If GWX had been the original release of SH3...

[Caseck]

Can you imagine how well that game would have sold?

That struck me today while I was downloading 1.03 in anticipation for 1.04...

Can you imagine?

Sorry, just occurred to me.

[onelifecrisis]

GWX pushes up the required specs so that even the most bleeding edge machine at the time SH3 came out (which is exactly what I had and I've not upgraded since then) has a little trouble running it. I'm not trying to belittle GWX in any way at all, I'm just defending SH3 when I say that all games can be made better (in many cases with very little effort - again, a general comment, not one on GWX) if you up the system spec requirements.

My two cents.

[TheDarkWraith]

if that had happened then there would have been no fun in modding it. ;)

[danlisa]

GWX pushes up the required specs so that even the most bleeding edge machine at the time SH3 came out (which is exactly what I had and I've not upgraded since then) has a little trouble running it.

Actually, GWX is playable with SH3's original recommened requirements. It's been the main driving force of GWX to keep the game playable for people who only meet this requirement.

However, I suspect that if, during the developement of GWX, the Devs decided to keep the original file structures & formats, GWX would indeed be unplayable on the recommened specs.

[Venatore]

I dare say the GXW crew still would have gone deep into the catacombs to produce an elite package.

That GWX crew have set and maintained the standard. I can only stand in their shadow in awe and I salute them.

To put it simply they are the Jedi Sith Lord Modders and I am but a Padawan Modder.

The Venatore

[lutzow]

I dare say the GXW crew still would have gone deep into the catacombs to produce an elite package.

That GWX crew have set and maintained the standard. I can only stand in their shadow in awe and I salute them.

To put it simply they are the Jedi Sith Lord Modders and I am but a Padawan Modder.

The Venatore

And the POWER is incredibly strong in you:up:.

[Herr_Pete]

Hey! i have a problem witht he grew wolves super mod. Silent hunter crashed when i try pass scapa flow or Dover :down: everythin is properly installed! its fully patched.! i have no idea what wrong with it! i hae tried several thngs tht have been suggested but nothing has worked! any more suggestion would be appreciated! cheers:up:

[Kaleu. Jochen Mohr]

you got GWX 1.03 ? :hmm:

[Herr_Pete]

lol, jst 1.1a gw! was tht a common problem or something? cood u possibly give me links to upgrades from 1.1a

[danlisa]

lol, jst 1.1a gw! was tht a common problem or something? cood u possibly give me links to upgrades from 1.1a

See your other thread.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

GWX pushes up the required specs so that even the most bleeding edge machine at the time SH3 came out (which is exactly what I had and I've not upgraded since then) has a little trouble running it.

Actually, GWX is playable with SH3's original recommened requirements. It's been the main driving force of GWX to keep the game playable for people who only meet this requirement.

However, I suspect that if, during the developement of GWX, the Devs decided to keep the original file structures & formats, GWX would indeed be unplayable on the recommened specs.

I think people often confuse loading time with "system requirement."

[onelifecrisis]

GWX pushes up the required specs so that even the most bleeding edge machine at the time SH3 came out (which is exactly what I had and I've not upgraded since then) has a little trouble running it.

Actually, GWX is playable with SH3's original recommened requirements. It's been the main driving force of GWX to keep the game playable for people who only meet this requirement.

With the recomended requirements, yes. Not with the minumum. Rather than relate my own experiences, allow me to quote the GWX 1.03 Manual:


The Grey Wolves Expansion (GWX) team suggests your computer meet the recommended system configuration requirements for Silent Hunter III, and that you use the Silent Hunter III Detection Tool to determine whether your system meets these requirements. We have found that running with less than the recommended configuration can result in choppiness and low frame rates (frames per second), and can occasionally result in freezing or locking up your game.



Throw in the 16km mod (a requirement IMHO to fix the blind crew problem) and... well... shall I quote the manual again? I doubt I need to.


However, I suspect that if, during the developement of GWX, the Devs decided to keep the original file structures & formats, GWX would indeed be unplayable on the recommened specs.

I think people often confuse loading time with "system requirement."

Please, give me a little credit... I'm a software developer myself.

As I already stated, I was stepping to the defense of SH3, not the attack of GWX.

[onelifecrisis]

I feel compelled to write more, as I feel I'm being misunderstood here.

