GWX - conning tower stutter?

[nehvun]

Hi All -
I seem to have a serious stuttering (read: slideshow) problem when surfaced - occurs anywhere , and at anytime (beginning, mid, end of patrol, mid-ocean, harbour etc, cons around or not..)
From testing, I hit this problem when I have men on deck (I can be in sub or on bridge, same slowdown/sluggishness to controls etc) - a weird thing is, in external view, as long as the conning tower is not in frame, there is no slowdown at all - pan around to so the conning tower is in view, and insta-brakes to frame rate and control responsiveness. As soon as order a dive, and men get off the bridge - it's back to silk again, normal frame & responses (opposite also occurs - whil sub is in process of breaching water for surface, but the men are not yet on the deck, it is smooth - as soon as they pop into existence, it crawls..)
Tried lowering particles but this does not help.

Experience the same type of thing when submerged and look through periscope, although I think this could be a seperate issue..

Have un and re-installed everything one x one, running a mission after each step - SH3, GWX 1/1.03 + JSGME (when testing did not enable any mods in JSGME), SH3Commander, SH3Gen
-and unfortunately was after GWX that the problem rears its head..

Any help would be greatly appreciated, the time I have to do missions is not great because of RL, and with the slowdown makes it that much less time to enjoy.. :(

My specs & settings:
PC: Sony BX197XP - Pentium M 2.00Ghz, 2GB RAM, game partition 40GB free, pagefile different partition. Graphics ATI mobility radeon X700 (4xAA, 4xAF). All unnecessary task bar apps shut down.

BTW GWX team - great mod - huge improvement over stock - finding more and more things I like about it, and looking forward to 1.04 :)

[Canovaro]

Please confirm that you have no other mods installed that could cause the problem? Other than you mentioned that is.

I hope somebody knows the answer

[nehvun]

Confirmed - when re-installing and testing, at no points were any mods used (neither manually added ones nor via JSGE) - no mods other than core GWX + 1.03 update, that is.. ;) GWX JSGE addons were not enabled also.

[ReM]

You sure the drivers for the video card are up-to-date?

There have been other issues with Ati cards...

[nehvun]

Hi -

Have tried that, but ATI driver update detection software refers me to Sony for an update (unsupported platform) - and after checking on the Sony support site, it looks like I already have the latest...:(

Was also kind of wondering if it may be the radio loop causing the prob - (been testing in a VIIB, 1939) - will check when I am home tonight whether this 'arrives' on the deck at the same time as the crew..and/or try a sub without the loop..

[bigboywooly]

All subs have the rotating loop
If you think its that you can try the mod with lowered loops for GWX

Ummm where is it now

http://isaf.us/gwx/

GWX_-_Lowered_DF_Antennas is the one

[danlisa]

Can't imagine that the RDF Loop is causing this.:-? Also, as it's a dat file, I'm not even sure the game would load at all.

I suspect you have a corrupted file somewhere. Has GWX ever worked for you before? Or is this the first install of GWX?

What happens if you man the flak/deck gun, with just the watch officer on the bridge.

Just re-read your post, this has to be a corrupt file, somewhere. When you downloaded GWX did you grab the MD5 Checker at the same time?

[danlisa]

Also, what GWX files have you installed?

GWX.exe
GWX-1.bin through GWX-5.bin

Then install GWX103.exe

These files are all you need over a clean & unmoddified SH3 1.4b.

Weird.

[Jimbuna]

You make reference to SH3 Commander but not the Cfg file for it :hmm:

Just as an aide to cross referencing:

1.Uninstall SH3 via Windows' "Add/Remove programs"
2. Open Windows Explorer and:
- *delete* the folder where you had installed SH3
- *delete* the \My Documents\SH3 folder
3. Reinstall SH3
4. If your SH3 did not come with patch v1.4b already included, install patch v1.4b. Ensure you install the patch that corresponds to your copy of SH3 (Download/DVD/EMEA/US)
5. OPTIONAL: Copy and paste this "clean" install as a backup to avoid the need to follow steps 1-3 if your game becomes corrupt in future
6. Visit the GWX homepage (http://www.users.on.net/~jscones/GWX/) and download into the SAME folder GWX.exe and the five .bin files. While there grab the v1.03 patch
7. Run GWX.exe and follow the installation prompts
8. Run GWX103.exe and follow the installation prompts
9. SH3 COMMANDER USERS: Visit the GWX homepage (http://www.users.on.net/~jscones/GWX/) and download the GWX 1.02+ Cfg files for SH3 Commander and unzip the contents DIRECTLY into your SH3 Commander\Cfg folder.

PS....I believe the GWX homepage is no longer working, so if you want to download the files you will need to access them via GWX Crew sigs (not all of them are still on my sig, but I will be updating during the weekend) :up:

[nehvun]

Thanks for the many tips - all helped :)

Correct, is not the radio loop - this appears before and leaves after the crew, with no noticeable effect to frames. Using 'lowered loop mod' made no difference.

