Windows 7 - STALKER: COP - don't buy it

If you are thinking about buying the new Stalker: Call of Pripyat game - don't. Its poorly optimised and the textures look imported from 2006. My 4890/Phenom 550/8GB DDR3 1333MHz system was configured like so:

* 1920*1080p
* DirectX 9 Full Enhanced Lighting (4th highest option out of 5)
* Textures maxed
* Objects maxed
* All other sliders (shadow, grass, etc) set to 60%
* Sun quality and settings all set to medium
* Filtering Off
* All other settings on

The game hitched and stuttered frequently during combat, and the gun + landscape models are poor even with textures maxed. If you have 2 5870's then consider it otherwise don't bother. It doesn't even support x64. Even though the settings should put Crysis to shame, the engine is ugly. Period. Won't be buying Metro 2133 either.

thanks for the warning man, but why aren't you buying metro 2033? i'm thinking of pre-ordering it.

I would swear they will reuse bits of the X-Ray engine for Metro. Honestly I wouldn't post this thread, but the textures look like 2005 era. The specs are high too - I would upgrade to a 5870 if necessary but the game is ugly. Very.

yeah i saw some screenshots of COP and it didn't look nice. i've been waiting for metro 2033 for a long time. i'll wait and see what rating it will get after that i will consider buying it or not. anyways thanks for the heads up!

*sigh* It looks dated because it is dated. It's the same X-Ray engine (with a few tweaks) that was used in the original.

The extra 'ugliness' also stems from the fact that you are using DX9 - Use DX10.

Screenshots don't do the game justice as the dynamic weather/lighting effects/etc are impressive. TBH, the hue and cry of it being 'ugly' is overrated.

It still doesn't utilize more than one core effectively, but setting the affinity on xrEngine.exe manually in Task Manager does help with the jerkiness.

Yes, it's poorly optimized - but what STALKER hasn't been?

Basically, despite having to dial a few settings down here and there, it can be rendered playable. Bugwise, it's the most stable 'out of the box' STALKER releases.

Just because your machine 'has met it's match' doesn't mean it's a game 'not worth buying'.




Welcome to the world of IQ sacrifice vs Playability




Metro 2033 will be different as it's not an 'open-world' game which means it should perform better and look better, (ostensibly due to better resource allocations owing to the smaller map sizes / less A.I etc)

Although the lack of PhysX on ATI cards will having many complaining it looks ugly as well...

What SE said.

The original Stalker did/still does play horribly too, so it's not really a surprise COP does too, but I guess this is where the "graphics don't make a game" come in. If you really want to play it, just turn the graphics down until it's playable.

It is playable at the above settings, and DirectX10 still looks ugly.