Tweaking GWX for performance
 

Hi,

My computer can handle vanilla Sh3 v 1.4 ok. However, I once tried to install NYGM 2.2 and suffered a huge loss in framerates, so much as to make it unplayable.

I would like to install GWX but not use the graphical improvements. I guess this could be done by replacing the new textures with the old ones, but it isn't exactly clear where all the graphics file lie in the SH3 installation. Does anyone have a list of where all these files are?

Thanks

For most, issues with frame rates occur when near port, so GWX has supplied an optional lite Harbor traffic mod, FYI.

Stuff that lowers performance:

1.)16K visual distance
2.) textures loading over dats (tex directory)
3.) BIG MASSIVE texures (*cough* anything like 2048 X 2048, regardless if its in the dat or not)
4.) Harbor traffic
5.) Being near large landmasses
6.) Large amounts of resources for the game to load.


Numbers 1 and 4 are easy enough to change up. GWX has addressed numbers 2, and partially number 3. I think the only 2048 textures are in the sub's interiors. Everything else being stock resolution.

Where i personnaly lose performance is Number 6. But its really only loading the game. Takes me 55 seconds to load a stock career game, and 2 mins to load a GWX career game. Not a coinicidence that stock SH3 has like 66 units in the data/sea folder and GWX has somewhere around 120-130.

Based on that, I've toyed with the idea of trying to make a "GWX -Light" but it would be way more trouble then it's worth for me to attempt. Id basically have to reverse engineer all of GWX and pull out the most important bits, i simply don't have the time or patience for that.

I do not use the gramaphone and have the music turned off.

Is there a way to delete the gramaphone/music files and would this make the game run faster or smoother?

That's very surprising, what are your computer specs ? Both NYGM and GWX run fine on mine which is far from being a race horse... It's surprising that NYGM 2.2 gives " a huge loss in framerates " as there are not so many graphic improvements in there.

Just take them out of the sounds\gramaphone folder. I doubt if these files impact in the slightest on your games performance :nope:

I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop with an AMD Turion Mk-36 processor, supposedly 1GB of RAM (My Computer tells me it's only about 700 megs), and an ATI RADEON Xpress1150 (no onboard memory- can use up 256 megs of system memory).

Vanilla is pretty smooth during normal patrols (though I think I'm more tolerant of low end FPS than most people), and gets a littly choppy in harbors, but is still playable. I have the few graphics controls available more or less maxed. The only problem I have is that usually once a patrol, the game suddenly decides to get very choppy for no apparent reason, necessitating exiting to Windows, which fixes it.

I have version 1.4 out of the box. For some reason the 1.4b patch won't recognize my installation, so I tried using NYGM with 1.4 and not 1.4b. I don't know if that would make a difference.

I just started playing SH3 about a month and a half ago and am currently on my 4th patrol (all manual, but will do cheat reloads to bag targets), so I am still happy with the vanilla version. I just infiltrated Lock Ewe the other day, and the raid and subsequent escape to a silver twilight sky and open sea was amazing. After years of AOD, I am continuosly amazed by this game, and can't help but love it.

However, it'd be a shame if I couldn't make use of all the improvements from the various supermods that I've read about here.

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Hi and welcome to subsim darkstart

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Any little helps

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For me, the lite harbor option of GWX made the difference.
I'm very happy with that option.

Me too. I'm at or below the specs for playing even Stock SHIII. But with lite harbor enabled for GWX, I can honestly say there is no difference in frame rate.


(edited to make sense)

Nahh, even those are 1024x1024.

There shouldn't be any 2048x2048 stuff.

Just FYI.

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