How can I be happy?
 

Ok, I've loved subsims since I used to play AOD, and when SH3 was basically a modern version, I fell in love all over again. I was ecstatic at SH4. Finally, a modern U.S. sim! Unfortunately, there my happiness ends. SH4 is beautiful. Looks good, sounds good. But even with some of the better mods (not including the big ones, I die too easy as it is) I still contend wit hhorrible bugs. Add on to that with the fact that I can't TC above x3000 due to lag, and it becomes a very looooong trip just to reach my patrol zone. No big deal, I'll just play SH3 until someone fixes the terrible TC slowdowns...SH3...Well, there went that idea. Wow that thing looks really ugly now. Even with GWX, which again is WAY too difficult for me. So what do I do to be happy? If anyone has an idea on how to improve my TC performance, I'd love to hear it. My specs:

Asus A8V SE mobo
Nvidia 7600GT, 256 mb pci-e
AMD 64x2 2.2 Ghz
1 gig ram (Corsair or Crucial, don't remember)
Win XP pro
SB audigy SE
and yes, I have defragged.

Oh yeah, my intro movie only plays about 3 seconds before getting choppy and gradually stopping completely. Any ideas on that?

I would really like some advice. I want to enjoy this game.

I will tell you what I did personaly that made a difference
 

When I had to reinstall the game because of a modding Boo Boo I made. I installed the game then restarted my PC.

Then I added one patch at a time and after each patch restarted my PC.

For some reason maybe it was just the downloads but I found that the bulk patch for all 3 of them just wasn't right. So I did a patch at a time and the restarts seems to help between each one.

After I did this the game truly did seem to run better so maybe it will for you as well.

Make sure you have the latest drivers for your hardware although some of the video drivers have problems I have read in these posts from Nvidia.

I always run the game at the same resilution my desk top is set for and the monitor refresh rate. But lowering the resilution if it is still slow and adjusting the graffic's settings for the game till you find what works best for you.

Make sure your hard drive isn't over loaded and still has room on it for virtual memory.

Your video card has performance and quality settings in graffic's display so work with them as well to find a good ballance that works for both you and the game.

I would suggest that maybe adding another gig of RAM might help out considerably with your performance issues. Especially with TC.

SH4 really needs at least 2gig to perform at it's best..and even then, as Leo states, you will need to tweek your graphics card adjustments to get a good balance.

Look at this thread for more info...http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=122928

I agree. Double your RAM. I have the same video card, a P4 3.0 processor and 2 GIGS of RAM, and this game plays like a dream on my system and with everything maxed out except Volumetric fog which I have disabled.

RAM will help you in the high TC. It sure helped me.

Hrm... thought I had made a post here... oh well :)

Hope the OP finds happiness.

Pardner, You will never be happy! not with a game anyway.

Just put the game aside for now & sometime in the future when you are not in such a hurry, you can take it up again..

I bought SH3 about three years ago, but it was to slow for me then so I put it aside.
I just started it again about two months ago and I am enjoying it much better now. In fact, I find myself playing it alot on just the normal setting.

As far as games go.. They **ALL** have minor problems and **NONE** will completely satisfy all people. It's just a $50 game and it is not made to just let you fast forward through it killing everything in sight with out being killed yourself.

If you only want to succeed then play something warm & fuzzy...

Save your $$ & quit spending on crap that you really don't need and you would be surprised how short a time before you could buy a top-of-the-line computer. You still won't be happy, but then you really couldn't bitch about your computer..

Papa,

I find your response very odd indeed.

Definitley, another gig of ram will most certainly help. I put an extra gig in my system shortly after getting the game (2GB now) and it makes a world of difference;)

p.s. It does reccomend 2GB of ram on the back of the game case. 1GB is the minimun requirement.

Thanks for the advise guys. Well, Okay, most of it...Papa I'm not sure I know how to respond to that...To each his own I guess.

I think Papa is seeking happiness in a Zen sort of way :cool:

I'm upgrading pretty soon, but I have an A8V with a BFG 6800 Ultra, an when I had 1 gig of ram I was able to hit 'round 7k in TC. My OS, XP home, is slimmed to the max an just the serveses I need are running an a few I removed. With 2 gigs of ram It seem just a little smoother, but the load time is shorter. I can hit 8k TC but it's laggy depending were I'm at.

Is that contagious ? :p

This would seem to suggest a problem besides specs. I run the game on an Athlon 3200+ with only 1Gb ram and an X1600 pro, and can run TC full-on (unless there is a port with a lot of ships around) and the intro movie plays fine. Have you updated your sound card and video drivers? Have you also tried scaling back some of the graphics settings? What about anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering settings? They can impact framerate and cause lag too. Any mods installed? Oh, so many questions... :doh:

Complaining about TC
 

It is strange to me that SH3 is not complained about when it has to be modded to get to 2048 TC, but SH4 is not acceptable because he can't go faster than 3000. There's a missing piece of the puzzle here. That does not compute.

The doctor orders another gig of RAM and you'll be amazed. And pay attention to Hornsby's post.:up: