Silent Hunter Series: Woeful, Brilliant or Both?

[scott_c2911]

This is going to be a long thread just to warn everyone. It started many years ago when I was a child with a Windows 95 PC and Silent Hunter 1. The game didn't work! I was extremely unhappy and I may have shed a few tears. This is the experience I was to have with all of the future releases of Silent Hunter but maybe without the tears and more profanities as I grew older. Silent Hunter 1 did eventually play on a Windows 98 PC that had a 64mb shared graphics capability and I must say I spent an unbelievable amount of time playing it. It was awesome! I was immediately hooked on the whole Submarine Simulator idea.
Then Silent Hunter 2 came along with its revolutionary graphics and new Windows ME PC. Guess what? It didn't work either. I wasn't that bothered this time as going to war against my own countrymen (I'm from the UK) did go against the grain a little.
While I was studying Marine Biology at university I spent my student loan on a Windows XP Laptop and bought Silent Hunter 3. I regretted that more. The money could have been better spent down the "boozer" but at least I had Silent Hunter 2 to fall back on. Silent Hunter 3 didn't work at all but Silent Hunter 2 did. The bugs made the game practically unplayable though!
Now several years on I have bought Silent Hunter 4 and Silent Hunter 5 (last week!) and wish I hadn't have bothered! I have spent thousands of pounds on PCs, Laptops, Graphics Cards and RAM and the only one out of the FIVE games that works is Silent Hunter 3 on an old Windows XP PC with far too much RAM hanging out of the Motherbaord and a fairly good Graphics Card in the PCI slot.
Why would I bother you may ask me? The small slices of the games I was able to sample between the Blue Screen of Death and the annoying Crash to Desktop errors was so brilliant that I believed time and time again that it was me that was causing the games to stop working by having inferior PCs, parts or software or by not having a degree in IT. I have spent the last 8 years or more trying to get Silent Hunter 3 to play at reasonable standard of stability. I have all the GWX mods, the V1.6 patch , the latest graphics drivers, the latest direct X and the bloody game still crashes. I custom built this PC I'm writing this post on to play it from the recommended specs on the box but it still crashes. BUT I STILL TRY TO PLAY IT because it is quite simply brilliant when it works!
I search through the forums trying to find a fix, I learn't how to edit .cfg files so the game is even more realistic. Everything I know about computing has come from this site and I have learnt it all to play one game. It still hasn't worked! I have no choice but to come to the conclusion that its the games that are at fault.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, UBISOFT can you make a game that actually works without any hard working third party modders having to repair it for you post release. You tease and you tease with your awesome graphics and immersive gameplay then CTD and its all over!:dead:
Microsoft can do it for pity's sake (Microsoft Flight Simulator Series) and they can't even build a stable OS since XP!
Does this sound like your experience with Silent Hunter? I'm willing to bet it is!

[Sailor Steve]

I can only answer that with my own experience. In 1986 I played Sid Maier's Silent Service on an Atari 520ST. I loved it, but then of course that has nothing to do with Silent Hunter. I bought my first Windows 95 PC in 1998, and quickly discovered the original Silent Hunter, which was then two years old. I had no complaints about the game or the way it played. I never had a crash. There were a couple of routines I didn't like, but they were minor. I quickly discovered Hawk's Silent Hunter Utilities, which didn't have to fix any game problems, but did change a couple of historical innacuracies.

Bottom line: I had no problems with it whatsoever.

SH2 was a huge disappointment for me because I was expecting SH1 with u-boats, and instead found myself playing a shooter-style game with levels that had to be completed. It also had a couple of annoying bugs that were resolved with the only patch they did. I still hated the gameplay until I found out I could play online. I got Destroyer Command and had a blast playing with other people trying to kill me.

I bought my current eight-year-old rig just so I could play SH3. I did and I had a great time. I had very few problems. I see you say you bought a laptop. While many people play the SH series on laptops, it does say right on the box that laptops are not supported. Maybe you should have read the fine print. I've had minor complaints about the way SH3 works, and there's a lot I would like to see different, but I've been playing it on the same machine since March 2005 and every frustration I've encountered has been my own fault, since I love all the different mods. My biggest complaint right now is that my old computer won't run the mods I really want, so I've been trying to get a new one for several years now.

SH4 had some bugs, and more importantly they didn't fix some of the leftovers from SH3. On the other hand SH4 has some new routines that should have made it better. The problem there was that SH3 was still new and nobody was interested. In some ways SH1 is still better, but I still play the 20-year-old Aces Of The Deep, so what do I know?

