BIG Colossal CRASH!!

[howzz1854]

i swear whoever designed this game should be SHOT!!!!.

i just spent the last 8 hours in my life doing this mission and almost back to base, i attempt to reload my previous save progress, boom! it crashes right when it enters the sub, ok!... so i'll load up my previous previous save (i usually save incrementally ie. save1, save2, save3, save4 during every patrol), BOOM!.. crash again right when it enters the game. so i did that with all my 1~4 saves boom!... crash when enter game.

all i get is "silent Hunter IV has stopped working" all i can do is click "close program". i've tried doing different things like run it in compatibility mode. one time i even tried hitting the F3 key repeatly hoping that it'll take me to the navigation screen right before it crashes, consider if it's something in the command room that's causing the crash... strangely it did get there in a flash of a second right before it crashed. i tried hitting the ESC key real quick.. same thing,, it successfully paused the game right before it crashed.

it seems something in the saved game data is just hosed. what makes it even more colossal FAIL is that all my save progress 1~4 are hosed.

no mods, fresh install, it's been working fine since yesterday i installed the game fresh.

nice Ubi.... i am not touching this game ever again, i just wasted my last 8 hours of my life for nothing.

(going to find something to do now)

[ETR3(SS)]

While we all have our moments of frustration with the game, most of the time there is a fix to most problems. Now allow me to ask you one question. Would you like help in addressing your issue, or would you prefer to join this site to to complain and condemn, and then take off never to look back? We can help you, and yes SH4 does have it flaws, but believe me when I say it is far better than it was on release day. The choice is yours. :03:

[Armistead]

Most of us have gone through that when we started. As stated it can be a host of issues.

What version are you playing, are you currently patched?
Are your drivers updated?
What version of DX are you using?
What are your system specs?


and a host of others.

Like most games when I first started I dealt with several crashes, lost saved games ect. Once I came here and got help, I can't recall the last time I got a crash. Most of the info is here in the tips, hardware and other threads.

The stock game has some bugs. Like most games, some people crash why others never have a problem. It's the old problem of making a game that runs off every system.

Many have a problem with the game shortcut pointing to gu.exe, but that is easily fixed.

Some have software or hardware issues they aren't aware of.

Anyway, after frustration, a lot on my end, this has become my favorite game.

[Ships-R-Us]

I am a very new member here also. I am getting old, and this is the first video game I ever played. I had problems in the beginning also. Members jumped right in to assist me. They will you also. Please give this a chance. The game is great with more flavors than Howard Johnsons ice cream to suit your wants and abilities. This forum has a full staff on call waiting to assist you. Please ask for help, you will be amazed........I wish you the best and look forward hopefully to your sharing new and exciting adventures with all of us here at SUBISM.com.........

[howzz1854]

sorry i just had to vent back there.

i was so mad that my wife didn't know what the helll i was banging the table for. i had to explain to her the previous 8 hours of my life were pretty much meaningless.

to answer all your questions,

it's version 1.5 German u-boat missions. the game wasn't modded. this also wasn't the first time playing this game. I actually been away for about year and half two years now, and the other day i decided to pay it a visit again. it's been so long i almost forgot just how buggy this game is. now that i come to think of it, i think the last time i quit this game was also because it crashing on a long mission.

i notice that those save game crashes do seem to happen more likely when you prolong your mission, ie. doing multiple objectives, resending messages and receiving more objectives, and refitting the ship and travel far. basically to my observation, i think somehow dragging a mission on long seem to likely cause the save games to crash.

I have since restarted the campaign, i was looking around this forum and found some cool mods that i wanted to add but couldn't last night because i already started the campagin, now i actually could. for one ever since i played SH3 couple years back, i missed the wonderful detailed uniform/medal mod, and the entire realistic grey wolf expansion mod. so today i managed to install RUIM uniform mod along with the DAS BOOTS mod.

i just hope those save game crash don't creep up again, although somehow i get the feeling that it will. I"ll have to try to keep my patrols short from now on, even tho sometimes it's hard NOT to kill everything that's in your way and be tempted to refit and kill some more.

does anyone know which mod i can get to potentially patch up those instability? if there is any mods for that?

oh and, does anyone know how the game system rewards the medals? it seems rather random that sometimes i get a Iron cross for doing very little while other times i would sink like 36000 tons in one patrol and receive nothing. is there a particular step i have to follow in order to receive the medals? i am a huge fan of WWII NAZI stories (not a political fanatic, just fascinated by history around that time) and i love those fancy Iron cross/knights cross. back in SH3 i earned all the way up to Knights cross with oak leaf diamond sword.

thanks for all your patience, i could tell i am not alone.

