game pause/graphics issue on Win 8

[seehorse]

Hi there good folks. I'm new to this forum. Trying to run SH3 on my laptop. I have Windows 8. I've installed to a different folder (not default) and I'm running as an administrator in compatibility mode.
The game starts fine but when I try to play an actual scenario, that's where the issue occurs. The Game starts PAUSED and I can't take it off Paused. I also can't hear any sounds at that point and the main body of the screen is dark. I can see the icons at the bottom and sides but nothing happens if I click the icons. Tried every key stroke imaginable!
Can't figure out if this is a graphics issue or a windows 8 issue or what. I saw someone else post with the exact same issue but they fixed it by upgrading to SH5!
I have the download version of the game rather than the DVD version and it's on the latest patch.
I've tried running on 1024/768 resolution
I've tried uninstall and reinstall of the game
I've tried running as administrator
I've tried compatibility mode as WinXP SP3

The reason I went with SH3 was it was cheap and I figured it would run on my old laptop which isn't all that modern - Graphics card is NVIDIA 9400M (256MB). I really wanted to find a sim game that my laptop could handle!

would appreciate some advice on this

[seehorse]

And I've tried to access the museum section but can't see any of the boats. So to appears to be down to a graphics problem of some kind.

[Mittelwaechter]

Welcome aboard, seehorse.

Win 8 on an old laptop? What laptop - and your system specs please.

[seehorse]

Cheers!

Intel duo CPU 2.26GHz
8GB RAM
Nvidia Geforce 9400M graphics card
windows 8

and I have SH4 running just fine!

[Mittelwaechter]

Check your time compression settings in MyDocuments ...\SH3\data\cfg\main.cfg.
Open with notepad and ensure RealTime=1

Do you use the SH3 Commander?



8Gb RAM? So I assume you have Win8 64bit?

Do you have a 64 bit driver for your graphics card?
http://www.nvidia.de/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

[ReallyDedPoet]

Welcome seehorse :up:

[Jimbuna]

Your laptop specs are more than sufficient to play the sim and the supermod...I suspect a corrupt file or a faulty installation so would suggest you download the files again and reinstall.

Welcome Aboard :salute:

[seehorse]

Thanks guys. yes it's a strange mystery. I'll maybe try downloading the software again and trying a fresh install.

[Pisces]

Also, you have made no mention of applied mods. Did you use any? Or is this supposed to be a clean install of the game.

[scott_c2911]

Ive managed to rescue a career the other day by simply copying the main.cfg file from a backup career into your career found in my documents. Ive had similar problems and did some poking around. The main.cfg file was changed and on opening it it read 000000000 for a single line. It should have your game settings etc in it but they had gone. Repaired the career by copying the one found in the backup folder. This might help you too. A copy of main.cfg is also found in the cfg folder where the main game files are kept just in case you havent started a career yet.