[Bubba]

First off let me say that this stupid game has more bugs than the American Embassy in moscow had during the Soviet Union days. What a mess this thing is, but anyways........

I got the game the day it was released, loaded it, look for and found a patch, downloaded it and started playing. It crashed early in the game. OK, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (the original) was noted for crashing so maybe they released ANOTHER patch since i downloaded one the day before. Sure enough, they had. Download IT, start over, and......... CRASH!!!!!!!! It's a different kind of crash though this time. Now I don't get the bug message, the game is just GONE in a nanosecond and I'm staring at my desktop. There are no error messages in my Event Log either. Also, twice, after it died, it locked on a black screen, (like it was loading) when i restarted the game and stayed there. I hit Task manager, end program, and the Task manager disappeared. The computer was effectively locked and I had to cut power to it.

I started it up again and ran the game in admin mode. It loaded once again. Thinking maybe my save file was corrupt, I went back to the earliest one I had. It played fine for a while and then.......... blip, looking at my desktop again.

So here is my question: It possible that my save file got corrupted (been reading about that happening with the game). Actually the place I think it got corrupted was literally 2 seconds before my earliest so lol. If that's the case I can start all over, saving certain checkpoints this time and see if i can get through this buggy bastard. My other option, as I see it, it to uninstall then re install the game and updates.

Being just about a complete moron however when it comes to programming, I am open to any and all suggestions that don't involve me hacking off any of my body parts. Oh, I would suggest that anyone thinking about getting this game wait a couple month's til the idiot dev's get the bugs fixed.

[Black Magic]

1. Watch it buddy, your language might get you banned
2. My suggestion: go in to the program files and delete your saves and the patches,then reinstall ONLY the latest patch. If that doesnt work, well you're going to have to reinstall the whole game.

[Bubba]

What language? English lol? Sorry, no habla french.

I actually have already deleted the saves, and then the whole game. I got re downloaded the patches as well to make sure I didn't get a corrupted file the first time. Same thing just started happening in the same place.

So are you suggesting that I re do it and instead of doing the first two patches, just install the last patch? I never thought of that one. This is driving me nuts lol as the game concept is pretty good, it's just the operation of it that they are lacking in.

[Black Magic]

you should just download the latest patch, because the problem is inside one of the earlier patches. Besides, the earlier patches arent needed to patch up to the latest version

[Black Magic]

oh yeah and the language thing, i meant dont use words like "bastard" lol

[Bubba]

Originally Posted by Black Magic

you should just download the latest patch, because the problem is inside one of the earlier patches. Besides, the earlier patches arent needed to patch up to the latest version

Ah, ok. I'll try that next. Here is the weird thing though, thta I have never experienced with any other game (and remember before the internet when games DIDN'T have to have 50 patches lol): When it quits without the bug error message and i try to get back into it without re booting my computer first, NOTHING will open. I can move the mouse, I can click on things, but nothing happens. THIS ws why I'm learning more about computers at my advanced age lol, so I can fix crap like this myself and help others. Yes, that's me, the future knight in shining armor.

And to your other? That program is most certainly the fatherless son of a mongrel dog so the word is most definitely apropos.

EDIT: Oh, and do you play S.T.A.L.K.E.R.? If you are a gamer and haven't, you should try it, (the first one first lol, they have IT fixed). It's a nice combo of a role playing and first person shooter.

[Black Magic]

Well, what are your computers specs and how old is it? I looked on Google (well im at a major loss about what to do since i have never had such a problem) and i found out that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had some issues with the nVidia 8800gtx graphics card. It might also be your computer, because i have a 4 year old P4 that has major issues with newer programs.


Well the way that you put it, i guess the word was appropriate lol

And no i don't play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but i might start, after all i want to know if it is as bad as you say it is.

[Bubba]

I have a q9450 processor, 8 GB's of DDR3 RAM (1333MHZ), two nVidia 9800GX2 graphics cards, all running on an nVidia 790i SLI Ultra motherboard. It's powered by a thermaltake 1200 (1200watts). The OS is Vista Ultimate 64 bit. It's a few months old, I built it myself. I bought the 9800GX2's literally the day they came out (which delayed my computer build 2 days I think).

I don't think it's lack of hardware lol.

EDIT2: The original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is great since they have fixed all the bugs IT came out with lol. Make sure you do the downloads though, and many of them you have to do in order.

[Black Magic]

Does S.T.A.L.K.E.R. require windows DX10? If it doesnt, then I'd suggest you go back down to XP64-bit (unless you have other games like Halo 2 for PC that do require DX10). I dont think Microsoft has worked all the bugs out of Vista yet, and all of its settings are completely locked up.

[Bubba]

Vista works just fine, much better than XP. Yes, I'm going to throw a 350 dollar program in the trash can and buy an obsolete one that won't be supported in a couple of months because Deep Silver can't write a decent program lol.

Actually it seems to be that it (Clear Sky) doesn't like Vista. But Vista has a feature called "compatibility mode" which allows programs to view it as past versions of Windows. I set it for XP SP2 and am running it in the administrator mode. That seems to be working so far (knock on wood.)

I also went back to a saved game that I knew was non corrupted (started over lol), and am not using a save file twice. Also I'm trying not to get too many missions at the same time. Some of that may be a factor and some may not, it's kind of a shotgun approach but it seems to be working.

Thanks for the suggestions.