Same thing... I really don't get this :06::06::06:

*edit*

Bit of progress. I can get to the menu if I'm in an external view, but not from the control room.

*edit*

No progress actually. It was just a random occurance.

Well I think I've had about as much as I can stand of SH4. I think there's no way this is going to run on my PC with the newer drivers.

One final question before I call it quits. Are there any patches, mods or graphics tweaks that alter the shaders in the game? Some game communities have files or mods that can be used to increase performance on video cards and in some cases fix problems with some cards (IL2, FSX and the X3 games are good examples). I was just wondering if there's anything similar for SH4.

its possible the Nhancer program can help you

i know it can make older outdated games run so maybe it can use its special settings for each game to get you going

its worth a shot :06:

I'll give it a try, thanks.

Don't suppose anyone can come up with a plausible theory as to why the game runs 100% in all cases unless I open the main menu?

I think I've thrown everything at the PC since Wednesday, and I'm all out of ideas. I'm usually quite stubborn when it comes to PC problems and I tend to keep hammering away until I solve them. I think this is going to be one of the rarer ones that I've not managed to solve.

:damn: It's going to be something really simple :har: or amazingly screwy :doh:

I seem to have got it sorted with the nHancer software... Well either that or the MS .net framework I had to install for nHancer to work.

It probably is something and nothing. Something really simple that I've overlooked. But honestly, this PC's never had this big an overhaul since the day I put it together. Since Wednesday it's been reduced to it's component parts, cleaned, rebuilt, formatted, and had more drivers thrown at it that I thought even existed.

Gonna call it a day now and have another look at SH4 tomorrow and see if I can spend the day playing it without any mishaps.

my bet is it was the MS .net framework because everything needs that crap to run nowadays especially media

glad you finally got it sorted out :up:

Okay, this is just getting bloody wierd now.

Last night using nHancer it was fine. This morning using nHancer I'm back to square one!

:damn:

This is becoming really annoying now!

*edit* What's odd is the game runs in all modes with all stations. You'd think it'd be able to stay working when I open a poxy menu!

SH4 system requirements lie! It is flat out one of the most demanding games out there, definitely wrenching anything less than a 7600GT system within an inch of its life. Even with my 7600GT I have to tune things up regularly, when every other game I have runs great, including the Half Life 2 series.

But what's life without danger?

I do see what you're saying but if the game was too demanding for my card then surely it wouldn't work at all with any driver?

The game runs and it runs at a nice rate now that I've sorted out my system. It just falls over when I open the menu using the newer drivers, but works 100% with the older drivers and worked last night after I'd installed .net and nHancer.

I really don't think it's anything to do with the game being too demanding for my system. It's some sort of error or fault, not a lack of hardware power.

The fact that the game HAS run shows that it WILL work with my graphics card and a lack of GPU power is not the issue here.

I've actually discovered it's down to a nv4_disp.dll file, which is one of the files for my graphics drivers. I did a debug check on the last .dmp file generated and this is the file it says is the problem.

After doing a search on google it seems a lot of people are having trouble with this file one way or another and not just in games.

Ran sh4 1.5 on

e6600 2.4
7500le 256
3 gig ram
on board sound


Had all the options checked for sound (except music:doh:) and all the options for graphics got around 10 to 25 fps. It was a far cry from what I'm used to but it did run :shifty: not sure how well it would work in a heavy scene yet, may have to uncheck allot of options so its not stuttering :up:

See, mine runs OK for me. I don't mind low frame rates. The game still shouldn't fall over from something as simple as a menu. I would put it down to my card if it was crashing in a heavily populated area full of ships, planes and explosions, but it's dying when I'm out at sea with nothing around me on a menu that is displayed when the game first loads anyways so surely it should be able to display it in game.

I've been asking questions on Guru3D.com to see if anyone there knows why the game doesn't want to work when I open the menu and the common opinion of the techies over there is that the issue isn't my card or my PC, but is in fact due to the rather poor way that nVidia cards are supported (or should I say not supported) by the game.

I think now that the problems have a lot more to do with the fact that the game doesn't seem to have been tested to work properly on many nVidia cards (there's only 4 supported nVidia cards in the game readme, but a LOT more ATI cards). Which to me just smacks of poor design and lack of development. Not the developers fault, probably more down to Ubi-Soft's way of rushing simulations out beofre they're properly optimised.

Ubi: "We want the game on the shelves making money!"
Dev: "But we've not completed optimisation."
Ubi: "Does the game run?"
Dev: "It loads yes, but we can't guarantee it's stability, and it needs more work to meet the specs we're aiming for."
Ubi: "But it does load, right?"
Dev: "Yes it does.
Ubi: "Then it's finished! You can patch it later if we decide to give you the funds to do so!"

Uh stop blaming the engine, i know its frustrating.:timeout:
The game works fine on nvidia cards.

Make sure post process filtering is turned off in the settings , infact just lower the lot and untick every box (Vsync should allways be turned off)

Go to your graphic settings control panel in windows and turn AA off, thats usually the cause to most menu crash's.

From the sounds of it you have tried alot of drivers, make sure when you install new ones ;
that you uninstall the old ones ( though the control panel add and remove program) ..
reboot...
then install the new ones..
reboot again.

Good luck :rock:

I have tried all this Shocks, but thanks for the comments. And no offence, but my view of the engine and the fact I see this as a rushed release which still has multiple bugs is my opinion and I think I'm entitled to it after semi-lobotomizing my PC trying in multiple attempts to get it to run.

On the one hand it's been a blessing because it's helped me find and fix a power issue that I didn't realise I had. On the other hand it's been a curse because I've wasted a week of quality time on it when I could have been enjoying playing other games. So I think everyone can forgive me for being a little annoyed at the whole situation.

For those that may be interested, I managed to get the game working on the nVidia 175.16 drivers no problem. I've only suffered one random CTD, and I think that was a game issue rather than a graphics card crash.

In the end I decided to have a look at the nVidia forums and it seems a lot of people with a lot of different card types have problems with the newest drivers for some reason. For instance Sims 3 is refusing to load for many people using the 191.07 drivers, which are the same drivers that were causing my problems with SH4. Also some people can't install the new 195.xx drivers, as they're getting an error telling them they can't install the control panel and the installation quits.

Seems I might have to look into getting an ATI card if the nVidia issues continue.

SH4 now runs as well as SH3 did on my old ATI 128mb card (I'm running at medium settings). Which was great out at sea, but quite slow in dock. If I choose to start my missions at sea, then it's not that big an issue. I only use 1024 time acceleration as well, seems to bog down with anything higher... But I don't really mind about that.

Now I just need to get some practise in :D