Well, I agree, almost pathetic that the game was released with faked higher resolutions and no FSAA.

The Good new is, there's a fellow with the username maerean_m from Bucharest, Romania. Apparently he is a Dev and stated in the 'A Message From the Silent Hunter IV Dev Team'(which is a sticky) that FSAA and AF will be possible by forcing it with your video card driver...

in Patch 1.2


So as long as they are able to deliver on that it won't be to awful long from now. It might be a full month or so from now, but at least it will, hopefully, be in the next patch!

Well I ordered my SH4 but will wait for the "teething" problems to be resolved prior to loading up.

You know we ran into a lot of issues last year with Ubi's release of IL-2: 1946 which also uses SecuRom, which is built into the "executable". It produces "stutters and splutters" in the framerate which in a flight sim is rather inconvenient.

The folks/devs finally did "cop" to the fact....it was out of their hands as the executable is sent to SecuRom for implantation of the CP. All is well now as the community no longer uses the executable that came with IL-2: 1946.

I hope that all SH4 issues are resolved so that folks can enjoy this great genre. Being new to SH3+GWX I am just enjoying this a lot and look forward to SH4 and SH5.

Another point, I might add is I am also involved with Steel Beasts II PE, this Dev Team has spun off into its own world and is pricing their software at Grognard prices $125 plus you get a "dongle" for CP protection you can load the game on "umpteen" PCs but you need the dongle to play. I think now they license the dongle to run on two machines. Works great and their support is spectacular plenty of free upgrades and new vehicles.....e-sim games is the name. Might be a way for these Devs to go with their niche market sim.

Thanks guys! Keep up the good work.

Seeing as this thread is one of the most viewed and responded to on this forum right now, would it be sensible to make it a sticky? This would help new SH4 players who may have just bought the game and are curious, confused, or frustrated with the AA/res issue. I found this thread cross referenced in another, and it would have helped me to save time and effort if it was a sticky. :hmm:

Since the quoted thread got hijacked and subsequently closed, I just wanted to add that this is terrific news from the dev team. It truly is refreshing to see a company actively attempt to address legitimate and reasonable concerns from the community.

Kudos Ubisoft!

Thanks Neal....there is hope :up:

I will be going back to GWX until the res and FSAA gets fixed. As of right now this Sim is just downright UGLY on my 20" LCD.....

Indeed, good to hear.

To be fair, healthy dose of skepticism will keep the game in its box ready to return until this drops, and I'll stick with Sh3.

If they deliver as promised? Nobody will be more gleeful than I!

YES!

I sincerely hope that maerean_m DOESN'T mean that the resolution issue won't get fixed in 1.2. AA can't make 1024x768 look like 1920x1200 or 1680x1050. It might just squeeze 1280x1024 at a push....

I am doing my best not to play SH4 at the moment. Went back to SH3+GWX but despite playing at higher resolution the overall look of SH4 with the transparent water (and transparent desk hands), refraction, better lighting, far better wave effects (and no obvious tiling), particle effects etc... makes SH3 look rather old!

Maybe I'll spend some time with the Mrs. Dragon until patch 1.2 comes out. Then again maybe I'll just go to the pub more often :)

Why don't I see transparent water? I have everything on except environment fog/clouds but I dont see transparent water.

Also, I think the water texture is extra large. This might give you an idea. (Thats me in the distance) ATI Radeon X800pro

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/6523/sh4waterxz2.jpg

That is exactly why you dont see the transparant water, its a part of the enviroment effect.

Thanks Stabiz

[quote=DragonRR1I sincerely hope that maerean_m DOESN'T mean that the resolution issue won't get fixed in 1.2. AA can't make 1024x768 look like 1920x1200 or 1680x1050. It might just squeeze 1280x1024 at a push....

I am doing my best not to play SH4 at the moment. Went back to SH3+GWX but despite playing at higher resolution the overall look of SH4 with the transparent water (and transparent desk hands), refraction, better lighting, far better wave effects (and no obvious tiling), particle effects etc... makes SH3 look rather old!

Maybe I'll spend some time with the Mrs. Dragon until patch 1.2 comes out. Then again maybe I'll just go to the pub more often :)[/quote]

You know, I think I'd pay just about full price again for an add-on to Sh3 that brings it up to Sh4's graphics standards (once FSAA is fixed, anyway. Granted, the res thing IS annoying, but if you can run 6xAA...and I can...it really does almost completely resolve any issues with it. The worst thing about lower resolutions is reading gauges and other text...and that scales properly with res ANYWAY, so...it's really not that bad).

Maybe a pack that officially adds the Med, Indian Oceans, and Southwest Pacific for the Kriegsmarine and kicks the graphics up to Sh4-level. I'd pay retail price for that!

I'm not holding my beath for a fix, there are so many bugs missing features that the devs will not have time/money to fix all of it all..

After checking out osme other games, if I had to choose between resolution OR FSAA, I would choose FSAA.

There is a higher likelihood the community can mod the resolution. I doubt the community could integrate FSAA since there is a very good chance it is directly related to the engine.

In addiiton, higher resolution without FSAA still looks like a mess, IMO Which is why I used the resolution hack AND fsaa in SH3). In all honesty, you can't really have one without the other in terms of looks. If we only had FSAA the resolution would still be low and peope with LCDs would not get to true in native-res. If we only had high resolution, jaggies would still be present and those who run at lower resolution would still get the short end of the stick. IMO, you really need to have both options available so everybody can benefit in their own way.

I can't say that modding the resolution isn't possible but it probably won't be easy. As I have mentioned I *think* that some 3D views such as the periscope view are at a higher resolution which would make the forced resolution settings harder to find. I have some programming and modding experience and I have had a really good look through the files for anything forcing the resolution, there is nothing obvious and I've already tried changing the most obvious entries, including a few in the main .exe file, to no affect. The SH3 res fix doesn't have any affect in SH4 but it does work with other games where the WHOLE screen resolution is fixed (according to the author). http://www.kegetys.net/misc/

People like myself with largish screens capable of 1920x1200, 1680x1050 or 1600x1200 even 16x AA on 1024x768 would be awful. As you say ideally we need both high res AND the ability to do H/W AA but for I would MUCH rather have full res than AA if I had to choose between them.

The smaller the dot pitch of your screen the less you need AA. Obviously if you have a dot pitch smaller than the eye can see then you don't need AA at all. I have a 17" laptop with a resolution of 1920x1200 the pixels are so tiny that AA would be almost worthless. For SH4 and gaming I use a 27" Dell with a dot pitch of about 0.3 which means that a pixel is fairly noticeable but I still tend not to bother with AA at full resolution if I have to sacrifice FPS for it.

For people with 1080P 40-60" TV's high res isn't enough.. a 46" is 0.5mm and a 57" is about 0.7mm so jagged edges would be pretty obvious. This is also true for people with lower resolution but relatively large screens.