Yet Another S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Build Preview: It's Gamespy turn to try the latest build

I have the game on pre-order for years. I hope the new date (3/9/07) is the final one.

 

German Gamestar magazine gave the game 90%.
http://www.gamestar.de/magazin/heft/thumbnails/

 

Stalker multiplayer beta HD -1080p/720 p videos

HD -1080p/720 p videos in one 8800 GTX - is Feb 09 2007 MP Beta . H 264 codec , Bitrate 16 kbps

http://www.mediafire.com/?4toyzmyjbdh 60 MB 720p Anomalies

http://www.mediafire.com/?6owmtzxmkj2 26 MB 720p h264 Weather cycle and Paralax mapping

http://www.mediafire.com/?3jjji1dwnzm 54 MB 720 p h264 Caracter model day

http://www.mediafire.com/?aznimmyjzmn 17 MB 720 p h264 Caracter model night

http://www.mediafire.com/?azimzmz3zzz 45 MB 1080p h264 Day/ Night cycle

http://www.mediafire.com/?51d3oowkjij 30 Mb 1080p h264 Night

http://www.mediafire.com/?d2my3wt5lmo 35 MB 1080p h264 Paralax mapping and day nigh cycle

Screens

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1174094&postcount=15

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1174095&postcount=16

http://elblogdelosjuegosmalditos.blogspot.com/2007/02/nuevas-capturas-de-stalker.html


Perfomance

http://elblogdelosjuegosmalditos.blogspot.com/2007/02/rendimiento-en-stalker.html










I have measured the use of Vram with the Ati tray tools and is this in one 1900 xtx 512 mb

2048 x 1536 493 MB

1920 x 1080 450 MB

1280 x 720 385 MB.

The bench with New beta version build 2939, Feb 19 2007 - with grass and sun shadows -

Route of the bench 20 mb , with the Fraps - the console have a demo_ record comand and demo _play , but not run

1900 XTX , all settings maximun AF 16Q

720 p clear

2007-02-27 08:28:39 - xr_3da
Frames: 585 - Time: 20000ms - Avg: 29.250 - Min: 24 - Max: 38

720 p night

2007-02-27 08:29:52 - xr_3da
Frames: 906 - Time: 20000ms - Avg: 45.300 - Min: 30 - Max: 64

1080 p clear

2007-02-27 08:32:51 - xr_3da
Frames: 405 - Time: 20000ms - Avg: 20.250 - Min: 17 - Max: 26

1080 p night

2007-02-27 08:34:02 - xr_3da
Frames: 545 - Time: 20000ms - Avg: 27.250 - Min: 17 - Max: 36

2048 x 1536 clear

2007-02-27 08:35:41 - xr_3da
Frames: 334 - Time: 20000ms - Avg: 16.700 - Min: 14 - Max: 20[/quote]

More

http://www.driverheaven.net/gamingreviews/Stalkermpbetahandson/.




Reviews



Game Star 90 /100

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PC ZONE

CD-Action review

The opinion of Stalker, here

 

After reading reviews, I'll give it a go. Do you actually get to explore Chernobyl itself or is this entire game based around the zone surrounding it? Because that could be the deal breaker...

 

Will certainly be picking this up! Looks great (HL2 style graphics, still my favorite "type" by far) and the gameplay sounds very interesting.

 

15 hours SP gameplay? i hope i can stretch that with my customary screwing around. i just preordered this today BTW.

woohoo!

 

15 hours depends on a lot. For example. Oblivion did not take me but maybe half that for the main story tree. 15 hours also puts it on the longer side when you consider other FPS games, 15 hours will also have to consider if once you beat it you've done every there is type of game or not, etc.

 

sounds like it's NOT one of those 15 hours SP and nothing else to see here type of games. (eg HL2 episode 1 (5 hours))

i've got well over 100 hours in oblivion, gothic3 and haven't finished either.
i have about 30 hours in my current fable game (since sept). that's satisfying enough. as long as i have options...things to find...exploit.

pc gamer UK had a second playtest...much more positive...especially with regard to options you have, and the game engine just sucks it up (eg kill a seemingly important ally...live with it)...the way all PC games SHOULD be. the playtester was suprising the 'shepherd' assigned to him "Now what you need to do here is....wow, i didn't know you could do that!"

