Ok so I tried SHIV [Archive] - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

joea

05-10-07, 06:19 AM

I have a 1.8 cpu, 768 RAM and GEforceFx 5200 128megs. Patched to 1.2

Oh the pain!!!

Hee hee hee I had to play the training missions from map and crew and damage screen views. I turned nearly everything off and it still is too much, yet it loads faster than SHIII???? :hmm:

No worries, will upgrade this year ... am perfectly happy with SHIII and GWX.

I can't comment on the the workings of DM and crew management but I will say I love the crew and damage model screens as FAR superior to SHIII. I mean sure I miss the cutway sub but it was nonsense splitting the torpedo and rest areas. The crew state in the room is important...either they rest or work and my German sailors are tough enough not to mind sleeping next to torpedoes they can chuck snot or share dirty stories in the bunks or the engine room. It looks like it has potential. TDC looks great tried it out hit the target too. Painful as heck to play so I will probably uninstall it.

I have faith in the devs and the modders. To both groups :

GO GO GO GO :rock::rock::rock:

(Please at least one more patch though).

AVGWarhawk

05-10-07, 08:18 AM

Ouch man, I feel your pain. Look at the brightside, once you get an upgraded rig, all the patching and modding will be well on its way!

Chock

05-10-07, 08:43 AM

Not exactly the recommended specs, but nevertheless, it's to the dev's credit that it can actually run on such a machine. We hear so many gripes about 'this is broke, or that's wrong', but it seems a wide variety of platforms can at least load up and play SH4, so good on the devs for that.

Lots of newer games are not quite so platform and video card-friendly. Check out all the threads for Flashpoint's sequel, Armed Assault, with people having video problems, for an example.

Back on the original topic, 2 gig of RAM seems to be about what's required these days for stuff, and I personally think that for quite some time, having 1 gig was making life hard for yourself, so you probably deserve a medal of some kind for suffering with less than that!

At least if you upgrade, you can get Vista for buttons as a pre-install (which is what I did when I bought a new laptop the other week), so there's another reason to upgrade. Ironically, despite all the slamming Vista is getting, its ability to add temporary RAM by simply plugging in USB pen drive is probably something that people will really appreciate in years to come. The price of Vista in Europe however, is definitely going to hold it back though, and apparently MS are already well down the road on developing Vista's replacement anyway, but something to weigh up if you are about to upgrade your rig and want to play 'RAM-happy' games and sims.

OlegM

05-10-07, 08:54 AM

I can't comment on the the workings of DM and crew management but I will say I love the crew and damage model screens as FAR superior to SHIII.

I find SH4 superior to SH3 in almost every aspect.:rock:

Wilcke

05-10-07, 10:29 AM

I finally loaded up SH4 last night. Patched to Version 1.2 and was checking out the "eye candy" in the first nav exercises. Very nicely done. It looks really good.

Here are my specs:

AMD X2 4800
2 gigs of ram
7800GT Vid Card
WinXP Pro

With everything maxed out and in 1290 by 980 32bit 100mhz refresh I am getting a steady 30fps.

So I loaded up the MODS, FTT and a few other choice ones and I am off on patrol in Pacific, probably this weekend!

Warts and all, with a few more patches by the devs and mods from our wonderful and creative modders this will be a Grand Sim! Thanks to all!:up:

Wilcke

kakemann

05-10-07, 10:32 AM

I think the game is superior in all ways except for gameplay. SH3 with all patches and GWX is better balanced I think!

But SH4 will hopefully catch up after a while ;)

joea

05-10-07, 10:34 AM

Did I mention I hit the cruiser in the torpedo training with manual TDC. All 4 torpedoes, default settings, I cheated in that I knew the CA was going at 9 knots. :smug:

I deserve a medal just clicking and dragging the stadimeter and all the dials with my mouse lag was a true adventure in itself. :arrgh!:

Ah well back to the Atlantic for now. :|\\

CCIP

05-10-07, 12:01 PM

Wow, and you run GWX on THAT?! :huh:

Man, the 5200 for me was two video cards ago, and I consider myself a very poor gamer (that is, can't afford much in the way of upgrades).

Hope ya join us when things are modded up!

Bilge_Rat

05-10-07, 12:11 PM

I have a 1.8 cpu, 768 RAM and GEforceFx 5200 128megs.

Is the power supplied by a hamster running in a cage? :hmm:

joea

05-10-07, 03:49 PM

So now I'm depressed. :-?

Payoff

05-10-07, 04:20 PM

joea
The crew state in the room is important...either they rest or work and my German sailors are tough enough not to mind sleeping next to torpedoes they can chuck snot or share dirty stories in the bunks or the engine room. It looks like it has potential.

:rotfl: :rotfl: An honest, yet subtle review.

