CPU Poll Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Do you think you're playing Misery on the slowest rig? Everyone has a different idea of what a playable performance level is. What performance are you squeezing out of your low end rig?

Please state CPU model & max core speed, RAM, Hard drive type (5400 or 7200 RPM, SSD, etc.), GPU model and GDDR quantity, Operating system and if it is x32 or x64.

How many FPS do you average worst case (usually in Jupiter near plant). Are you using frame limiting?

What settings are you using: Renderer (static, Dx10, Dx11, etc.), quality preset, alife.ltx switch_distance (alife setting chosen in install or later edited), FOV, what settings do you have turned off or down, etc.

Are you using any alternate files like lite texture packs, alternate game_relations, etc.?

What negative effects do you observe such as degree of stuttering/lag, mouse freezing, load/reload times, frequency of crashes, etc.

Edited by: jasper34

Graphics is GeForce GTX 460


I put 4/4 in the first poll is that correct? What do I put in the second one?
My hard drive type is called NTFS?

I use static lighting, medium settings. I have put most settings near low expect vision distance. alife I change between 200-500 depending. the game_relations where all mutants go agressive vs player. TaZ addon and I think thats it

I must say I never have any lags or stutter since I use this programm which limits fps to 30. Of course if I leave game a long time in menu its laggy or later in the game when I open my stash, as im a terrible horder. But thats not really an issue.
The only kind of returning crash I have is when CTD right the moment where you kill an enemy over distance. I guess its something he drops which is bugged or so. Its really not a problem and I cant see any regularity in it.

I know I need a better PC eventually, especially the RAM i think. will do so when I have the cash and I hope Jasper will help me build it then. I'd love to play Misery on everything full, I get really jelous when I see some of the other screenshots.

Edited by: Keksfront

Your GTX 460 is probably a 1GB GPU so 4GB of RAM and 1GB of GDDR would be most accurate in the other poll. Your hard drive will either be a 5400, 7200 or rarely 10000 RPM model unless it is an SSD. NTFS is the type of file system it is using which isn't important. The next time you experience that CTD, PM me with you crash log. It's usually a fluke where your bullet hits a bone just right and the critical hit causes the ragdoll physics to overload. Usually only happens with higher power weapons, but 4GB of RAM may let it happen more often. The log would help figure it out.

my last play through was pretty smooth with a-life 900 and most settings in game maxed with fps avg around 60 also no stuttering at all.

i played with a sandy bridge i5 2500k oc to 5ghz (the performance was almost the same at slightly lower clock), 8gb ram, gtx670oc'd and installed on ssd.

i had some rare moments when the framerate decreased to 30-40 like in the jupiter plant because of the ton of zombs and other mutants running around.

btw i played on dark mode avoiding the mornings because at that time of day the sunrays or shadows whatever it is just murders the framerate

Edited by: jmcosta

You could just turn them off, especially to give yourself an extra hour or two in that mode. They are one of the 5 biggest performance killers. That's a nice OC I built a couple 2500K's, then a 3570K and finally my 6700K. Are you having any trouble keeping story NPC's alive long enough to do their parts?

Edited by: jasper34

ya once but that was like 2years ago in the 2.0v i think

Believe it or not, Tremor walks from the ship to the shack and if Bandits/Mercs are passing by at that moment he can get killed. I've caught his body half way there 2-3 times. I have played through an excessive number of times or I would never have caught it. Noah leaves his ship chasing mutants too ... Idiot is crazy after all Following the programmed storyline and not trying to jump the gun or delay too long almost always results in a problem free Tremor story though. I sleep a night or two, then even if an emission is about to start run up right after getting the cue. Passers by will loot Danilla's body before you get there too. We have Noah surviving much better though for 2.2.

ASUS K53TA Laptop

CPU: AMD A83500m 4x2.4Ghz 128kb L1 1Mb L2
RAM: 8GB DDR3 @1333Mhz
GPU: AMD HD6740G2 assimetric crossfire disaster with 1024+512GB GDDR3 (i usually just run the 6650 with 1GB GDDR3)
HDD: 320GB 7200RPM bare bones laptop HDD

this cheap and cheerful veteran gets me a roughly consistent frame rate around 20-30FPS on a hair over medium costum settings on 1366x768 depending on the outside temp (not joking) but i get considerable stutter and pauses when the game is loading things. Loading times varried from patch to patch up to 5 min or more.

low-ish switch distance, FOV @70

Edited by: GabeTheKid

That's an interesting combination. If you use a non-native resolution of 1152×648 or 1280×720 you may squeeze out enough frames to limit at a smoother 30 FPS. Either way limiting would help a lot and reduce temps/battery drain. You would highly benefit from cloning over to a $60 SSD like a BP5e. I've done this on 5 family laptops and the difference is incredible. I have not yet installed the lite texture pack Moddb.com on my wife's laptop, I will try it today and compare frame rates with the data I collected with various tweaks before.

Your particular GPU might actually run better in DX11 with low level HDAO by design over static lighting. Have you converted to Windows 10 yet? It spreads the CPU load much more efficiently which was always a problem for xray before.