Yes, SH5 still has problems. On the other hand a great deal of work has been done on it and most of them are resolved. My complaint is less one of playability than one of style. I wish they had upgraded SH3 to SH5 standards. Actually I wish they had upgraded AOD to SH5 standards.

I still play SH3 and SH4 on my old machine. It won't run SH5. When I get one that does I'll probably still stick with the older versions because of that "style" thing. But my old computer runs all the older ones just fine. It's not the games.

[Rammstein0991]

I just wish SH5 had more than the type VII :stare:

[Herr-Berbunch]

Played 2 on a mate's laptop just fine, played 3 on a not-the-best XP desktop, and a half-decent Win7 desktop just fine, 4 & 5 on same Win7 just dandy.

Occasional mod-soup induced CTD, but if I don't fiddle around too much from current list it's stable.

You must be really unlucky!

[VONHARRIS]

I haven't played SH2 at all , but after a long timed efford I managed to create a stable SH3 + GWX + SH3C mod soup on a Win7 PC which I don't intend to mess around with.
I have given SH4 a chance but I didn't like it.

As HB said , your luck seems to be running out.
Hang in there......
If you manage to have a stable installation you will have lots of fun with SH3!

[scott_c2911]

Yeah I agree the laptop thing was a bit silly but why shouldn't a game work on it. It had enough spec to play flight simulator 2002. The game should have been made so that it was stable on a variety of machines. Microsoft built simulators that were able to be used on practically any computer available at the time although I hate singing Microsoft's praises. Silent hunter 3 was nearly a decade before its time that was the problem I believe. The spec it required to play stable was beyond my reach until now. I do have some positive news. I have managed several successful careers without any hangups post mods but I needed to vent some frustration about sh5 not working correctly straight out of the box as per usual. It will probably take another 10 years to get that running nicely. As for bad luck I am man of science and I believe I have covered every variable until Iwas forced to conclude its a deep seated fault with the stock release of the game

[BigWalleye]

Sorry to hear that you have had so many problems and challenges. All the Silent Hunter series I have played have been interesting games. Except for SH1, they all had problems in their stock form. But games cost $40-50 at release, and today you can get any of the SH series now for under $10. Microsoft Office costs a couple hundred, and the graphics software I use professionally costs $1000s. Games get rushed out the door, and are often released with a full complement of bugs. "Don't buy Version 1.0" is a good rule for any program.

I also started with Silent Hunter (SH1) on a tower, and loved it. BTW, I found it absolutely trouble-free. I never played SH2, because of a lack of interest in U-boats. (But see below....) I got SH4 hoping to recreate my wonderful gaming experience with SH1. I couldn't run it on my then-current laptop. A couple of years later, I got a gaming laptop. SH4 would run, but it required heavy modding before I would even bother to play it. And then the flavor, atmosphere, style (Thanks, Sailor Steve) just wasn't right. Saw a lot of posts about SH5. Bought it, tried it, and it ran, but oh! the modding it required to be playable. Found I didn't like the scripted feel at all. Soooo, I took a step backward (So I thought!) and tried SH3. There were a lot of limitations, but it had the same feel as old SH1. With all the heavy mod work that has been done, I found SH3 can be tailored to a really enjoyable and fairly high fidelity simulation game. And it runs just fine on what is now an obsolescent and very midrange gaming laptop. In fact, all three games - SH3, SH4, and SH5 - run fine on this machine, an Alienware (Hate that name!) M11X R3. I did have problems with SH3, problems which took weeks to identify and correct. But they were all of my own making, were due to fundamental mistakes I made (no deep technical issues), and were within my power to correct - permanently. I now play SH3 for days and weeks with never a problem.

Regarding your question about laptops: Laptop manufacturers often use custom versions of the standard chipsets, with minor technical changes and limitations. And they make changes without advertising the fact. While most laptops work fine with most programs, no publisher of a $40 game is going to hem himself in by claiming to be compatible with a dynamic environment he can't control. Stating on the box: "Comaptible with X" generates a legal liability which the game publishers don't want to assume.

If you look around these forums, you will see that there are a lot of people who play SH3, SH4, and SH5 successfully, on desktops and on laptops. The number of questions regarding gameplay and performance, compared to the number regarding hard-fail problems, tells me that a lot of people can make the games run just fine on their hardware. And the level of technical expertise is quite varied - there are plenty of options for those who would plug-and-play. And there is plenty of help and expertise available when you run into problems. Don't sell the games short. There's a lot of entertainment value here for the money.

