SH3 Randomly Won't Work

[MILLANDSON]

Could anyone help me try to fix SH3 on my computer?

I was playing on the game with no problems on Thursday, blowing up merchants left right and centre. Then I was silly and tried to take a screenshot, which I had forgotten my PC doesn't like since I installed the resolution fix, and the game froze, so I turned it off and thought nothing else of it.

I come to try to play yesterday... and the game just constantly crashes at the initial cutscene, sometimes it doesn't even get that far.

So I uninstall everything to do with SH3, and then reinstall it and GWX3.0, and it loads, but when it gets to the main menu it just plays the music, but the screen is blank. I then install the Resolution fix, and it starts just crashing out at the initial cutscene again.

I really want to get this fixed, I don't want to be stuck without SH3 after I've spent so long playing it. I followed all the instructions for uninstalling and reinstalling that are covered in the GWX3.0 manual, except I didn't have a SH3 file in the AppData section.

Other useful info might be that this is the Steam version of the game, and so shouldn't have Starforce on it at all, and should be patched up to 1.4b already.

Thanks for any/all help you can give me.

[K-61]

Are you using Ctrl+F11 to take your screenshots within the game? Should you get your game running again it might be better to use a 3rd party screen capture utility.

[MILLANDSON]

I was using Print-Screen to take screenshots, as that is what I thought you were meant to do with the Resolution fix. Otherwise, yea, I've downloaded Fraps to do my screenshots with, should I get the game working again.

[K-61]

I had my game go FUBAR on me recently. I believe it was a corrupted save game file. I resolved it by restoring my system to a previously know good state. I don't rely on Windows restore points, since in the past when I really, really needed it to work for me, it didn't. Instead, I use Acronis True Image Home 2010, a disk imaging utility. I've been using Acronis products for the last 3-4 years and it has never failed me. New to the 2010 version is a timeline restoration option. The program checks your system for changes every five minutes and then saves them to a continuously updated system image. In my case, my notebook has two hard drives, so I use the second disk to store the live image.

On the day in question, I loaded up my game at about noon, after I had the computer running for about a couple of hours. I encountered the problem mentioned above so I restored the system to its state at about 10AM and the problem was solved. The only downside was that I lost the patrol events past that point, but that's much better than losing my game entirely.

As for your game, I am a bit stumped. It's rather difficult to remotely diagnose another system. Sorry I can't be of help. Sometimes all you need to do is delete the current career, as that gets rid of the corrupted save game file, but if the cause is not a save file that obviously won't fix it.

[MILLANDSON]

Well, do any of the veterans of Subsim know if there might be other files I'm missing and not deleting then?

I'm pretty much after any/all suggestions. I just want to get it working again :cry:

[MILLANDSON]

Well, I've just reinstalled it from scratch, and whilst it plays the intro cutscenes fine, the main menu never comes up, it just goes black, but with the main menu music playing in the background. This is with all previous stuff to do with SH3 (to my knowledge) deleted, and starting it without any mods or changes at all.

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this?

[Jimbuna]

Well, do any of the veterans of Subsim know if there might be other files I'm missing and not deleting then?

I'm pretty much after any/all suggestions. I just want to get it working again :cry:

Uninstall via the game disc option preferably.

Delete the SH3 folder in C\MyDocs

Perform a registry scan using regvac, there is a free trial version on the link below:

http://www.regvac.com/fregvac.htm

Now reinstall via the procedure you used earlier/initially.

[Arctic wolf]

I had a somewhat similar problem two days back. I felt like experimenting and installed the english map names even though JSGME warned me it might cause problems. After that my game would crash at the load screen everytime I started a new career. :o The old saved game worked fine. I reinstalled all mods through Commander but didn't help. Eventually after a clean reinstallation of SH3 and Commander everything is under control now.

Did you uninstall the game properly? I suggest removing the registry entries and everything before doing a clean install. I hope this helps you in some way. Good luck! :up:

Edit:
Ahh Jimbuna beat me to it!

[MILLANDSON]

I know a fair bit about computers, but I've never really fiddled with registry files before. How do I go about finding out which of those are the SH3 ones?

And I don't really have the option of a disc install, since my copy of SH3 is the downloadable one from Steam :P

[Arctic wolf]

I use Tuneup Utilities 2010 to clean up my registry after removing a program. Works for me. You can use the link jimbuna pasted. Should be equally effective. Registry cleaners normally identify invalid registry entries - entries from programs that no longer exist. You SH3 entries should be among them. Just run the program and clean em all! :up:

[MILLANDSON]

I've set it to clean them all now, so hopefully, when I try reinstalling it in another 10-15 minutes, it might work :O:

[MILLANDSON]

Nope, nothing changed.

The intro-cutscenes play, but then it doesn't go to the loading screen straight after that as it normal does/used to do, the screen just goes black (but I can see my cursor), and then goes black and I can hear the menu music, but I can't see my cursor anymore.

I have no idea why it's doing this all of a sudden, and no idea why nothing I do is fixing it :cry:

[Fincuan]

Here's (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom//showthread.php?t=134613) something similar from a few years back. It's for SH4, but iirc the same bug and same fixes also applied to SH3.

[MILLANDSON]

Cheers for that :) I use nHancer rather than nVidia Control Panel, but I did have AA set to something other than Application Controlled, so I'll reinstall the game and try it now.

[JEuler]

Try to delete the 'Logo' and 'Intro' movie files located in the sh3\data\Movies\Intro folder

[Arctic wolf]

Hopefully this will solve the problem. Keep us posted.

[MILLANDSON]

And bugger it if that didn't work! :) Cheers for that link!

Now just got to hope it still works once I've reinstalled GWX3.0 and all my mods, and lets me put the forced AA back on.

Still, either way, thanks! :)

[stoppro]

I had that happen to me and it turned out to be the power supply. the legs feeding the mother board and vidieo card dropped.I went crazy before i found that out. just a thought

[stoppro]

whoops! just read the previous post glad you got it going

[MILLANDSON]

Well, just installing GWX3.0 and my mods now, to see if it works without the AA when it's just that, and then gonna try turning the AA back on and see if it works then, otherwise I'll just have to make do with it turned off.

[MILLANDSON]

Installed GWX3.0 and my mods, and it seems to be working fine. Not tried forcing the AA back on yet.

[Jimbuna]

SINK EM ALL!! http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[MILLANDSON]

Put the AA back on, and it seems to be working :)

In fact, I'm so happy it's working again, I decided I'd try my hand at a "Let's Play" :D http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=531380

Just hope it doesn't break again *crosses fingers*

[Arctic wolf]

Glad to hear it's all fixed now mate! :DL
Good Hunting! :up:

[K-61]

Way to go! It is a pity that too many players give up on this game because they encounter a few problems with the out of the box game. Just a couple of days ago on the Ubi forum a new guy came in, slandered the game and stomped out again. Haven't seen him back yet, in spite of posts from myself and others to assist him. Kids!:O:

[MILLANDSON]

This wasn't out of the box, this was a 6 month old install :O:

But yea, sometimes you just have to fiddle with a game to get it to work at it's best.