Heheh, your fix for the smoke's been my fix for it all along. :)

In fact, I've told others the very same thing in other threads here. I've also fixed the 'sun glare' problem by running the game at 1280x1024 using the Resolution fix for WinXP with SP2. Nice payoff on that one, since not only do I get better resolution, but no sun glare problems. Sure wish there was a more permanant fix for the smoke problem though. The alt-tab trick doesn't always last all that long. :(

btw, fix works fine for me using 77.72 drivers. And, like you, my next card's gonna be an ATI...(though I've found one (only one!) person here with an ATI that says they have the white smoke issue, too...odd that).

I'm using 77.56 for my FX5900XT and am having no problems with SH3 at all :)

I tried the 66.93 drivers. Had black smoke for a little while. Even when looking at the sun. But shortly afterwards, the white smoke was back. I tried alt-tabbing out and back again, but still white smoke. But it no longer matters. Finally upgraded to a new computer over the weekend (from P3-800mhz to P4-2.8ghz), and I'm getting an ATI X800 for it. Problem solved...

I have an FX5700 Nvidia Graphic Card and have no Problems with the 71.89 driver.

Has there been any word on if Nvidia cards will ever be able to use AA and get the sunglare in SH3?

Are you contesting my rightful ownership of the Nvidia White Smoke Fix? :arrgh!:

Not hardly. Maybe partners, though. ;)

leadtek GT6600 running 77.76 drivers and i'm getting texture discolour eg in the command room the overhead pipes are sort of rainbow colour. if i was on some kinda mind altering substance i might find this funny but i'm not and i don't. strange that SH3 is the only game i have probs with oh well :doh:

Did this "fix" the sun glare problem because you are OK with turning off the AA since you're running at that higher resolution, or did this fix the problem so you can get the sun glare effect while running at the higher resolution with AA still turned on?

I've been shying away from the high-res fix because the documentation for my projector made it sound like it wouldn't be able to handle a signal imput using those high resolutions (and I just love plowing through the North Atlantic on my 100" diagonal wall/screen), but I just decided to actually try it and so far it seems to be projecting my 1280x960 desktop just fine, so I may go ahead and give this mod/fix a try - I'm not getting the white smoke problem with my 6800GT, but I sure would like to see the sun glare without all the jaggies it costs me at 1024x768.

[EDIT] - also remembered that I wasn't able to use the previous high-res fix because I was already using SP2 and it was only designed to work with SP1 - I see that there is now a fix for SP2 available, but its documentation is not clear (to me) as to whether you need to also install the previous SP1 part of the fix before you install the SP2 fix or if you just use the SP2 part (I think the former, but would like confirmation from someone who knows before I screw around with it) - anybody know for sure?

It fixed it at 1280x1024 with 4xaa and 8xaf. Oddly, though someone else said it worked for them staying at 1024x768, that didn't work for me. So I run it at 1280x1024 with AA and AF as stated above, and I have no more sun glare problems.

As for installing it: I agree, the wiki is a little bit unclear about this, but yes, you need to grab the fix files and put them into your SilentHunterIII folder first. Then do exactly as the Wiki says. As long as the files from that zip file are in the game folder, and you have followed the XP SP2 directions to the letter, you should be up and running immediately.

Let me know how it goes, good luck. :)

:nope: No luck - I unzipped the two files from the original SP1 fix (d3d9.cfg and d3d9.dll) and the 3 files from the new SP2 fix (SHIII.sdb and the 2 .bat files) into my SH3 game install folder (...\Ubisoft\SilenthunterIII ), and ran the SB2 Res fix.bat file

All seemed to go OK, but I get CTD errors every time I try to run SH3, either starting with my desktop at my target res of 1280x960 (I changed the res settings in the d3d9.cfg file to 1280x960 as the documentation instructed) or starting with my desktop back at its usual 1024x768.


Any ideas why this isn't working or how to fix it? Am I supposed to leave the files from the first fix inside their zip file and let the new SP2 bat file get them out of the zip file?

Hmm, not sure what these other files are you mention, so I'll tell you what I did:

Firstly, to be sure we're on the same page, this link is to the fix that worked for me:

http://www.communitymanuals.com/shii...lay_Resolution

I put the two files for the fix in, as you've done. I did not put any other files in, nor should you.

Follow the link in the Wiki (that I linked above) to download the latest version of the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit, install it, then follow the instructions in the Wiki for setting up the Toolkit to work with SH3's res fix.

That should be all you need to do. If you put other files in, remove them first, I have no idea what the files are.

Interesting - just for grins, I sent an email to the contact address listed in the readme file to ask the maker of the fix what was going wrong. As it turns out, he/she got right back to me with a quick response and said that I had done the right steps as I outlined above, BUT that there were actually TWO versions of the SP2 fix out there - one for patch 1.3 and one for patch 1.4b - and that the CTDs were probably being caused by using the wrong version.

He/she included a link to the 1.4b version (I did have the older 1.3 version before, as it turned out - it wasn't labeled as such but the newer one he/she pointed me to actually had 1.4b in its file name), and when I tried using that one it seems to have worked just fine. I think that using the new SP2 fix means you don't have to fiddle with all that Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit stuff you referred to, and that maybe the new SP2 fix batch file takes care of whatever that toolkit stuff used to be needed for, but I'm not sure - I'll probably send the fix-maker another email and try to confirm that theory.

Only thing I noticed though was that, although I do get a sun bloom effect now at 1280x960 with AA still turned on, it's really kinda "too much" glare - it made the sun a rather too-large glaring place in the sky. Just for the heck of it, I tried hitting the old shift+pgup workaround keys and it actually reduced and improved the sun glare effect fairly dramatically (pressing it just once - more presses really increased/worsened the glare effect again), and since I was running at the higher resolution it seemed to introduce less noticeable jaggies than it did when I was using 1024x768.

All in all, it seems to be a pretty good improvement, so I guess I'll stick with it for a while and see if I can spot any other improvements or problems with it - thanks for the help :)

BTW - here is the link he/she gave me for the newer version that works with patch 1.4b (hope it works - it kinda pasted oddly):

http://sartori23.com/~sartori23/SH3%...for%201.4b.zip

The file I got back from that link was called "SH3 XPSP2 Res Fix for 1.4b.zip", in case the link doesn't work and you have to look for it elsewhere - it had everything in it that you need (including the two d3d9... files from the original SP1 fix) and it seemed to work fine, as noted above.

Good luck, and Good Hunting!

I tried the mod ( I have SP2) and ran the batch file. The game would not start (crashed back to desktop) untill I removed the d3d9.dll file from the SHIII directory. Dont know what I did wrong as I had all the included files in the SHIII directory.

I'm glad you got it working, either way.

Not sure about any of what you said about different versions, I'm running patch 1.4b, and I'm using the original files as posted in the Wiki as far as I know. (Then again, their are several places to score copies of that fix, and I might have gotten mine in one of the posts on the Ubi forum, just can't remember). Perhaps the Wiki needs to be updated with the new version you have, if your's works without having to do all that App Toolkit stuff. Certainly sounds easier. :)

I agree, though, that the version you have probably has the Application Compatibility bit already done for you, the App Toolkit does make a file with a .sbd extension in the SilentHunterIII folder. I notice I already have that file, I suspect that the App toolkit created it after I went through all the motions in the Wiki.

Anyway, have fun with it. Just glad you got it working, cause sun glare does add a lot to the game's immersion factor. (much better than the big red/pink disk did anyway).