Need Help

[Neptune#1]

I have just installed SHIV mouse acts sluggish video seemed good no stutters then pointer would not let me click anything like the bridge icon etc only have this problem with SHIV SHIII works great plus I have just installed a Nvida geforce 6200 gt video card 256mg and a 430 watt power supply, 2.25g ram 2.66ghz pentium4 60g hard drive which I am changing to WD500g, my mouse is a Kensington optical, also tried sp2 mouse had same results any ideas I am lost on this one.

[maerean_m]

6200 :down:

You need a 2007 video card to play a 2007 game

[Rockin Robbins]

Afraid he's right. The minimum I think you'd be at all happy with (and you'd have to put up with occasional delays then) would be a 7600GT. I have 2 of those on an SLI motherboard and consider that barely adequate. Of course I have to run all the graphics settings WFO and have all kinds of junk still running in the background, including Skype and Xfire. That can't help!

[Neptune#1]

Thank you

[swdw]

The 6200 is a budget card that, although is listed in the supported cards, needs a decent CPU to back it up. Also, if you are running the bare minimum memory specified, you're going to get a lot of virtual memory usage, which will slow things down. So, I'd start there with trying to smooth things out by killing unnesesarry apps.

As RR brought up, check and see how many memory resident apps you have running in the background and turn off the junk you don't need (start with the apps in the tray on the right side of the taskbar). As an example, on my old PC I have to turn off the junk, and even the firewall and virus checker, if I want to get BoB II to run nicely.

There are also a host of Windows services that you could and actually should turn off as they are a security risk for a home PC. Here's a good walkthrough on how to do it and what to turn off: http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Getting rid of all the junk will 1. free up memory, and 2. free up CPU time, so it should help with your performance.

You may also want to download RivaTuner and see if it's possible to overclock your video card slightly.

Once that's done, defrag and compact your hard drive. Here's a free version of software that will do both MUCH better than the windows defragger. First you run defragment, and then you run compact. It will speed up your virtual memory usage:
http://www.dirms.com/

BTW, if your free hard drive space is getting low, that will slow everything down long before windows ever gives you a warning.

[Neptune#1]

thank you for the help, the tech that is helping me with this stuff figured the 6200 would be more than enough he is knowledgable about computers but not at sims, not the end of the world card was only $39.00 and my 500gb hard drive should be here today which I am shure is alot of the problem,I will pass the info on to the tech, thanks again for all the help.

[SteamWake]

thank you for the help, the tech that is helping me with this stuff figured the 6200 would be more than enough he is knowledgable about computers but not at sims, not the end of the world card was only $39.00 and my 500gb hard drive should be here today which I am shure is alot of the problem,I will pass the info on to the tech, thanks again for all the help.

"More than enough" ? Man he sold you a bill of goods. SH4 is one of the most GPU intensive games out there. This aint no spreadsheet were tryin to run.

A capable video card is going to run you at leastr about 150.00 dollars probably more.

A new hard drive, while you may see a small performance increase, unless your old drive was stuffed to the gills and a fragmented mess you most likely wont even notice. But hey its never a bad idea to have plenty of storage and free space for those cache files.

[Neptune#1]

actually Steamwake he gave me the power supply, and he makes nothing on the parts as I ordered them myself as per his recomendations, he is a friend that as I had stated in the above post is very knowledgeable at computers just not familiar at simulators, he's an honest guy he even gave my son who was in a car accident a few years ago [ ended up in a wheel chair at 19] a whole computer for free and set it up for him and still does the maintanance on it for him for free.

[jazman]

He's a decent guy, and I'm sure he wasn't malicious in his advice about the vid card. He was simply wrong. I have an NVIDIA 7600 GT, and yes, that is probably the low end for this game. I get frame rates in the low-mid 20s (running 1152x864 on a 19" CRT). I can tell when I'm getting near a convoy (even though I haven't spotted it yet), because it all starts stuttering. I do have all the options on.

I'm set: it's smooth enough in general, but the proximity of a convoy makes it noticeably stuttery! It's my ALEVC (Almost Low End Video Card) radar. A slower card would always be stuttery, no help. A faster card would never be stuttery, no help. I'm in the sweet spot with my hardware radar mod. OK, it's probably really a CPU issue...

In my Sugar Boat it didn't help last night, because even at flank speed, the convoy I spotted last night was outrunning me (troop transports).

[SteminDemon13]

Neptune I have the GForce 8500 GT PCI Express. It is a great card and I have had no trouble with any of my recent computer games. SH4 runs great. The only possible upgrade I would consider is an extra gig of ram. Great card and not too expensive. Check one out.

