Game stuttering issue

Created by: ghost

It seems like we've all tried just about everything to eliminate stuttering in Stalker. I think some of us felt that luajit/luabind being updated would fix this but it doesn't unfortunately. However, I feel I know the main cause.

Stalker does not appear to stream in assets properly. A good example of this is in a mod like Call of Chernobyl, which uses a modified Open Xray engine. After adding "-dbg" to the shortcut, and when in the game going to the menu and pressing "S" to bring up the debug spawner, try to spawn an NPC.

What will happen every single time is as soon as you enter the game, it will hang for a bit as it loads the NPC, before the NPC is fully configured. Try spawning multiple NPC's at once and you'll get a longer wait time followed by some stuttering at first as the various NPC's are brought online.

Apparently GSC does not know how to properly stream in assets, and if you think about the fact that new elements are brought online whenever the switch distance is hit and something new is coming online, which is often, that is often the same time the game begins stuttering.

As for a solution, I am a beginning programmer so this may not be best something suited to me, but I do know I would like to help where I can as I know Nitrocaster and Armada already have a ton of great work that they're doing. I think we should try and recruit some fresh talent to work on Open Xray. My best guess would be trying out people on gamedev.net

So basically, if we could properly stream assets into the game rather than loading the entire asset in all at once, I feel stuttering could be an issue of the past.