improved sea-states and FPS at the same time

[CB..]

purely IMO re the sea-state of course but definite improvements regarding FPS (again on my system which does struggle with the wave effects in some weather conditions and times of day -reflections etc)

i was allways slightly put of by the way the big ships behaved even in calmer weather- some-how looking a little bit toyish as they handled the waves and crosswinds etc never quite managed to look like heavy cargo vessels plowing thru the sea-- not wanting to make the strom state even less "stormy" than it allready is i decided to reduce the height of the waves BUT increase the GAP between the waves-- this in effect doubles the height of the waves because it allows a proper trough to form inbetween the waves-- meaning even tho the wave height is less it actually both appears to be rougher-and is actually rougher with the ships and your sub vanishing between waves as you enter the trough

from the sub bridge you often find you are looking out at walls of water on both sides of the bridge as you enter the gap between the wave tops

anyhuw for me personally this feels much more convincing and seems to excagerate the differences between the different weather/sea-state conditions adding noticable variety to the weather that i certainly hadn't noticed before--

here's the altered entry in the sim.cfg

[Mech]
Waves amplitude=0.4 ;[0,1]
Waves attenuation=0.02 ;>=0


why better frames rates? because there are less white tops on screen fewer reflections for the graphics card to deal with meaning for me anyway that i can maintain smoother frame rates no matter what the weather time of day etc is in the game--(in the bridge/ external views)

i like it dunno if any one else will but as i say the big ships respond to the sea a little more convincingly for me like this looking like big ships sometimes riding the waves- sometimes crashing thru them and the entire sea state looks less "messy" and incoherent

[Marhkimov]

Hey, I'll try this later. :up:

Did you also know that there are wave state variables inside of scene.dat? I was changing stuff the other day with TT's new mini tweeker and I got the waves to do all sorts of funky things. You should check it out.

Once you load up scene.dat in the mini tweeker, there are some variables in the 'general environment data' tab and there are four other tabs labelled 'wave state' 1 through 4. Lots of interesting tweeks can be made.

There's also a 'seafoam' tab.

[CB..]

:up: cheers will have to take a look! :yep:

[Col7777]

Great!

I've just altered my sim file CB. :up:

I've not been playing SH3 for a while, I've been on Flight sim the last few weeks, I must get back to it.

[CB..]

let me know how you get on Col! :up:

[zombiewolf]

will this work if I am using subcommander? :hmm:
I need all the help I can get with this system of mine

[Marhkimov]

I tried it... Wow, it looks so much better than before. Nice find! :up:

[CB..]

cheers :yep: :up:

[timetraveller]

I was wondering when somebody would get to this. :)

I played some with it 3 or 4 months ago but got sidetracked with other stuff and never got back to it. Lots of room for wave improvement. I think the problem in SH3 is when the waves are at the highest they peak too much (the points are too sharp). The Big Waves Mod had some nice height to the waves but too peaky. Maybe somebody can improve the look somewhat.

Anyways, you salty dogs, have fun with it.

TT

[Hudsonhawk]

I tried it lastnight as well......It works GREAT!!!!! And is more "Realalistic" to me.....Thanks for the headsup! :up:

[CB..]

cheers guys :up:

[Schultzy]

Going to try it later on today CB. Sounds like you've come up with a winner though! :up:

[MLF]

Looks good, CB. Keep on delving! :)

MLF

[CB..]

will do :up:

[Sailor Steve]

I'll be trying it later myself. I'm a fan of the 'Big Waves' mod, but someone pointed out long ago that one of the problems was the length of the waves as much as the height. Longer troughs for the North Atlantic sounds like a good idea to me.

Can't wait to try it out.

[Lane]

Change my settings :D Have not checked the Sea's yet

Lane :D

[Nedlam]

Quick hijacking of the thread:

Where can I get TT's new mini tweeker? I think it's just what I need to make, ummmmm, a few little tweaks in the game. :)

[timetraveller]

Here ya go:

www.delraydepot.com/tt/sh3sdk.htm

TT

[panthercules]

Is there a way to make this change "stick" when using Sh3 Commander? I tried "rolling back" Sh3 Commander, then manually changing the [mech] part of the sim.cfg file as outlined in one of the posts above, but then when I started and played some of my current patrol with SH3 Commander and then quit out and checked the sim.cfg file again, it was back to the old settings :(

Do you have to do this while in port between missions, or is there some other secret to making the change stick?

[CB..]

