Performance/Stutters/lags hangs/freeze/Bewbs Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Intel Core i5 3570K Ivy Bridge @ 3.40GHz
Asus ENGTX560 1GB DCII OC/2DI GeForce GTX 560 850 MHz
6gb ram
1TB HDD Seagate
Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit

So I thought I share my story for the record and anyone experiencing the same issues. Sorry if its been mention I do not come on these forums or website that much. Oh and read the whole thing before you install anything .

This is what did. Started a new game. Turned down view distance to about 25%. Saved from the main menu. Quit. Installed Stiivais performance pack and the songs not necessary . And then I installed Absolute Nate 3 Lite. And in the end. It all failed! I still got stutters and huge hangs! Now you are probably wondering why I told you all this. Bare with me. Its all about the next step I did. It has nearly eliminated my stutters. And completely has eliminated freezes(Hangs).

I went to the alife.ltx. Located In C:\Program Files (x86)\bitComposer Games\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Pripyat\gamedata\configs (or wherever your stalker files are) and I also did this for the alife.ltx for the class I am currently playing, which is the assault class. So for example C:\Program Files (x86)\bitComposer Games\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Pripyat\gamedata\class_diversity\assaulter\gamedata\configs. And then I change my switch_distance from 300 to 750. And now you are probably thinking wait the devs said if I went any higher it'd would hurt performance. Well this is bs cause I did it and my game runs better. I just still have these little tiny hitches which are almost hardly noticeable for the average person. But I am going to increase this even more probably to see if I can completely lag free. I did change some settings in the configuration in stalker but that didnt seem to change much of anything, still have to do experimenting with that but don't hold you breath cause I doubt I will keep this post updated. And I doubt I could help you there because every computer is different so play around with the settings until you hit the sweet spot. SO my final words to you are good luck, I hope this helps somebody. And just in case I don't see ya. Good morning, Good evening and Good night!

We've been telling people about this for weeks ... Try changing your objects_per_update in the alife.ltx file from 10 to 1. You will run even smoother. Watch your FPS as you progress in the game and lower your switch_distance as much as you need to maintain around 60 FPS. In the later maps especially after returning from Pripyat there is a LOT more action in Zaton/Jupiter and you may need to run around 500-600. The bottom line is highest switch_distance your rig can handle will give you fewest stutters.

What apparenly happens is that if you increase the s_d then more stuff is no-line - thus they are no longer 'simulated' by the CPU but rather are being rendered (at least to large degree) by the GPU. Thus increasing the s_d might pardoxally increase performance if there are a lot of squads spawned on the maps.

Of course - thx for the elaborate info

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I'm sure that's probably a significant part of the reason. I think a large part of the stutter is caused when the loads change. When a new melee starts, a new group is spawned, there must be both new objects being called and rendered as well as new AI workload. Having more space already called and loaded when you load a game should mean as you walk/run there is a smaller percentage of things changing so less frequent stutters. With modern CPU's/GPU's doing so much self scaling increasing/decreasing CPU Core speed and GPU core speed, there is always going to be more gear shifting and dips in performance just like when you engage the clutch to shift gears. I am about to begin a new white box build of a more mainstream system (dual core 4-4.5 GHZ cpu, 8MB DDR3, SSD, GTX 660). After I'm done tweaking it, I think I will try locking the CPU at a specific speed vs. letting it switch multipliers and see if it smooths performance any. Since the engine only really uses one core, shifting more of the load to the GPU would make the impact of lower core CPU speed have a much smaller impact on performance.

I have laggs at every moment the world is loading . I set the settings to low , field of view also . My computer specs : Intel Core i5 3.33 GHz RAM 8,00 GB
64 bit graphic : ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series. I have been writing to Misery team and they dind't help me. I have been searching about this problem through all the forums. Please help me .

Check out my page or the forums for tips on getting your GPU optimized. I would start with alife.ltx switch_distance at 300 (default) and objects_per_update at 1 instead of 10. Default 55 FOV. You can probably run DX11 fine. I would try it on low settings. If it crashes then try Static lighting. Once you find your best video setup, go back and try bumping switch_distance up 50 at a time and monitor FPS I would stick with 100 less than the first setting FPS starts to drop. In other words, if you make it to 400 and Frames per second starts dropping, back off to 300. Jupiter is the busiest and this setting will keep you from having to go back and forth. The lower the switch_distance you have to run at means as you move around your FPS will make a temporary dip as new AI loads when new groups spawn and become active. I have a beast of a system and still my FPS drops 40 while a new group spawns for a second. Static lighting is a much lighter load, if your GPU likes it, your load times will be much quicker and you may be able to maintain higher FPS at higher switch_distances which will make the stuttering/lag better and is more fun. Just remember to delete your user.ltx each time you try a new set of video options as I describe on my page. Otherwise changes are not properly applied.

Nice to hear it Cloak. Jasper already had found it a couple months back, but its always nice to have this lighted up so more players hear it.

The only reason I still play switch_d 200 with my recon is that I had no NPC killed with this setup. Last playthrough I used switch 350 and all quest-important NPCs ended up dead (Noah, Topol, Strider). When I reach the next free-play I ll change it to around 600 and see how it goes.

Jasper could you explain how I have to do it step by step , beacuse I don't know how to find these folders. Please help.

