1914: Shells of Fury (1st impressions)
 

Just bought this online (download version).

Recommended Specs are:
Windows XP/Vista
Athlon® XP 2600+ or Pentium® 2.4GHz
1024 MB RAM
256 MB 3D graphic card which supports PixelShader 2.0
Sound card
DirectX 9.0c

My Specs are:
Windows XP
PentiumIV 3.0ghz
2048MB Ram
Nvidia 7600GT (256mb) AGP video card (supports pixelshader 3.0)
SB Live! sound card
All drivers up to date

I was really excited about this game because of the topic (WW1). Downloaded and installed it with no problems. When I started the game up, it runs VERY SLOW. I run Silent Hunter III cranked to the max and it runs smooth as glass. The graphics of this game are a little below that level of detail. I don't know what the problem is, but I hope it is addressed by the company.

Please share any thoughts on this.


BTW, here is the link to the game site: http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/ShellsOfFury/

This looks really good and im interested can you post a short review.
M:up:

Here's my quick review of it.

As far as the graphics go, the game is somewhere between Silent Hunter2 and Silent Hunter3. (which is why I don't understand the clunky performance because both of them run great.) The campaign mode reminds me more of Silent Hunter2 (a series of extended missions representing patrols). There are 50 missions including 3 or 4 tutorial missions. The mission generator is easy to use and is good for a quick fix for your uboat itch and allows you to try out all four of the different boats used by the Germans during WW1.

Overall, I'd say it's worth the $20 as long as the low framerate thing can be worked out.

The low FPS is a strange one considering game specs :yep:


RDP

Danke Herr Kaleun:|\\

i ordered shells of fury from amazon.de
and it turned up today...(3 days to deliver from germany to the uk.. not bad)
here's my initail impressions of the game..

1/ it runs with out the dvd in the drive-- which always puts me at ease with a game..purely for convience sake and it shows the devs are IMO see-ing things from the players point of view ..

2/it isn't on first glance an easy sim to play ie it's not arcade in nature..

3/it's obviuosly eminiently moddable...

4/it's worth buying just to see the excellent WW1 models in action..

5/it's in german so i haven't got a clue what half the buttons options do... lol:D going to have to babelfish them to find out what does what why and how..

6/the AI seems to be very good ..for example a lone merchant on spotting me approaching... immediately turned round and high tailed it away in the opposite direction to it's original course.......making this the first subsim i've played where a lone merchant does this..i chased it..caught it and every time i turned to fire it maneuvered away from me again making it damn near impossible to get anything remotely like an easy shot...
this in itself is far FAR in advance of lone merchant AI behaviuor displayed (as stock) in other similar sims (SH2/3/4 et al)
the normal lone merchant AI response (if your lucky that is) in the SH2/3/4 games is for it to zig zag but basically carry onsteaming towards you....this merchant in shells of fury had a much better plan of action....it worked i could not get into a good firing position at all ..for torps anyway) !!

7/i'm a fan of WW1 stuff so it has the edge in that area..

8/the graphics etc are customisable..so i was able to get it running reasonably well on my machine (which is quite old...tho it ran Sh3 very well)

9/the actual graphics are atmospheric...but not it has to be said in any way stunning...but it looks well to me

10/it occasionaly stalls on loading some of the stock missions..requiring a ctrl/alt/delt/ exit

11/there are no crew voices at all?? maybe an option i haven't found...can't see any crew sound files anywhere tho..that's a shame if true

12/IMO it was well worth the money and has with any luck...a great deal of flexible future possibilites due to the open ended and editable file structure.. as far as i can tell there isn't a single elemnt of the game graphics ..sound.. weather... effects...missions..campaigns and even model files that cannot be added to edited and enhanced

13/if your a fan of WW1....and enjoy subsims etc...and enjoy modding a entirely open and freely editable game of such....BUY IT...you won't be too disapointed ..and who knows you may find out it is home from home :up:
gets a thumbs up from me...

tho only time will tell of course..

Nice Review, I am going to have to buy it.

Maybe we can mod in english labels.

M:up:

Where could you pick this up in Canada, just checked Amazon, not on their Web Site yet.


RDP

Nor Amazon in the UK.

Nemo

your UK amazon account log in and details are accepted by Amazon.de

so you can do as i did and log in there and buy the game in the normal manner..(just remember which buttons to click as the text is in german...)


further stuff on the game...

one good...

i managed to sure the crashes on some of the missions...

even tho it states it is compatible with XP it still needed to be run in windows 2000 compatibility mode... this cures all the crashes for me so far..all missions and campaigns load ok

one bad

the sea animation gets to be very very hard on the eyes after a short while playing..as partly due to the low frame rates..and partly due to the animation itself..it tends to be pretty mechanical and jerky...

and another good....

i have been experimenting with the sea animation possibilites and have allready discovered one method of gaining a good deal of control over it...

in the root folder is a text file named WEATHER.txt
open up with notepad
and you can edit the sea state for each weather condition by adding these entrys to each section like thus

mgsun
{
fogenable = 0
texture = VolumeSky1.dds
DayLightTexture = sky\Tagesverlauf.bmp
WaterHScale = 0.1
WaterTScale = 0.2
WaterSScale = 3.2
}

///////////


it's the

WaterHScale = 0.1
WaterTScale = 0.2
WaterSScale = 3.2

entrys i've added that control the animation
as far as i can be sure at short notice the

waterH is the height of the waves
and t and s the X and Y scale of the waves..

the entrys ive shown give pretty much dead calm conditions
but these can be increase (especaily the waterH as this is probably the most important one to change)

good thing bowt this is of curse it allows you to completely customise the sea conditions for every possible weather type in the game....so giving very dynamic and changable sea conditions as well as weather..



sadly tho this doesn't seem to improve the frame rates any...
but i'm betting using these entrys in each section

fogenable = 1
fogend = 10000

should bring the horizon in a bit and could be used to improve the frames..and so on..:sunny:

and that AI behaviuor???

YUP it's all written out in another text file so that can edited virtualy for every individual ship sub in the game LOL

but so far it's the frame rate issue that's the main drawback ..if i can get round that i can start to enjoy the game and see what can be done with it..i get the feeling that the game doesn't take any notice at all of the graphical options settings you give it via the options screen or at least it seems to make no difference ..or it resets itself or something...summats not right there i'm sure...how can i be still getting full screen max anti-alaising with it disabled not only on the optuions screen but in the graphics cards settings it self...yet one look at the subs rigging wires shows that anti-alaising is still ON..and at max strength too..by the looks of it...and so on...summat wrong there...


UPDATE--
yes i think that's half the problem with the bad frame rates....the game simply ignores or at the least doesn't remember your graphic options choices....even whilst still in game ..so setting the options has no effect..
or something along those lines....i turn og anti alaising and the other FPS killer effects exit the screen load a mission and ...anti alaising and the effects are still switched on...can't find a CONFIG file anywhere for the game other wise i could set the options by hand in that file then set it to read only...it doesn't even remember the gamma and contrast settings or even the realism settings either....officaily a pain in the butt.....if any ne has any clues i'm all ears:damn:

I'm having the same problem. Low framerate and it does seem to ignore any changes in the options. I tried turning anti-alaising off on my graphic card itself, but it didn't do any good.

I've got a case file open with StrategyFirst and hopefully they can track it down.

yes it's perculiar..i have managed to mod a couple of files and squeezed a few extra FPS out off it...meaning it doesn't take five minutes to pan the bridge view round any more....but :cry:
hope fully they will respond and you can pass the info on here..
there's a huge amount of interesting stuff that can be gotten from the game once the FPS are reasonable...and of course the sea animation is far nicer at higher FPS than low..etc (even the small mod i have made shows this)

Sound like this game was rushed out. Im gonna sit on the fence and wait it out. Or wait for a patch.

Thanks for the review. I've noticed 1914 is available at Naval Warfare Simulations wwwdotnws-onlinedotnet. That U.S. store is reputable and ships to other countries.

