Get First 3 Stalker Games?

[skeet1983]

Hi guys. I am wanting to get Stalker 2, but think I should play through the first 3 games beforehand (Shadow of Chornobyl, Clear Skies, and Call of Prypyrat? My laptop's native res is 2560*1440. Can I play those games at my native res? Also, are they worth getting/playing? Thoughts and help appreciated :)

[Mitalik]

Hi, can you do that, I'm playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. right now: Shadow of Chernobyl at a resolution of 2560*1440

[Zulu]

Yes, they're worth it, they're brilliant. Just download Reclamation Project to fix some bugs for the first 2 games.

I'd recommend to start with Shadow of Chernobyl, after that Call of Pripyat, and then Clear Sky.

The original trilogy is dirt cheap right now and there's a ton of great mods for them, but best play vanilla first.

[GlowWorm]

When compared against modern titles, the original games will feel quite "retro". They do have very high nostalgic value for people who played them some time ago.

For new players, unless you can find them at significant discount, I'm not sure you will get your money's worth. Don't get me wrong, I have thousands of hours playing those older games, both unmodded, w/ small mods, and w/ big mods. I just don't want to set expectations for your experience that are too high.

[MM-fantasten]

I would say play SoC fully, play Clear Skies untill you get bored and then watch the CS story on youtube, play CoP untill Stalker 2 releases. The CoP story doesn't give much extra lore.

[space]

you can but they're pretty janky

[skeet1983]

Thanks for the info guys. If I get those 3 games, can I run them at my native 2560*1440 res?

[Zulu]

Originally posted by skeet1983:

Thanks for the info guys. If I get those 3 games, can I run them at my native 2560*1440 res?

Of course.

Bug fixes for SoC: https://www.metacognix.com/files/stlkrsoc/ZRP_1.07_R5RC_150408.7z

I case you also need to fix shadows:

go to my documents\stalker-shoc and open user.ltx, look for the line "r2_sun_near_border" and change that value to "1.0"

as for "shadow distance", try playing with "r2_sun_near", I got mine set to "30."

https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/c62kbw/how_can_i_fix_shadows_in_stalker/

[Set-115689]

The first stalker game is pretty good. It's very dated. Wouldn't play it without some mods.

Each game has something slightly different. Clear Sky had faction wars that kind of worked. The last game is pretty easy. The one main underground level is worth doing.

[skeet1983]

Hey again guys. I am still thinking about getting the first 3 games, but have a concern with SoC. According to the mini FAQ on the game's Steam discussion thread page, it says that there is an issue with Graphic Card overheating? I would be playing the games on a laptop, and if my Graphic Card goes, I am basically screwed. My laptop has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 with 16GB VRAM. Should I be concerned about this issue? Thoughts and help appreciated :)

[¥‎€‎‎$]

for SoC i would recommend Autumn Aurora 2 https://www.moddb.com/mods/autumn-aurora-compilation-mod

[Zulu]

Originally posted by skeet1983:

Hey again guys. I am still thinking about getting the first 3 games, but have a concern with SoC. According to the mini FAQ on the game's Steam discussion thread page, it says that there is an issue with Graphic Card overheating? I would be playing the games on a laptop, and if my Graphic Card goes, I am basically screwed. My laptop has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 with 16GB VRAM. Should I be concerned about this issue? Thoughts and help appreciated :)

The vanilla unmodded is very easy to run. Lock the framerate using vsync and I doubt you will have overheating problems.

[skeet1983]

Originally posted by Zulu:

Originally posted by skeet1983:

Hey again guys. I am still thinking about getting the first 3 games, but have a concern with SoC. According to the mini FAQ on the game's Steam discussion thread page, it says that there is an issue with Graphic Card overheating? I would be playing the games on a laptop, and if my Graphic Card goes, I am basically screwed. My laptop has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 with 16GB VRAM. Should I be concerned about this issue? Thoughts and help appreciated :)

The vanilla unmodded is very easy to run. Lock the framerate using vsync and I doubt you will have overheating problems.

Thanks for the info! Can I toggle Vsync in the in-game options?

[Bandy]

I would say play at least one, Call of Pripyat has the better mechanics. You can never go back (or it is hard to) after playing the most recent in a series.

Too late, they were all on deep sale 75% off at GOG just on the weekend... :C

[skeet1983]

Originally posted by Bandy:

I would say play at least one, Call of Pripyat has the better mechanics. You can never go back (or it is hard to) after playing the most recent in a series.

Too late, they were all on deep sale 75% off at GOG just on the weekend... :C

Hey. Even though CoP has better game mechanics, should I still play Shadow?

[Zulu]

Originally posted by skeet1983:

Originally posted by Zulu:

The vanilla unmodded is very easy to run. Lock the framerate using vsync and I doubt you will have overheating problems.

Thanks for the info! Can I toggle Vsync in the in-game options?

I know I had it locked, so I believe you can in-game. If not, control panel.

Originally posted by skeet1983:

Hey. Even though CoP has better game mechanics, should I still play Shadow?

SoC is the best out of 3, in my humble opinion, and best to be played first.

The STALKER community is very divided however and everyone has their own preferences.