Picture Freeze Bug

[ChrisPhoenix]

So i am currently at my seventh patrol and i am encountering a strange problem:

I am assignet to AN87 the grid that has dunkirk in it. So i decided to pay the port a visit. However everytime i get near the port and all the contacts pop up. When i leave the map to switch to periscope the "picture" freezes completely. However the game itself seems to run in the backround 'cause when i press any button, for ex. change speed, i hear the crew responding and the sound changes.

I had this near Wilhelmshaven too, when i ended my sixth patrol but though nothing of it. Reloaded, continued. Now however it happens everytime and i can't get near the port of dunkirk like this.

Anybody else has seen this before?

[propbeanie]

Do you have a 2nd little SH3 pop-up dialog asking if you want to create capture sequence? or some-such similar to that. Try using the Windows key, and see if you don't have another SH3 dialog box in the TaskBar besides the regular SH3 window. If you don't have one of those, try the <Alt><Tab> combo. During Windows XP days, those pop-ups always came to the front because of the order of call. In 'modern' versions of Windows, it depends upon the mode of the pop-up, so they often fall in behind the active window instead. :salute:

[ChrisPhoenix]

Thank you for your reply! Unfortunately this wasn't the solution. I play in windowed mode and there was no popup-window. However today i found out, that the game crashes completely when i get within 20 kilometers to the dunkirk port. So something seems to be just wrong there.
I'm giving up my attempt on raiding there now and hope to complete my patrol somewhere else. Maybe it is some new british defense technology. :hmmm:

[propbeanie]

One of the differences between SH3 and SH4 is the "dynamic loading", but still... Are you Saving the game to separate Save names for each save? Save file size can be an issue the further into a career you go. If you have a 64-bit computer with 4gig or more of RAM, do you have an LAA-type applet set on the SH3.exe file, to open more RAM for the game's use? There are several Large Address Aware applets around in the Downloads section here, as well as CapnScurvy's thread "Windows10; Large Address Aware; SH4 Install (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2452635#post2452635)" which while mentioning Windows 10 and Silent Hunter 4, at its base applies to SH3 and anything Vista or later also. You just have to change a few of the details. The h.sie-type add-ons also have an LAA utility usually on their menus. :salute:

[ChrisPhoenix]

Yes i do save the game every time with a different name. Is that wrong? I always thought overwriting save files would corrupt them. To be honest, i understood only half of what you said in your last post, but i have read something somewhere about a 4 gigabite patch that is available for SH3. Is that what you mean? I could try and install that with my next patrol.

As for the freezes: They have become more frequent and annoying with the patrol ongoing. However i found a little workaround by opening the taskmanager and playing around with minimizing and maximizing the picture. That way i can at least save my progress when the game starts doing weird stuff.

[propbeanie]

The method of Save of the game that you are utilizing is the correct method. It seems that you might have something in Windows, operating in the background, that is interfering with your SH3 game. When you open the Task Manager, do you see any other process that is using either a lot of the cpu cycles, or the "memory", which would include your Windows Swap file? :salute: