Wednesday, April 11, 2012

How to make STALKER: Call of Pripyat (Steam) work

S.T.A.L.K.E.R is one of those weird games that is so awesome when it works, and frustrating as hell when it doesn’t. I am putting together a little guide here that should help you get your Steam version of the game work almost flawlessly.

I am sure most of what I write here can be applied to the regular version as well, but I haven’t tried it. I am also going to be assuming that you are using an Nvidia GPU, because that is what I have.

Here are the problems I had initially when I downloaded the game from Steam and tried to start it:

1. X-ray 1.6 crash – The game would start, and then it wouldn’t respond. If you end the game from the task manager, you will see a X-ray1.6 crash dialog box.

Quick fix for this – Disable Steam In-game overlay. The game will definitely start after doing so. There is still no guarantee that it would work right after that.

2. Extremely long load times. We are talking 10 minutes to load the game. 30 seconds to get to get the menu after hitting escape, kind of choppy frame rates.

Follow these few very simple steps, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat should work great for you.

1. Download and install the game from Steam

2. Get the complete mod. Click on this LINK to read more about it.

Download it HERE.

The complete mod does a fantastic job of improving the game in many ways. I can’t imagine playing the game without it.

The mod can be installed in two ways – Normal and Advanced. I installed the Advanced version because I have a good enough setup (Q9400, GeForce GTX 680 & 8GB RAM). Depending on the configuration of your system, chose the version that suits best.

Here are few screenshots before the mod was applied:

xrEngine 2012-04-10 21-01-55-37xrEngine 2012-04-10 21-01-56-88xrEngine 2012-04-10 21-02-00-88xrEngine 2012-04-10 21-02-03-40

Here are some screenshots after the mod was applied:

xrEngine 2012-04-11 19-04-11-83xrEngine 2012-04-11 19-04-13-76xrEngine 2012-04-11 19-04-15-18xrEngine 2012-04-11 19-29-30-53

It must be noted that previous save games won’t work after installing the mod.

3. Make sure that Steam is not running in compatibility mode. I was surprised to know that my Steam instance was working in Vista compatibility mode. I never knew this because until now, I had no reason to check.

Also, make sure you are running Steam as an Administrator.

Steam - Run as Administrator

4. It is important to remember that S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat should not be launched from Steam. Instead, do the following:

Go to this directory:

D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\stalker call of pripyat\bin (Steam maybe installed on C drive on your machine)

Right click on xrEngine.exe and create a shortcut on the desktop. Go to the desktop, and right click on the shortcut, and change the Start in field to this directory:

"D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\stalker call of pripyat\"

image

5. Start Steam, let it load fully.

6. Start S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat from the shortcut on the desktop.

If you did all these steps right, including installing the right version of the complete mod, the game should work fine.

FYI, here is my system configuration:

Processor

Intel Q9400  @ 2.66GHz, 2667 Mhz, 4 Core(s)

Motherboard

Gigabyte EP45-UD3R

RAM 8GB of GSKILL DDR2 RAM @ 800MHz
Graphics card EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 SC

Hope this tutorial helps. If it doesn’t, feel free to email me, and I will answer your questions.

Enjoy!

33 comments:

  1. Thanks, had issues downloading from steam - got stuck at 95%, crashed and started at 30% :( anywho, this is the second time I have to redownload it as last time I got that X-Ray 1.6 Engine failure, as soon as I can get STALKER to 100%, I will definitely follow your steps with the mod and shortcut. Thanks for the post:D

    ReplyDelete
  2. Works great now and without installing complete mod as far as I'm concerned.
    Thanks :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Please help me! How can i make a screenshot in COP? like this (at loading) :http://users.atw.hu/caprine/STALKER3/ujmenu.jpg

    [email protected]

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I believe that loading screen is custom, for the mod. I don't think you can change it, but I am not an very knowledgeable about such things. You could try some gaming forums.

      Delete
  4. Please help me! How can i make a screenshot in COP, like this (at loading): http://users.atw.hu/caprine/STALKER3/ujmenu.jpg

    [email protected]

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well... i followed your steps but the game wont even start.. i have tried to get this game working for hours now.. still no startup or anything..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What exactly is the problem? Post a screenshot so I can take a look.

      Delete
  6. Hey, followed every step and the game loads but when I start a game it crashes. I've tried everything from uninstalling, to running without the mod, to turning down all graphical settings and nothing has worked.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am assuming you are using the steam version.

      Does the game just crash to the desktop, or is there an error message?

      Delete
    2. It stops responding and then I have to close it via the task manager. Afterwards it says that the engine has crashed but only after I close it.

      It seems to be working a bit better now, I havent changed anything other than reinstalling the mod.

      Delete
  7. i did everything you said. when i start a new game it takes 10 mins to load then i get 1 second of game before it freezes and then crashes. plz help

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am sorry to hear that you are still having trouble with game. I am not sure what to tell you. I did exactly what I wrote here, and it worked like a charm for me.

      Could you perhaps post you system config?

      Delete
  8. the game works but certain things like quick saving or completing a objective cause it to freeze for about 3 mins, also the loading times are still horible even after installing complete.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have played through the game quite a bit, and I did not experience that problem at all. I saved and loaded games just fine, and I was able to complete objectives without any lag.

      Could you post your system config?

      Delete
  9. Thank you sooo much! i can finally enjoy the game! :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Im not entirely sure why but the game still crashes, I have 16gb of ram GTX 650 ti so i dont know why its messing up. plz help

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you have followed my instructions, it really shoulnd't crash. I have tested this again the other day, and installing the Complete Mod worked just fine.

      Let me know what exactly you are seeing.

      Delete
  11. is totally obligatory install the mod?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, the mod makes the game better in a lot ways. However, you could very well play the game without the mod.

      The reason you would want to install the mod is primarily to improve the gameplay experience, especially if you are having trouble with the base game.

      Delete
  12. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I have to ask does the complete mod work with the Swartz mod?

    ReplyDelete
  14. does the complete mod work with the swartz mod for that's what I'm having trouble wiht but if not does the complete mod come with weapons?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am not sure about the compatibility with other mods. I have never tested it. As for weapons specifically with complete mod, I am not sure. I do know that names of the weapons are changed to be more accurate.

      Delete
  15. should we download this? http://www.moddb.com/mods/call-of-pripyat-complete/downloads/call-of-pripyat-complete-10-exe-recommended

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I used this link: http://www.gamefront.com/files/20305747

      Worked fine for me. Give it a shot.

      Delete
  16. I had the second problem and now it's fixed because of you. Thank you very very much!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thank you for this! I was about to give up with this game. One more tip though: If nothing seems to be working, uninstall all addons, delete the gamedata folder (ENTIRELY) and then start again. Game is ROCK SOLID now.

    thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
  18. The Quick fix worked perfectly for me. Many thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hey goo sir!
    Thank you very much for the tip, but I've still a major problem. When I try to run the xrEngine shortcut, it doesn't work and i've
    error 5:0000065434
    Do you know why it doesn't work?
    Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  20. stalker call of pripyat compressed direct link download for pc

    http://extremegamery.blogspot.in/2014/11/stalker-call-of-pripyat-compressed.html#axzz3Hukz8WSp

    ReplyDelete

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