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DenRJ
03-31-07, 08:09 PM
Hi,

I bought SH3 in April 2005 and it is still on my hard drive. In my current career I am off to South Africa in an IXD2.
Last week I finally received my copy of SH4. I nervously installed it thinking about all the posts describing how buggy it is.
I certainly did not think I would be able to run it in all its splendor. Let me explain. My rig is the following:


Dell Inspiron 9200 Notebook
1.6 Mhz Pentium M processor
1 GB of RAM
ATI Mobility 9700 128 Megs
Windows XP Service Pack 2 with the latest DirectX (Feb 2007)


I know , Notebooks are not supported ;))

I always play games under a "Gaming Configuration" which means only the essential Windows services are running.
This means about 150 megs of RAM.

Here is how the two games compare:


In SH3 I am ready to pounce on a small convoy. The average framerate is around 45 fps in the outside view.
The Graphics option are:

Screen resolution: 1440 by 440 32 bits at 60Hz.
Syncronized: No
Event and Texture Quality: checked
Particle Density ==> Rightmost position.


When I am about to intercept a big convoy the framerate takes a beating, but goes back up within 30 sec.


In SH4 I am in the Convoy attack training. The average framerate is around 25 fps.
The Graphics options are:

Screen resolution: Window mode 1024 by 768 32 bits at 60Hz.
All the sliders are in the leftmost position except for Gamma.
All the other boxes are unchecked.

Also in order to gain about 5 more fps I had to go for "Optimal performance" vs "Quality" in the ATI Direct3D tab.

Of course it's still early. I haven't played very much yet, but I am relieved I can still enjoy it. Now the graphics are certainly
still acceptable to me. Even though it's not as smooth as in SH3 it's still playable.

Well, for the coming patch I certainly hope that the devs find a way to make it possible for us with minimum specs to enjoy more
of SH4 beautiful graphics.

Long live the Silent Hunter series.

Thanks

DenRJ