Stalker Clear Sky, a new Crysis Video Card Killer...@ 1280x1024...

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid [...] ew/?page=2

I'm shocked


Thats all.

I think the First patch to Stalker should put a fix to all the optimization problems I heard it has.

But at the same time I heard the game is beautiful.

Atleast I kno it won't run on my laptop

Psh, they said it scales nearly 100% on dual gpu, and you have 9800gx2 quad. What exactly are you complaining about?

Wonder if the game has AA? And what it does to these cards here?

The game looks so much prettier than the original one. I found the original to be one of the best games I've ever played. The atmosphere and settings were so amazing, especially when using Oblivion Lost (which IMO is the only way to play it). I need to beat the original still though, so I won't be picking this up for a while.

I think this game actually looks better than Crysis (activate flame shield). The graphics look more realistic, most things don't shine. In Crysis everything is all shiny. I've yet to see a shiny tree in real life. Stalker almost feels like you are looking at actual photography the way it is.

EDIT: Here's one of the screenshots that I really like

http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/9450 [...] =mediaFull

Man, I'm so looking forward to this!

keith12, take it easy bro.

Just had the Clear Skies delivered a couple of days ago. I've found it a much better improvement on the original regarding Game play and the graphics.

The Improved Dynamic Lighting with settings to Maximum without AA in DX 9 and DX 10 are killers for my PC. The DX 9 averages around 15-20 FPS in high populated area's, while the DX 10 can drop to lows of 8-15 Avg.

The DX 10 seems like the DX 10 effects in Bioshock though i'm by no means an expert, although the lighting at max is by far the best i've seen so far in any game I own, inc Crysis! Have to agree with IndigoMoss, i'm heavily drawn into the game by the realistic textures of old wood, damp infested buildings and battered clothing for example.

Leave it on Full dynamic lighting i can max it inc full AA draw distance etc.. with 50-60 FPS. Just shows the ambiance setting can cause a med-high rig to go wibble easily.

I download games as well, and if I liked them or like em, I buy it. If they had a good past (E.g Half life creators, COD4 and a couple more) I buy them right off the bat.

I have nothing against ppl downloading really, but with Crysis Warhead for example or Portal or Ep 2, I think they were priced perfect (no 50$ like other game companies charge) and deserve the money.

If games were less expensive lets say 10-30$ I dunno if alot of ppl would go through the trouble of downloading it, cracking it, wait for a patch to fix the problem, then wait for another no DVD/CD crack for that patch, have to load an image Crack etc.

so don't think that the game companies are angels to They overprice games in most cases, when they can sell more quantity and still come out better with both the public and profit.

That being said, for Stalker they put alot of effort in the game, so I ended up buying it

ah the once mighty 8800gt has fallen. i was wondering when this was going to happen.

i sometimes download really old games but never newer ones. im looking for deus ex:invisible war but cant find it anywhere on torrents.

It was reviewed as bad optimization on many sites. So you'll have to wait for the patch like crysis

im going to have to go with bad coding. look at the difference with Crysis.
Stalker looks like crap in comparison.

actually thats not true, considering that Crysis, was completely unplayable in DX 10 when it came out, even in DX 9 it had trouble. And this was only on high

with the new patch people can now play Very high (ofc the frames aren't huge) but the gameplay was fixed more than before.


As for the Crysis vs Stalker comparison, stalker might have lower shader models for characters but the scenrios has a lot more going on for it in terms of detail.

While Crysis has alot of detail most of the scenerio is unchanged, green here, gravel there and water there. In Stalker you've got a vast difference in scenerios including multiple targets.

And don't forget the benchmarks show around 30-60 fps in general in Stalker and the game isn't even patched, so we should expect the patch to help alot especially since stalker already nearly scales 100%.

Not only that but Stalker will never have models that look as good as Crysis because their shader isn't as detailed and demanding, their main thing that will compete with Crysis will probably scenario and Setting of the game.

i think its you Jaydeejohn

but l1qu1d is right about more varied models and stuff in stalker.

Dang, hate it when that happens, tho the detailing of the face and leaves and such look pretty nice heheh

damn it browser hung.

what i was going to post was basically about a game called red orchestra and also dod:s, due to the art direction of red orchestra being quite gritty in place and also due to far larger map's, people thought because source was shinier and looked "newer" it had better gfx when in fact it was just how the dev's wanted it too look.

the same goes for stalker and crysis, crysis is meant to be set in an idealic tropical island while stalker is in an area affected by a nuclear disaster. go figure.

^agreed
textures expecially. But thats because they have more textures in the map.

Too bad we don't have an open daylight pic of Stalker.... or a nighttime pic of Crysis up there. Kind of hard to compare.

Shouldn't matter how many textures are in the map. Should only be loading the textures that are visible by the PC.

Also, the extra VRAM isn't going to help the texture quality if the textures are **** to begin with.

I would get a nighttime comparison pic, but I don't own Crysis.... yet...

the thing I really didnt like about the first one was that the accuracy of the weapons were absolutely horrible...and for some reason, when enemies would shoot, they were amazingly accurate...idk, i guess I got too frustrated with the consistent dying and stuff...I guess I've just been spoiled by the Half Life series....

I personally think the screens look pretty 'bleh', crysis is much nicer looking. Especially the character modelling. Its all too grey and misty...even if its meant to be....

Well it does look pretty good for what it is. It's not a bright and beautiful world, it is supposed to be representing a rather dismal world with dark, dismal and murky colours. It's not a lush tropical jungle beachfront.

The thing that struck me as slightly off (don't know why just noticed it) was the length of the shadows seems a little exagerated. The sun should be a little lower on the horizon to cast such shadows IMO, but other than that looks pretty good. I'm not going to make value judgements of it looks better or worse than another game, to each their own.

As for the X2 scaling, it's not uncommon that it or the GX2 for that matter scale well in certain situations. It's surprising that it does so well right out of the box, but not something where it makes me question the validity, especially if it's a shader-heavy DX10 game, which have shown better scaling of late than they did in the past.

I have seen both the GX2 and X2 scale beyond 2x performance, and while rare, it does happen. I've even seen above 4X scaling, but that was in situations where the other card was being noticably limited, especially with regards to memory. Based on the results I'd like to see the HD4870-1GB's results versus the 512MB model used here, it would likely show a good boost to, just based on the workload it's providing these cards even without AA.

Lol, frankly, Clear Sky looked better, at least from the screenshots, especially the side to side one with Crysis. Textures aside, the atomospheric effect in Clear Sky is much better. Crysis is just brightly colored and crisp, while Stalker is darker and more gloomy, which isn't the same as bad graphics. If anything, it's the opposite - looking like a photo, as opposed to a brightly colored painting.

Lol, same here. Although usually only if there's no demo available. There have been 2 exceptions recently though: Spore and Mass Effect. I liked them, but won't buy due to the 3 install/activation drm used in both. Rewarding such behavior is bad for gaming community.

The game scales well for me, when running in sli I average about 55fps.

You know, when I think games cost too much, I wait a couple years, and buy them cheap used. Just bought Pariah, Prey, and the first Stalker for like... $20 total. (My hardware runs a couple years behind, too.)