SH5 on an old system-advice on mods please

[Foxendown]

I've just got SH5 and after SH4 and SHIII it's a bit of a culture shock. :-), I'm running it on hardware listed below (new build planned for about 12 months' time).

Core 2 Duo 8400, Radeon HD4890 1Gb, 4 Gb DDR2 RAM (only about 3.6 Gb usable of course), OS Win XP Professional SP3 32 bit

This has been a great system for SH4 and vanilla SH5 (patched to 1.2) runs fine, though I haven't been into any busy harbours yet, just heading for Kiel after finishing the tutorial.

As someone who once so overloaded SH3 with mods it wouldn't even load, I've learned my lesson. The beginner's list of mods looks fine for me, but I want to avoid any that are likely to make the system fall over (I hate random CTDs, don't we all). So I'm guessing I should steer clear of the environment and FX mods (not sure which if any others are likely to be memory-hogs, though Open Horizons II looks like a heavyweight). If I remember rightly it's the lack of address space that creates the problems rather than memory per se, but it would be really helpful if someone who knows more than I do could comment (or if I could hear from someone who has got a nicely working set of mods on a system that's the same sort of vintage as mine.

As always I am amazed by and very grateful for the creativity and skill of the modders.

[gap]

I've just got SH5 and after SH4 and SHIII it's a bit of a culture shock. :-), I'm running it on hardware listed below (new build planned for about 12 months' time).

Core 2 Duo 8400, Radeon HD4890 1Gb, 4 Gb DDR2 RAM (only about 3.6 Gb usable of course), OS Win XP Professional SP3 32 bit

This has been a great system for SH4 and vanilla SH5 (patched to 1.2) runs fine, though I haven't been into any busy harbours yet, just heading for Kiel after finishing the tutorial.

As someone who once so overloaded SH3 with mods it wouldn't even load, I've learned my lesson. The beginner's list of mods looks fine for me, but I want to avoid any that are likely to make the system fall over (I hate random CTDs, don't we all). So I'm guessing I should steer clear of the environment and FX mods (not sure which if any others are likely to be memory-hogs, though Open Horizons II looks like a heavyweight). If I remember rightly it's the lack of address space that creates the problems rather than memory per se, but it would be really helpful if someone who knows more than I do could comment (or if I could hear from someone who has got a nicely working set of mods on a system that's the same sort of vintage as mine.

As always I am amazed by and very grateful for the creativity and skill of the modders.




Open Horizons II Base (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=3338) or at least Open Horizons II Light (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=3425) should be Ok for your system :up:

[Webster]

if you havent already done it you need to do the 3gb ram patch so you can use all of your systems ram

also keep your settings in the mid range and there are other tricks to use like turning off anti-aliasing

[Foxendown]

Many thanks for the help. :) Regarding the 3 Gb patch, I did have that on my PC when I had a mod-heavy SHIII, but it made my system unstable. So I would prefer to go easy on the mods for now until I get my new system. In vanilla SH5 I'm getting around 40 fps in the tutorial which isn't bad I suppose especially as I am using some antialising and quite high graphics settings (for the time being anyway).

Now I'm back in port, I was going to try the balanced mod list, minus the environment and fx mods and including Open Horizons II Base. I'll post with details of how I get on just in case someone else with an older system like mine finds that helpful.

[THE_MASK]

Use the shadow slider on halfway on the slider in game graphics options .
Use multi sample AA for the AA mode in the catalyst control centre for your graphics card .

[Foxendown]

Thanks, don't seem to have that setting on the CCC but never mind it's all running well with a fairly minimalist list of mods and I'm still getting FPS in the 40 range.

I got everything in the balanced mod list working easily (except FX, dynamic environment and OHII). The first two I didn't even try but the last one stopped SH5 loading at all. A bit of a disappointment I admit because Kiel looks pretty empty, but as I mentioned earlier in this thread I can't get the 3Gb patch working without system instability, so I will live with the lite version of OHII until I can get my new PC.

I have 2x AA (set in the program) and 4x AF set from the Catalyst Control Panel and the sim looks great and runs smoothly. So if you have an old PC and are wondering about SH5, it can be done!

Just to go OT for a moment my main headaches have actually been with Uplay which lost a save game, setting me back 30 minutes and constantly crashed my browser until I spotted and disabled the plugins it had installed, apparently without my consent. I'm not too happy with the videos I've seen either, they seem very unrealistic-I don't believe that so little deference was shown to officers in the German Navy during this period! Sorry just letting off steam-thanks for the help and thanks to the modders for the great work.

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Windows XP Professional SP3 32 bit, Core 2 Duo E8400 (Wolfdale), 4 Gb DDR2 (3.6 Gb useable), AMD Radeon 4890 1 Gb