[Ships-R-Us]

HOWZZ1854: I myself am way to new at this to offer you good help. I've only been playing a month myself. I am pleased you wrote back giving more details.

Your side of the world is waking up now and there willl be more activity on the site, and the site will have more activity from the US side in a few more hours.

You will get the help you need today, I am sure.

Thanks for not jumping ship...........Doug

[Armistead]

A few things to do. Make sure you point your shortcut to sh4.exe instead of gu.exe. Just right click on your desktop shortcut, properties and where it says target paste this line there instead of the one the game creates.

"C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific\sh4.exe"

The only change is you point it to sh4, instead of gu.exe. The gu.exe is basically a program that checks the server for updates and other crap before it starts the game and has caused many problems for some. I got constant crashes, this fixed them.

Make sure you install the DX version from the disc, I think it's 9. The game runs off this version. Some that use the newer DX10 or older versions have crashes all the time...You can have multi installs of DX.

I take it you've updated all your drivers.....mostly video and sound....

Not sure what your specs are, but if you don't have a lot of ram, you need to cut off all background programs and services that you can. It's possible while playing your virtual ram runs low if you have a lot of crap running in the background. One of the best things you can do is a search on the net for tweaking your PC for gaming. Just know what you're doing, back up, ect. For the most part it's very simple. If you have a few megs of ram and have many programs and services running, it can get low and cause problems.

On my older rig I had 2megs of ram and a cheap 7600 video card. It ran the game OK, but I got crashes all the time, save games wouldn't load, ect. Video card would get hot...With my newer gaming rig, seldom have a problem, no crashes in any situation. However, when you save, don't save near a lot of activity. Don't be near land or near a bunch of ships. If you save with a lot of activity, the game has more info to read and save and weird things can happen. Best to save when nothing is around, TC on 1.

Saving games overall shouldn't be an issue if you have a strong rig. You are right, the longer you prolong the mission, the more info has to be saved. You do a 60 day patrol, complete several objectives, sink a bunch of ships, ect...all of this is saved and has to be processed when you load back up. As stated, the issue is more spec related, background programs, ect, than the game itself, but it can happen.

Also, don't resave over the same game over and over. If you have a lot of saved games, delete them. Some people have half a hard drive filled with old saved games they don't use. Saved games take a lot of space.

As for mods, I don't play UBoats, but OM would be your best bet. Not sure if that deals with a lot of the bugs. For Fleetboats, you have several great supermods that deal with many of the bugs, I play TMO, but you can look on the mods page and decide. Make sure you're careful with mods, start mixing the wrong ones together and you'll see plenty of crashes.

Obvious, you want to do you standard PC service, defrag, scandisk, ect.

There are a few bugs left, like the CO2 bug, but these don't really effect game play or cause crashes. I suffered from crashes a lot when I first played. Nothing would make me madder than to lose a whole career and all my saved games corrupt....madder than hell, but with help things work rather smooth these days.

In the end, things can happen. There are many possible software or hardware related issues, but most get through these. One guy kept complaining that his game screwed up all the time. Figured it happened mostly at night at the same time. He had his virus scanner scheduled to go off everynight, followed by defrag and scandisk..these are not things you want running while playing......so just be aware of all these issues.

You probably know these things, just trying to help you cover the bases.

Good luck.

