Let me take you back to 2002:

Notice the similarities? :88)

ooookz

My two cents on this:

I am playing on an Fujitsu Siemens Amilo A1667G laptop
Specs:
Amd 64 4000+, 2,6 ghz
2 gb pc2700 ddr1 Ram
Ati X700 128mb dedicated
Hitachi 2,5" ATA 7.200 rpm
windows xp SP2

I do not use high video settings since i do not want to overstress the lap, but with the graphic settings set to medium-low I am able to run the game quite satisfactory..
While navigating at 1024x i get smth about 80-90fps (when viewing the map)
when on surface (TC 1-4x) with good weather i get near 25-40 fps and when bad weather is there (fog, rain waves) fps drops at 15-30.
Loading times of a new mission/saved one is about 25-35sec....
I do not believe that low fps at high TC would be a problem since i find it useless beeing on the bridge and having TC more than 4x (after alla you 're preparing an attack remember?) when navigating the map window is more than sufficient (at least for me)

In conclusion:
Since i am able to play on a 2 year old laptop without problems you shouldn't have any problems at all running the game in a medium cost desktop pc on sales today....

Would anyone like to recommend a good AGP graphics card,its going to be seconhand cause I'm going to upgrade to PCI-E in the distant future but it needs to be 512k,so far looked at a ATI Radeon 1950,NVIDIA GEforce 7600GT,Gainward 7800GSplus,7900GSplus SE.any ideas or recommendations or opinions greatly appreciated:hmm: :up: thank you.

Ive got an Nvidia 7600GT and It's a brilliant card - I can run SH4 with everything except full glare and the post prodution filters ,(I just dont like the look more than I can't run them),at 1280x1024 with a solid 30fps with my rig :up:
From what I read when I was researching for a new card the 7600GT is one of the best AGP card out , though you will need to buy a new PSU as well as it needs more power than the AGP port can supply.

I have a Core 2 Duo, 2Gb ram and a 8800GTS, and SH3 plays at 200+ fps with forced AA and AF. Dual core DOES benefit the game, since the other core will handle Windows-crap.

"Ok, first & foremost! DO NOT buy a PC just to play SH3/GWX at full settings. SH3 is nearly 3 years old. Get a PC that can play SH4 at full settings.;) Do not lumber yourself with a rig that is outdated/limited before you unpack it from the box."


i go with Danlisa; this will clear the way for you to play both - if you can afford it,

and delight in Silent Hunter's 3 + 4 entirity.....

GO FOR IT !!


(and abandon your life...sshhh; keep this bit to your self)

just before i snuggle down with teddy, go to www.systemrequirementslab.com

open scroll down box and click on silent hunter4. (you will have to allow it into your computer - takes a minute or so.) i did it too for sh4. gives you a reasonable analysis for what you've got and what you need.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4GHz Socket AM2 65W Process

1GB RAM

ATI Radion x1300 256 MB

Runs with GWX 1.03

In stormy weather the frame skipps once and a while.

Also when the rain stops on screen the rain sound keeps going.

The 1950 Pro is probably the best card you can get for an AGP system. :up:

Stierlitz,I'm leaning that way,are you running one and if so what drivers:hmm: any more ideas anyone:up:

Use 2 Gig of memory
 

When I run a free memory meter while playing stock SH3 it uses almost 1.5G. Running 2Gb of RAM should help with the stuttering. On my old computer eventhough I had to lower the clock on the memory when I added the 2nd Gig to stabilize the system, it ran smoother.

Not exactly. I had a 1950GT for my old AGP system and the card was very good (it's the 1950 Pro's dumbed down cousin).

I was running the 7.4 catalysts but this was a couple of months ago. AFAIK there are already the 7.11 out, so you might want to check them out.
I'm not a fan of ATI cards at all but I needed to beef up my old system and the 1950 series was the best choice.

Right now I'm back to Nvidia since those ATI drivers are just too much of a hassle for me.

If you're looking for a budget AGP solution, I'd go with the Geforce 6600GT. You can get this one off ebay.
For the best performance, you should get the 1950 Pro. If you want a NEW card with warranty on it, but don't want to spend truckloads of cash, get the Geforce 7600GT.

You need a AGP card just for running SH3? Keep in mind that SH3 does not take advantage of the newer sets of pixel shading techniques that GeForce 6 and 7 series GPUs provide. Therefore a Radeon 9800 Pro will be more than adequate for the game, it even provides support for the next generation pixel shaders that it's competitors, the GeForce 5 series GPUs do not (and it used to be the best card of it's time).

However, this choice also depends on the video resolution you want the game to run in. If you want to go up a notch over that, get a 6800 AGP card with 256mb RAM preferably to handle higher video resolutions and AA more effectively. I own one of these and it's really a beast because it used to run the heaviest games like GRAW and Blood Money very decently even though it's a 6 series card. Anything more than that for just SH3+GWX would be a waste of resources to be honest. The x1950 pro is a 7900 GT or even 7950 ultra caliber graphics card and if you do want to buy something that powerful, don't waste your money on a DirectX 9.0 GPU, get a DirectX 10 capable GPU and save another upgrade in the near future.

If I had to choose, I would go with the 6600GT all the way. Even though SH3 doesn't use PS 3.0, you still have the possibility to run other new games (although not the latest ones).

The 6800 is in fact a beast performance-wise, but it also is a beast when it comes to power consumption. Getting one of those means also swapping your PSU for a more powerful one.

As for getting a decent video card in order to only play SH3, yeah, that's not a wise choice. The 1950 Pro would surely be running at 30% of it's potential.

I think that the 6600GT is the best choice when it comes to playing older games. Oh, you may also want to check out the 7300GT (with DDR3 mems), which also offers a good bang for the buck.

Hi,

here's my 4 years old one. Last updated with new grafix and memory:

P4 3.02 GHz Hyperthreading
2 GB Dualchannel DDR1 400
ATI Radeon X850XT 256 MB AGP

I'm playing SH-3 GWX on 1280x1024. Only in harbour, it slows a little bit down.

Paco

rectangular box
green buttton
10 finger keyboard
some sort of rodent
beats me but sh3 works great............:lol: