That was indeed it, for some reason I totally missed the 1.4.22 patch. Once I copied that over CoC before Roadside Picnic, now it works fine. Faceplant moment.
Anyhows, thanks falster and FLX83.

no worries. glad it works, hopefully now it wont be an anti climax!

I'd like to add another mod to this list for people to try out: Autumn Aurora 2.1 for SOC
It makes the game look amazing, and introduces some gameplay changes like more difficult firefights, ability to sleep, weapon repair, heavy bleeding needs multiple bandages to stop etc.
I've only played it for like 3 hours so far, but my first impression is very positive.
The mod can be found on modDB.
Default settings feature a lot of grass, but the mod runs really smooth on my oldish rig (fx 6300, gtx 960, 16gb of 1333 ddr3 ram)
They also employ exemplary guidance throughout the installation process, as can be seen in the attached image.

I'd reserve AA2.1 for a second playthrough though, as it diverges from the vanilla experience quite a bit. For a first playthrough, the Starter Pack is likely a better choice.

I necrothread a bit here, since I've finished a game and thought I'd give a go to the STALKER series. I remember playing back in the day with these series of mods : http://artistpavel.blogspot.jp/

Since they are all from 2009-2010-211, I guess they're heavily outdated now, but I must admit I don't know what's good. This thread seems interesting to me, with several options available.

I loved this guy's mods back in the day, which current mod would be close to it? My main goal is to make the game as beautiful as possible and as bug-free as possible. I'm all for "logical" add-ons (like carefully tought changes to the health system or the likes) that would fit with the original spirit, and I don't want anything to "expand" my experience (new zones, new enemy types, new weapons...) since I've never completed a "vanilla" run of these games.

If you have any advice, thanks in advance!

Mh, for an experience close to Vanilla I'd go with the above-mentioned Starter Pack 2017 for Shadow of Chernobyl.

For Call of Pripyat I'd use Atmosfear and Absolute Nature/Structures. CoP does not really need any bugfix mods.
I also like Arsenal Overhaul for CoP, though that does add many new weapons and some new items (it also includes specially adapted versions of Atmosfear and Absolute Nature).

For Clear Sky I'd probably just use the Clear Sky Reclamation Project, though I haven't played that game much.

If you want to mod the game yourself, you can do so with the AXRToolset, with it you can easily unpack the .db files and put modified text files in your gamedata folder.
https://github.com/revolucas/AXRToolset

Thanks, FLX83 ! :)

You are welcome :-)

While we are talking about modding, two settings I consider especially important:

"eye_range" under section "visibility" in file /gamedata/configs/creatures/m_stalker.ltx controls how far the human NPCs can "see" (actually, shoot back at you). In the vanilla game and most mods this is set way too low, like 100 meters.

However you can easily hit the NPCs in the torso from 300 m even with a scoped assault rifle. I usually set this to around 300 m. This will make encounters more realistic and intense, e.g in SoC in the last level over the rooftops of the CNPP, the Monolith can now fire at you from the other roofs as well (as they realistically should). Leave the other "eye_range" settings alone, except perhaps adjust "eye_fov" which adjusts the NPC field of view.
At default settings, NPC accuracy rapidly drops of after (I think) 30 m, so a high eye_range won't allow them to snipe you with terrible weapons from 300 m. Though due to infinite ammo, they may still hit you a fair number of times since they fire a lot of bullets.

To take full advantage of the "eye_range" setting though, we need to modify another file:

/gamedata/configs/alife.ltx controls the Alife system, here we can adjust at what distance Alife switches from passive into active mode. So if you want to engage enemy stalkers at 300 m, this needs to be set to at least 300 m.
This switch distance is also what mainly causes the annoying stutter when you approach larger groups of NPCs or mutants. The guys on the Misery forums tested some settings and what worked best for them (and me) was:
switch_distance = 600
objects_per_update = 1
if this is laggy or leads to more stutter, experiment a bit with the settings. You may also have to reduce the switch distance in busier areas. Note that a higher SD will increase the load on the CPU, Stalker is strictly single-threaded, so this is still relevant for modern CPUs with weak single-core performance.

Oh, and if you have low FPS in CoP with Atmosfear, try disabling sun rays first.

One more thing, also in m_stalker.ltx, in case enemies spot you too easily in the dark and through foilage:
sections [stalker_vision_free] and [stalker_vision_danger]
luminocity_factor = 0.8 ;Low value = easier to see at night
transparency_threshold = 0.9 ;Low value = easier to see through objects (if greater then 1 then enemies are blind)

I'm not sure exactly what most of the other entries in that section do.

And another "thread revive" because of recent info:
Clear Sky may be the least liked one of the whole bunch, but also is a lot of fun WHEN it runs.

I would recommend:
- Install using GOG latest version "setup_stalker_cs_2.1.0.10.exe" = CS 1.5.10
- Install Sky Reclamation Project (SRP) 1.2.2
- Run as ADMIN user (to prevent crashes)
- NEVER use DX10 or variants in video setting - ONLY use DX9 (otherwise, crash to desktop /CTD all the time)

OR

If you prefer DX10 above DX9, there are several forum threads how to copy an older DLL from DIrectX into the CS folders to run DX10.

Interesting. I might give CS a go again when I have time :-)