MutantMonkey on 16/2/2009 at 18:32
Meaning is Clear Sky any more demanding than Stalker, system-wise? Stalker ran just well enough on my PC to finish the game, but there were many areas where I was getting very low fps. I'd like to try Clear Sky but I don't want to have to upgrade to play it.
vurt on 16/2/2009 at 19:48
I'm quite sure if you run at lower settings it would run at about the same FPS, but maybe someone with low end hardware can answear that..
Malleus on 16/2/2009 at 20:15
It's more CPU demanding. I could run it almost as good as SoC on the same graphics settings, but as soon as some battle started, fps dropped significantly (this on a P4 Prescott 3,0GHz CPU).
242 on 16/2/2009 at 23:02
It will run almost the same if you won't enable CS's new enhanced graphics mode.
Muzman on 17/2/2009 at 06:38
I can only run it in DX9 but I found CS smooth as silk all the time, using basically settings turned all the way up on 1280x1024. These same settings would occasionally chug on SoC. So, in brief, I'd say CS runs better than Stalker
TBE on 18/2/2009 at 18:34
I've got:
P4 3.0 GHz
Radeon 3850 Video Card
2 GB RAM
2 500GB drives set up in RAID 0
CS plays just as well, or even smoother than SoC at the same resolutions. I use 1280*1024 I think.
You shouldn't have to upgrade anything unless you want prettier graphics.
Wormrat on 18/2/2009 at 21:28
Can people quantify what they mean by "smooth?" A simple frame rate comparison would clear up the ambiguity. All the benchmarks I've seen suggest that Clear Sky is a bear to run when completely maxed (i.e., with all the DX10 options), but if you stick to DX9 and "dynamic illumination," it should be comparable to maxed SoC.
Muzman on 19/2/2009 at 05:33
I haven't got any hard numbers but generally if things stay above 30fps I'm happy. So if it's smooth, that's where it's at.
The other thing is that SoC will have these big halting moments, usually just after you enter a map (presumably when a bunch of stuff loads, AI spawn in etc) and if you sprint across a map you get it a few times as you cross different uh... quadtrants quickly (mods and things have probably made this worse than vanilla). I don't get these in CS. Well, once or twice maybe. But they're regular as clockwork in SoC.
This is with everything turned up full (except res) in DX9 (I think the only DX10 options are wet surfaces and dynamic smoke). There was even enough overhead to turn v-synch on.
What's worth mentioning is that I'm using nvidia driver 1.63. When I upgraded to 1.78, I think it was, the performance was considerably worse. This was particularly noticeable at dawn when sun rays kicked in. The game was virtually unplayable for the ten minutes that sun rays are in effect. So I rolled back to 1.63 and all is fine again. I don't know if this has been fixed in newer driver versions.
I've got an Athlon 64X2 6000+ and an 8800 GTS
TBE on 19/2/2009 at 09:02
I'm getting around 45 fps on both of them, and on CS, it usually stays in the higher numbers. My processor is the major lagger in this equation, so if you've got a system comparable to mine, you should be ok.