As I said, I'm a software developer myself, and I know the restraints and pressures of developing in a money-driven industry (as opposed to modding for free). It seems to me that SH3 had a lot of love and effort put into it by its developers, and a little reading on the history of its development suggests that its shortcomings are attributable to money-motivated pressures i.e. difficult deadlines, which (thrown on top of all the other problems game developers have to deal with - such as getting the system specs right) resulted in a slightly unfinished game. The GWX developers, to their credit, have made GWX completely free, which is awesome! But it also means they do it as they want, when they want, and how they want. I'm inclined to believe that if the original SH3 developers had been given a similar amount of freedom then the end result would have been every bit as magnificent as GWX is today.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Crimeny, my comment wasn't an attempt to single you out, onelifecrisis.

"Minimum" specs barely run SH3 to begin with. IMHO, maybe the SH3 devs should have posted the "recommended" specs as minimum to begin with.

The loading times in GWX are long, yes... due to what appears to be some sort of engine-based data transfer bottleneck. However, once it is loaded up, all is well... assuming you have the recommended specs.

Heck, I don't have a "bleeding leading edge" setup... same goes for much of the dev team and our testers. Besides, eventually PC's get upgraded by users anyway as a matter of course. Hardware fails and is replaced.

Any concern over system specs will decrease as time goes on.

Regarding the 16km sensor fix that you refer to... the need for it is questionable at best. It was constructed based on a strong opinon. (An opinion I respect, but do not subscribe to.)

SH3 running at high TC, has detection problems concerning all units both enemy and friendly. The fix you refer to primarily quickens the sweep times of various sensors and REINTRODUCES the vampire night vision bug, and causes more than one anomaly. There are equally strong opinions on both sides of the fence.
However, I can say definitively, that NOT using the fix you refer to... does not cause anything worse to happen than is already present as a problem in SH3.

[JU_88]

GWX pushes up the required specs so that even the most bleeding edge machine at the time SH3 came out (which is exactly what I had and I've not upgraded since then) has a little trouble running it.

Actually, GWX is playable with SH3's original recommened requirements. It's been the main driving force of GWX to keep the game playable for people who only meet this requirement.

However, I suspect that if, during the developement of GWX, the Devs decided to keep the original file structures & formats, GWX would indeed be unplayable on the recommened specs.

I think people often confuse loading time with "system requirement."

The Kpt is spot on! There are Some poeple who do get mixed up here.

Over stock, the only real toll on CPU/RAM/GFXcard in GWX is some larger convoys and harbour traffic. The busier campaign files make some difference to this too but not as much as you'd think!

The quanity of units and the much larger campaign files mostly effect loading times, which will take more or less the same amount time to load up on ANY spec providing the hard drive is a bog standard 7200rpm sata.
If you use Raid 0, 10k rpm Raptor drives or have some other fancy setup you will have better loading times, Cpu and Ram will make very little (if any) difference to this.

Encountering a convoy with the 16km mod enabled will hit your PC in the balls if you have much less than 1GB Ram and a GeForce 6600GT /6800.

[GlobalExplorer]

I still believe that SHIII loading times are caused by stupid software design and rush during the final build.

During the time when I did mods I found that a lot of SHIII's data files were really messy design, 80s style. Look at the crew files which are completely unintelligible. If the code for loading data has the same primitive design, its no suprise that it works so ineffective.

It also strikes me as rather odd that every time you start SHIII, the whole game data is loaded. The same happens when you go into the museum. This must be indication that the programmers chose the so called "eager" approach, where the app -instantly- loads all available data into memory. Surprisingly this is usually less effective than a "lazy" approach, where you just load objects when they are needed. It looks like they had problems to decouple things to initialize just the necessary parts, so somebody said "what the heck then just let it load everything everytime".

And concerning GWX system requirements, it runs fine on my old system - SHIV does not. I could not point out a single thing where the GWX team did something that would unnecessaryly cost performance.

[bigboywooly]

Aye
IMHO the only reason SH4 generates faster loading times with basically the SH3 engine is using dds over TGA and splitting the campaign files into areas and years

ie not loading everything campaign at once

[JScones]

IMHO the only reason SH4 generates faster loading times with basically the SH3 engine is using dds over TGA and splitting the campaign files into areas and years

ie not loading everything campaign at once
Yes, appears the devs took on board some of SH3's archilles heals. Allowing nation specific skins without the need to duplicate models was an improvement. There were a few other model improvements which result in more optimised file "sharing". From one of the devs... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=454100&postcount=3 (as an aside I must admit to a bit of perplexion re the reference to GWX, when GWX is built on SH3's flaky approach to begin with. Perhaps it was easier to swallow "bye bye long loading times of GWX" rather than "bye bye long loading times caused by inefficient design of SH3"?).