[Neptune#1]

Could one of you guys tell me the difference in video cards for example my 6200 with 256 mb, 3.0 shader and say an 8500 with 256 mb,3.0 shader, I am kind of a dim wit at this stuff but I am learning from you guy's and my own mistakes, also as my pcu is at 2.66 will 3.0g really make that big of a difference or would the fact that once I install the 500gb hard drive with saita make a bigger difference, this coming spring I am going to buy an lcd monitor, which is why I am messing with this problem so much while I can play the game reasonably now would defeat the purpose of lcd shortly, I already plan on replacing the mother board and processor with 3.0g when I go to lcd and hopefully when I am done I will have a kick ass system without spending $5000.00 at Dell, also how much doe's the dvd drive effect this game, I am probably going to upgrade this as well but we think the one I have installed is good[fast enough].

[SteamWake]

Yea I guess that did sound a little harsh. If he really wanted to see you a bill of goods he would have sold you that $300.00 video card ;)

The differences between the cards are many, architecture, clock timing, hardware, dram timing, and on and on.

Your best bet would be to do a little research. Find some sites that do impartial comparisons.

Let me give you one warning though. If you do put a bigger, better, faster GPU in your machine make sure that the power supply will be adaquate to handle it.

I put a 7600xt in my machine and blew out the psu in about an hour.

[Neptune#1]

We have already installed a 430 watt power supply when we installed the video card yesterday.

[Neptune#1]

SteamWake no appology necessary Eli my tech whole hartedly understood what you were saying and did not take any offence to it as he realizes there are techs out there that would sell you s....... with an fresh coat of paint on it and tell you you have to have it as it is the best.

[SteminDemon13]

Neptune, my 8500 GT has 512 MB. Do you have PCI Express or AGP? You can always get the 8800 if you want to go more spendier. When I first bought my computer I said I wanted PCIE and the guy installed AGP motherboard, and was cool enough to change it out for me to a PCIE MOBO and even installed a faster CPU. It's great to find people that aren't just worried about the dollar and actually care about you.

[-Pv-]

As others have noted, sluggish mouse is a sure sign vid is under powered and I also agree take a careful consideration of the power supply. A loaded machine with the newest PCI express cards may require 500 watts or more. Very good cooling is also necessary.
-Pv-

[jazman]

Could one of you guys tell me the difference in video cards for example my 6200 with 256 mb, 3.0 shader and say an 8500 with 256 mb,3.0 shader, I am kind of a dim wit at this stuff but I am learning from you guy's and my own mistakes, also as my pcu is at 2.66 will 3.0g really make that big of a difference or would the fact that once I install the 500gb hard drive with saita make a bigger difference, this coming spring I am going to buy an lcd monitor, which is why I am messing with this problem so much while I can play the game reasonably now would defeat the purpose of lcd shortly, I already plan on replacing the mother board and processor with 3.0g when I go to lcd and hopefully when I am done I will have a kick ass system without spending $5000.00 at Dell, also how much doe's the dvd drive effect this game, I am probably going to upgrade this as well but we think the one I have installed is good[fast enough].

A couple of good sites are AnandTech (http://www.anandtech.com) and Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com). They do all sorts of tests on hardware. If you read through, say, some tests on video cards, you'll get an idea of things that are important in determining performance. You might also get some tips on test software you can use to benchmark your own box and see how it rates, and how a video card replacement helps.

A side "benefit" of playing hardware-intensive games is that you learn all this stuff...

[A_Engel]

I run Silent Hunter 4 with a Nvidia 6800GT - 256MB graphics card and 1 GB of RAM and my game runs surprisingly well, it works well with other new games as well. And the 6800GT is an old card as far as graphics cards go. It doesn't look as good as the newer cards, but the game still looks great.

[swdw]

I run Silent Hunter 4 with a Nvidia 6800GT - 256MB graphics card and 1 GB of RAM and my game runs surprisingly well, it works well with other new games as well. And the 6800GT is an old card as far as graphics cards go. It doesn't look as good as the newer cards, but the game still looks great.

Actually, in the speed tests, the 6800GT is usually on a par with a 7600GT with the same ram. SO you have a decent card and BTW, the 6800 is known to be a pretty good overclocker (get rivatuner)

[Neptune#1]

My grapics do not look bad I'm shure they would look better in LCD or HD considering my original Dell monitor is 4 yrs old I do not notice freezing or stutter biggest problem is the mouse, once I get the new hard drive in we think we will see some improvement as this one is about maxed, also going to try some of the ideas that you guys have suggested in fact I was just playing it with the color on max setting.

[SteamWake]

Have you checked to see what kind of background tasks you have running ?

Some can be quite intrusive. A virus scan for example can bring your system to its knees.

[Neptune#1]

We just finished installing the 500g hard drive and getting the unit up and running so we still have more to do and going through the running programs is the first thing we planned on doing tommorrow morningafter 6-7 hrs installing and re installing etc we have had it for today what a pain in the ...... we did reinstal SH IV and it works a bit better , as I have said it is still very playable but I did not have a chance to play with the settings either hopefully I will be able to get all the rest done tommorrow will keep you posted here.