[howzz1854]

thanks for the kind replies guys, and thanks Armistead, that's a good tip on the game shortcut, i didn't know about the gu.exe stuff.

the computer is powerful enough i know that 3.7ghz of quad core with plenty (8GB) of ram. i know it's not the computer, because i transfered the saves to another machine in the living room with a fresh install and it crashed exactly the same way. the drivers are all up to date.

i will try to delete old saves from time to time like you suggested, i think that's a good way to keep things fresh and lean.

any other suggestions would be appreciated :salute:

[Webster]

also it is best to make sure you defrag your system regularly and run a disk cleanup utility and delete all temp files in internet options screen to get the most out of your memory storage ability to avoid the crashes which is most commonly from running out of memory space so data gets overwritten, corrupted, and or missing

[SteamWake]

Take note that he is working with a re-install.

Theres a thread here somewher about "how to re-install" sh4. ;)

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=133290

[howzz1854]

does anyone know how the medal system work?

i just sank 41000 tons of merchants, and got a knights cross with golden oak leaf sword with diamond, the highest honor of all German WWII award (historically, only one person during the war was ever awarded that medal).

funny thing is... that's my third patrol since starting a new campaign and that was my "first" medal, didn't recieve iron cross 1st or 2nd class, war badge, or any knights cross prior. :D

i can't stop starring at it.... it's so pretty :D

[Armistead]

you might watnt to ask in the Uboat add on forum. The medal system is fubar with stock with fleetboats, but not sure about uboats...but we have mods that correct it.

[Armistead]

thanks for the kind replies guys, and thanks Armistead, that's a good tip on the game shortcut, i didn't know about the gu.exe stuff.

the computer is powerful enough i know that 3.7ghz of quad core with plenty (8GB) of ram. i know it's not the computer, because i transfered the saves to another machine in the living room with a fresh install and it crashed exactly the same way. the drivers are all up to date.

i will try to delete old saves from time to time like you suggested, i think that's a good way to keep things fresh and lean.

any other suggestions would be appreciated :salute:

Yep, that's a nice rig. Hopefully all the advice here will help. Main thing is to install the DX off the disc.

Course, if you're doing a reinstall, follow the advice given on the link by Steamwake. I didn't read it, but fairly sure it will cover making sure you have all the preexisting files totally deleted before a reinstall. Some have to go to great lengths to get rid of hidden existing files.

Course, make sure after you get it all done, to reboot. Many just start playing the game, you need to reboot so all the changes take place, registry is updated, ect.

I certainly understand the pain. I played a career and almost made it to 45 when the game crashed.
None of my saves works, so probably 100 hours gone. Sometimes CTD's just happen, I'm just thankful I haven't had one in some while.

[howzz1854]

since you guys are so helpful :) i am going to thread jack my own thread. i posted some questions under the U-boat sub-forum like you suggested on the medal system, but it seems the sub-forum doesn't get a lot of attention, and here is a question in regard to the gameplay in general

i just realized i've never really used the magnetic detonation system. I've always used the detonate on impact because it just seems to make more sense. but there are times when you just miss your target slightly and that torpedo just slides right by, and we all know how mad that makes you.

i confess, i don't really know how to use the magnetic method. how do you actually tell it to detonate? is there a button to push?

all the guides i've read all talk about using the detonate on contact method, it seems no one really talked about how to properly use the magnetic impact system.

[KlassenT]

Magnetic influence isn't a 'triggered' detonation, it refers to the payload using a magnetically-influenced trigger that would activate upon passing under the target within (usually) 2 meters. First and foremost, I have no idea how the schematics work out, so I could be off by a mile on the exact 'how,' but the likely scenarios are that the detonator itself has a magnet attracted to the hull of the above ship, or that for reasons unknown to me, ships exert their own electromagnetic field that the torpedo responds to.

Regardless of the technicalities, the point is that enabling the mags will cause a nice, pretty, and usually much more effective BOOM when passing just under the target's keel; as far as SH4 is concerned, there's no reason not to enable it. If you get a dead-on hit, you'll happily take a contact detonation, or if they run deep, there's nothing wrong with a keel shot either. ;) Check out a very useful resource I found on the "Official" (Hah!) forums here (http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=400102&f=6421019045&m=6561097865&r=7161042965) for some more torpedo data.