Oddly though I've noticed some guys comment on 15 MINUTE save game load times... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=580112 and http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=121204 ! :doh:

[kiwi_2005]

Can you imagine how well that game would have sold?

That struck me today while I was downloading 1.03 in anticipation for 1.04...

Can you imagine?

Sorry, just occurred to me.
I dont think it would of made much of a difference, us hardcore subsimmers would be over the moon but the majority of gamers would of just thought. Fark this game is hard:rotfl:
Subsims like SH3 & 4 work both ways some love the easy original gameplay, others want it more realistic. Was on a forum the other day and came across a SH3 thread which was kinda odd as sub games are rarely mention, I notice noone has heard of GWX - whats GWX??? ahh its an addon so i pointed them in the right direction where to read more about it. Yet some question me why would i want to play SH3 with a mod as such when sh3 aint even broken? I gave up trying to explain and thought whats the point they're happy with SH3 Stock version 1.0:roll:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

From one of the devs... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=454100&postcount=3 (as an aside I must admit to a bit of perplexion re the reference to GWX, when GWX is built on SH3's flaky approach to begin with. Perhaps it was easier to swallow "bye bye long loading times of GWX" rather than "bye bye long loading times caused by inefficient design of SH3"?).


Well, that was rather nice that one of the SH3 devs to blame us for a problem resulting from their design.:88)

This is especially wonderful of them considering they incorporated elements of GWX into SH4. (Why else would Moltenort be on the SH4 map? It is set in the Pacific theater is it not?)

Until now, I've always been sympathetic to them and have felt rotten every time I/one of us mentioned "the limitations of SH3." Personally, I've tried to avoid saying as much... and have avoided all the complaining about SH3/Sh4's shortcomings out of respect for the challenges they faced.

Well, I gotta say that I think it may reflect their attitude towards modders as "hackers" and maybe even the end-users as cattle. Maybe they see dealing with the Subsim community as a necessary evil.

I know that's a lot of "maybe's" but I tell ya what... it is this community that will determine their credibility when it comes down to it. You can't just pour some stuff on a disk and say, "POOF!!! Looky!!! I made a WWII submarine simulator! Look how IMMERSIVE it is!!!"

Really funny stuff coming from the guys who STILL have all of the propellors on ALL seagoing craft and submarines pulling/rotating BACKWARDS while travelling FORWARDS... and got PAID to make them work that way!!!

Well, I better stop before I am not able to do so. I'm sure they put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us.

<Zips up Nomex suit... pulls out cigarette>:|\\

[HunterICX]

if GWX was the official release for SH3?

Well, in that case Kpt.Lehmann would be rich :rotfl: ........:huh: lucky ba....

[Kpt. Lehmann]

I doubt it.

Very likely the financing company would get the largest bite, and I am only one guy on a team of developers.

[Woof1701]

[
Oddly though I've noticed some guys comment on 15 MINUTE save game load times... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=580112 and http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=121204 ! :doh:

I have safe game loading times between 5-10 minutes myself. So I'm not surprised since my machine is not exactly up to date but also not ancient.

(AMD XP 3000+ with 1,5 GB DDR1-Ram and 7200rpm ATA hard disks, NVidia 6600 GT graphics card.)

[onelifecrisis]

Regarding the 16km sensor fix that you refer to... the need for it is questionable at best. It was constructed based on a strong opinon. (An opinion I respect, but do not subscribe to.)

Damn, is that right? It's so hard to work out what fixes what and what breaks what. My opinions on this were based largely on extensive posting on the subject by Rubini, but now I'm confused...

[GlobalExplorer]

Aye
IMHO the only reason SH4 generates faster loading times with basically the SH3 engine is using dds over TGA and splitting the campaign files into areas and years

ie not loading everything campaign at once

If that is the case the SHIII times could be reduced by the same amount. A couple of months ago I started a thread about how it could be done. Its just that atm I dont feel like writing the required tool and tbh I'm not ready for the flak it would take for its eventual misuse ;)

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=106686

[bigboywooly]

Aye
IMHO the only reason SH4 generates faster loading times with basically the SH3 engine is using dds over TGA and splitting the campaign files into areas and years

ie not loading everything campaign at once

If that is the case the SHIII times could be reduced by the same amount. A couple of months ago I started a thread about how it could be done. Its just that atm I dont feel like writing the required tool and tbh I'm not ready for the flak it would take for its eventual misuse ;)

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=106686

Not too sure you could seperate the campaign files at this stage

And it would rely on ppl remembering to change the files
lol

Not guaranteed at all that one

[GlobalExplorer]

Yes thats the problem.