SHIII for the Notebook Gamer

[Mowinz]

Hello everyone! I just recently bought SHIII and I got to tell you this game is awesome! It's been a few years since I've been able to fall in love again with a PC game. After being married to EAW for a few years I've been game free for a while.

So before I begin my love affair (50+ hours game time thus far) with SHIII I was hoping someone could set me off in the right direction about mods. Having spent a few hours reading the boards about various mods, gameplay, etc. It's apparent this game has a solid fan base which is great!

I've been playing the stock game with 1.4b patch on my notebook PC:

AMD 3400, 2.2 Mhz
1.5 RAM
ATI Xpress 200m 128
15.4 widescreen

I've been tweaking this notebook for maximum performance so the game looks pretty good. Still working on trying to optimize my virtual memory settings. But so far so good. The latest 7.1 ATI driver didnt get it done so I moving back to maybe 6.5 or so....

The GWX mod looks great but may be to heavy for my rig. What mods do you think will play best on my notebook?

Thanks in advance for any help!!!

[bigboywooly]

Hi and welcome to Subsim

I see no reason why GWX wont work on your notebook
Its better than my PC :damn:
You can always enable the Lite traffic mod if you find it too much in port

If you have the space do a dual install and give it a go
If you think too heavy then just delete the GWX install :up:

Enjoy your stay

[Kapitan_Phillips]

2.2 MHz?! How does your mouse pointer move?! ;)

Welcome to SubSim, anyway!

[Hakahura]

Go for GWX:up:

Just stick to 8KM to be on the safe side.

[Abd_von_Mumit]

Lol. My comp is even worse and it still manages to run GWX. Of course it freezes every time I switch screens or try to look around, but I got used to it. I just stick with my map view, scope/UZO... what else... crew management and TDC, and thats enough. You really don't have to climb to tower to enjoy the landscape often to be deadly accurate as a Kaleun. :)

PS But it starts lagging very, very badly, when too many targets around, especially when approaching convoys and when close to ports. That can really drive one mad...

[melnibonian]

Welcome to SubSim:up:

I don't think GWX` will not run in your computer. It seems pretty good. If you can run SH3 without any problem you can run GWX as well. It might be a bit slower but it will run, and more importantly you will have fun;) :yep: :D :up:

[Corrupt_File]

2.2 MHz?! How does your mouse pointer move?! ;)

Welcome to SubSim, anyway!

My Centrino Mobile is listed at 1.5 GHz. I run GWX no prob with 16 km atmosphere and no problem with traffic. Runs most modern games at high performance (except FSX :-?)

[Mowinz]

My rig handles SH3 ok but I cant go near high graphic setting because it bogs down. It does run pretty good at the High Performance setting in the basic ATI CCC. My hard drive runs at 4200 rpm which is probably slowing it all down.

I bought the Gateway Notebook with 512 RAM and added another 1024 of PNY DDR. Honestly, I haven't noticed that great of a deal of performance boost with the new memory and YES I am disappointed.

I still have to find a way to tweak it better. Got my running processes down to about 30 and ditched most of the crap.

One thing the Net is missing is an XP guide for gamers which includes everything needed to tune up a PC for game performance. Unbelievable. I've read tweakguide and some others but too bad there isn't one stop shop for all gaming tweaks for windows XP.

Since my rig isn't running at full capacity with some loose nuts I'm going to install GWX anyway and see what happens. I played the game earlier and it crashed on me. I know setting for no page file is not recommended but I read some where if you have plenty of RAM give it a try. I did and SH3 crashed on me. Go figure.

Thanks and cheers

[stabiz]

Welcome to SubSim, mowinz!

I tested GWX on my second computer with a 2ghz AMD Athlon 64, 512MB RAM and a 256MB gpu (6600GT). It ran well, so you should be okay.

[Corsair]

Just for info , I run it on a Toshiba Satellite 1.8 Centrino 512 RAM and 128 Meg video ATI 9600. I take care of the system (defrag and registry cleanup every week) and use FS Autostart to stop all unnecessary background programs and services prior to launch. The lowest I get is 18/20 fps in harbour traffic (heavy version) and the rest runs smooth on standard 1024x768 resolution. You normally don't have any problem running it on your rig.

[Mowinz]

Hey you! Thanks for the recommendation on the FS auto tip! This is exactly what I was looking for! Well, I did I sytem reinstall and now my rig is good to go. I've got one dedicated SH3 gaming rig now but I'll tell you after the re-install effort it's all going to be worth it.

I'm gonna get in my trusty IX and try to break all naval records! Yeah, I can do it! I'm not sure exactly what record but I'm going to break them all. The great thing about this game is now I'm about to do some serious reading about u-boat naval history and I can play along with the history books. Just awesome!

