TTG: Without getting too technical let's talk about the in house developed X-Ray engine. What was the reasoning for creating S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s very own personal graphical engine? What are the biggest benefits using this engine over others?

Oleg: It's been GSC tradition to create proprietary technologies. Secondly, we have very skilled coders on the team able to create compelling engines. Thirdly, we wanted to have an engine to satisfy all our designers' needs and be ideally suitable for the quality we are after. With S.T.A.L.K.E.R. one of the key-important factors is the right atmosphere of grim realism and photographic quality of the picture, and that's what the game's X-Ray engine is good about. Behind all that stand tons of polygons rendered in real-time, advanced lighting technologies, extensive use of shader effects and much more. We have also created our proprietary AI and physics systems for the game. As a result, we received a unique technology able to decently compete with any engine out there. There's an opinion that we are at least half a year ahead of any other technology available in the market today.