Is there a way to make this change "stick" when using Sh3 Commander? I tried "rolling back" Sh3 Commander, then manually changing the [mech] part of the sim.cfg file as outlined in one of the posts above, but then when I started and played some of my current patrol with SH3 Commander and then quit out and checked the sim.cfg file again, it was back to the old settings :(

Do you have to do this while in port between missions, or is there some other secret to making the change stick?

you could right click on the sim.cfg select properties and select "read only"
after making the changes but then any future changes you made with commander wouldn't stick -- it may be that commander re writes the entire file when you make changes so on balance what you gained on the swings you'd lose on the round-abouts

[Redwine]

Thanks fot the improvement CB ..... :up:

[CB..]

:up:

[zombiewolf]

[it may be that commander re writes the entire file when you make changes so on balance what you gained on the swings you'd lose on the round-abouts[/quote]


Its been a long time since I lived in england where i went up a lot of apples and pears.

does this mean one cancels the other? :P
love the coloquisims(not even close to being spelled right)
:-j
certainly hope you take this post in the fun it is ment :arrgh!:

[Marhkimov]

SH3 commander doesn't rewrite the entire .sim file... It only changes the lost contact times, and that's it.

[panthercules]

well, maybe this will work - I searched my PC for every file with "sim.cfg" in the name, and changed these lines in every one of them - now maybe SH3 Commander won't be able to mess with it when it does whatever it does.

Good luck and good hunting!

[Nedlam]

Here ya go:

www.delraydepot.com/tt/sh3sdk.htm

TT

Thanks! Right from the horses mouth! (Not that I think your a horse...) :)

God help me but I'm going to install these programs and start messing around with the files...

EDIT: OKAY!! I'll admit it. I'm a chicken! I looked at the programs, thought about it and got scared. I'll just hope that someone, somehwere down the road makes the tweaks I was going to do. This wave tweak and the deck gun ammo tweak. :)

[HW3]

The wave tweek and deck gun ammo tweek can be done in Windows notepad, no special program needed.

[Jace11]

Nice tweek, i'm using it

Noticable change in u-boat behaviour too i think.

[CB..]

:up: cheers guys


yup zombie your right :up: :sunny:

[zombiewolf]

I like it too :up:

[Nedlam]

SH3 commander doesn't rewrite the entire .sim file... It only changes the lost contact times, and that's it.

I made the changes and ran SHIII without using Sub commander and immediately exited the game. The changes where still there when I checked.
I then started the game using Sub Commander and immediately exited the game. The changes I had made where gone.

Conclusion: Sub Commander does rewrite more that contact times in the sim.cfg folder.

I also made changes to the deck gun ammo quantities in the basic.cfg file and the same thing happened.

I poked around Sub Commander but do not quite understand how and where to make changes in that program to stop it from overwriting these values. JJones can you shed any light on this?

[Marhkimov]

SH3 commander doesn't rewrite the entire .sim file... It only changes the lost contact times, and that's it.

I made the changes and ran SHIII without using Sub commander and immediately exited the game. The changes where still there when I checked.
I then started the game using Sub Commander and immediately exited the game. The changes I had made where gone.

Conclusion: Sub Commander does rewrite more that contact times in the sim.cfg folder.

I also made changes to the deck gun ammo quantities in the basic.cfg file and the same thing happened.

I poked around Sub Commander but do not quite understand how and where to make changes in that program to stop it from overwriting these values. JJones can you shed any light on this?

I haven't tested any changes inside of sim.cfg, but I know that SH3Cmdr does not affect my basic.cfg. Meaning, any changes that I personally make in basic.cfg stays that way. SH3Cmdr doesn't mess with my changes.

For instance, my deckgun ammo is always the same, whether I run SH3Cmdr or not.

Well, we'll just have to get a real answer from Jaeson.

[Nedlam]

Interesting. Of course I'm kinda new at this tweaking files myself stuff so who knows. maybe I'm doing something wrong.

[Nedlam]

Just thought of something:

marhkimov, are you using Sub Commander and this wave mod (for lack of a better term) sticks?

[Marhkimov]

marhkimov, are you using Sub Commander and this wave mod (for lack of a better term) sticks?
Yes, I am using them together.



As CB suggested, I have made alterations to these blocks in sim.cfg:

[Mech]
Waves amplitude=0.4 ;[0,1]
Waves attenuation=0.02 ;>=0

And that's it. I left everything else untouched.