User.ltx and tmp.ltx are in C:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Stalker Call of Pripyat\_appdata_ Look in the main Stalker Call of Pripyat if you find a user.ltx there delete it. Alife.ltx is in C:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Stalker Call of Pripyat\gamedata\configs Start with alife.ltx, change the first number after Switch_distance equals to 300, Change objects_per_update from 10 to 1, save. Delete the user.ltx's and the tmp.ltx. This will remove any key bindings you may have changed, you will only have to re-do them once. Start the game, go to the video configuration menu. Select the low preset, apply. Go back to the video configuration menu Choose static lighting, you should still be on low and your monitors native resolution apply again. Exit the game. Go back to the _appdata_ directory delete the tmp.ltx, copy the user.ltx and paste into the same folder. Rename the duplicate copy tmp. Start the game, adjust your controls, and see how smooth it plays. I really recommend a frame limiter to keep the main menus from squealing when they run crazy high FPS. I use Dxtory, it's free (trial version with 10 second nag screen) and works on AMD and Nvidia GPUS. Start Dxtory (once each time you boot) Go to the advanced tab, select the number of cores your cpu has and I would start with 30 FPS. You can raise it later when you're all squared away. Now you will have FPS display in top left corner when game is running. Try running around and watch FPS meter. It should stay pretty steady on 29 or 30 and occasionally dip when new AI from new Spawns enter your switch_distance as you move on map. Zaton is less of a load and you will be able to run 50-100 higher switch_distance there before FPS starts to drop off. If everything runs pretty smooth and FPS stays on 30 steady, switch out of game and bump Dxtory FPS up 5-10 FPS, repeat until you see what your lowest average FPS is. Set FPS limit about 5 below that but no lower than 30. Now you have a baseline. Exit game and change alife switch_distance 50 higher, save file, Try game again. Keep doing this watching FPS counter. When your FPS starts to dip 5 FPS on average go back and change switch_distance to 100 less than current value. Hopefully that will be something higher than 300. If you are happy stop there and have fun stalker! There is nothing wrong with playing locked at 30 FPS even if it will do more. Everything will run smoother and cooler. I wouldn't mess with DX10 unless static and DX11 don't work. You can repeat the whole deal selecting DX11 if you want and are able to handle those nice video features. Don't use HDAO, use HBAO and use the low level of it. Now, each time you apply new video settings, you will delete the tmp.ltx and copy the user.ltx again and rename the copy tmp. You can work your way up in settings until you find your rigs sweet spot for best quality and satisfactory game play. It's really worth the effort. After you get it all right, make a backup copy of your user.ltx with your final best settings. After any future updates, you can paste it back in and already be pretty much optimized. I can run 70-90 FPS, but I'm beta testing at 40 or 45 and very happy with smooth play. Stalker games only use 1 CPU core, so it's your CPU core speed and hard drive speed that most effect performance. The better the GPU, the higher the ultimate FPS. I've played this mod well on a slower CPU and your exact GPU. Good luck stalker!

Sorry but I have standalone version of call of pripyat and i can't find _appdata_. I can find only alife.ltx

Question, would reducing Alife from 10 to 1 affect anything besides rendering the other entities? Would love an explanation on what am I changing here.

I do have some CTD and the usual freeze when loading either loads of enemies or some. But overall I'm able to keep my settings at Medium + Static Lighting to ease it.

@JackWolw you will have a user.ltx, just use the windows search bar when you press the windows key. You may not have a tmp.ltx which is fine.@Neo A couple of players experimented around and while we could find no explanation of what objects_per_update is supposed to do, we found increasing it kills performance and peak performance at setting of 1. There is noticeably shorter stutters/freezing. The highest switch_distance your system can handle before FPS drops off reduces the number of stutters/lags. The xray engine does some things others don't do well, but stability has always been an issue. When this game came out CPU's were much slower and switch_distance was at 150, I think. The MDT squeezed a lot more activity out of the engine with extra scripts and pushed the default distance at which everything is online to double the vanilla game. Some CPU/GPU combos can handle more, some can't.

I guess I'll swap to 1 then. Rarely I get CTD but I do get freezes when loading unloaded areas and NPCs spawn or become active.
I once had to save and load to access the Hostage Situation checkpoint. It kept crashing because it tried to load too many things at once.

Edited by: neo_child

There are a few very busy areas you might need to lower your switch_distance to manage. Near the mercs in the processing plant, near the plant in Jupiter, etc. If you get a crash, it's the first thing to try. Everyone has to do it before talking to the Medic in the Kindergarten in Pripyat. That's a bug nobody has ever found a fix for. The medic needs 50 or less, everywhere else dropping by a hundred will usually do it.

Note to @JackWolw, The tmp.ltx and user.ltx is in C:/User//Documents/Stalker-COP

Great catch! I have Steam version, so can't see the few differences.

I deleted my user.ltx and tmp.ltx and when I got around to playing Misery, I was able to check if people were Friends, Neutral or Hostile, and their name too. Can I somehow disable it again?

Sorry for going off topic, I'm just a bit confused. I'd rather not have a dot which tells me everything I need to know.

Easy, I'm surprised it shows, the default Misery options are it's disabled. Edit user.ltx with notepad or better yet free notepad++ and scroll down to the hud section.Change hud info to off and if you don't want range either distance to off. Make sure you installed Misery as administrator or all changes might not be applied.