 

At last, my 5900ultra can stretch its muscles and show 9800pro who is the boss. Dx9 the way it meant to be made .

I would kill for a performance comparison of nvidia fx cards vs ati 9xxx cards.

 

i played the latest mp beta, and graphically it isnt impressive compared to whats out there, a lot of checkbox features, but its all done in a low quality way.

 

It will be one sad day if this game is shunned on graphics alone. If you want quality games then buy on other than graphics. You can be a huge seller on graphics alone these days and it simply encourages companies to skip on other much more important features...... like being a good game. Now I am not saying Stalker will be a great game, as I have not played it, but its just down right sickening to see comments saying they could care less how good it is if its graphics suck.

 

some of us want both....theres no reason in 2007 for games to still have 2004 level graphics. that shows lazyness by devs, and why should we support that? btw what games are u referring to that have been all show and no go? i cant recall any recent pc games pushing any graphical barriers.

 

You want laziness? Complain to Valve for the fact that none of their models in the entire history of Counter Strike have ever blinked or move their faces out of the frozen expression that's plastered on them.

I agree with you icecold. It's 2007, get with the program. Believe it or not some people do play games to be wowed by graphics. Think of it this way. You're playing a game at a Bestbuy and someone begins watching over your shoulder. What's the first thing typically out of their mouths? I'll answer that: it's a comment regarding the graphics, whether negative or positive is regardless. Most people, regardless of their level of video gaming, concentrate primarily on graphics. I've stated before I'm one of these people. That doesn't mean graphics are the end all say all, as I've stated before it takes a fair amount of both graphics and gameplay, but I'm relatively certain, regarding the amount of delays S.T.A.L.K.E.R underwent, the devs could have fine tuned the graphics somewhat. Did I read somewhere that it doesn't even have AA? I may be incorrect on this one, but if that's the case thats inexcusable.

 

there was no aa in the beta, who knows if it will be in the retail, but i doubt it considering they advertise deferred.

 

First off, in no way is graphics a way to characterize a lazy developer. Also, what does 2004 level graphics mean? In my opinion there has been little improvement lately and I still consider a number of such time era games to be good looking. Half Life 2 for example still is one of the best looking games, and funny enough Stalker has similar graphics and looks damn good to be. At some point when you are a small game developer you have to question if its better for you to hire graphics people or gameplay people and if you should focus your time on gameplay or graphics. You can have both, but that is extremely hard for a small developer to pull off.

Oblivion is a very recent game that comes to mind, and before that there was Doom 3 as a shining beacon of graphics over game. The main point is that there has been way more push recently for games that are graphical improvements and not gameplay improvements.

 

yeah, i mean they only had like 5 to 7 years to program the game, definitely no time for graphics.

where are all the amazing looking pc games than with all this graphics push?

half life 2 wasnt impressive 2 years ago compared to far cry, it certainly isnt impressive now that the consoles have launched.

i think u have it backwards, pc devs have definitely not been focusing on graphics, and instead focusing on releasing any piece of software they can churn out as fast as possible. if they had been focusing on graphics at least wed have something pretty to look at while we play bad games

 

Except the Stalker people clearly spent tons of time on the graphics. Its rather hard to build such a foundation and then go back unless you've designed for it. While you can add on (which they have done) your engine eventually runs out of room, that's why you have an Unreal 1, 2, 3, etc engine if you can just add on forever then you would, instead you have to at some point start a new and that's not always possible.

Looks are a matter of opinion. While you can sometimes tell how much time was put into an engine with regards to the graphics by the implementation of certain technologies. At the end of the day its the execution of those techonologies that you see. If you do not like the look of a certain game it won't matter how much neat features are in use, you'll think it looks bad. There's also the opposite of this, I find art direction personally to be the huge decider of what makes a game look. For example. World of Warcraft is a very aged game technically but its art makes it still look great in my opinion and I much rather look at its world over that of Oblivion or Gothic 3. That's why I find Half Life 2 to be a better looking game than Far Cry and why to me HL2 stands out as still wonderful looking.

Also, your last paragraph would not even be an opposite of what I said. It would be a side track. There are certainly cases where you can tell the graphics were the key point, no matter if tons or very little actual time was put into the product.