[REQ] Stability Mod - is that possible?

[OttoSchuhart]

Many problems of SH5 have been addressed so far by the enormous amount of mods created by this community but the one which is most important to me is still not solved: game stability.

Apparently, the game behaves differently on different computers as some people are blessed with a rather undisturbed gameplay while others experience crashes every little while. I have to count myself to the latter group and experience pretty severe crashes that force me to reboot my whole system at least 2-3 times per evening (when running the game with NO mods installed). I could tolerate all sorts of other bugs but these constant crashes prevent me from playing SH5 at all. Since my PC easily exceeds SH5s recommended specs and runs perfectely stable with all kinds of other games I have to blame SH5 for that.

I know that this kind of bugfixing/patching needs to be done by the developers themselfs so I normally wouldn't ask for this kind of support here. But since we all known that this is not going to happen and I believe that SH5s instability is one of its major drawbacks for a lot of people, I still do. So what do you guys think, would it be possible to patch the game to increase its stability with the currently available tools? Thanks in advance.

[Sartoris]

I'd be interested in this, SH5 is often very unstable on my PC. I wonder if it's possible to make a mod like that...

[sidslotm]

One of the issues I had is my ATI Radion HD 2600 pro card. Crashing SH5 was on going, continual and disturbing, heh.

I run on a Nvidia card now and all's well.

[OttoSchuhart]

I run an ATI Radeon HD5850 myself, so this could well be the source of the problem. If more people can confirm that SH5s instability is linked to ATI-cards we might have a starting point to deal with the problem (other than buying a new graphics card).

[Sartoris]

I'm on nvidia. I recently used the 4 gigs patch, but haven't played since then. Maybe that will help.

[TheDarkWraith]

nVidia 590 here with no problems :up:

[vlad29]

Nvidia GTX260 also works OK. The slightly 'hot' regime (71-83 C) is detected

[kylania]

Nvidia GTX260 also works OK. The slightly 'hot' regime (71-83 C) is detected

That seems really hot for a 260. Have you tried the antilag thing?

My GTX470 gets up around that hot as well and it scares me. Seems that's an OK temp for the card to run at though, but I dunno. I manually set my fan speed at 65% (Using EVGA's Precision software) since that keeps it right around 70C and I can just barely hear the game over the screeching of the fan...

Definitely getting liquid cooling on my next PC, today's games run these cards way too hot.

[sinclair]

GTX 260 No prob :up:

[Reece]

One thing I and others have mentioned a few times is to get all the bug fixes together and produce an unofficial patch, then build on this!:yep:

[uekel]

I run an ATI Radeon HD5850 myself, so this could well be the source of the problem. If more people can confirm that SH5s instability is linked to ATI-cards we might have a starting point to deal with the problem (other than buying a new graphics card).
Can I not confirm. I use the same (mobile version) and everything runs smooth.

[tonschk]

I have ASUS EAH5870 V2 running OK, only if I adjust the graphic settings to the top highest resolution there is a frame per second decrease

[vlad29]

That seems really hot for a 260. Have you tried the antilag thing?

My GTX470 gets up around that hot as well and it scares me. Seems that's an OK temp for the card to run at though, but I dunno. I manually set my fan speed at 65% (Using EVGA's Precision software) since that keeps it right around 70C and I can just barely hear the game over the screeching of the fan...

Definitely getting liquid cooling on my next PC, today's games run these cards way too hot.

The problem is in PC cooling scheme, its place in the apt., etc. I'm running with MSI UB, so if Antilag is used, the temperature parameter should not be displayed on the top of playscreen. I use manual-built MSI cooling graphic which is not too effective may be but comfortable and not annoing too much.

[Halface]

nVidia 590 here with no problems :up:


same here 590GTX no problems.....after mod soup fixing havent had a ctd since

aso working on SH3 very deppendable of the mods your running just my thinking

[GlobalExplorer]

I think it is possible but very hard to implement.

First one would need to create a barebones Silent Hunter that is able to start up with nothing. No campaigns, missions and objects, perhaps the players sub and an otherwise empty ocean. Of course there are limits to this, you cannot remove the entire file structure but it would help immensely to have this as a stable modding platform.

Second one would need a a tool that that snoops through all new files (mods) and checks for missing / dangling references. I believe that if we had such a tool from the beginning of Silent Hunter it would have helped mods / the general game immensely with rare but also very annoying CTDs and save game bugs. I am not saying such a tool can fix the problems but it would help the mods extremely if one could at least find the broken references.

