S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

What works

Everything tested works flawlessly (starting the game, modifying game/graphics settings etc., starting a new game & playing for a while, installing & using some mods); simply install and play.

What does not

Nothing (this field must be filled in due to the "workarounds" field being specified, which itself is required before it'll allow this to be submitted with a 'Gold' rating)

Workarounds

No overrides are needed, but I'm not sure that this deserves a platinum rating because it bundles some native Direct3D libraries - d3dx9_31.dll and d3dx9_34.dll - and won't start without them (if they are removed it stops working with the error message: "Your video card doesn't meet game requirements \ Pixel Shaders v1.1 or higher required"). Some msvc* libraries are also bundled, but it seems to work fine without those.

What was not tested

Multiplayer

I've not done a full playthrough with this version of Wine, but I've fully played through this using earlier versions without issue and there is no reason to suspect that this may have changed.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU: AMD
• Driver: open source

Additional Comments

This report is based on my notes and testing during the creation and maintenance of my wrapper for the GOG version of this game: https://www.gog.com/forum/stal...

Prefix configuration:

• CSMT was enabled
• Wine Mono and Wine Gecko were not installed

It's worth taking a look at the tweak guide for this game: http://www.tweakguides.com/STA... (in particular you might want to modify the value for r2_sun_near_border in user.ltx to fix an issue the game has at widescreen resolutions)

On some setups users may experience micro-stuttering, especially around campfires - this can happen on Windows as well and is due to a change GOG have made (to force vsync - see this post for more info https://www.gog.com/forum/stal... ) to fix another possible issue. If you're affected by this then you can contact support and ask for the original files.

Tested systems:

• AMD Ryzen™ 7 1700 @ 3.7GHz, 16GB RAM, AMD RX 480 8GB (main system)
• Intel® Core™ i7-2600K Processor @ 4.5GHz, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GTX 750 Ti
• Intel® Core™ i3-6100 Processor, 4GB RAM, Intel HD 530 graphics

All running Linux Mint 18.x with kernel 4.13.0-38 and stable Mesa from Padoka's PPA (for AMD/Intel graphics) or Nvidia's proprietary drivers

Obtain patches to update your S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SOC install from...

stalker-game.com  patches

modb full patchset

The most up-to-date patch version listed at the (first) official Stalker Game link is 1.0005. A full set of patches for the game are available at the (second) ModDB link.

Version 1.0006 (an unofficial update) is required to access multiplayer servers on the Internet. It is highly recommended to use version 1.0005 for single player gameplay (version 1.0006 was recalled, by GSC, due to some stability issues). Note: some older mods may require version 1.0004.

Ensure the WINEPREFIX path variable is set in the terminal env - before running the patch executable. You must have native Linux execute access on the mountpoint & path. E.g.:

> export WINEPREFIX="❚❚❚❚❚❚"
> wine ~/Downloads/stk-sck-efigspc-patch-5-6.exe

Initially it is important to upgrade S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SOC to version 1.0006.

Selecting Multiplayer, from the main menu, should show a list of servers. When you attempt to connect to them you should see a popup dialog box:

Connection error: Invalid Host

See bug 4066. Wine currently does not implement the required DirectPlay functionality (some groundwork was laid down in a GSOC 2008 Wine project).

A workaround is to use the native (Windows) DirectPlay dll's (dynamic link libraries) for:

> export WINEPREFIX="❚❚❚❚❚❚"
> winetricks directplay

Executing this command (within your S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SOC Wineprefix) should allow extended online Gameplay (without any apparent issues).

Dynamic Lighting (DirectX 9c)

• GPU¹:
  Nvidia card (8800 series or newer), with the proprietary driver, is the only documented graphics hardware vendor with near 100% support
  ?? AMD non-legacy Catalyst (potentially buggy / unsupported on newer kernels/older hardware, etc.), FOSS radeon driver on AMD Radeon 5000 series (+)  (data unavailable)
  ?? Intel HD graphics series (data unavailable)

• System RAM²:
  3.0Gb (+)

Static lighting (DirectX 8)

• GPU:
  ?? unsupported older Nvidia, legacy AMD Radeon and older Intel cards (data unavailable)
• System RAM²:
  2.0Gb (-)

---

¹FOSS kernel GPU drivers may have severely limited support for advanced graphical features e.g. soft shadows; lead to graphical errors: smeared skybox, etc. and / or have low FPS.
² System RAM requirements are significantly higher than MS Windows (may depend on Desktop Environment).

press:  ¬  key to access in-game, drop-down console

Commands

rs_stats 1

Enable in-game overlay (display FPS, frame draw times, memory usage,etc.) - statistics for the geek in you!

The path for your Saved Games is set by the main S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SOC configuration file. To find this file in your main S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SOC install folder:

find "${WINEPREFIX}" -type f -name "fsgame.ltx"

The default Save Game location is:

"${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/users/Public/Documents/STALKER-SHOC/savedgames"

As the saved games are "within" the file system hierarchy of your Wineprefix they will also be transferred if you copy or move your S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Wineprefix to a different machine or drive.

Saved games can be shared or transferred between a native MS Windows install and your Wine Wineprefix. However the Wine Wineprefix architecture must match your Windows install...
E.g.

• transfer Saved Games between 64-bit MS Windows OS install and a 64-bit Wineprefix
• transfer Saved Games between 32-bit MS Windows OS install and a 32-bit Wineprefix

The usual caveats apply to transferring Saved Games... The main S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SOC version, and any installed mod version, should be matched between your Windows install and your S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SOC Wineprefix.

See the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl page (PC GAMING WIKI site) for additional tweaks, recommended mods/ game versions, etc.