Hartmann

05-10-07, 05:16 PM

i can move it at 10 fps in the big task forces and 15-17 during the navigation mission, 20~ alone in the sea.

my 6600gt was a good card but now is outdated, i prefer wait until i can build a new system

CaptainHaplo

05-10-07, 06:02 PM

Joea

Don't be depressed - my rig is less than yours - although you indicated you see alot of stuttering and such. Sh3 with GWX, and SH4 - both run fine for me with only stutters right when torps hit and stuff goes boom!

One thing that helps - is tweaking the OS. So much stuff is always "on" by default in the back of Windows OS's that you can get alot more outta killing them.

One q for the group though - how are you all getting framerate info? Is there a command line switch or something that will display it? I would like to get my numbers for comparison. Thanks!

AVGWarhawk

05-10-07, 06:04 PM

CaptainHaplo

05-10-07, 06:11 PM

THANKS MATE! :up:

heartc

05-13-07, 07:10 AM

I run SHIV on a 1.8 Ghz, 512MB, 9800Pro (factory settings) machine and it runs fine. What I had to do was turn texture quality and mipmap quality sliders in the gfx card settings (using Radlinker) to the left ("Performance" instead of "Quality"). These settings made most of the difference, since before adjusting them I had a laggy mouse pointer and FPS at about 10.
In the in-game gfx options, I have activated "Normal Ship Models", PPF, 3D ship wakes, ship caustic effects. Land object density is medium. I could up them a little more, but want to spare some resources for heavy convoy encounters etc. Only thing that would kill me is volumetric fog and environmental effects.

I get 18-20 FPS at sea, which translates into fluid gameplay. Ports can bog FPS down pretty bad, to about 8-10, but only own ports - I did several harbor raids on enemy ports and FPS did not bog down. Don't know exactly why - maybe the stuff going on at own ports is more sophisticated / detailed. I only had 1 CTD so far and got the game pretty much since day one.

I had horrific loading times in the beginning, but found out it was in fact my HD which was giving me troubles since a while. Now I got a new one and while load times are still long compared to most other games they are indeed shorter than SHIII, especially when that is modded (using NYGM - don't even want to think about load times for GWX with my setup ;) ).

Oh and yes, I have little else crap running in the background. I use "enditall". Great tool.

ReallyDedPoet

05-13-07, 07:47 AM

heartc

05-13-07, 08:01 AM

Is there a command line switch or something that will display it? I would like to get my numbers for comparison. Thanks!
Nice feature, but don't get to hung up on it, you'll drive yourself nuts with endless tweaks to your system.

RDP

That's true. In the times before FPS counters and benchmark tests became a "hobby" in itself for some, people differentiated performance between fluid, playable and non playable. There is an FPS treshold upwards from which no one will notice a difference anymore. This treshold is even lower when you are not comparing two different performing programs directly next to each other. I only check the FPS counter if I want to see what that FPS is after I've decided whether it runs well enough or not. I've found 16 upwards FPS for slow paced games like a subsim to be perfectly fine, and I sure don't notice any "stuttering" at around 20 FPS, it looks just like the real world. For flightsims, it can be a bit higher since there is more rapid movement more often where you might notice a difference between 20 FPS and higher. People trying to squeeze 3 more FPS out of a game when playing at 30+ or something I find amusing though, cause there is no chance in hell they could actually tell the difference. ;)

CaptainHaplo

05-13-07, 08:35 AM

Heartc - you nailed it mate. I wanted framerate counts just to compare - but sh4 runs fine - and I run about the same graphics settings as you do. On a side note - everyone can scream about needing FSAA and stuff - with mediocre settings SH4 is STILL Gorgeous!

I dont have any single area where my framerates slip below 20 excluding TC. Lowest I have is external view and the watch station. External bounces between 21 and 23 - whereas watch sits on 22 solid. Deck gun and periscope give me 25-26, and I actually get better framerates inside my sub (35-38) than I do from the map (32-34) which I thought was weird.

Now when I speed the map up to high TC - then I get my drop - but all I am watching is a symbol go across my screen. At 2048 my framerate is 6 - so everything is a bit jerky - but your only transiting so who cares?

Anything over 20 is smooth for me - and with ending background stuff, SH4 runs on "weaker" rigs just fine.

heartc

05-13-07, 09:04 AM

Now when I speed the map up to high TC - then I get my drop - but all I am watching is a symbol go across my screen. At 2048 my framerate is 6 - so everything is a bit jerky - but your only transiting so who cares?

Yep, and high TC will get jerky on even the latest rigs - only somewhat later. This is perfectly normal, since the faster those calculations need to take place, the more power is needed (duh! ;) ). The devs could have kept it to 1024 so it would be smooth all the time, but why limit it (I think it is capped but you can edit it in some config file just like in SHIII I think). In 5 years we can probably TC at 15000 or what have you got.