Just a few words for the team

General talk about Lost Alpha dream project

Moderators: jwknaggs, CruxMDQ, Nemo

Just a few words for the team

Postby Quade » Mon May 05, 2014 1:58 pm

Hey, guys.
First off, a big thanks from the Stalker community and especially me to the team for being creative and extraordinary in making of the mod. You've done it, this can be seen by the happy faces of your fans. Six years isn't a joke for a mod to pass, however you managed to not give up and finish it with respect.

To be honest from the first comments I was not sure it's worth to try as many said this mod is incomplete or plain bad. I've been looking foward for the mod to release since the start of development and had faith it will success. But, as any other first experiences with Stalker games (mods, whatever), mine started from disappointing.

So, the game was installed and I launched it. Wish it was more content like new menu backgrounds or a brand new pre-rendered video for the intro, although you did extremely well. Of course, the graphical settings were asking to be maxed out, so I did it without a thought. That was my greatest bad. The game struggled to even run it within playable frames, it was something between 1 and 10 FPS. I had no single problem running SHoC with OGSE team exe patches and shader improvements on vanilla with some heavy weight mods, the worts I've ever gotten was 30fps (C2Q@3.5ghz, GTX295 OCd, 4gb). But, hell no, not 5 FPS. Guys, that's a shame. So-called DX10 mode is just pure garbage and should have never been added in the first place. I'm not buying a top GFX card just to enjoy stable 30FPS. And that doesnt matter the quality settings or options, everything goes down to 10FPS. I would have skipped using this renderer, but can't stand the lack of antialiasing, which I usually use with help of various SMAA/FXAA injectors. Yeah, that didn't work here, a stable crash. And for some strange to the humanity reason, the AA options are locked out for DX9 aka R2. Why? It has never been so much of a problem for Stalker to avoid AA restrictions. Moreover, some groundbreaking troubles starting with the game fonts as soon as I set up my R3 renderer (already posted in the bug thread). Just to sum up - this DX10 implementation is not working as intended, to be exact - at all.

The gameplay is sweet. These locations, atmosphere, even in-game interaction. Brilliant. Whatever the other says, your interpretation of the true Stalker is the most genuine, it is how the original Shadows Of Chernobyl should have been made. Weapons are surprisingly balanced, as well as the feeling of lonesome. Stalkers rare to be seen, there are no insane spawning (although I miss those global skirmishes). The game's resources are greatly optimized, for some reason my load times are within 10-15 seconds (even less with already dumped levels into the memory). Kudos to you! And damn, those are filled with sense. Finally I can feel like a stalker fearing to make a single step, not the total Zone terminator killing every dog and tushkano for fun. And that's damn good.

Please, focus your available time on fixing the GFX and gameplay bugs, sound bugs (I was disappointed you messed up with sound environment and EAX, using those outdated libraries). It was a pleasure to play the game and I wish you all the best in your future projects. Excuse me for criticism.
Quade
Newbie
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon May 05, 2014 12:07 pm

Re: Just a few words for the team

Postby Agremont » Mon May 05, 2014 3:00 pm

I'm not having any major framerate issues and I've just about maxed it out. Only sunrays to medium. So turn those down and you should get quite a lot of performance gain.

However it does seem like the framrate goes down gradualy as when you've played for a while. Not sure why that is.

I'm running it on a gtx680 btw.
Agremont
Newbie
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat May 03, 2014 7:27 pm

Re: Just a few words for the team

Postby Quade » Mon May 05, 2014 3:10 pm

Agremont, got my sunrays on low (heard that fixes the leak), shadow maps at high (and it has never slowed my game down, even on vanilla with extension fixes up to 4-8kk per map). The issue is low framerate, which is ridiculous. If I tried to play that way, than the other (the missing fonts) comes out, making the whole game unplayable.

Well I don't really care about it degrading over time, since I do saving-loading frequently enough to not bother. And I usually quit to the main menu to reload a save. Not sure whether vid_restart helps or not.

Could be drivers related, though. What version do you have?
SLI mode is rambling, loads one GPU on 90% and the other on 10%. But that might be vanilla's issue, never paid attention to this.
Quade
Newbie
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon May 05, 2014 12:07 pm

Re: Just a few words for the team

Postby prava » Mon May 05, 2014 10:09 pm

How do you expect a C2Q to fully take advantatge of a GTX295 is beyond me... let alone call it "high end" as per today's standards.
prava
Newbie
 
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu May 01, 2014 6:20 pm

Re: Just a few words for the team

Postby Quade » Mon May 05, 2014 11:09 pm

prava wrote:How do you expect a C2Q to fully take advantatge of a GTX295 is beyond me... let alone call it "high end" as per today's standards.

I never said it would, the question wasn't stated as whether a GTX295 would work with LA or not - the framerate issue is major for any system, I bet even yours at some point. Please, if you can't help me or explain why LA's DX10 renderer is taking every single card to its knees, better don't say at all.

My issues with missing fonts and permanent 10 FPS on any quality settings under R3 still persist. I have no single idea what's the problem, many do play the game with a better rate on much more slower systems. Trying to narrow my searches.
Quade
Newbie
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon May 05, 2014 12:07 pm

Re: Just a few words for the team

Postby prava » Tue May 06, 2014 1:31 am

But bashing on a product that has been released FOR FREE will get you close to nowhere. They have no requeriment to improve the game at all at this point, but I bet they will keep doing so.

I'm sure if you disable a few options the game will run smoother for you.
prava
Newbie
 
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu May 01, 2014 6:20 pm

Re: Just a few words for the team

Postby LH23 » Tue May 06, 2014 1:54 am

Thank you for all the work you have done team. I think that now this project has entered its second stage of development that you should not dismiss the idea of a paid for release in a year. If the bugs are ironed out (and your getting help with that) and some more side quests to fill up those huge but empty maps like forest and countryside. This will be a game worth paying for, don't let some sad oath-breaker ruin your chance.
LH23
Newbie
 
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu May 01, 2014 4:20 am


Return to Lost Alpha

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 24 guests

cron