Help needed please with a new SH3 installation
 

My plan was to try SH3 again having abandoned the game in 2021.
I purchased and downloaded the game from Ubisoft and downloaded all the mods that I plan to install from the Subsim forums.
Unfortunately, when I tried to install the H.sie V16B1 patch, I get the message:
"Sorry, no compatible version of sh3.exe found
Patching not possible! Exit."
Looking at my 'SilentHunterIII' folder - I can see that I have two executable files:
sh3.exe which is just 82kb, and,
sh3_g.exe which is 1,312kb
Clicking on either of the above runs the game.
I am not sure what is going on here and would be most grateful for advice.

I've never even heard of a SH3_G.exe
The smaller sh3 doesn't even make sense.

OK - I wasted my money going to Ubisoft !!!
The 'Uplay' or 'Ubisoft Connect' version is clearly not compatible with older mods.
Plan 'B' is to dig out my old saved version - fortunately, although I deleted it, I kept back-ups.

OK - so I now remember why I stopped playing SH3. There was a conflict with my Norton Anti-virus - apparantly the sh3.exe file was removed by Norton because it attempted to access protected data.
My only option is to source a clean copy of the original SH3 program. Any ideas where I might be able to buy one?

I have signed up to 'Steam' and have installed Silent Hunter III from their site. Apart from the fact that (contrary to my previous practice) the 'Steam' installation puts all the SH3 files in a sub-folder of 'Program Files (x86)' - without giving me the option to choose otherwise, the installation appears to work.

Having installed the V1.6b patch and the GWX3 supermod, I have managed to complete an early war patrol without the game crashing.

I would have preferred to find an original clean copy of SH3 to install in my own way but they just don't appear to be available to download. The one that I downloaded from Ubisoft worked fine with Windows 11 but that version is not compatible with the V1.6b realsim patch.

Hi GJO ive sent you a PM with a SH3 Download link from my mediafire site you will need 7zip to unpack it then mod SH3 as you see fit Sir.

Thank you very much - my biggest objection to 'Steam' and other contemporary ways of obtaining game downloads is the volume of other stuff that often gets packaged with it, all of which I don't need and some of it can be a nuisance!

Norton has a section to list files to exclude from data protection, I've had to do that for several of my games.

Did you move the SH3.exe file to the V16B1 folder before running the patch? I don't think it patches the file directly in the main folder. I think you have to copy the SH3.exe file to the V16B1 folder, run the patch there, and then copy the patched file back to the main folder.

Be sure to make a back-up of the original SH3.exe first.

On my computer running WIN10 I found I had to apply the 4gb patch to the V16B1 patched sh3.exe in the main folder, in effect it was double patched. I would get a run error if I didn't do that.

The 4Gb path, I think you're right. But the H.sie options patches have to be in the Hsie folder.

To clarify I meant I had to do both, first patching the SH3.exe in the H.sie folder and then after copying it to the main folder applying the 4G patch again in the main folder. This 4GB patch is the stand-alone version I downloaded separately. I only had to do this for a fresh install, after that things were ok. All my H.sie stuff is in a separate mod anyway that I activate with JSGME, as I do for all other changes.