My new SHIII Computer arrived today!

[maillemaker]

I bought it from Cyberpower.

It's an Intel i7-930 with an ASUS P6TSE motherboard.
6GB RAM
1TB HDD
Nvidia GeForce 9500GT 1GB

My old computer is an AMD 64+ Athalon 3200. It's about 5 years old, at least. I did upgrade its graphics card once to an AGP ATI x1950 a couple of years ago.

I've had some problems displaying large convoys in the past, and the game slows under TC when near ports.

Can't wait to get off work to play with my new gaming monster! :)

Steve

[frau kaleun]

:woot:

My last computer was 5-6 years as well, got my new one not long after getting SH3 last fall. REALLY can tell the difference with a 1G vid card and all the rest of the upgrades, I think I only had the minimum requirements for most things on the old rig, and yes especially in port and with large convoys it's been a huge improvement.

Gute Jagd und fette Beute!

[YukonJack_AK]

@maillemaker - Sounds like a beautiful new rig man! :up: Just a word or warning though... my setup is very similar to yours and I still have issues with TC near ports. :shifty: For instance, I can manage 128x at best (at 10fps) when cutting through the Channel near Dover. I will say, the convoys will look amazing even with "FPS Killers" on like Enhanced Damage, Lifeboats & Debris, etc! :DL

[The Enigma]

Congrats with that new rig. :yeah:
I'm also in need of new equipment, but have to wait.
Don't have the needed $$$ yet.
But I've time.

[Paul Riley]

Sounds like a good un,I have no doubts the game will run perfectly smooth with that video card :sunny:

[alexradu89]

Wait, you bought all this and you're thinking of SH3 ?:rotfl2:
It sure sux to be ubi at this point, with SH5 being recently launched... but yeah better off playing SH3 than buggy SH5, congrats on the gaming rig and have fun :up:

[Gilbou]

You'll be able to turn every graphic option on :)

In the nvidia control panel, select SH3.exe and force AA to x16, Anisotropic to x16 too.

[Paul Riley]

A note about AF and AA,regardless of how powerful the graphics card the game STILL must fully support those graphics options,otherwise you can still run into problems,not so much with performance but with artefacts and other glitches,but I personally doubt it in this case.I think there has been a thread in the past about SH3 having problems rendering AF properly,someone will have to clarify on this though.
On my card I have a special graphics option called 'super sampling' ,and this enhances transparency effects,with no apparent slowdown,other than the usual 'near port' fps hits everyone gets.

[maillemaker]

Thanks for the tips on AA.

I may buy SH4, as I'm also interested in American WWII subs.

But I've got so much yet to do in SH3 before I loose interest, that it will be a while. I usually stick with a game for years before moving on.

I really have no interest in buying a game that I can't play without online permission, like SH5 requires. I hate DRM (I just re-bought SH3 so I could install it on Windows 7 without Starforce issues) but I really, really hate having to phone home in order to work. I'm not going to support that kind of software.

Steve

[Paul Riley]

The online requirements for SH5 is a disgrace,its outrageous.Stick to SH3 + 4,better the devil you know :DL
Hopefully the devs at SH5 will read all our objections and realise they made a foolish and fatal error,worse than the dreaded blue screen of death!

[Gilbou]

A note about AF and AA,regardless of how powerful the graphics card the game STILL must fully support those graphics options,otherwise you can still run into problems,not so much with performance but with artefacts and other glitches,but I personally doubt it in this case.I think there has been a thread in the past about SH3 having problems rendering AF properly,someone will have to clarify on this though.
On my card I have a special graphics option called 'super sampling' ,and this enhances transparency effects,with no apparent slowdown,other than the usual 'near port' fps hits everyone gets.