I have posted a new article in my profile comments geared towards laptop users, but the tweaks will work for anyone. I got 30 FPS solid running with default 300 meter switch distance, DX11 on high quality preset on a 2.4GHz turbo laptop.

Running an i5 750 and a 970, stalker is on an SSD.

My settings are low enough that I am capped at 60FPS 95% of the time, but sometimes dip into the 50s.

Thanks for the tips, Jasper

I'm a university student so i literally haven't got any money to spare but my HDD has started acting up. if it decides to croke, onwards and upwards is my philosophy about theese things and SSDs are geting pretty cheap theese days.

oddly enough, those are the settings i use but i cant deal with static lighting. texture size doesn't affect the framerate much for me but it throws a tantrum if i use AA (even FXAA... no idea why). i will try non native resolutions though.. never even crossed my mind for some reason yes i have win 10 but it's not treating me good. i never reinstalled after it updated itself and i can't do it in the near future either becouse of school stuff. its a mess, i know MISERY is not installed ATM and i can't remember, is there an option to limit the framerate to 30 in the options? i know V-sync likes to limit to 60.

I'll make sure to check your tweaks when i have time for games again, thx

Edited by: GabeTheKid

If you drive is getting hinky, cloning over before it fails will save you the cost of a windows license. Smaller textures require less memory and should mean a little less stutter. I hate Windows 10 except for it spreading the load out better, but my windows update stopped working right (conspiracy anyone?) so I had to switch. A program like dxtory will frame limit for you. There isn't a frame limiter built in.

Thanks for the fast reply Dxtory it is!
now i'm tempted to install it and mess around a little. procrastination is a lustful mistress, to put it gently

3.4GHZ IG5, 8GB ram, 9700GTX GTX, decent performance but the odd stutter now and again.

Edited by: neilbreach240

Nice touch introducing this thread Jasper,

I am no programmer and have no formal understanding of file systems in relation to CPU cycle functions.

I have however noticed from playing STALKER for 9 years, the best way to alleviate stuttering is to understand that the game is going to stutter/skip at first loading and play through. The player has to travel to all different sections of any given map area skipping and stuttering all along, but when player travels through these sections, the stuttering stops and gameplay is smooth when returning. Its almost like there are invisible 'buffer' areas of each map, little sections that are loaded by traveling through them. From my experience and with different systems, this was the most consistent thing that I noticed with even modded SoC CS and CoP.

The other thing that I noticed is that I've been playing this game now for 9 YEARS!!!

1366 i7 920@ 4.1 on air

6GB system RAM

10K Raptor (remember those?)

GTX 980 SLI 4K

43" LG TV

What you describe is a small part of the problem. The greater portion is the AI which come online as you move across the map. The default AI switch_distance at which groups become active vs. being simulated only in memory is 300 meters. The maps are much larger. The largest single new performance drain is the much more populated map and more intricate AI. As you get within 300 meters of base in Zaton all the activity on the ship suddenly goes online, then as you get closer the mutants running around between there and the drive-in and Noah's ship come online, etc. Each group pops into draw distance and their AI goes active. The textures have to be pulled from your hard drive for anything not already in cache. The higher your switch_distance the more is already put in cache and activated when you load the game. A few more seconds isn't really noticeable at that time. When you instead bring new stuff online 3X as often (300 meters vs. 900) that few extra seconds becomes 30 1/10th second stutters. The faster your drive (like your 10000 RPM vs. a 5400 RPM typical laptop drive) the less time it takes to pull the textures. Your CPU and GPU have to deal with the surges in load too. When a new squad spawns out of thin air, the sudden CPU load, pulling those textures from disk, and instantly starting the AI for the whole squad vs. going from a pre-existing offline but simulated state also causes brief stutter. In systems without enough resources it can cause CTD's.

Higher switch_distances (the original game was 100 or 150 meters for reference) require more GPU and CPU processing power, but that's not the only complication with higher than default switch_distance. NPC's and mutants see each other more and are drawn to fight and/or chase each other more which can lead to earlier losses of story figures.

Now if you are sneeki breeki and walk/crouch much of the time you would see far less stutter. However, if you are like me and Run everywhere you go, that invisible bubble in front of you encompasses new groups of AI much more quickly and makes having a faster drive more important to minimize the symptoms caused by my general impatience

Thank you for explaining that to me, and I will read your response again later as it is May 24 Weekend here in Canada...and admittedly I'm a little drunk right now;)

If memory serves me correctly, I put the switch distance up to about 675 or so because I wanted to use the .50 cal (VSSK I think) on the freedom guys at the tower near the teleport to Zaton from Jupiter. But they would not even appear in scope when they really should have. Upon exiting the Yanov station, I would go close to the concrete anomaly and line them up from there and with a 650+ distance, I could rip 'em off from there!!

Well Happy Victoria or Patriots Day! We do Memorial Day on the last Monday, so next weekend Other than to reduce stuttering Sniping is the main reason people raise their switch_distance. 500 would let you snipe almost the whole map from on top of the digger machine.