Just personally, I'd urge you to give SH3 another look. Make a good clean reinstallation. Add GWX or NYGM, and color mods to taste. The combination got an old fleet boat skipper to enjoy being a Kaleun. You might like it, too.

[the dark knight]

I have never had a CTD issue playing on a laptop, however, I had the top of the line multimedia Vaio at the time, and am currently playing on an Alienware M17X with the hopped up Nvidia card. However, my run of the mill HP that is ment for things other than high end video work or gaming will not run Silent Hunter III at all because it does not meet the minimum requirements. The game is very demanding on the processor chips and video cards.

[jonmar]

Like others here I've never had any problems (other than the inevitable issues that arise when trying to run an old game on new technology) with the games. I've only played 3 and 4 though.

SH3 was never 10 years ahead of it's time. Can you list your PC specs because to me it sounds like your hardware is 10 years behind it's time. You said you used a laptop that ran MSFS 2002. No offense but that's ancient hardware and you shouldn't expect it to run even SH3. However any PC or gaming laptop built or bought after around 2007 should run SH3 smooth as a baby's butt.

The problem is definitely hardware related or you somehow mis-configure the games when you install them. I can't really think of anything else.

[scott_c2911]

I'm starting to wonder whether its just me then. You are probably right about the past PC specs not being quite right as it was a long time ago and I may have forgotten which game I've tried on which PC. The point is however that when u play an x box game it doesnt switch of the console randomly and give u alarming strange noises from the tower with a blue screen of death. Which is exactly what sh5 did to it 2 days ago despite getting green ticks across the board for compatibility and the game is fully patched to v1.2. If I could return it I would but they dont let us do that here with PC games. I'm just angry and fed up with ubisoft. Like I said the games are phenominal when they work but sometimes they just don't. I'm sticking with sh3 for now as its the one that's working tolerably well until my career becomes corrupted like it always does. I know you guys are defending the games and so u should as they are great but we shouldn't stand for shoddy rushed out the door sims anymore that need to be patched. By the fifth game I was hoping all that was behind them. It isn't and I'm not buying another ubisoft product again. Even their CSI games crash. How many potential subsimers bought them installed them found they didnt work and forgot about them. The products should not be on the shelf until they are proven to work. This sort of thing is what is killing the PC game industry. Consoles are booming, android and iPhone games are booming PC games are not doing well with a few exceptions such as WOW and and other online RPGs. Would you pay a subscription fee to play sh5? I doubt it.
The solution is to release a silent hunter game on the ps3 ps4 or the Xboxes They have keyboards and mice and high capacity hard drives so why not! Some of you guys made GWX 3.0 so why don't you make a subsim to end all subsims for the ps4 for example

[sublynx]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, UBISOFT can you make a game that actually works without any hard working third party modders having to repair it for you post release.

I feel much the same, however I only have experience of SH3. To your question: woeful, brilliant or both? Well, both for me. So brilliant that I have been learning a lot of IT skills to learn how to play this game in different operating systems even with all the problems of CTD's and Starforce problems back in the day.

I wish they had upgraded SH3 to SH5 standards. Actually I wish they had upgraded AOD to SH5 standards.

Right on the nail :rock: If Ubisoft was Dynamix I bet the whole SH series would have been absolutely great qualitywise. However the market for games does not help the Dynamixes of this world to survive. It's the Ubisofts and Microsofts that succeed - until along comes a company even worse than them.

But who am I who to blame Ubisoft. If they tried to release finished games they would probably be devoured by the competitors.

[Bilge_Rat]

might be a problem with your PC?

I have played them all from SH1 to SHO. Stock, fully patched, never had a problem running them on win 98, XP and now win 7 (SH4, SH5, SHO). When I did have a CTD, it was usually because of mod conflicts.

Have you checked to make sure your OS and drivers are up to date?

I was unable to run Fallout 3 on my Win 7 machine. It would refuse to start. After checking various forums, it turns out I was just missing a specific Win 7 update, now it runs perfectly.

[scott_c2911]

Yes I have mentioned that everything is up to date. I am a relatively new user of subsim but I have been viewing the advice pages for years I know that already. I appreciate all of your help but I'm giving up officially on sh5 and sh4. I'm not buying any more ram I'm not buying another GPU I've had enough. I have met and exceeded the spec in most cases and it damn near blew my electrics. Fsx works on ultra high settings with a good frame rate released 2008. Sh5 released 2010 and it nearly blew up my tower. I know stuff advances a long way in two years but surely there's something wrong there.
My PC
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz dual core
Nvidia GeForce 210 1Gb ddr3 v296.10 (latest driver)
2 x 1Gb PNY RAM (minimum I know)
Windows XP Home Edition v2002 Service Pack 3 32bit ( fully upgraded and updated)
Direct X v10.1
If that's not good enough it never will be because I'm not buying anything else to run these games.
Compatibility test all ticked green
SH5 v1.2 (after 2hrs of installation and another 1hr auto patching) absolutely ridiculous

[Jimbuna]

Have you cleaned the registry prior to installing?

