Re: STALKER 2 is out

On Wed, 27 Nov 2024 09:38:56 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 26/11/2024 19:46, PW wrote:

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:23:51 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> 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)