Make a few installations of SH3 in C\ProramFiles

Add the super mod of your choice to each one

Copy and paste the SH3 icon situated within your first installation root folder to desktop and rename it eg: SH3GWX

Then the next installation and so on.

...and then follow the User Guide here for instructions on how to best install JSGME so that you can mod each separate installation of SH3.

Just found out about the new saving and loading of Mod Profiles in v2.3 :up:
Excellent job JScones, this was just the thing I was looking for! :yeah:

I'm kinda new to SH3 and very new to modding the game. Currently, I only use SH3 Commander.

Can someone explain what JSGME is and how/why I'd want to use it?

Like, I see some screenshots that have parts of GWX in there. But when I downloaded GWX, it came as a big installer that, presumably, includes everything.

Does JSGME install after GWX and then "pull out" the parts of GWX I don't want?

Or, do I install JSGME and then point the GWX installer to a dummy folder and then let JSGME know about the dummy folder and allow it to "push in" parts I do want?

How does JSGME interact with SH3 Commander?

If I download a random mod, how does JSGME learn about the mod and how does it enable/disable it?

When you install GWX3 into your existing SH3 game folder, it will install JSGME (a separate program) into it as well. This will create a folder inside your game folder called MODS.

Inside that folder, GWX3 will put all the optional mods that come with it - they will not be enabled and will do nothing to your game unless you open JSGME and have it enable them for you.

IIRC after the GWX install you will also have a shortcut to JSGME on your desktop. When you doubleclick on it, it will open the installation of JSGME in your game folder. There will be two windows, in the left one you'll see all the mods that are currently in your MODS folder. In the right one are all the mods that you have enabled via JSGME for use in the game. (The first time you run JSGME, the right window should be empty since you haven't enabled any mods yet.)

If you find other mods that you would like to try, you download them and extract them, then copy the mod folder into the MODS folder in your game installation. When you open JSGME, they will then appear in the list of available mods. In order for this to work properly, it's imperative that the structure of each individual mod folder is as follows - a main folder that usually bears the name of the mod, and inside that, a "data" folder in which are all the files that the mod will add or overwrite when it is enabled.

You will see this structure if you look in the MODS folder that is added to your game files after the GWX3 install. Each mod that comes with GWX is in its own folder inside the MODS folder. Within each mod folder is that mod's data folder.

When you enable a mod via JSGME, it overwrites the relevant game files with the alternate versions found in the mod and/or adds files that the mod uses that are not present in the game as is. From that point on, when you load the game, it will load with whatever changes/additions that mod made to it.

When you disable the mod via JSGME, it removes any extra files that the mod added to the game, and returns any overwritten files to the way they were before you enabled the mod in the first place. This is probably the #1 reason to use the program - it gives you a no-hassle method of undoing any mods that you decide afterwards you don't want to use anymore. It will also notify you if a mod you are trying to enable is going to make changes to a file that was already changed or added to the game by a mod already in use. This is very helpful in avoiding potential conflicts between different mods.

SH3Commander is a separate, stand-alone program that can also be used to add or change some game options and settings, but this only occurs when you load the game via Commander. As long as Commander is not set up to change things that were already altered or added by mods enabled via JSGME, they should not conflict with each other. However it is recommended that you select the automatic Rollback option in Commander, which means that every time you exit the game it will undo any changes it made to the game in that session. This seems to be the best way to avoid any possible problems that might occur from using both Commander and JSGME to enhance your game.

Question: if I have many mods enabled and want to disable one or some of them, do I need disable everything that was enabled after the mod(s) I want to take out of the mix, working backwards from the last mod that I added? Or can I just go ahead and disable something in the middle of pack, provided it's not a mod that is greyed out because something that came after it added to it or altered it?

I'm nearly certain if it's not greyed out, no problem... its files are unique or at least the last changes (else it would be greyed).

I'm just wondering because I'm having CTD issues in TC while using mod combos that have worked fine on a previous career, and the only thing I did was to make mod changes in between patrols, but always changing to something I've already tried that worked fine before. This is maybe the 3rd or 4th career I've started where everything is fine for one or two patrols, and then in between patrols I change something I used just for that patrol, and go back to a combo that worked fine the patrol before, but suddenly on the next patrol I start getting CTDs if I try to go above a certain TC.

When everything's working I might get a bit of a temporary lag if I go as high as 512 or 1024, but after a second or two it will start going again and everything's fine. And I don't go that high very often anyway, so it's no biggie not to do it if I'm worried about the game crashing.

Then I'll finish the patrol, and maybe change my mod combo a bit - but not to anything that hasn't worked perfectly fine in previous patrols - and when I start my next patrol, suddenly I'm getting CTD in TC, even as low as 128 TC which is my usual "just cruising around" setting.

I don't know if it's a corrupted save issue or mod changes or what - but the pattern keeps repeating and it's really getting frustrating. I just wasn't sure if how I was going about enabling/disabling things was part or all of the problem.

Are you using the fm_interiors mod, by chance? I had problems with occational CTDs happening to me and once I disabled that one :wah:, I've not experienced another one (been at least a month). I only have 2 gigs of ram and 256 meg of video ram, which is what I'm guessing my particular issue with that mod is. Just an idea, if you're running out of trys.

I was, and IIRC it ran fine for one pre-war shakedown cruise... but on the first combat patrol, out in the Atlantic with lots of rough weather and lots more intense activity I also got CTDs. I have 4G of RAM (which is a bit more than XP will recognize) and 1G on the video card but I just figured that given all the other mods I was using (and was not going to do without) the New Interiors was just too much for my system when the game intensity was at its highest.

Now I'm not sure, as I went back to DD's Open Hatch 3.9 which worked just fine before and I'm still having the problem. The only real changes I've made since is with environment mods, I've gone back and forth between the M.E.P. 16k and 20k versions and SH5 Water for SH3 trying to decide which one I like. But even there, one of them will work perfectly fine, I'll switch, whatever I switched to will work fine, I'll switch back, and then the next patrol will CTD using the combo that worked two patrols earlier. And I'm not changing anything except when I'm in base.

Which made me think it might be a corrupted save issue, but the same issue at the start of a new patrol in several successive careers? And it's not like the game/career/patrol doesn't load, it loads fine and then CTDs in the middle of it and only when I'm using TC.

I don't know, I'm pretty sure I know what I want now as far as mods go, so I'm going to disable everything and start from scratch to put together the combo I want, and then start a new career and see what happens. If I have a successful patrol with no issues and make NO changes and then I get CTDs somewhere down the line at least I'll know it wasn't some mod I enabled/disabled/tweaked in mid-career.

... another must have mod will appear ... :haha:



But yes, sounds like an excellent approach.

Lol, too true. In fact a couple already have, like the new GWX Wilhelmshaven with locks or whatever it's called and then there's those big beautiful animated subpens... neither of which my rig can handle. Been dere, tried dat, couldn't even get to "not so long ago." :wah:

But the others I've been using, if I've used them already without any problems, then I don't think it should be a RAM/resources issue that's suddenly giving me fits.

What are your system specs?

The latter.

FWIW though I would only make "core game file" mod changes between careers, not patrols. I think this makes SH3 a bit less prone to crashing.