optimal Silent Hunter III system

[Mr.Grinch]

hello, I bought this game months ago knowing full well my current system wouldn't play it very well...it didn't...i'm looking to get a new system on boxing day. I've heard a 2.4 GHZ still isn't enough to run the game comfortably, can anyone give me some advice as to what system specs I would need to play this game at least modertaly well. How mch RAM and video would you recomend, I'm on a college student budget so the absolute top of the line is not an option for me.

thanks,
Matt

[AVGWarhawk]

Any of todays pentiums or AMD processors will run the game. Heck, I ran it fine with a P3 and 512 Ram. I recommend 1 gig of ram. Get a decent video card. Seems to be less issues with the Nvidia cards. I have a 6200 oc 256 mg that you can get for a song. It is hooked to an AMD 3200+ with 1 gig RAM. No problems at all.

[CCIP]

my 2.4 certainly ran it comfortably! I would say you shouldn't have any issues with that.

RAM-wise, 1GB is certainly in the comfort zone; you'll notice some performance drops at 512 (as I did) and you'll notice only very little improvement at 2GB (as I do).

Video - I run a 128mb GeForce 6800OC and the performance is more than tolerable. Any card above a GeForce 4200 (except the dreaded FX series) and Radeon 9600 will run it quite decently, any card above GeForce 6600 and Radeon X800 will run it well.

My own system is 3.06GHz, 2GB RAM, GeForce 6800. No real complaints, though GWX harbor traffic is a bit too much for it sometimes. The frame rate is 50s-60s in the open sea, 30s around the bigger convoys (I would mention 12-15 in port, but that is not a problem with my computer - there is a memory leak related to ports in the game). I can run time compression up to 2048, though it's a little choppy at 2048 - but 1024 is smooth.

PS - also a college student at the time of my getting into SHIII, and no, you can definitely afford to have a good SHIII system on a modest budget like mine :)

[AVGWarhawk]

I think harbor traffice gives everyone some headache every now and then. For the most part my card settles down after a second or two and the port is smooth for me.

[Grell]

When I first bought the game when it was released I played it on a P4 3.0 ghz, 1gig of ram and a geforce 6800, it ran very well. I have since upgraded to a new computer that is out of your league, but get a geforce 6800 if you can, very nice and cheap card.

Regards,

Grell

[Tool]

I was running it on a p4 1.7, 512mb, and a 9800 pro. Ran pretty good, but slow load times.
Now i'm running a E6400 dualcore, 1gig, 256mb 7600GT.. and GWX mission load times are still ~2 minutes.. hard to believe but then it isn't optomized for the 2nd core. Mine is choppy in ports and certain other things for a second or 2 then it settles out and is smooth..

Your 2.4 is fine.. just load up on RAM and a nice video card and you'll be sailing.

Tool.

[nightdagger]

You could probably play it best on:

Intel 3.2GHz+/AMD 3400+ CPU
1-2GB RAM
6800GT or up (not 7300 series, though) nVidia or X850XT+ ATI

[cobalt]

kudos to the sh3 dev team, ive seen games that are less intense than this that kill your pc. for the most party sh3 is easily run. i run a 2.53ghz p4 and it runs smoothy. my 9600 processes the 3d world with ease. only small problem is my 512mb of ram that causes a little slowdown around the ports on gwx.

[tycho102]

Optimal is to get the absolute fastest processor that you can afford. SH3 doesn't require any more memory than other games, so 1GB is what you need. 2GB is a good investment. Graphics are actually fairly light, even at 1600x1200. Any $130-$200 card will do well -- 4x AA at 1600x1200.

I suspect that SH4 will fit the same profile. They might split some of the threads, letting a dual-core processor do some of the work, but I'm not counting on it.

[Deep-Six]

I am running SH3 on a 3.0ghz, a 7800gs OC 512mg, and a 300gig hdd.

Note: the hdd has a 16meg cache on it. And it loaded fairly fast.

I have yet to go on a mission.:)