Has anyone noticed that the game appears to be out in two versions, one for Windows 2000/ME and one for XP. See http://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_ss_w/0...Go.x=13&Go.y=6

Nemo

yes i noticed the two different version too...i bought the windows XP version...but actualy it isn't compatible with windows XP at all..(it crashes a lot of time on mission load)....tho all you need to do is run it in compatibility mode for windows 2000 and everything is ok..so i'm not sure what the difference is between the two versions (if any?)

on the FPS issue...i have tried dozens of minor file tweaks along the usual modding lines..and as is the case with modern games most of the tricks which WOULD work on older games...just don't have any genuine effect on recent graphics engines...
BUT here is just about the only one (so far) that gave me a noticable and usable increase in FPS...only maybe 3 or 4 extra FPS but it was enough on my system to make the game playable..

here's a link if you want to see if it helps on your set up...

http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/SOF_fix1.zip

mind you i had the same problems with SH4...
set all the graphical options to max..run the game ..got 11 FPS
set all graphical options to minimum...run the game...got 11 FPS

go figure..:hmm:

here's another funny thing also

Scaz's set up give slow frame rates
and he has these stats as he gave in the the topic's first post

Scaz's Specs are:
Windows XP
PentiumIV 3.0ghz
2048MB Ram
Nvidia 7600GT (256mb) AGP video card (supports pixelshader 3.0)
SB Live! sound card
All drivers up to date


CB..'s Specs are:
Windows XP
PentiumIV 3.0ghz
500MB Ram
ATI X300SE (128 mb) video card
on board sound
stock drivers

yet it seems we both get very similar frame rates...

again
go figure :hmm:

Strange indeed. I have more or less the same set up as you the only difference being that I have 1024MB Ram and an SB sound card. Out of interest can you tell the number of FPS you are getting in Shells of Fury or are you just noticing an improvement when you apply your fix? Slightly off topic, but you mention also that you get 11FPS in SH4 no matter what graphics settings you apply. Does this low level of FPS make SH4 unplayable in your view?

Nemo

well it's difficult to be exact guessing the FPS i'm getting with SOF.(there's no FPS counter..)...but judging by the fact that it is extremely border line FPS wise i would say that i'm getting around the same as i got with SH4...ie around 11 FPS
anyless than that and it becomes a completely unplayable "slide show"
any more than that and it starts to present you with "smooth" framerates...the "magic cut off" number being around 13 FPS..

the good thing about subsims is that you tend to be doing everything pretty slowly anyway so poor frame rates are not as much a block as other sorts of games..BUT it makes everything you do very laboriuos and in the end fairly unpleasant..(gives you eye ache and eventualy a head ache to go with it after a while)..so yup in SH4 11 fps is in practical terms unplayable...(you can play it but you get fed up of it juddering very quickly)

the fix i have made seems to take SOF up from perhaps 10 or 11 FPS to around 12/13/14/16 FPS depending on other factors (weather effects etc)
which means i can just abut cope with it..but it's still pretty annoying...it takes over a minute to raise the periscope for example..and the same amount of time to pan it round 360 degrees...which is very irritating...the bridge view on the other hand now pans round pretty much with the mouse...and so on

i think i have sorted the problem with the graphics settings not sticking when you set them...you need to go to the final options screen on the list
(the one at the bottom of the list) enter it and select "JA" then it stores them....heres another funny thing tho...i get better frame rates with all the options maxed out than i do with them set at minimum...
it's a laugh a minute...very odd

anyhuw at least i don't have to reset the gamma and contrast every time i run the game now...so that's the trick with that issue..

i'm hoping i will stumble across the effect that most influences the FPS ...then if i can edit it accordingly i can bring the FPS up to a more enjoyable level....if i do then i'm sure i will enjoy this game enourmously..

Thanks CB. Looks like I'll need a new graphics card to play SH4 at an enjoyable level, much as I suspected really. Do let us know if you make any progress regarding the effect that most influences the FPS in SOF, as this also looks like a game that I'll want to buy in the near future.

Nemo

Cheers Captain:up:
fingers crossed....the ship models in SOF are absolutely magnificent..sneaking up on a merchant is a genuine pleasure just to see the wonderful detailing on the model...love those old ships...and the aircraft are very well modelled too...tho they die a little too easily...but that i'm sure can be modded...wish they had included some form of hydrophone tho...i'm more or less positive WW1 subs did have them and the DD's too...not sure why they left them out...maybe they are an option for later on in the kampaign ?..hard to tell with everything being in german..