Silent Hunter 3 vs. Nvidia Optimus

[Tonga]

Hey my fellow Captains and Kaleus,

first of all, I'd like to thank Fish and jimbuna again for their kind help with their mod suggestions for SH3. You guys have been a great help! :up:

My post is mainly aimed at those of you who have a laptop at hand which uses the NVIDIA Optimus technology. I myself have a Lenovo Z570 which has an Intel i7-2630QM together with an Nvidia GeForce GT 540M, 4GB RAM etc. Optimus basically uses the integrated Intel GPU to save energy and - when needed - activates the more powerful Nvidia GPU to do all the graphics stuff.
This works well for SH4 and SH5, but for some odd reason the system doesn't recognize SH3, which results in SH3 being executed via the Intel GPU, without any Antialiasing.

There are many threads on the internet where people recommend to change the Nvidia driver settings so that the Nvidia GPU is always used as the preferred GPU, and if that doesn't help, to start the application via right click and the option "execute with graphics processor" (and then to choose the Nvidia). This is meant to function as an override, so that the Nvidia GPU is forced - but not for SH3 as it seems. The Nvidia GPU remains idle or even off, no luck.

Has anyone of you ever come across this problem and knows how to fix it?
How do I make Optimus recognise SH3 in order to force the system to switch over to the Nvidia GPU?

Any help is much appreciated!

The Hess


NB: Almost forgot to mention - SH3 Vanilla isn't recognised as well as with GWX or LSH installed. Any resolution changing stuff like widescreen mods or the HighRes fix is deactivated.

NB #2: Also tried to use nHancer, but it fails to start up because it doesn't find the Nvidia GPU (turned off by Optimus). nVidia Inspector works, however I am probably not experienced enough to find the right switch in there (if it even exists) to switch to Nvidia permanently.

[Hans Uberman]

I seem to recall hearing that you could set the nvidia chip to always on in the BIOS with some computers. (Menu accessed at bootup.) Failing more useful solutions, you could always try turning that on, and then turn it off when you're not in a SH3 mood for the extra battery life.

[Tonga]

Cheers mate, thanks a lot for your answer!
After your post I looked into it - but no luck as it seems. My BIOS has indeed an option to choose the graphics mode. Unfortunately it only gives me "Optimus" and "UMA only" as options. According to the description in the menu, "UMA only" basically means "Intel only". So this option would turn the Nvidia GPU permanently off, while "Optimus" at least keeps it available... :/

[Fish In The Water]

first of all, I'd like to thank Fish and jimbuna again for their kind help with their mod suggestions for SH3. You guys have been a great help! :up:

Very kind of you to say and you're most welcome. :yep:

Wish I could be of more help with the graphics issue, but I suspect it may be limited. I use nHancer on my other rig otherwise I get just the sun halo or AA but not both. Haven't tried Inspector although there are folks around here who are familiar with it and they could probably suggest a switch or two. Good luck and I hope you get some answers soon. :sunny:

[flakmonkey]

Hmm, i have a fairly similar system to yourself, core i5, 8gb ram and an nvidia gt540m with optimus (intel 3000 series)

I cant say ive experienced the same issue, sh3 was shown on the installed programs list and did auto select the nvidia gpu by default, im using the 285.62 drivers.

Have you tried manually adding sh3.exe and creating a profile for it? Under the game profiles you should be able to click on add and manually navigate to sh3s location.

[Tonga]

Hi flakmonkey,

setting up a profile was one of the first things I did. Usually this works well, however not in this case, even with the same driver version as you have.

BUT:

Instead of finding a direct solution, I have at least found the problem's cause - by accident, so to speak. Some days ago I installed GTR2 again, a racing simulation, and all worked well - game was recognised even without setting up a profile first. Then I copied some files into the game directory to use the modified d3d9.dll of ENBseries (to improve visual quality and effects).
After starting GTR2 with this modified d3d9.dll it wasn't recognised by Nvidia Optimus anymore and the Intel HD Graphics were used instead. Without this dll, everything was fine again.

This made me think, and therefore I checked in SH3 again and found out that for some odd reason, JSGME had not deleted the d3d9.dll from my MaGui Widescreen mod properly from the game folder. A manual delete solved the problem, but at the same time left me with the usual 4:3 ratio instead of 16:9.

For SH3 this basically means that every mod that adds widescreen capability and/or resolutions differing from the programme's native resolution will cause Nvidia Optimus to select the Intel GPU. This probably happens because Optimus fails to read the DirectX-Version from the d3d9.dll correctly and therefore does not include the Nvidia GPU. At least that is what I'm guessing from the driver's behaviour.

So, the solution will probably be to wait for the new 29x drivers, hoping that Nvidia might have caught up on that problem...

[madkiwi]

Sorry I have to raise this thread from the dead, but wondering if Kpt Hess was able to get the Optimus technolgy to work again for SH3.

I have the same problem, I am running Nvidia 306.97 (latest release) drivers on my Acer 4830TG with Intel 3000 HD integrated graphics and the Nvidia GT 540M gpu. It will not run on the Nvidi gpu no matter what I do.

I used Nvidia control panel to set the Nvidia processor as the preferred processor for Silent Hunter III, it still does not use it.

The game will run on the Intel graphics, and I have very good framerates, but colors get wonky and there are some weird artifacts onscreen.

I am using the widescreen_GWX3.0 mod.