As the title says really. I've had positive results for both Witcher 2 and Two World 2 only to find out that my laptop wasn't quite up to scratch. Both were unplayable which is a shame. Incidentally, I did have all settings pretty much at minimum and they were still jerky :(

So I was wondering if the same thing is likely to happen with the STALKER games. Can You Run It shows I can run the game on recommended settings but I'd appreciate a second opinion on here.

Specs are:

i5-460M @ 2.53Ghz
8 GB RAM
GeForce GT 420M < This seems to be where my laptop struggles.

Any views would be appreciated and I'm happy to get a lesson or two on the best way to check if anyone is willing.

Thanks.

I've found these "can you run it" sites to be only good as vague guides with various PCs over the years. Honestly, how successfully you'll be able to run this game is a bit of a lottery. It was notoriously poorly optimised for the PCs of 2007 and is even more unpredictable on today's PCs. You have a better GPU than me (you'll laugh at this next bit). All I can offer are my results with (don't laugh) Integrated graphics! I can run it pretty much maxed out (except for resolution) at a decent frame rate so long as dynamic lighting is disabled. With it enabled, I can run the game at Medium settings with a playable enough frame rate (though it took some tweaking and additions).

My machine doesn't blink when there are lightning flashes casting tree shadows everywhere at night plus dynamic torch light everywhere, yet weirdly, whenever I look at a fire in certain oil drums, it skips frames and turns into a slide show momentarily. Bizarrely though, I've seen and heard of people with much better PCs than mine encountering issues that I do not have.

Sorry, I know this is not too helpful. I would just say approach with caution. It really depends on what your tolerance threshold performance and quality-wise is. You may need to compromise.

One important thing: The GOG release forces AA (Anti-Aliasing) to on, regardless of which way you set it in-game. I contacted GOG and requested the original unaltered file, so that I may be able to disable AA, and they kindly obliged. I'm sure they'd do the same for you if need be. AA Off noticeably improved fps and control response.

Another thing you could try if you decide to take the plunge: The Float 32 2.0 mod. This mod supposed to improve the lighting effects while simultaneously boosting performance - all without altering the gameplay, atmosphere and overall experience.

Like I say, regardless of your rig, you're taking a gamble with this one if your aim is to run it maxed out. Modding is also a must because it has a lot of bugs besides the slowdown. Good luck!

Thanks for the reply. It was very helpful and much appreciated.

I'm not fussed about maximising visuals and all my newer games are on minimum settings. I would have taken the plunge but unfortunately, I've missed the promotion so will have to be patient.

Again, thank you so much.

No problem and you're very welcome. It'll probably show up again sometime soon in a sale. You know what it's like, these things seem to swing round again quite often :)

Bit late for the bundle in the sale I'm afraid, but unless you search and find any specific issues with your specific card, then you shouldnt have a problem - I ran SoC and CoP into the 100s of hours on my old laptop, and its specs weren't even half of that.

[Edit: currently run them with an intel hd4000, a similar i5 and 6gb ram without issue]

As long as you have effects on low and the grass on a low setting then you should be fine.

Avoid float 32 though - that was made entirely for certain types of Nvidia card and will likely not work for you - aside from the fact it required higher than minimum settings. elements of it were later used in other mods though - with much better results for most people across a spectrum of cards.

Thanks. Searching online provided results that my laptop could also run The Witcher 2 and Two Worlds 2. Even with the settings on minimum both games were unplayable, so receiving specific forum responses are much more reliable.

I also sent a support message to GOG staff while the promotion was still active but they didn't respond until it had finished. Unfortunately, they won't allow for the delay and therefore I've missed this opportunity. Hopefully, they'll have a big Christmas promo.

It's becoming more regularly discounted now, so even if they dont have it on soon - I'd reckon early next year at least.

I did have a bit of a dig at GOG but to balance it, they've been brilliant with the few other queries that I've had.

At least this thread has made my mind up so thanks again.

No worries. if / when you get em, ping me any more queries.

Late reply as I'm just hitting up the forum in preparation for my first time playing the game. There is a benchmark for Call of Pripyat here:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/S.T.A.L.K.E.R-Call-of-Pripyat-benchmark-download-2433.html#download

I've run the benchmark in the past, on my 3 1/2 year-old laptop with a core i7, 4GB RAM, and a GT555-M GPU. The later passes (more options turned on) of the benchmark were choking it a bit. Note that the benchmark is for Call of Pripyat, the later title.

Played some Shadows of Chernobyl last night for the first time, at 1920x1080 and details on High (one bump down from Ultra)... and it runs like butter. I suspect you can run the first game no problem, maybe drop the details or resolution a notch if you need to.

If I can take time from my busy day of doing nothing I'll install CoP and give that a shot, to compare my "real world" result versus the benchmark.

Edit: Tried about an hour of CoP, on 1920x1080 and High detail (not Ultra). Ran as well as SoC. My guess is that if your machine doesn't choke too badly on the early rounds of the benchmark then it'll probably run okay for you if you don't mind dropping a couple settings here or there.

I ran this game on a pentium 4 with an AMD radeon x1300 AGP card, had to set resolution to minimum and use static lighting. I finished the game and got one of the 'false' endings. Also played it on a Core i3 with amd hd 5450 card and got the good true ending. Any decent modern computer will run these at 1080p and 60fps.

Hope OP gets it running ok.