The reason that keel shots are more effective is still a bit beyond me... I might have to offer my own minor thread hijack, in fact! I've always worked under the assumption that most seafaring vessels have a V-shaped hull, but isn't it the nature of a V-shaped body to offer more deflection than absorption? :hmmm:

[Armistead]

The reason they used the influence over contact was for under the keel shots. Most targets, mostly warships were weakest at the bottom, the keel. It also has more effect than just a side contact explosion. Usually the ship would lift due to the explosion underneath..what goe's up must come down, so the lift would help break the ship, but it also came back down breaking again, sort of a double break effect...giving us...the "breaking of the back". This often split ships in half.

Game wise...maybe not as much, but still works. Much depends on the damage zones and mods may differ. I haven't checked, but in reality the keel should be weaker and it appears so in the game.

However, as in real life the influence settings were flawed. Before 1943 the M14 influence settings caused many problems and many skippers switched to contact...against orders. In the game and most mods do this, if you use influence, you will get more prematures, but less duds. If you use contact only, you'll get less prematures, but more duds.

Obvious the goal in using influence settings, you want to set the torp deep to pass under the keel. Here's the bigger problem, the M14's run much deeper than set. Until they're fixed in late 43, you set them to run below the keel, they will go about another 9ft or more deeper and not go off, so you have to judge your settings. If a ship has a 20 ft keel, I usually set my depth at 12 ft.

Your best bet if you use M14 with most mods is to shoot so they impact at an angle and use the slower speeds early war and run them shallow on contact. I do this until they're fixed...cept sometimes I use the fast settings during the day in calm water.

With mods...you're gonna see a lot of failed torps. If it bothers you, carry some M10's...not as powerful, but they work 90% of the time.

[Laconic]

The reason that keel shots are more effective is still a bit beyond me... I might have to offer my own minor thread hijack, in fact! I've always worked under the assumption that most seafaring vessels have a V-shaped hull, but isn't it the nature of a V-shaped body to offer more deflection than absorption? :hmmm:

The idea of a keel shot is to break the back of a ship. The initial explosion of a torpedo directly underneath the keel will create a breach in the hull and also drive water up through that breach, causing catastrophic damage. Here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSBNG7IFyKU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSBNG7IFyKU)

Now obviously that's with modern equipment, but you can get the idea of how it works. The first, smaller explosion you see is the actual torpedo detonation. The second blast is the water being explosively driven through the ship by the force of the payload. Someone contradict me if I've got any of this wrong.

[Wilcke]

My understanding, and from reading about the development of the magnetic influence pistols was related to putting the largest amount of explosive force onto the target.

Torpedoes detonating on the side of the hull were expending less destructive force onto the target versus a torpedo that exploded under the target.

That in my mind and from my reading is what prompted the research into magnetic influence pistols or triggers.

As to the physical damage done to a ship by said detonation its hard to find specifics in the literature. Merchant ship construction offered a lot of variety in the 20's, 30's and 40's and none of these ships were built with the idea that they would become targets in a war. From the record we can undesrtand that they sank rather well in the Pacific as in the Atlantic.

[howzz1854]

so what do you all use? magnetic or contact.

if i set the torp to magnetic, will it still explode correctly if it come in contact with the ship? because what if i set the depth settign wrong and it turns out to be a little too high that it "wont" pass under the keel, if like you guys said it's based on magnetic sensing of the ship, will it still explode if it makes contact with the ship?

what's best for convoys? it seems for the initial attack, detonate on impact works best for me. i also find that if you set the torp's depth just right at the exact lowest keel, the detonate on impact method can still sink a T3 tanker effectively with one shot. what troubles me is after the initial attack when the remaining fleet start to change bearing irratically, the impact method doesn't work so well anymore after that. i then will have to rely on homing torpedos, even then, it's sometimes ineffective against warships.

[Sailor Steve]

I'm a history freak, so I use the settings they used historically. In 1939-1940 for U-boats and 1941-1943 for US Fleet Boats I leave the magnetic on (by default it is always set for both), since even though that was when they were having all the problems with it the captains didn't know that. From late 1940 to mid-1942 for U-boats I use impact only, as that's what they did. From mid-1942 for U-boats and late 1943 for Fleet Boats the problems were fixed.