But this is really not easy. A quick scan of the games folder reveals that SH5 is loaded with stuff from the previous games, and much of it may not be used or partially broken. It looks like the developers built a new game on top of another game, with many undesirable effects from the point of biew of software development.

On the other hand a lot of features might have creeped in and may not be used to the full, which individual mods will bring out in the future, and there might still be huge potential for cleaning and speeding up the whole platform.

All very theoretical since until today no one has attempted such a massive task. In the end everyone will probably stick to what we have now and live with the occasional crash to desktop.

[GlobalExplorer]

By the way, I have a ATI 4850 / 1Gb and I also had massive problems with both Silent Hunter 4 and 5 because my card was overheating (mostly black screens with sound loop). I had sound driver problems which cannot be blamed on the game either. So these problems are probably going to improve in the future once we all have better hardware.

[0rpheus]

Second one would need a a tool that that snoops through all new files (mods) and checks for missing / dangling references. I believe that if we had such a tool from the beginning of Silent Hunter it would have helped mods / the general game immensely with rare but also very annoying CTDs and save game bugs. I am not saying such a tool can fix the problems but it would help the mods extremely if one could at least find the broken references.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=187245

:D

(also included in New UIs with TDC)

[GlobalExplorer]

I understand this tool checks the file structure and hats off for TDW for making this available. But what I meant was a tool that parses through the individual files (cfgs etc) for reference and formatting problems. I have the feeling that most of the mods I used and also the vanilla game are not clean of dangling Ids and such, which cause the occasional CTD when the reference is used. This is quite a lot of work because there are hundreds if not thousands of different referencing structures and the tool needs to be programmed to handle them but it's not an infinite number, so it can be done in theory.

[TheDarkWraith]

I understand this tool checks the file structure and hats off for TDW for making this available. But what I meant was a tool that parses through the individual files (cfgs etc) for reference and formatting problems. I have the feeling that most of the mods I used and also the vanilla game are not clean of dangling Ids and such, which cause the occasional CTD when the reference is used. This is quite a lot of work because there are hundreds if not thousands of different referencing structures and the tool needs to be programmed to handle them but it's not an infinite number, so it can be done in theory.

Until the algorithm is figured out as to how the name of an item in the GR2 file is converted to an UInt64 (it's ID #) this can't even be started :yep:

[GlobalExplorer]

So far I understood - correct me if I'm wrong - that your JSGME mod validator checks the file structure. Which in itself is an enormously useful achievement.

But a lot more could be achieved by parsing through the cfg files and other text based formats. In the past I made have several parsers for SH3 and SH4, technically that is not difficult at all, and it's also quite fast. The problem would rather be to add all the logic to interpret the entries, which is a lot of work that I don't think I can do right now.

If you manage to add validation for the binary stuff that would be quite hardcore. But seeing what you already accomplished you can do it :salute:

[TheDarkWraith]

So far I understood - correct me if I'm wrong - that your JSGME mod validator checks the file structure. Which in itself is an enormously useful achievement.

But a lot more could be achieved by parsing through the cfg files and other text based formats. In the past I made have several parsers for SH3 and SH4, technically that is not difficult at all, and it's also quite fast. The problem would rather be to add all the logic to interpret the entries, which is a lot of work that I don't think I can do right now.

When I have time (and most importantly finished with the GR2 Editor/Viewer) I plan to go back and work on items that have 'more potential' in them. The SHValidator has plenty of room to grow :up:

[Oldgamer48]

My computer is more than capable of playing the game. Unfortunately, the built-in video wouldn't work it. A friend had an Nvidea 8400GS, and although the card is not SUPPOSED to play the game well, it seems to work almost perfectly. The only time I have a framerate hit is when I near port. Otherwise, I've never ... not once ... had a CTD.

Note that I'm using a lot of envrionmental mods, Steel Viking's interior mod, and so forth.

Once again, I know that the 8400GS is not supposed to properly run this game (theoretically, it begins with the 8800, and goes on from there). But the game works on my computer.

Handling an unofficial game patch would be an enormous undertaking, and EVERY computer is different. If someone wishes to do this, I will give them all the support I am capable of, but I believe that game stability is based upon the computer platform, for the most part.