Ok well here is what i found.

After a full uninstall of SH4 and then putting it back along with the patch to 1.5. I do infact get my thunder back. So something must have gone haywire in my install. I even think i saw some lightning. I'm still toying with the notion.

Things that still are broken sound wise even with 1.5
(feel free to add to this list)

1. officers that repeat and never shut up, or repeat the same order for 5x or more times, examples crashdive, surface the boat, rudder etc
2. No sounds of any damage other then collision, No glass breaking though in the file there are 4 glass break sounds, no pipes bursting, no electrical sparks,
3. Crew doesn't report much of anthing. In SH3 they reported depth, damage, ships, sound contacts etc. In sh4 the writing appears but there is no sound of the crew talking.

This is all with stock 1.5 and no mods at this time. I'm trying to find out what is going on with sounds and how they are called by the sim.

While using silent editor I came across an enviromental file that has a list of sounds that are played, The list is called soundplaylist2. In this sound list are the annoying seagull sounds.

The sound list is set to play the seagull wave in a full shuffel mode. This appears to be the only sound list i have come accross and i still dont understand how it works.

There is also a 3d check box on the sounds in the sh.sdl file. Sometimes the 3d box is checked for some sounds while other sounds it is not.

There is also a play checkbox that i have no clue what it does.

The last thing to reports on that i found funny was the cfg file for the game was set for the following.

***\Program Files\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific\Data\Cfg

[Ubi.Com]
GameName=SILENTHUNTER4
Version=SH4PC1.0 (This is strange it should be 1.5 maybe???)
RememberCDKey=true

[DEVELOPING]
DevDebugEnable=False (these were set to true, i changed them to false)
DevEditEnable=False
MiniDump=Yes (no clue what it does, didn't change it)

I looking for any help that i can get understanding how these files work. There are still several files that end with the extension .act that i can not open with any program on my computer.

Anyone know how to get this to operate?

Bill

well as for #1 the repeated comments are often the result of a bad saved game.

i use stock 1.5 with no mods so i checked my cfg/main file and mine has:

[Ubi.Com]
GameName=SILENTHUNTER4
Version=SH4PC1.0
RememberCDKey=true

[DEVELOPING]
DevDebugEnable=Yes
DevEditEnable=Yes
MiniDump=Yes

and everything with the game works correctly so i would set it the way it was and look elseware for your problems.

are you using vista? vista has issues (not sure why) and you need to install the game somewhere other than the programs folder.