Actually I have the following settings in my nvidia control panel
about sh3.exe :

Anisotropic : forced x16
(you can force anisotropic filtering to any image, this includes games that do NO anti aliasing at all)

Antialiasing - Gamma Correction : on
(improves color quality and reduction of jaggedness)

Antialiasing : forced x16xQ
(the xQ provides better image quality at a small performance cost)
Antialiasing:Transparency : Application controlled
(not really used in SH3)

Maximum pre-rendered frames : forced 3

Multi-display : forced single display
(I got 4 screens but only use one while playing. I need to force
this to get max performance from display being used when playing)

Texture filtering : Quality

Triple buffering : forced off (I dont use vsync, so triple buffering
does nothing)

While vertical sync turned off can and does produce tearing in
game when scrolling horizontally (top portion of screen being
out of alignment with botton part) you get more FPS anytime
with vert sync turned off.

Works fine, I get no artefacts.

Using a Nvidia 9800 GTX+ 512 Mb from Club 3d

[Paul Riley]

Of course,you can force AA and AF,but what I was saying was SOME games produce errors if they don't support it.The same applies to refresh rates for your monitor,if it is rated for 60hz and you force 70hz you COULD encounter problems,but this is not guaranteed.
If you max out your game settings and encounter no problems then thats great for you.

[Gilbou]

Of course,you can force AA and AF,but what I was saying was SOME games produce errors if they don't support it.The same applies to refresh rates for your monitor,if it is rated for 60hz and you force 70hz you COULD encounter problems,but this is not guaranteed.
If you max out your game settings and encounter no problems then thats great for you.

Yeap. All my LCD screens say best for them is 60 Hz and I use them
at 75 Hz. And I do see the difference.

:|\\

[YukonJack_AK]

Actually I have the following settings in my nvidia control panel
about sh3.exe :

Antialiasing : forced x16xQ
(the xQ provides better image quality at a small performance cost)
Antialiasing:Transparency : Application controlled
(not really used in SH3)


Just out of curiosity... How are you able to get AA at 16x??? :o All I get is a black screen when I set AA to anything greater than 2x... :wah: And I really wanted to be rid of those jaggies too...

[Gilbou]

I'm using x16xQ with SH3
I don't see any problems but I'm not sure it really works because
sometimes I see jaggies on the far sea horizon.

Perhaps it even doesnt work at all :rotfl2:

[Paul Riley]

Yeap. All my LCD screens say best for them is 60 Hz and I use them
at 75 Hz. And I do see the difference.

:|\\

I use my LCD at 60hz (recommended value) but would like to set it to 70hz,it could eliminate the odd flicker you sometimes see with LCD screens.However,when I enable 70hz the screen size reverts back to what 800x600 used to look like *yuck!*

[Gilbou]

Yes that happens. But that could be more a graphic card problem
than screen. A screen that can display x * y resolution can usually
do so at various frequencies with absolutely no change in resolution,
because it's just a matter of refresh frequency and available bandwith
on the link between the graphic card, and screen.

If you have to lower resolution as frequency of refresh goes up,
it is because of the graphic card, and its RAMDAC frequency.

Here are my settings :

Resolution : 1280 x 1024
In game : 1280 x 1024 (using patch for XP)
Anisotropic filtering : 16x
Antialiasing - Gamma correction : On
Antialiasing - Mode : Override any application setting
Antialiasing - Setting : 16xQ
Antialiasing - Transparency : Off
Maximum pre-rendered frames : 3
Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration : Single display
Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization : Off
Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias : Clamp
Texture filtering - Quality : High Quality
Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization : On
Threaded optimization : Auto
Triple buffering : Off
Vertical sync : Force off

Drivers : 196.21
Card : Club 3D Geforce 9800GTX+
Direct X upgraded using DirectXX 11 installer
(installs a more recent DirectX 9 version than
9.0c installer)

I took a few screenshots. I don't see many jaggies on screen,
sometimes it does happen but only at some very high angles
of sea but not always (so it might be a rendering bug).

FPS is around 40 to 50/60 in harbors
Outside it's between 100-120 all the time
And it goes down to 50-60 when I am seeing a ship explode
and there are many explosions (this is the most sensible loss
of FPS I can see, when ships explodes and balls of flames
rise up in the air).

Note : in my screenshots, artefacts appear. They don't in the game
which looks fine. Particules appear fine with water, but never on
screenshots (the screenshot saves the picture from the game to
disk before some graphic stuff is added to the picture like particule
rendering and transparency settings and various stuff).

I should try to do screenshots using a real tool and not the integrated
game one. I got Fraps but it makes the game crash when I try to
use it (got the latest version, licensed).

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/9674/shot1268910885.jpg

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/2734/shot1268910862.jpg

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/958/shot1268910857.jpg

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8296/shot1268910844.jpg

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/7141/shot1268910836.jpg

[Snestorm]

Good luck, and happy SH3ing, with the new machine.

[StarLion45]

If you have Gammacorrection " On"

the sun will look terrible , the sun halo is not there ,
the sun look like a golfball :nope:

Turn gammacorrection off , and you have a beautyful shining sun:yeah:

[Paul Riley]

If you have Gammacorrection " On"

the sun will look terrible , the sun halo is not there ,
the sun look like a golfball :nope:

Turn gammacorrection off , and you have a beautyful shining sun:yeah:

Didnt know that,not sure if I have GC enabled,will check later.Thanks for the tip :yep:

[maillemaker]

Well, I got SHIII running last night (did a download from Direct2Drive) and it installed under Windows 7 with no problem.

However, my LCD backlight has died!

Steve

[Paul Riley]

Didnt know that,not sure if I have GC enabled,will check later.Thanks for the tip :yep:

Gamma correction,now would that be a setting within the AGP card or within SH3 files somewhere?

Thanks.

[Gilbou]

Gamma correction,now would that be a setting within the AGP card or within SH3 files somewhere?

Thanks.

Graphic card. Most graphic cards allow to set settings for specific games and/or programs. Just force if off if it's a problem.

[Brag]

I went to my local computer store today. This is what they want to sell me. I want it to be able to play SH3 mit GWX3 and SH5, if the Ubis ever remove the friggin DRM.

Will this work? :hmmm:

Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E7500
Memory Kingston 2GB DDR2-800 (I presume this is RAM)
Hard drive W.Digital 500 GB Sata2
Video PCIE HD4350 1024mb DDR2
ONE-931 Core 2 Duo/2GB/500/ DVDRW
Windows 7 Home Basic

[maillemaker]

How much do they want for the system?

I'd check out www.cyberpowerpc.com. I started with their $799 barebones system. I got the entire system for less than I could buy the components for from Newegg.

Steve

[YukonJack_AK]

I went to my local computer store today. This is what they want to sell me. I want it to be able to play SH3 mit GWX3 and SH5, if the Ubis ever remove the friggin DRM.

Will this work? :hmmm:

Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E7500
Memory Kingston 2GB DDR2-800 (I presume this is RAM)
Hard drive W.Digital 500 GB Sata2
Video PCIE HD4350 1024mb DDR2
ONE-931 Core 2 Duo/2GB/500/ DVDRW
Windows 7 Home Basic

Well for starters - yes it will work. But I would defeinately do some tweaking if I were you... ;)

#1 - No Less than 4GB of RAM (I'd actually recommend 6 or 8GBs)
#2 - Lose the Core2Duo. It's an outdated and old chip and unless you're getting it for a song and dance, nix it. Minimum, go with a Core2Quad but better yet, spend the extra few bucks for an i5 or i7. Personnally, I'd recommend an AMD Athlon II Quad-Core or a Phenom II Quad-Core. Lot more "bang-for-the-buck" out of AMD imho.
#3 - Lose the Home Basic. Go with Home Premuim 64bit (so you can utilize 4+ GBs of RAM). It's only a couple of bucks to upgrade, and the lack of headaches will make it absolutely worth it.
#4 - Depending on what they're charging you for the video card, a 4350 could be a good deal or a complete rip off. It's an older card that will perform nicely on SH3 but might struggle a bit with SH5. Again, I'd recommend minimum a 4550/4570 here with 512MB of GDDR2 (or GDDR3) to get the most longetivity out of your purchase and it won't cost you alot more than a 43xx series.