STALKER SOC will not launch

[Incognito Mosquito]

When I try to launch S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl i see on my friends list that it says I am in-game for about 5 seconds, then I revert to being just 'online'. I never get to actually see anything in-game or even so muchas a title screen; nothing at all loads up. I have verified the files, I have tried launching from the .exe in actual folder. I am on Win8 x64, with an AMD Radeon HD 6950 video card. Rest of the system is on par with that and should be enough to handle this game no problem.

I tried disabling my firewall and launching steam in offline mode, disabling ALL my audio devices & drivers, and reinstalled the game multiple times, as I saw suggested in random internet threads.

Anyone have any further suggestions? I can get Clear Sky to run no problem, but for some reason SOC just doesn't want to work, and I want to play SOC before I play the others

[GinormousKarl]

I have this probelm too I was so excited to get this from the xmas sale and I've done alot of thing to fix this but nothing works.......

[JuG™]

well...same thing happened to me but for me it was after i tried installing some mods and then uninstalling them again cause they didnt work. i`ll try to ask the game support or something. i saw a similar thread somewhere where the guy got it fixed by just using offline mode and waiting some days maybe you should try that.

[JuG™]

so I contacted the support and they told me to do a clan install.

``1. From the game prroperties in the Steam client library, open the game install directory and delete all files from there.

2. Delete all files from metadata directoy ``C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\stalker-shoc´´ Actually you can copy that string including quotes, and paste into running dialog (press Win and R keys)

3. Again in the game properties in Steam click validate game files.``

I can't tell you if this works but I'm trying it out at the moment.

[JuG™]

Actually the method above works! but before you try that I suggest you to make a Backup of your savegames in ``C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\stalker-shoc´´ and copy them in after the reinstall.

[Obama]

The executable program doesn't even start for me. Steam just doesn't launch it.

[sgt_magor]

copy and paste this to your Steam launch options see if it helps.

-nointro -noprefetch