disable merchant search lights?

[Keelbuster]

this is going to sound sacriledgious, but my framerate bites it hard when all the search lights come on at night in a convoy. I'm wondering if there is a way to disable search lights altogether, or ideally just disable them for merchants and leave them for planes/warships.

Any chance this is possible (I use gwx 3.0).

[bigboywooly]

Yep tis possible
Go to data\Sea and open any merchants Sea folder

Open the Eqp file in Notepad

Look for entries with REF_small01\ REF_small or REF_big

Example below NKSQ_

[Equipment 11]
NodeName=L01
LinkName=REF_small01
StartDate=19380101
EndDate=19451231

Change to

[Equipment 11]
NodeName=L01
LinkName=NULL
StartDate=19380101
EndDate=19451231

Will remove the light but you will need to do this for each merchant
Time consuming but if it improves play for you well worth it

[Keelbuster]

Hey wooly - wicked - thanks man. I'm going to try this as soon as I get back to port. Btw- how did you know 'NKSQ_' was a merchant? I'm in patrol right now adn I'll check that directory asap, but I'm wondering - is it obvious who's a merchant and who isn't?

Cheers!

P.S. and i gather the significant change is to change 'LinkName' to 'NULL' if it has REF_small01\ REF_small or REF_big?

[Madox58]

BBW knows the designation for EVERY unit!
:o

That's his turf, his Domain, his Mojo!
:rotfl:

[bigboywooly]

Only cos I have spent so much time looking at the Sea folder for GWX
:rotfl:

Anything NBB is a battleship
NBC is a battlecruiser
NCA is a heavy cruiser
NCO is a corvette
NCV is a carrier
NCVE is an escort carrier
NCL is a light cruiser
NDD is a destroyer
NDE is an escort destroyer
NFF is a frigate
NPC is the Black Swan
NPT is an MTB
Other warships are NAMC\NAXC\NTBs\NMAS\NMSR\NMSS\NPTV\NPTV_KFK\RAF_HS L\NMSTR\NTRW_\PBTrawler\NHD_SubCT13

May have missed one from memory but rest should be merchants
Depends on the mod you use but thats a pretty comprehensive
list
Will have to go check now tho
lol

yes REF_small01\ REF_small or REF_big are all linked to searchlights so changing to NULL will remove the light from the unit

[h.sie]

i had frame rate stuttering, too with search lights on at night. normal frame rate sank from 70-90fps down to 3-5 fps for short times and then became normal 70-90fps.

i also thought about disabling searchlights, but then i tested sh3 on vista 64 and did not discover the stuttering. so i made a dual-boot system with xp and vista with vista only for playing sh3. perhaps, this solves your problem?

[AH_Thor]

Caramba :rock:

[Keelbuster]

i had frame rate stuttering, too with search lights on at night. normal frame rate sank from 70-90fps down to 3-5 fps for short times and then became normal 70-90fps.

i also thought about disabling searchlights, but then i tested sh3 on vista 64 and did not discover the stuttering. so i made a dual-boot system with xp and vista with vista only for playing sh3. perhaps, this solves your problem?

Well the truth is I am using ancient hardware - I built this system 2002ish. The fan on the graphics card died, and it now overheats like crazy and I get artifacts if the room isn't like 0c. Hence the open window. Still, though she's an antique, she can run SH3 decently. I just have to taper back the bells and whistles.

[Keelbuster]

Wooly - I did what you said and it worked like a charm! Just attacked my first convoy at night - all the merchies stay dark, and the escort flower class comes in with a search light. Frame rate is steady. Thanks dude!

[bigboywooly]

You're more than welcome
If it improves your computers handling all the better
:up:

[Uber Gruber]

And whilst we're on the subject....what %age of merchants actually had and used their search lights during WWII ?

The first correct answer wins an all expenses paid trip to Madame FiFi's Massage Emporium.

[bigboywooly]

Not going there again
Service is terrible

I cant imagine every merchant having such powerfull or large searchlights
So there may be some mileage in removing some anyway - or most

[FIREWALL]

I'd rather up grade my rig than change all those ships. :p :rotfl:

I'd go bonkers trying to do that. :D

[Keelbuster]

I'd rather up grade my rig than change all those ships. :p :rotfl:

I'd go bonkers trying to do that. :D

Oh, it wasn't so bad - 15 or 20 ships. No big deal. I did it while i was one the phone;). Anyway, I think it looks a bit better now. Before it was searchlight city, with beams everywhere etc. I think it makes more sense for the merchies to stay quiet and dark, and for the escorts to do all the searching. Looks great!

[Hartmann]

thanks for the info :up:

The same problem here. Searchlights cause a severe slowdown in my Sh3 while i´m looking in external views to the lights.

I was thinking that i was a problem in my installation or hardware, but i see that there are more people with the same problem :hmm:

Curiosly with my old 6600 nvidia card i don´t had any problem, but i replaced the card with a Ati 2600 XT and i started to have some performance drop.

For the people with the same problem ...it happens with nvidia cards too ??:hmm:

[onelifecrisis]

I'd rather up grade my rig than change all those ships. :p :rotfl:]I'd go bonkers trying to do that. :D

There's no need to change them all. We removed searchlights from the coastal merchant, small frieghter and tramp steamer. Only three ships, but they do form a large part of many convoys. In the end, we cleared out a few others too, but in total, no more than about 6-7 ships had their lights removed.

And, yes, it made a fantastic difference in our multiplayer games.

You should release that as a JSGME mod for GWX3. :yep:

[Hartmann]

Yes could be nice a mod option for GWX.

I have severe slowdowns during convoys attacks at night so i started to modify files for my personal use.

At the moment i want to disable searchlights for all merchant and big warships because i´m pretty sure that every ship without antisubmarine weapons will prefer stay in the dark and become a more difficult target for a submarine.