In real life they didn't have a switch to turn it on and off. The Germans had one or the other, and they were interchangable but it took time to do it. The Americans had both systems built into the torpedo, and it couldn't be messed with. Actually some enterprising captains allowed their torpedo chiefs to disassemble the heads and disable the magnetic pistols, but that was rare. Another problem was that if the torpedo ran deeper than set (and they did) then they wouldn't go off, and nobody knew that was happening. If it did run at impact depth there was a chance the magnetic detonator would explode before it reached the target. Either way, you lose.

The game models the duds well, but no how the systems related to everyday use by the crews.

[KlassenT]

The idea of a keel shot is to break the back of a ship. The initial explosion of a torpedo directly underneath the keel will create a breach in the hull and also drive water up through that breach, causing catastrophic damage. Here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSBNG7IFyKU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSBNG7IFyKU)

Now obviously that's with modern equipment, but you can get the idea of how it works. The first, smaller explosion you see is the actual torpedo detonation. The second blast is the water being explosively driven through the ship by the force of the payload. Someone contradict me if I've got any of this wrong.

It makes more sense after I read the video description; Seems the water itself isn't being propelled upwards by the detonation, but instead, the warhead causes a massive cavitation under the target. In this particular case, a hull's ability to redirect an explosion causes even more damage, because less of the blast goes into the hull itself; instead, most of that explosive power contributes to making the giant cavity. The real damage comes into play with all of the fluid pressure from the water around that cavity rushing in to fill it again.

Can see it in action a bit better in this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcR148AQEeg). Notice how the bulk of the eye candy happens moments after the visible explosion, when fluid pressure comes over to play. :D

---

Back on-topic, though, you don't have to choose between impact and magnetic as a US skipper; in fact, there is no setting available for magnetic only. The magnetic option is for "Contact + Influence" meaning your fish will still kaboom if they hit dead-on. Like Steve said, though, the mags did historically cause more premature detonations, though I truly can't say whether this ever modelled into SH4. I never noticed significantly more torps jumping the gun with them on than off, and I almost always start early war campaigns, but I always stand to be corrected.

[G2B]

Rough sea's can cause the magnetic influence to go off :nope: and it's modded very well. Rotten geyser alerts your target then the DC's start raining :damn:

[Bubblehead1980]

Don't mean to laugh but the first post, the anger in his words, reminded me of when i first played SH 4 lol, this game caused many fits before the issues were corrected.

Thing is, I stuck with it, upgraded and learned things, then went to the mods, which saved this game.Well worth sticking it out:salute:

[Sniper297]

I'm gonna do some speculating here based on my corrupted save experience. What I did at first, save1, save2, save3, and so on, when I got up to half a dozen or so I would start overwriting previous saves. That triggered the "do you want to overwrite" message, say yes and now that file is corrupted?! Since I figured that one out, if I want to save, for example, "save5" and there's already one in there, I delete "save5", then save a NEW file named "save5" and I've had no further corruption problems since. So if you're overwriting previous saves, don't. Try deleting the previous saves then save with a new name.

As for magnetic torpedoes, the backbone of a ship is the keel, break the keel and you break the ship. Water (for all practical purposes) is incompressible, and explosion at the waterline would vent half its force upwards into the air outside the hull. An explosion directly under the keel will send most of its force toward the area of least resistance, the ship being hollow and full of air instead of water most of the force goes thataway.

The theory is sound, any iron object distorts the earth's magnetic field, that's how magnetic anomaly detectors work to find submarines. Problem they hadn't reckoned on when they designed magnetic mines and torpedo triggers is that the magnetic disturbance around a ship varies with the distance from the magnetic pole - so closer to the equator the lines are wider, causing more premature detonations. It also varies with direction, a ship heading north or south will have a narrower magnetic field than one heading east or west. MAD (magnetic anomaly detector) sensors are adjustable and tunable for that reason, the magnetic exploders in WWII torpedoes were not, which is why they failed so often for all the navies that tried them.