As for the file, while using SH3 commander, I did have the 102+ .cfg files in the correct place - the GWX.exe file I downloaded was the one large one (+/-795mb) not the split files - never used the md5 checker, tried to return to where I got the gwx setup, but page has gone (I think was maybe from the GWX pages that I got it originally)

But first I didi was to go back to bare basics - uninstall all, delete all suggested files, then re-install SH3 +1.4b patch, run once, make a back up of this, then install GWX, then 1.03 update.

From here I tested again (nothing enabled in JSGME, did not install commander or sh3 gen).
Still had the same problem with the crew appearing on deck, had a look at the stock sh3 backup i had made, noticed a few differences - wiped the crew files (sh3/data/crew) from GWX, replaced with stock, tested - absolutely no problem :)
Took it further by putting back all the GWX crew files, then only deleting the few extra TGA's that appear in the GWX folders (compared to the stock tga's - to do with officer bodies, I think) - this helped, but still had a slight slowdown (but not as bad as before) (edit - see tables below)
One thing I have not tried is using stock dat files with gwx TGA or vice versa - not sure if this would crash the game if a dat references a tga that isn't there? (if that what is happening in the dat files.)
For testing I used the same save game, in the middle of the ocean far way from traffic. Inbetween swapping in/out textures/crew files, would exit sh3, do the moving/swapping, then relaunch sh3, load save game and test again.

As time allows will try again with GWX crew, maybe use the JSGE 'no medals' option, see if that gives a help.

Thanks for all help offered here, I think it helped me along the right path..

But a question - if I replace the sh3/data/crew files with stock, is this replacing their abilities, or just their 'makeup' as in clothing, faces, user interface icons etc? ie does this affect gameplay in any other way than appearance/eyecandy?
Also, will I run into troubles later on doing this? eg - while testing I used the same save game, but time taken to test how many sailors/officers was not a lot of game time - might this cause a crash later in the heat of things?

Edit added - FYI frame rates with diff crew file combo's below. Excuse the dots, I do not know how to make tables in posts

....................................GWX + Stock crew......GWX + GWX Crew.......GWX + GWX crew (without extra officer files)
1-3 sailors...........................~62-70....................~59-70....................~59-70
4 sailors(1PO)......................~62-70....................~45-49....................~45-49
4 sailors(1PO) + officer..........~62-70....................~7-8.......................~25-30 (yes, I thought strange also?)

I bow to other peoples knowledge on the interpretaition of above anomalies.. ;)

[Jimbuna]

Mixing and matching files will inevitably cause problems :yep: My advice would be to stick with those files that come with the mod....use nothing that can't be installed with JSGME :nope:

[Subject]

Make a folder like "Standard Crew" with subfolders data\Crew-folders
Copy your files as you want to the folders and copy the entire "Standard Crew" folder to your Silent Hunter III - MODS folder. Now it's JSGME compatible...

To make it easier to use than explaining, you can find one here with standard files and no medals. Use that as a template and replace with images you prefer.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YERX63LE

Makes a major difference re. framerate as you've discovered.

AFAIK it's not necessary to be in port to make the change as it's only graphics files, but to be sure you'll have no problems, do make a backup first - or wait till in port.
The changes won't affect your crew's ability as it's only graphics changes.

[nehvun]

jimbuna - yes, was worried about the mix of stock and gwx - but will have have to try subjects method, or it becomes unplayable when I have too many topside :(

All I don't know is whether, after creating a JSGE style crew pack, whether it clears the extra GWX files from data/crew?

Will experiment tonight..

Thanks you all for the help and suggestions :)

[Subject]

jimbuna - yes, was worried about the mix of stock and gwx...

All I don't know is whether, after creating a JSGE style crew pack, whether it clears the extra GWX files from data/crew?As long as it's only graphics file, no need to worry :up:

The great advantage of using JSGME is, that it keeps the "original" files in it's backup folder. When you start your experiment, open the folders and see, how it's done. Rather neat!

I don't know the prices in Vietnam, but over here a DVD cost 50 cent... if you burn one for a clean vanilla SH3, one for SH3 + GWX 1.03 and one for your very own flavoured GWX, you won't have to worry anymore http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/smilies/smile.gif

[Jimbuna]

jimbuna - yes, was worried about the mix of stock and gwx...

All I don't know is whether, after creating a JSGE style crew pack, whether it clears the extra GWX files from data/crew?As long as it's only graphics file, no need to worry :up:

The great advantage of using JSGME is, that it keeps the "original" files in it's backup folder. When you start your experiment, open the folders and see, how it's done. Rather neat!

I don't know the prices in Vietnam, but over here a DVD cost 50 cent... if you burn one for a clean vanilla SH3, one for SH3 + GWX 1.03 and one for your very own flavoured GWX, you won't have to worry anymore http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/smilies/smile.gif

Precisely :up:

[nehvun]

Suject, Jimbuna -

Have done as suggested with the DVD's (almost same price here, btw) - still making my own 'flavour' though - have been fiddling with graphic setting as well - with no AA stutter goes away completely - guess i should have tried this first, save everyone time...:oops:
So now have upped resolution to 1920x1200 to 'compensate' for jagged lines, now that I have found about the d3d .dll - not sure which is better yet (as u can tell, not have a lot of time to actually play the game..)


Thanks again..

[Jimbuna]

Pleased your sorted :up: