inclined towards the removal of certain lighting effects which the normal person would not notice until presented with the game running side by side.

0ubliette wrote:

ehh...yeah, exactly.

See above, you never get something for nothing in life. To improve graphical performance they need to remove something.

neGev

It looks better and runs faster. Try it before damning it.

Slaanesh

See above, you never get something for nothing in life. To improve graphical performance they need to remove something.

Not a programmer then eh?

Cuddlesworth

Slaanesh wrote:

Not a programmer then eh?

For a short time. I am well aware of how much improvement you can get out of optimizing code. But the type of performance increase that some people are advocating coupled with the fact that the company built the engine from the ground up makes me doubt that they didn't remove graphics effects from the game.

The average joe on the street believes he knows if the game has changed, for somebody who has done 3d modeling I can tell you that is not the case. After the first 30 seconds of a game, people stop really looking at it.

Zombrex

krazy_8s wrote:

For a short time. I am well aware of how much improvement you can get out of optimizing code. But the type of performance increase that some people are advocating coupled with the fact that the company built the engine from the ground up makes me doubt that they didn't remove graphics effects from the game.

As far as I know this guy is simply re-writing the shader code to make it more optimized. If the shader code was poorly written to start (which could be the case) then this could give significant performance boost.

0ubliette

krazy_8s wrote:

Exactly, its hard to believe that a independent team of coders could completely optimize the game like that. I would be more inclined towards the removal of certain lighting effects which the normal person would not notice until presented with the game running side by side.



See above, you never get something for nothing in life. To improve graphical performance they need to remove something.

As someone else said, dont knock it til youve tried it. I installed it, and unless my eyes and PC are decieving me, im getting lighting effects i couldnt run before, with roughly the same performance FPS wise. As i said, in the underground bunkers i had to drop all settings and even my resolution to play them, so i gave up. After this mod, i just played the X18 laboratory section in full res, and with proper lighting/textures with a solid FPS, im not ****ing lying to myself here just to impress people on boards about my PC's performance..

tba

Pics or STFU!

0ubliette

tba

Send in the elphants!

Cuddlesworth

Wicknight wrote:

As far as I know this guy is simply re-writing the shader code to make it more optimized. If the shader code was poorly written to start (which could be the case) then this could give significant performance boost.

I am not saying it is not possible, but for it to work the people who developed the Stalker engine must be the stupidest coders out there or that guy is the best coder in the world.

From, 1024*768 at medium settings at low fps, to 1280*1024 at high with good fps is a huge improvement. That doesn't strike me as optimizing, it strikes me as re-writing the game's shaders.

projectmayhem

anyone want to post some comparisons to end the debate?

load fraps up with and without the mod at the same res and show us how it is

Zombrex

krazy_8s wrote:

I am not saying it is not possible, but for it to work the people who developed the Stalker engine must be the stupidest coders out there or that guy is the best coder in the world.

From, 1024*768 at medium settings at low fps, to 1280*1024 at high with good fps is a huge improvement. That doesn't strike me as optimizing, it strikes me as re-writing the game's shaders.

I would say this guy is just a shader wizard or something. Shader programming is quite hard, there isn't really any reason to think the bloke responsible for it at the developers must be better than this bloke in his bedroom

I knew a guy in college who re-wrote some mouse driver for linux because it wasn't fast enough for Quake. He was a first year comp sys student.

0ubliette

tba wrote:

Send in the elphants!

lousy persians and your rhinoceroses...

Dooom

projectmayhem wrote:

i can't believe that if this mod is doing what it's supposed to how the actual dev team didn't manage to do this sort of stuff before release (or even in the patching process)

It's been added into one of the patches afaik hasn't it? Read that somewhere on the GSC forums anyway.