Thinking about buying SH4...

[Luno]

[original title] - Thinking about buying SH4...

...to go along with SH3. :D

Before I drop money on it, I want to know if it's possible to run previously used versions of the game. As I understand it, there is a CD key which must be activated, so I'm worried that there is a limit to the number of times it can be installed.

I've also heard rumors that SHIV uses a novel form of copy protection which creates game-breaking bugs like wildly inaccurate torpedoes, sudden loss of fuel, etc. {removed}

EDIT - updated. See below.

Well, it came in today, and I've been playing it for a few hours...

It's waaay better than SH3 out of the box. I can't believe I've waited so long to try it. Great sky, water, feel, quick loading times, new skills to master...and it runs as well as SH3 does. The patchy water color and 3-d wakes are gorgeous, and it's an interesting experience to handle such enourmous subs (compared to the Type IIc I'm used to).

It's still not perfect, and there are some things that are stumping me at the moment:

When damaged, there are some things which I can't seem to repair. I can move different modules around (ie, diesel engine 1, etc) but they don't seem to stick to my repair queue. I'm guessing full red bar means unrepairable? Even things with half-bar of damage can't be placed on the queue though...

Secondly, when I was stalking a convoy in the sub school, they reacted to me every time I approached. I came in at 1kt, silent periscope depth, and the scope wasn't even up the whole time. The merchant closest to me reacted at about 5km distance, and the destroyers were much further, it seemed.

After that, I was able to evade DC's by going under the thermal layer, and two destroyers eventually gave up. One was persistently searching, but not even close to me. I was silent the whole time. Suddenly one of the two that had already left turns around, comes to my exact positions, stops, and nails me perfectly....all hands lost. Seems odd behavior, but I could also chalk it up to noobness.

I'm slightly disappointed there aren't more plane types, and that they still have the same lawnmower sound. More ship classes would have been great as well. The controls could also be revised, and I've seen some nice GUI mods I should try.

[magic452]

Go to Amazon and get the SH4 Gold edition disk. That is V1.5 and the u boat missions add on. That's all you need.

No CD key needed and no copy protection.

Use the link at the top of this page and Subsim gets a small cut.
Magic

[Sailor Steve]

Magic's advice is very good - the Gold version bypasses everything.

Will running a no-CD hack activate this protection?
Just a reminder, though: Subsim has a very strict police regarding hacks of any kind. We don't discuss them here, period. We don't advertise them, we don't ask for them, and we don't ask about them.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_rules2_faq_item

[Red October1984]

Get the SH4 Gold edition. It's worth it.

TMO, RSRDC, and Traveller's Mod is the best.

[Redmane]

Yes the link at the top of the page will take you to Amazon, to a page where SH4 is offered for sale, but dont download the first and largest item you see there, that isn't the SH4 Gold edition. Scroll down a bit lower on the page and you will see a link/button/whatever that will take you to the Gold edition purchase page.

[Father Goose]

Go to Amazon and get the SH4 Gold edition disk. That is V1.5 and the u boat missions add on. That's all you need.

No CD key needed and no copy protection.

Use the link at the top of this page and Subsim gets a small cut.
Magic

:agree:

[Luno]

Sorry guys! I will keep my lip shut about certain things in the future. :D

I was indeed planning to buy SH4 Gold, but I was mainly concerned if "used" copies were still kosher.

Rather, I can buy SH4 Gold as a digital download from Amazon for $20, or I could get a used, but tangible, disk for $5. I did click on the subsim link at the top of this page here to start, so subsim should get a cut either way.

[Sailor Steve]

Yes, the used disc is fine. As Magic pointed out, copy protection and CD requirements were removed from the Gold 1.5 version. Just make sure it's Gold, and if it's five bucks then you're good to go. :sunny:

[Luno]

Thanks!

[Luno]

Well, it came in today, and I've been playing it for a few hours...

It's waaay better than SH3 out of the box. I can't believe I've waited so long to try it. Great sky, water, feel, quick loading times, new skills to master...and it runs as well as SH3 does. The patchy water color and 3-d wakes are gorgeous, and it's an interesting experience to handle such enourmous subs (compared to the Type IIc I'm used to).

