My S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Build

The source code of the 2007 PC game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl leaked in 2010. I decided to use it to fix a few problems with the game.

Downloads

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
- for Windows 7 or later
- requires the Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable (32-bit) – if you don’t have it yet, download and install it from here
- requires a non-russian version of the original game – extract to your S.T.A.L.K.E.R. directory
- start bin_new\XR_3DA.exe

Features

Bugs fixed:
- could not reach lower inventory items in widescreen mode
- window was stuck in top-left desktop corner and constantly interfered with task bar
- splash screen froze the system for a second
- mouse did not become visible again after Alt + Tab
- v-sync button did not work (details)
- cursor position was not stored when leaving and re-entering UI (e.g. inventory)
- windowed mode now opens centered on the primary screen
- windowed mode constantly losing mouse focus
- more random errors I forgot about
Improvements:
- intro video is now always skipped
- config and savegames are now written to %APPDATA%\s.t.a.l.k.e.r. - shadow of chernobyl instead of C:\s.t.a.l.k.e.r. - shadow of chernobyl (fixes countless problems with missing C: drives)
- improved shadow map resolution from 1536² to 8192²; moved level of detail farther away
- lighting is now sRGB-correct
- updated DirectX from April 2006 to August 2007 (for DirectPlay 8) and to June 2010 (for D3DX9)
- updated OpenAL to latest version 1.1 fom 2009
- removed EAX
- removed BattlEye & GameSpy (multiplayer mode didn’t work any more since GameSpy shut down in 2014)
- removed sprite cursor and replaced with Windows cursor (much more responsive)
- raised bone limit from 64 to 128 (fixes some errors with high-detail models)
- removed bloat (shader debug information, needless vftables, duplicate data, needless DLL exports)
- merged all DLLs into XR_3DA.exe

Gallery

Various snapshots I have taken of my experiments (newest first). For more details, read this thread.

snapshot — daytime, bloom, and dusk after making the rendering sRGB-correct

snapshot — daytime, bloom, and dusk after making the rendering sRGB-correct

snapshot — applying sRGB only to the world rending, not to post processing

snapshot — daytime and bloom before making the rendering sRGB-correct

snapshot — daytime and bloom before making the rendering sRGB-correct

snapshot — just playing with r2_ls_bloom_threshold

snapshot — this button was a LIE (but it’s fixed now)

snapshot — how the game’s DLLs depend on each other (details; it’s simplified now)

snapshot — the game’s Visual C++ solution

snapshot — the Russian build handles the game file encryption differently

snapshot — the A* algorithm for the AI’s navigation is the most confusing C++ template I’ve ever seen

snapshot — me failing at implementing supersample antialiasing

snapshot — me failing at implementing supersample antialiasing

snapshot — playing my own build for the first time

snapshot — compiling S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is hard work for my machine (it takes almost ten minutes)

snapshot — starting a debug version of the game for the first time (notice the clock in the lower-left corner!)

Have you seen my Ace Combat Experiments?