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

When I load up STALKER the intro movies run fine but the menu doesnt show. All I hear is music but I can access all of the options by guess clicking. So I started a game and it ran fine up until the point where you go outside. Depending on which way I look the screen goes black except for the hud and the crosshair. I can get around the level by looking at my feet but once I look up past a certain point the screen goes black. I was able to guess click around and fine the settings menu where I tried a number of different options but they still had the same result.

I am running on a 2.4 Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook.

I have the same problem and the same computer setup (though 2.2 MHz instead of 2.4 MHz)
I've figured out this is some kind of bug with the Pixel Shader on the Intel GMA X3100 chipset. My friend does not experience the same bug on his MacBook with the older Intel GMA 950 chipset configuration, so this points to a X3100 isolated thing.

I managed to get it partly working with the -nodistort command (via Programs > Run Command…). With this argument you should be able to play normally until you either get shot at (screen flashes black when getting hurt) or you walk into a radiation area (screen turns black until walking out from the radiation area).

Reading about how to tweak STALKER for different purposes on the web someone wrote that if one could force STALKER to run in Pixel Shader version 1.1 mode it would work. Either I haven't managed to do that (can't be shure 😊), or that doesn't solve the problem.

These tips however pointed me to a problem with the shader, so in a last desperate effort I disabled the Pixel Shader option in winecfg and ran the game again. The effects that made the screen black are now shown, but the allover graphics in the game is totally disastrous hence unplayable.

This bug seems to be isolated to STALKER and GMA X3100, since I can play several other demanding games including Half-Life 2: Episode One.

Please help us!