It's still not perfect, and there are some things that are stumping me at the moment:

When damaged, there are some things which I can't seem to repair. I can move different modules around (ie, diesel engine 1, etc) but they don't seem to stick to my repair queue. I'm guessing full red bar means unrepairable? Even things with half-bar of damage can't be placed on the queue though...

Secondly, when I was stalking a convoy in the sub school, they reacted to me every time I approached. I came in at 1kt, silent periscope depth, and the scope wasn't even up the whole time. The merchant closest to me reacted at about 5km distance, and the destroyers were much further, it seemed.

After that, I was able to evade DC's by going under the thermal layer, and two destroyers eventually gave up. One was persistently searching, but not even close to me. I was silent the whole time. Suddenly one of the two that had already left turns around, comes to my exact positions, stops, and nails me perfectly....all hands lost. Seems odd behavior, but I could also chalk it up to noobness.

I'm slightly disappointed there aren't more plane types, and that they still have the same lawnmower sound. More ship classes would have been great as well. The controls could also be revised, and I've seen some nice GUI mods I should try.

[Red October1984]

Well, it came in today, and I've been playing it for a few hours...

It's waaay better than SH3 out of the box. I can't believe I've waited so long to try it. Great sky, water, feel, quick loading times, new skills to master...and it runs as well as SH3 does. The patchy water color and 3-d wakes are gorgeous, and it's an interesting experience to handle such enourmous subs (compared to the Type IIc I'm used to).

It's still not perfect, and there are some things that are stumping me at the moment:

When damaged, there are some things which I can't seem to repair. I can move different modules around (ie, diesel engine 1, etc) but they don't seem to stick to my repair queue. I'm guessing full red bar means unrepairable? Even things with half-bar of damage can't be placed on the queue though...

Secondly, when I was stalking a convoy in the sub school, they reacted to me every time I approached. I came in at 1kt, silent periscope depth, and the scope wasn't even up the whole time. The merchant closest to me reacted at about 5km distance, and the destroyers were much further, it seemed.

After that, I was able to evade DC's by going under the thermal layer, and two destroyers eventually gave up. One was persistently searching, but not even close to me. I was silent the whole time. Suddenly one of the two that had already left turns around, comes to my exact positions, stops, and nails me perfectly....all hands lost. Seems odd behavior, but I could also chalk it up to noobness.

I'm slightly disappointed there aren't more plane types, and that they still have the same lawnmower sound. More ship classes would have been great as well. The controls could also be revised, and I've seen some nice GUI mods I should try.


I know what will fix you right up. Trigger Maru Overhauled v2.5, Run Silent Run Deep Campaign Mod, and Traveller's Mod.

The game is terrible out of the box. Once you add mods, you'll never go back to SH3. :cool:

[Redmane]

:agree:

[Sailor Steve]

It's waaay better than SH3 out of the box.
:rotfl2:

Not laughing at you, but at the different responses the game gets. A lot of players pointed out that it's buggier than SH3, forgetting just how many complaints SH3 got. Some prefer the do-it-yourself crew management in SH3, though most of us welcomed the realistic SH4 style of rotating watch bills. SH4 fixes several things that were wrong in SH3, but it also breaks a couple of things it shouldn't have. Overall I find SH4's procedures to be much more believable than those in SH3, and if GWX4 had been finished I might have stopped playing SH3 altogether. Unfortunately the u-boat side of SH4 is still unfinished, despite Lurker's marvelous Operation Monsun, which while great is also unfinished to my mind.

Secondly, when I was stalking a convoy in the sub school, they reacted to me every time I approached. I came in at 1kt, silent periscope depth, and the scope wasn't even up the whole time. The merchant closest to me reacted at about 5km distance, and the destroyers were much further, it seemed.
I think that has been fixed by the major supermods, but it's been awhile and memory may be failing me. One of the things I noticed in SH3 is the tendency of destroyers to act like they know where you are even when they don't. They'll look for you on the side you attacked from, which is good, but if you silently sneak to the other side they'll gravitate to your general area, even if they didn't hear you or ping you. It's like they just know where to look, even if they can't find you. I haven't played enough SH4 to know if that happens or not in that game.

