A merchant fleet mod ?
 

Is there a merchant fleet mod out there I can use with GWX gold??

thanks

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=170741

Be aware, the full MFM requires a *lot* from your system in order to load and spawn all the additional ships. Depending on your system specs (RAM being the #1 issue for most users) you may not be able to run the full version. There is a lite version that you can try if that turns out to be the case. Links and plenty of info on both should be in the thread.

Better if you post your system specs here because you may need one of the 'switches'.

And that ain't no joke... :yep:

i have a quad core at 2.93ghx, with 6gb of ddr3 ram and a 1gb vid card and i still got CTD's with the merchant fleet mod...it just would not run on my system

then i found the 4gb patch, made it zap the sh3.exe and now everything runs great with x4 AA/AF enabled and it runs at a solid 60fps(i have vsync enabled)

Seems to be the key for a lot of people...

The way the game was coded it'll only access the first two gigs of RAM, (no matter how much you have), so once you get into memory intensive mods, (like MFM), the patch is pretty indispensable.

...and that is the secret to prolonging the life of SH3 will the myriad of mods available.

Before my 64bit system was purchased I chugged along on a 3.2Ghz single core (the machine that so many versions of TGW and GWX were played on) but she eventually succumbed to all the additional mods she was expected to accomodate.

Can someone explain what the 4GB patch does? I tried the Merchant mod, but it crashed the game as several have said.

My system:

Intel Core i7
M 620 @ 2.67GHz
1.17 GHz, 2.17 GB of RAM

My computer is a MacBook Pro and I run Windows on a Boot Camp partition.

In olden times, before the average home user even knew what 64-bit computing was and there was no point in having more than 4 gigs of RAM onboard the typical home PC, many (if not most) programs were hard-coded to recognize and make use of a maximum of 2 gigs of RAM (provided 2 free gigs were available) and never ever use any more than that (no matter how much extra was just hanging about unused).

SH3 was and is one of those programs. Unmodded and unpatched, the SH3.exe file - when running - will never allow the game to use more than 2 gigs of RAM no matter how much you have installed and how much of it your OS recognizes.

The 4GB patch for SH3 patches the SH3.exe file with regard to this issue, allowing it to make use of up to 4 gigs of available RAM when the game is running. If you have the extra RAM available, and your OS recognizes it, the game will grab for itself up to twice as much as it did before - thus allowing use of many RAM-hungry mods that would otherwise crash your system.

Unfortunately, with only a little over 2 gigs RAM total on your system, the patch might not help you very much. It would allow the game to use more RAM, but you wouldn't have more available. Your solution would be to add more RAM first, then get the 4GB patch.

I don't know anything about running Windows on a MacBook and whether or not the /3GB switch (which affects Windows by changing the boot.ini, not the game per se) would also be a possible (or useful) option. Someone else may be able to address that... but to run the "big" mods, yeah, you're gonna need more RAM for starters.

Thank you for that. I think I'll try the Lite versiona and see what happens before I buy more memory.

Good luck! :DL

Good idea...

Good place to start! :sunny:

Greetings!

I've been following this thread with interest. I'm considering installing the Merchant mod. I am running Win XP (home) on an Intel P4 Core Duo-2 6850 3.0 Ghz 4MB 133FSB with memory DDR2 4GB PC6400/800Mhz (4PC of 1GB) and a MSI-9800GT PCI-EX 1GB Video card.

My question is, would the 4GB patch be of use to me, or is that only for 64bit systems? If it would help me, where can I find the patch?

Thanks,
Scott

It may still make a difference, it depends on how much RAM is available to the game after the needs of your OS and other running processes are met. If you have 4 gigs total onboard you might as well add the patch, that way the game won't be limited to 2 gigs and if there is more available it can use it. It can't hurt to add the patch, is what I'm saying, it can only help, whether or not it helps enough to run the MFM you'll only know by trying.

Check this thread for link to download it:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ight=4GB+patch

Wow, that was fast :)

Thanks for the reply and the link! :salute:

Cheers,
Scott