S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Lost Alpha

What works

• Main game installer
• Other 3rd party installers
• Patch 1.3003 installer
• Full Dynamic Lighting (DirectX 9.0c)
• OpenAL Audio
• Cutscene Videos

What does not

• Installer for Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013 (cabextract used for necessary dynamic link files: msvcp120.dll , msvcr120.dll)
• DirectX 10 (supported by hardware but not by Wine)

Workarounds

What was not tested

Extended gameplay

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

System: Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTX Core i7 920 @4Ghz 24Gb DDR3 Corsair Dominator RAM Kernel: 3.13.7-gentoo Compiler: gcc (Gentoo 4.9.0 p1.0, pie-0.6.0) 4.9.0 Wine: wine-1.7.22-58-gcafb192 Nvidia Driver Version 340.24 Game FPS is very low (even on LOW detail settings). This also appears to be a complaint by users running the game under Windows. This standalone mod appears to be good example of why a small modding crew should not try to re-write a successful commercial game!

To extract the initial release 4-part rar archive - it is recommended to use the native 7zip utility as follows. Fill in "▉▉▉▉" paths as required for your system. 

# STALKER_ARCHIVE_PATH : folder with 4 part .rar archives for S.T.A.L.K.E.R._LOST_ALPHA_v1.3000_setup
# SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH : path to create installer directory for S.T.A.L.K.E.R._LOST_ALPHA_v1.3000_setup
# WINEPREFIX : standard Wine environment variable
export WINEPREFIX="▉▉▉▉"
export WINEARCH=win64
export SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH="▉▉▉▉"
export SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH="${SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH%/}"
export STALKER_ARCHIVE_PATH="▉▉▉▉"
export STALKER_ARCHIVE_PATH="${STALKER_ARCHIVE_PATH%/}"

# fixed relative paths
export setup_folder="S.T.A.L.K.E.R._LOST_ALPHA_v1.3000_setup"

cd "${SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH}"
7z x "${STALKER_ARCHIVE_PATH}/${setup_folder}.part1.rar"
cd "${SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH}/${setup_folder}"

Tested with Wine Staging 2.7.

Install the main game only. Note: the third party installers are left intact - these will execute correctly with more recent versions of Wine (in both 32-bit and 64-bit WINEPREFIX's).

Fill in "▉▉▉▉" paths as required for your system.

# SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH : path to create installer directory for S.T.A.L.K.E.R._LOST_ALPHA_v1.3000_setup
# WINEPREFIX : standard Wine environment variable
export WINEPREFIX="▉▉▉▉"
export WINEARCH=win64
export SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH="▉▉▉▉"
export SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH="${SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH%/}"

# fixed paths
export setup_folder="S.T.A.L.K.E.R._LOST_ALPHA_v1.3000_setup"

cd "${SETUP_DESTINATION_PATH}/${setup_folder}"
# run main installer
wine "setup.exe"
# setup necessary DirectX 9.0c dll overrides
winetricks d3dx9

Tested with Wine Staging 2.7.

This patch for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lost Alpha is cumulative - so you only require the original game to be installed (version 1.3000) - before applying this patch. You will required the native unzip package to be installed in order to unzip the archive.

Fill in "▉▉▉▉" paths as required for your system.

Note: you will need to first cd to the correct path where you downloaded the patch.

# WINEPREFIX : standard Wine environment variable
export WINEPREFIX="▉▉▉▉"
export WINEARCH=win64

unzip STALKER_LostAlpha_Patch_v1.3003.zip
wine start STALKER_LostAlpha_Patch_v1.3003.exe

The bundled 32-bit Creative Labs OpenAL library - that S.T.A.L.K.E.R Lost Alpha installs is completely unmaintained. This library tends to gives ambient audio that sounds like you are underwater!! This problem is not just an issue when using Wine - poor quality sound reproduction is an issue when using native Windows as well.

The fix is to go the OpenAL Soft website and download the latest OpenAL Soft zip archive.

Then follow these instructions to set this new library up:

# WINEPREFIX : standard Wine environment variable
export WINEPREFIX="▉▉▉▉"
# Get OpenAL Soft archive (latest version) - from http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html
# Download this to: "${HOME}/Downloads"
cd "${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c"
cp ~/Downloads/openal-soft-*-bin.zip .
unzip openal-soft-*-bin.zip
# Overwrite bundled all Creative Labs OpenAL libraries with OpenAL Soft libraries
export openal_binary="$(find "${WINEPREFIX}" -type f -iregex '.*\/openal-soft.*\/bin\/Win32\/soft_oal.dll')" 
find "${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c"  -type f -iname "OpenAL32.dll" -print0 | xargs -0 -I file cp "${openal_binary}" file
# Tune OpenAL Soft settings for your system - using bundled Qt4 GUI application
export alsoft_config_utility="$(find "${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/" -type f -iregex '.*\/openal-soft.*\/alsoft-config\/alsoft-config.exe')"
wine start "$(winepath -w "${alsoft_config_utility}")"

Fill in "▉▉▉▉" paths as required for your system.

Either use:

# WINEPREFIX : standard Wine environment variable
export WINEPREFIX="▉▉▉▉"
wine start 'C:\Program Files (x86)\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Lost Alpha\bins\XR_3DA.exe'

or:

# WINEPREFIX : standard Wine environment variable
export WINEPREFIX="▉▉▉▉"
cd "${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Lost Alpha"
wine bins/XR_3DA.exe

These instructions are intended for use with a 64-bit WINEPREFIX.