Hey did I tell you that a U-boat is resting about 70 miles from me. I just read the book Shadow Divers. Heres the boat:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostsub/

OK, I'm gonna slap GWX on top of my SH3 soon. Can't wait to see what the game looks like with my fresh re-install and using the FS Autostart program. Thanks!

AMD 3400+ 2.2 Ghz
1.5 Ram
Radeon Xpress 200m 128
XP SP2

Newest drivers and ATI 7.1 CCC

It's going to be fun!

[Ole]

my notebook is not much better and gwx runs well. i replaced the gwx-textures for the crew with the sh3-stock ones. otherwise it was unplayable when some bernard appeared on the screen. after that replacement it was running really got, got no problems now.
i would suggest to install gwx and if necessary replace new high quality textures with the original ones. start with the crew, maybe also replace the instruments, but they are not that big i think.
have fun, its really worth to install

[Corsair]

Thks for the tip, didn't think about these crew textures... will have a look...:up:

[Ole]

the external camera was unusable with the high-qual men in the watchout.

[Mowinz]

Thanks! I'm still tweaking away and trying to find the best advanced ATI settings. I run down my resolution to 1024, defrag, and reboot before I launch the game. I'm also letting the system handle virtual memory.

I downloaded FS Autostart and I can't get it to find the SH3 .exe. I pointed FS Auto to my SH# folde in C: and towards the DVD in the DVD-rom E: and no luck. Where is the executable?

It was a lot easier when there was just systray and explorer. Now I have about 30 processes to deal with. I'm betting getting most of these to close will boost performance significantly.

Of course I could go into task manager and shut down the processes manually one at a time. What are the core processes that NEED to run? How many do you guys have running before starting the game?

Is there a no-cd crack available? Where do I point FS Auto?

I really appreciate any tips you can offer.

Cheers!

[irish1958]

Subsim does not allow the use of the words "no-cd" and "crack" etc. We support the developers and encourage compliance wtih them. I would suggest using Omega drivers for your video card. I currently have the omega 3.8.252 drivers and they work much better than the Ati drivers.

[Mowinz]

Thanks Irish. Sorry about that! I support the developer too and my purchase of their software proves it. However, I will never understand why a developer must ensure that I keep my cd,dvd, whatever in my E: drive in order to use the game that I bought!

Windows operating system uses the same cd, dvd whatever to install their operating system. Must one leave the goods in their E: drive to use the computer. Of course not!

No problemo. Thanks for the omega tip! I will switch drivers on your rec.

Thanks!

[Bonden]

I usually have 17 - processes running when I start the sim. If you do a search for Black Viper - you will eventually find a listing for necessary (or not) component services - follow the listing carefully and you can free up a bit of RAM..

HTH

[Abd_von_Mumit]

Thanks Irish. Sorry about that! I support the developer too and my purchase of their software proves it. However, I will never understand why a developer must ensure that I keep my cd,dvd, whatever in my E: drive in order to use the game that I bought!
Quite funny. At least one of two Polish DVD releases of SH3 doesn't require the disc to be kept in your DVD-drive. If it did so, I would never start playing SH3, just cause both my DVD-drives love to jam every quarter (probably a mainboard problem). If someone wants to buy Polish version (with English language still available), I can provide some assistance looking for it in the web. :)

[Corsair]

Thanks! I'm still tweaking away and trying to find the best advanced ATI settings. I run down my resolution to 1024, defrag, and reboot before I launch the game. I'm also letting the system handle virtual memory.

I downloaded FS Autostart and I can't get it to find the SH3 .exe. I pointed FS Auto to my SH# folde in C: and towards the DVD in the DVD-rom E: and no luck. Where is the executable?

It was a lot easier when there was just systray and explorer. Now I have about 30 processes to deal with. I'm betting getting most of these to close will boost performance significantly.

Of course I could go into task manager and shut down the processes manually one at a time. What are the core processes that NEED to run? How many do you guys have running before starting the game?

Is there a no-cd crack available? Where do I point FS Auto?

I really appreciate any tips you can offer.

Cheers!

When you configure your FS Autostart SH3 launcher, just go to your SH3 icon on the desk, right click then properties. You have there the path to the exe. Just copy and paste in FS Autostart.
Don't forget to go in Programs and Services to choose which ones you want to stop and restart.
On average it liberates for me around 100 megs RAM before starting.

[Mowinz]

I would suggest using Omega drivers for your video card. I currently have the omega 3.8.252 drivers and they work much better than the Ati drivers.

Thanks again! These drivers are terrific. Much better than 7.1. The waves are moving along much faster looking good!

I downloaded RegscrubXP and let it scrub the crap and WOW. What a difference! The whole system just zooms along! I also use CCleaner.

FA Auto is working and I launched the game (SH3 + 1.4b) and she crashed on me. I'm running Media Center Edition 2004. Have to tweak a little more before I get it right.

Cheers