After that, I was able to evade DC's by going under the thermal layer, and two destroyers eventually gave up. One was persistently searching, but not even close to me. I was silent the whole time. Suddenly one of the two that had already left turns around, comes to my exact positions, stops, and nails me perfectly....all hands lost. Seems odd behavior, but I could also chalk it up to noobness.
It could have been an elite DD, but it still seems weird to me.

I'm slightly disappointed there aren't more plane types, and that they still have the same lawnmower sound. More ship classes would have been great as well. The controls could also be revised, and I've seen some nice GUI mods I should try.
There is a mod with very realistic aircraft engines, made for SH3. The .wav sound files are the same in all the games, so it will work in SH4 without problems. I'll see it it's already available at Subsim Downloads, and if not I'll put it up myself.

[Luno]

Yeah, it's too bad this game didn't get the love and attention SH3 did.

One of the things I noticed in SH3 is the tendency of destroyers to act like they know where you are even when they don't. They'll look for you on the side you attacked from, which is good, but if you silently sneak to the other side they'll gravitate to your general area, even if they didn't hear you or ping you. It's like they just know where to look, even if they can't find you. I haven't played enough SH4 to know if that happens or not in that game.


It certainly could be happening.

I'm playing with RFB for now, but I'll also try TMO (it has the advantage of having more compatibilities).

It's nice to see a proper type IX in this game. In SH3, the stock turm looks like a kiddie playground piece. :) But on the other hand, one more gripe is the translucent crew :hmmm:

[BrucePartington]

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=128517

Read the whole thread through. You may need to decide what is the right choice for you. We all have different machines and OS's. nHancer worked for me, although with slightly different settings than those posted. One just has to try different setings until satisfied. No more "jelly fish crew", and now I can even tell they haven't shaved in the last 24hrs.

(...) :) But on the other hand, one more gripe is the translucent crew :hmmm:

[Luno]

Thanks for pointing it out to me. I'll have to fiddle around a bit, because I seem to still get the transparency issue. What settings worked for you personally?

EDIT - Enhancer doesn't appear to be working properly for me. Can anyone point me towards a link of the previous version? It looks like their website is down.

EDIT II - To clarify, I'm getting an error that "Nvapi reported no attached nVidia displays in the system".

Grr.....

[BrucePartington]

Transparency AA - 2x supersampling, everything else is as originally posted by Rubini.
I tried higher values but they were still translucent.

You may want to make sure you have the right drivers for your graphics card. If you have problems there, nothing else will work properly.
And remember that at one point in that thread, someone pointed out that nHancer did not work for all Nvidia cards, so he used Nvidia inspector instead (this is why I sugested you read the whole thread through, not just the first post ;) ).

If you suspect of corrupted drivers/files, a sure fire method is to go to Device Manager, select the graphics card, and opt to remove the drivers. Not to worry, Windows will use generic drivers to allow you to continue working.
Reboot, and do a fresh install of the updated graphic card drivers. Usually works wonders if you have problems there.
Only one time it didn't for me. I had to install the original drivers from the CD, and then update to latest drivers.

Thanks for pointing it out to me. I'll have to fiddle around a bit, because I seem to still get the transparency issue. What settings worked for you personally?

EDIT - Enhancer doesn't appear to be working properly for me. Can anyone point me towards a link of the previous version? It looks like their website is down.

EDIT II - To clarify, I'm getting an error that "Nvapi reported no attached nVidia displays in the system".

Grr.....

[Luno]

I went through the whole thing - found the part about nVidia inspector...then I couldn't find it again. :oops:

Updating drivers now...will report.

EDIT - well, nothing has changed. I will continue tweaking. Too bad I have to choose between pretty water colors and solid crew.

[BigWalleye]

There is a fix for the transparent crew which does not involve drivers or GPU settings. Simply go to Graphics Options and uncheck Volumetric Fog. Worked for me.