Stuttering - Want to Stop It? Thread - Narodnaya Solyanka mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

Do you get a bit of stuttering, especially when entering the Bar? I do.

Thanks to flossy_cake over at the steam discussion of SoC I got rid of it.

If you want to give it a go then go here>
Pastebin.com

Backup your copy of gamedata\config\alife.ltx (so you can go back to it if necessary)

Create a new one using the above link.

See how the stuttering is now. Original post is here>
Steamcommunity.com

[EDIT] Been trying this for a few days now with a new game. All stuttering has stopped.........however....when opening a cache or dropping a backpack there is a slight pause.

Better than the stuttering though.

Edited by: HipsterDoofus

Works great, thanks!

A tip for those who play on a potato: install and run in the background the free program called Process Lasso.

You have turn on Performance mode in it, either in its Menu tab or in the popup menu when right clicking the taskbar icon. (I also have ProBalance and SmartTrim on too, I think they help too)

It makes the game utilize all the cores of your processor. The difference will be significant if you have a machine with low ram and of general potato-ness.

Update: I noticed the stutter still exists in Darkscape for some reason. Still, getting rid of it in Bar is a big improvement.

Seems this may cause an undesirable effect.

Quoting codex_, "

One thing to note: I noticed in the forums you edited your alife.ltx's switch distance to 1000 from the default 150. This is causing the craziness you are experiencing, not from the frequent respawning.

The switch distance is allowing all NPC's within 1k meters (as opposed to just 150meters) of you to be turned "online", which can cause chaos as that's activating a big portion of an entire map as soon as you walk into it.

That is why you had difficulty with Mole because all the military was activated as they are within that big 1k meter radius that's set."

Playing on 'frequent respawn (possible even on the default setting) makes the npc much more aggressive as noted by codex_.

Certainly made for a completely different zone. Will go back to the original file & compare what's going on.

Maybe use this file on another play thru to see the difference.

One thing to help with the stuttering at the Bar, don't store any of your items on that map. It's loading in so many NPC's, if it has to load in all your stored inventory as well, it's putting more strain.

It's best to store your inventory in caches that are hidden and far away from where NPCs are usually at to prevent additional stuttering.

But yes for certain, as Hipster put above, changing alife distance will mess with the game including possibly even breaking quests at some point, so use at your own peril.

If the issue is caused by too many NPCs and caches, is it possible that this is what also causes CTDs? I'm in Limansk with dead zombies everywhere and can't complete the task because of the CTDs. I've tried rolling back to a good save, but I can only get so far before the crash. I've run into this before with another mod where I was attacked by 20+ zombies and had to start the whole map over again. I think I lost about two game-days of play.

And if this is the cause, shouldn't modders keep that in mind when they add so many mutants? Just sayin'.

Try leaving the map & coming back. You have not been getting that red memory warning have you? If you have then it's kaput. You need to go back to a save before the warning.

Without an error log, I wouldn't know what the CTDs are from. My guess is out-of-memory, what do your video settings look like?

Video is set to Static Lighting and Medium Quality Setting. The log says, MEMORY USAGE: 329977 K and no FATAL ERROR. There are several "Cannot find..." and "Unable to find..." entries. I wonder if this is caused by having the game installed on a secondary drive, i.e., not C:?

I was able to continue north to the hospital and return successfully. On my return, there were very few zombies and no issues traveling through the map to the Red Forest.

Update: Ok, now I'm getting a FATAL ERROR, several in fact (repeatable). This is after returning to the village in Generators after talking with Black Doctor about Panther. As Ghost gets near the village, CTD:

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : CScriptEngine::lua_error
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\script_engine.cpp
[error]Line : 73
[error]Description : <no expression>
[error]Arguments : LUA error: ...hadow of chernobyl\gamedata\scripts\state_mgr.script:161: C stack overflow

stack trace:

Scheduler tried to update object black_generators_stalk6

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : CScriptEngine::lua_error
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\script_engine.cpp
[error]Line : 73
[error]Description : <no expression>
[error]Arguments : LUA error: ...ow of chernobyl\gamedata\scripts\xr_motivator.script:463: C stack overflow

stack trace:

Scheduler tried to update object black_generators_stalk5

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : CScriptEngine::lua_error
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\script_engine.cpp
[error]Line : 73
[error]Description : <no expression>
[error]Arguments : LUA error: ...ow of chernobyl\gamedata\scripts\bind_monster.script:54: C stack overflow

stack trace:

Scheduler tried to update object boar_small_259649

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : CScriptEngine::lua_error
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\script_engine.cpp
[error]Line : 73
[error]Description : <no expression>
[error]Arguments : LUA error: ...ow of chernobyl\gamedata\scripts\xr_motivator.script:463: C stack overflow

stack trace:

Scheduler tried to update object generators_monolit12_perimetr1

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : CScriptEngine::lua_error
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\script_engine.cpp
[error]Line : 73
[error]Description : <no expression>
[error]Arguments : LUA error: ...ow of chernobyl\gamedata\scripts\xr_motivator.script:463: C stack overflow

stack trace:

Scheduler tried to update object black_generators_stalk2

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : CScriptEngine::lua_error
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\script_engine.cpp
[error]Line : 73
[error]Description : <no expression>
[error]Arguments : LUA error: ...ow of chernobyl\gamedata\scripts\bind_monster.script:54: C stack overflow

stack trace:

Scheduler tried to update object ratlike_strong32271

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : CScriptEngine::lua_error
[error]File : E:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrGame\script_engine.cpp
[error]Line : 73
[error]Description : <no expression>
[error]Arguments : LUA error: ...ow of chernobyl\gamedata\scripts\bind_stalker.script:833: C stack overflow

stack trace:

(two blank lines after the last stack trace entry)

Edited by: Kwag_Myers

Having game installed on a secondary drive is fine, mine is installed on a separate drive from OS.

Seems like you may have a corrupted save. How do you do your saves? (quicksave, hardsave) also how many saves do you have stored?

I use both hard saves and the occasional quick save. But I'll be the first to admit that I save a lot. Whenever I get an artifact or loot a corpse with something good in it. I started doing this when the game would crash and I'd go back to find...nothing. I'm up around 2000 saves. I was able to use the Pripyat teleport and then the pocket teleport to return. That took care of the Generators issue. Same with Limansk, left to go to the Hospital and came back.

I don't want to hijack the thread any more than I already have. I just wonder if having too many NPCs and mutants causes some of these issues, e.g., stuttering and CTDs?

I would say the problem is with your saves. I have 11 all together. Leave the all.sav & quick save, move the others to a different folder away from SoC & see how that goes. You can always move them back if needed.

Yea, definitely need to delete old saves. Each save is ~2MB so you're at like 4GB worth of saves.

Solyanka pushes the 20 year old x-ray engine to it's absolute limit, so yea stuttering and crashes will be because of this. The engine was never designed to handle the amount of content mods like Solyanka add. It's a miracle it even works, lol.

OK. Getting back to the stuttering. Thanks to codex_ we know that it is going to cause problems........but wow what a rush.

I edited the alife to 545. Still had a bit of stuttering. Only had two issues. Soldiers under the bridge at Cordon all died. 'Rat' disappeared from the Swamp, not a big deal. As for game play it was not much different from the default setting. (got up to the 'Old Village')

I've now edited the distance to 750 & will see how that goes Want to try & get a balance between stuttering & a zone that does not sleep.

Edited by: HipsterDoofus

codex_ wrote:

Yea, definitely need to delete old saves. Each save is ~2MB so you're at like 4GB worth of saves.

I had read about this and now an official confirmation makes it good. I shall move all the extra saves, now.

Back into this game after a month! Going is good!

codex_ wrote:

But yes for certain, as Hipster put above, changing alife distance will mess with the game including possibly even breaking quests at some point, so use at your own peril.

I shall not try this fix, then, as I have put in way too many hours in this.

However, out of the blue, since day before yesterday, the stuttering in all maps has gone up considerably. I take 5 steps in Army Warehouse and it freezes for 1,2,5 seconds. Same in Radar, where I am presently retrieving Arhara's laptop. It got so bad that I had to close the game and look here, again. I have just installed the latest patch and shall reduce the details' settings and see. All that aLife thing is too scary for me to fiddle around with.

codex_ wrote:

Seems like you may have a corrupted save. How do you do your saves? (quicksave, hardsave) also how many saves do you have stored?

For the first time ever I noticed a QuickSave and a HardSave, both failing! I did both before offering Ghost's full auto Gauss gun to Raven to see what he offers and as if to punish me for my greed, both saves upon loading killed me! The AutoSave saved me!

Been using the alife file set to a switch distance of 750. No game breakers. Got all the way to Panther dying then talking to her father. I kept getting a ctd while talking to him.

FATAL ERROR

[error]Expression : assertion failed
[error]Function : CSafeFixedRotationState::create
[error]File : e:\stalker\sources\trunk\xr_3da\xrgame\phvalidevalues.h
[error]Line : 81
[error]Description : dBodyStateValide(b)

I replaced the alife file with the original file. Loaded up & the ctd was gone. Replaced the original again with the modified file, loaded up, & now the ctd has gone. All is OK. It's a crazy zone.

edit: DAMN ZONE. Spoke to soon. After going back to a distance of 750 I got about 60 seconds further then got the ctd again. Went back to default (150) & everything seems to be OK once more. Gone about 5 minutes with no ctd.

Looks like we'll have to stick to the default value.

Edited by: HipsterDoofus