Go check this out for yourself. Look inside of SH3 Commander\Cfg\Miscellaneous.cfg. You'll see this:

[SIM.CFG]
;Section="AI Detection"; Key="Lost contact time"
;Value=minutes
LostContactTimeLower=20
LostContactTimeUpper=40


What this means is that SH3Cmdr is only responsible for changing those values in red. It is not possible for Commander to change any other values, unless there are more sim.cfg values somewhere. I have yet to find any more within SH3Cmdr.



The same principle should also apply to basic.cfg

[Nedlam]

Hehehe

I believe you. :) I looked at that file myself and was scratching my head. The only variable when I ran those 'tests' was Sub Commander. Actually the other variable is me. I'll be the first to admit I don't know much about tweaking these files. :doh:

Anywho,

This water looks excellent. I haven't been out in a rip-roaring storm yet but the waves look more natural than the store versions. Highest winds I've encountered thus far are 8m/s. Ummm, I'm assuming the higher the wind speed the bigger the waves right?

[Marhkimov]

Ummm, I'm assuming the higher the wind speed the bigger the waves right?

Yep, higher winds will give you bigger waves. Also if you want, you can use the Timetravellers tools to tweek the max wave height.

[Nedlam]

Yep, higher winds will give you bigger waves. Also if you want, you can use the Timetravellers tools to tweek the max wave height.

I might have to do that 'cause I'm not seeing these "walls of water" that I heard about. I Finally got the 15 m/s storm: Overcast, fog and rain (first time I've ever wished for bad weather while on patrol). The waves are actually smaller than without the mod?!?! I'll have to make sure the figures "Stuck" when I loaded the game.

Darn, I'm jealous of the rest of you right now!!! :stare:

[panthercules]

Is there a connection/interplay between making this tweak and using the the wave height setting inside SH3 Commander? I have been setting my waves at 1.25 in SH3 Commander and I've made this tweak, but so far I've only seen 0m/s wind and no waves so I can't really tell what's happening yet.

[edit] well, I finally saw some heavy seas, and I don't know if it's the combination of the wave height setting in SH3 Commander with this tweak or not, but I'm not getting good results with this tweak so far. At 7m/s things seemed almost flat/too calm, and at 15m/s it was just sort of choppy but nothing massive and not nearly as cool-looking as it was before. I guess I'll try re-setting the waves to normal in SH3 Commander and see if maybe that was messing up this tweak somehow.

[Marhkimov]

Is there a connection/interplay between making this tweak and using the the wave height setting inside SH3 Commander? I have been setting my waves at 1.25 in SH3 Commander and I've made this tweak, but so far I've only seen 0m/s wind and no waves so I can't really tell what's happening yet.

[edit] well, I finally saw some heavy seas, and I don't know if it's the combination of the wave height setting in SH3 Commander with this tweak or not, but I'm not getting good results with this tweak so far. At 7m/s things seemed almost flat/too calm, and at 15m/s it was just sort of choppy but nothing massive and not nearly as cool-looking as it was before. I guess I'll try re-setting the waves to normal in SH3 Commander and see if maybe that was messing up this tweak somehow.

You're not literally setting it for 1.25, are you?

The Max wave height should be at 320 if you want 1.25 waves.

[panthercules]

Is there a connection/interplay between making this tweak and using the the wave height setting inside SH3 Commander? I have been setting my waves at 1.25 in SH3 Commander and I've made this tweak, but so far I've only seen 0m/s wind and no waves so I can't really tell what's happening yet.

[edit] well, I finally saw some heavy seas, and I don't know if it's the combination of the wave height setting in SH3 Commander with this tweak or not, but I'm not getting good results with this tweak so far. At 7m/s things seemed almost flat/too calm, and at 15m/s it was just sort of choppy but nothing massive and not nearly as cool-looking as it was before. I guess I'll try re-setting the waves to normal in SH3 Commander and see if maybe that was messing up this tweak somehow.

You're not literally setting it for 1.25, are you?

The Max wave height should be at 320 if you want 1.25 waves.

I'm using the "gameplay settings" screen in SH3 Commander, which gives a drop-down choice of wave height = 1.25x, which I assumed means that the waves will be 25% higher than the stock game height. I'm going to try leaving this at 1.0x and see what happens

[edit] - well, maybe it's just me, but when I set SH3 Commander to "standard" 1.0x wave height I still got pretty poor results with this tweak - even at 15m/s winds, my boat just sort of skated along the top of the water, never really going down into the waves much at all - I removed this tweak and set waves back to 1.25x in SH3 Commander, and I get much better looking wave and boat action. I'm going to run one more test before giving up on this tweak though, as it did sound promising - I think I'll put the tweak back in and then set the wave height up to 1.5x or maybe higher in SH3 Commander and see what happens