
This mode is recommended for everyone who cannot get Clear Sky to run smoothly regardless of anything else they try. Note that in the screenshot comparison, the scene is generally darker and has a lack of shadows aside from a few fixed shadows. Instead basic 'static' lighting is used, which requires far less graphics card power and hence provides much faster performance. Dynamic lighting is the realistic interaction of moving light sources with objects, causing them to cast accurate shadows for example, and in DX8 Static Lighting mode, Dynamic Lighting is completely disabled, as are various special effects such as HDR.
Static Lighting - Selecting this option essentially switches Clear Sky to DirectX 8 rendering mode. Screenshot comparisons of all five are provided above, and each is explained in detail further below: Note that the first three modes were available in the original STALKER, but the two 'Enhanced Full Dynamic Lighting' modes are new to Clear Sky, and the DX10 render mode in particular is only available in Vista when using DX10 hardware. The options include (from lowest to highest): Static Lighting, Objects Dynamic Lighting, Full Dynamic Lighting, Enhanced Full Dynamic Lighting, Enhanced Full Dynamic Lighting (DX10). Render: This setting determines the renderer used for generating the game's graphics, and hence has a major impact on the overall visual quality and performance in the game.