This product is unreleased but remains under active development - information may change frequently and could be outdated or irrelevant.
Key points
- Fan game that tries to recreate the original design and atmosphere of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl as seen early in development.
- Does not require any of the official S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games installed.
General information
- Official site
- Mod DB page
Availability
Essential improvements
Patches
- Standalone install and new game start needed!
The latest official patch v1.4005, titled "Director`s Cut", is available at Moddb.com. Link: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lost Alpha v1.4005 DC Torrent!
Skip intro videos
Start game with -nointro parameter[citation needed]
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Game data
Configuration file(s) location
Save game data location
Video settings
Template:Video settings
Input settings
Template:Input settings
Audio settings
Template:Audio settings
Localizations
Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
English |
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Italian |
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Polish |
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Some unimportant non-conversation speech is Russian (e.g. jokes). |
Russian |
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Issues fixed
Unable to save, load or make screenshots
Install in non-default location[citation needed]
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Install the game outside Program Files.
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Run as Administrator[citation needed]
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- Right click your game shortcut.
- Select "Run as Administrator".
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- This bug can also cause game crashes.
Disable first person body awareness[citation needed]
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- While in-game, open console with ~ button.
- Enter
g_actor_body off command.
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Various problems on 32bit systems
Delete files[citation needed]
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- Go to
<path-to-game>\bins\
- Delete or rename
msvcp120.dll , msvcp120d.dll and msvcr120.dll .
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Low FPS troubleshooting
Game settings tips for preserving the best graphics and performance
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Max out and turn on all settings, and to improve FPS, set sliders and options as following (ready config):
- Vision distance to 5/11 (0 or 2 - with disappearing objects)
- Objects detail to 3 (0 - low texture quality far ahead [e.g. on hills in Cordon - avoidable by setting 2-3 points above 0] or 3/4+)
- Grass density to 0 (or 3/4, 1/4, depends on a taste)
On the second place:
- Grass shadows off (minor visual impact with some performance impact, though depends on API and taste)
- Sun rays off (like above)
- HDAO is claimed to be optimized for AMD
- HBAO for NVIDIA cards (the last option)
Disable for 1 FPS gain (from 23 FPS):
- Ambient occlusion at all
- FXAA
- Soft particles
- Anisotropic filtering
- MSAA from x2 to 0
Others:
- Keep Sun shadows always on (massive change of lighting)
- V-Sync off (reportedly reported frame lock working sometimes below native monitor frequency - depending on FPS dips)
- Keep textures in RAM off
- Object prefetching on - disabled cause stuttering, delete -noprefetch from your shortcut properties.
- Settings tested on Q9650/HD7870.
- Some settings may require game restart, even if you're not asked to do so (e.g. grass density, texture quality, MSAA).
- Restart the game (instead of just clicking quit the game and load last save) in case of performance decrease after changing details lot of times.
- If your game settings stopped to be saved after game restart, change the settings and save them before loading the game.
- Run the game only from desktop shortcut to avoid crash on launch.
- Alt+Tab cause engine error. Temporarily disable full screen to avoid it, and enable it again afterwards.
- Game utilizes computing power of more than two cores only during loading (though distributes load linearly).
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Use compatibility mode of Windows Vista SP2 or XP SP3
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Double FPS boost in certain areas with ~>99% GPU usage, and appears >1 minute after loading save (e.g. in Monolith base. Before and after saves and settings testing place)
- Cause very slow level loading times, saves, main menu, or rarely hang after pressing ESC.
- You can preserve FPS gain achieved in compatibility mode by saving the game, and loading it in the game launched normally.
- FPS drops again after triggering progress during quests (e.g. after quest text appearing, spawning new enemies - usually when the game stops for a few seconds, or stutters).
- Turn on shader cache in GPU driver panel to increase save and level loading times (SSD recommended).
- Compatibility mode in some cases increases VRAM usage by ~300MB.
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"Can't open video stream" crash
Install Xvid[citation needed]
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Install Xvid.
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Other information
API
Executable |
32-bit |
64-bit |
Notes |
Windows |
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System requirements
Windows |
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Minimum |
Recommended |
Operating system (OS) |
XP |
7, 8. 10 |
Processor (CPU) |
2 GHz
| Intel Core i5, i7 3.5 GHz AMD equivalent 3.5 GHz |
System memory (RAM) |
2 GB |
8 GB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
20 GB |
20 GB |
Video card (GPU) |
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT ATI/AMD Radeon HD3000 series
| Nvidia GeForce GT700 series ATI/AMD Radeon HD7000 series |
Notes
References