[Bilge_Rat]

My PC
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz dual core
Nvidia GeForce 210 1Gb ddr3 v296.10 (latest driver)



Hey Scott,

there is your problem right there, your CPU and GPU dont meet the minimum requirement for SH5 which was CPU: C2D 4400/ GPU: NVIDIA 8800 GT.

The GeForce 210 was an entry-level card back even back in 2009.

[scott_c2911]

Why should I clean the registry most games consumers don't know what a registry is. People are not getting the point. An average consumer of video games expects to put a game into a machine that meets the required spec install it in around 30 mins and be playing it is that too much to ask for. I'm not an it tech and neither is the vast majority of the games market but since you kindly took the time to reply with something I haven't tried I will and I will get back to you thank you jimbuna

[scott_c2911]

Thank you bilgerat that is probably the problem the tech guy at PC world said it would be fine and the games diagnostic program says it would be fine. Like I say I'm not an IT guy and neither is 90 percent of the video games market. As far as I was aware with the info I had the spec of my PC was more than enough. Change is needed or the PC sim will die and I will miss them.
This is Lt Scott Cooksey. Last survivor of the PC games market. Signing off.
Thanks for all your help guys but I've had enough. I'm going to stick to my Xbox.

[BigWalleye]

Why should I clean the registry most games consumers don't know what a registry is.

Because Windows sometimes flubs the uninstall process and not everything uninstalls cleanly. If you are using SH3 with SH3 Commander, for example, there are links through the registry entries which let SH3 Commander work some of its magic. If those links are not cleaned up properly, you might encounter problems. The fault would be with Windows, not Silent Hunter, but it still would impact your game. Other programs, not all of them games, have the same issues.

All the SH products are complex programs. You can not compare them to Flight Sim, which provides a here-and-now environment without much complex AI interaction and with no past and future. SH has campaign layers, where historical events are simulated, a scripted environment which is much larger than the game horizon, AI which must react to the player's actions but not be so good as to overwhelm him, and the real-time simulation of the sub itself, including animations within the sub. The SH games are far more complex that an FPS. And still, the stock game - SH3 and SH4, not so much SH5 - plays OK right out of the box, without any fixes by the gamer. They are all A LOT BETTER with mods, but if you can not get them to work rock-stock, then you have done something wrong. Running SH5 in an environment which is inadequate will guarantee you a very unsatisfactory gaming experience. But that is hardly the fault of the game, or of its developers.

[Jimbuna]

Because Windows sometimes flubs the uninstall process and not everything uninstalls cleanly. If you are using SH3 with SH3 Commander, for example, there are links through the registry entries which let SH3 Commander work some of its magic. If those links are not cleaned up properly, you might encounter problems. The fault would be with Windows, not Silent Hunter, but it still would impact your game. Other programs, not all of them games, have the same issues.

All the SH products are complex programs. You can not compare them to Flight Sim, which provides a here-and-now environment without much complex AI interaction and with no past and future. SH has campaign layers, where historical events are simulated, a scripted environment which is much larger than the game horizon, AI which must react to the player's actions but not be so good as to overwhelm him, and the real-time simulation of the sub itself, including animations within the sub. The SH games are far more complex that an FPS. And still, the stock game - SH3 and SH4, not so much SH5 - plays OK right out of the box, without any fixes by the gamer. They are all A LOT BETTER with mods, but if you can not get them to work rock-stock, then you have done something wrong. Running SH5 in an environment which is inadequate will guarantee you a very unsatisfactory gaming experience. But that is hardly the fault of the game, or of its developers.

Why should I clean the registry most games consumers don't know what a registry is. People are not getting the point. An average consumer of video games expects to put a game into a machine that meets the required spec install it in around 30 mins and be playing it is that too much to ask for. I'm not an it tech and neither is the vast majority of the games market but since you kindly took the time to reply with something I haven't tried I will and I will get back to you thank you jimbuna

Already answered above...I'd suggest a free piece of software 'CCleaner'

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/132-ccleaner.html