Comments - Rocketpropelledguy

A lot of people seem to have trouble getting this going, but it's usually one or two simple problems. The instructions below might look long and complicated, but it isn't, I promise.

1. Your fsgame.ltx needs to be edited to point the $game_root$ to the correct spot instead where it pointing initially upon installation of the mod. Assuming you have STALKER from Steam, it will be wherever your steam folder is, then steamapps, then common, then Stalker Call of Pripyat. So, for me, it would look like:
"$game_root$ = false| false| C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Stalker Call of Pripyat\"

2. Before running the "Play GUNSLINGER Mod" app, run the "CheckUpdates" app. It may or may not ask you to select where the game root is, which will again be the same spot as before, again, for me that was: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Stalker Call of Pripyat\"

3. These hi-res mods demand quite a lot of RAM and the X-Ray engine Stalker uses is quite dated in that (and a bunch of other ways too lmao) respect. It won't like using more than 3.8GB of RAM regardless of if you have way more than that and is generally the number one cause of crashing upon finishing the loading screen after starting a new game or loading one in progress. This also means loading will take forever if you don't do this thing I am about to tell you to do that will often fix this. You will need to make this run without preloading every single now massive resource in a particular map. You've installed a mod that is over 12 GB once unpacked and the entirety of Vanilla CoP is like 5 GB. Anyway, what you will need to do is this:
Right click on the "Play GUNSLINGER Mod" App, tell it to create shortcut. Right click this new shortcut, go to "Properties" and at the end of the text in the target box, add after the quotation mark this: " -noprefetch". That first quotation mark is the end of what is initially in the target box. It needs to have that space between the " and - for this to work. So, for me, the target box reads thus exactly, opening with the quotation mark but not ending with one: "E:\GUNSLINGER Ultra HD Pack V1.0\GUNSLINGER Ultra HD Pack V1.0\Play GUNSLINGER Mod.exe" -noprefetch

You HAVE TO launch the game from the shortcut to the .exe you just made, not from the original .exe

I will add that doing this will also necessarily add occasional stuttering in game as it will need to load resources as needed at times instead of all at once. If you've been playing since SoC you will appreciate that this is part of the essential Stalker experience anyway and can use that extra time to good effect. For instance calling and checking on old relatives and friends, preparing a high proof alcoholic drink (Vodka is the obvious choice for Stalker, but don't be afraid of other stuff either, like scotch, gasoline, or locally made tequila), preparing tax returns, or changing the oil in your vehicle. You need to recognize that this is a function and a feature, and not a glaring problem of a video game engine that came out of eastern Europe literally a decade ago. It also can only ever use 1 processor lmao so use that extra power your modern multi-core CPU has to mine cryptocurrency or watch adult material at the same time or something idk

4. Trust that the game will still look very good at DX 10 and possibly below. I am running on a NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti 4GB (I know), Windows 7 64 bit (Yes, I know...), an Intel Q9550 Quadcore 2.8GHz with 8 GB of DDR3 RAM (Stop it, I know!) on a motherboard the BIOS of which won't even allow me to overclock the CPU (The price was right, ok?), and had to bring it to "Enhanced Full Dynamic Lighting", right below "Enhanced Full Dynamic Lighting (DX 10)" for it stabilize, and it is just fine.

5. The replacement textures are massive and as the pack's author suggests, you should lower the texture quality bar to below 50% or possibly even lower just to help make sure you won't suffer a crash from the game demanding more RAM than the x-ray engine is willing to ask for. You will hardly discern any difference except in frame rate. I threw mine down to the second lowest texture setting. You may need to experiment with some of the advanced video settings as well. Turning the sun rays completely off provided a huge FPS boost for me.

6. PSI-Storms and fall-out storms may cause crashing. For some reason the Atmosfear options menu will not work in game for me whether starting a new game or not, so you may need to disable those in the Atmosfear parameters manually in the .ltx file located in the mod's gamedata/configs.

Finally, if you are having problems with crashing on start up after changing video settings in the inapp options menu only, go into the mod's userdata folder and delete user.ltx. This will reset video settings.

Happy hunting, stalker.