[Armistead]

A few things to do. Make sure you point your shortcut to sh4.exe instead of gu.exe. Just right click on your desktop shortcut, properties and where it says target paste this line there instead of the one the game creates.

"C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific\sh4.exe"

The only change is you point it to sh4, instead of gu.exe. The gu.exe is basically a program that checks the server for updates and other crap before it starts the game and has caused many problems for some. I got constant crashes, this fixed them.

Make sure you install the DX version from the disc, I think it's 9. The game runs off this version. Some that use the newer DX10 or older versions have crashes all the time...You can have multi installs of DX.

I take it you've updated all your drivers.....mostly video and sound....

Not sure what your specs are, but if you don't have a lot of ram, you need to cut off all background programs and services that you can. It's possible while playing your virtual ram runs low if you have a lot of crap running in the background. One of the best things you can do is a search on the net for tweaking your PC for gaming. Just know what you're doing, back up, ect. For the most part it's very simple. If you have a few megs of ram and have many programs and services running, it can get low and cause problems.

On my older rig I had 2megs of ram and a cheap 7600 video card. It ran the game OK, but I got crashes all the time, save games wouldn't load, ect. Video card would get hot...With my newer gaming rig, seldom have a problem, no crashes in any situation. However, when you save, don't save near a lot of activity. Don't be near land or near a bunch of ships. If you save with a lot of activity, the game has more info to read and save and weird things can happen. Best to save when nothing is around, TC on 1.

Saving games overall shouldn't be an issue if you have a strong rig. You are right, the longer you prolong the mission, the more info has to be saved. You do a 60 day patrol, complete several objectives, sink a bunch of ships, ect...all of this is saved and has to be processed when you load back up. As stated, the issue is more spec related, background programs, ect, than the game itself, but it can happen.

Also, don't resave over the same game over and over. If you have a lot of saved games, delete them. Some people have half a hard drive filled with old saved games they don't use. Saved games take a lot of space.

As for mods, I don't play UBoats, but OM would be your best bet. Not sure if that deals with a lot of the bugs. For Fleetboats, you have several great supermods that deal with many of the bugs, I play TMO, but you can look on the mods page and decide. Make sure you're careful with mods, start mixing the wrong ones together and you'll see plenty of crashes.

Obvious, you want to do you standard PC service, defrag, scandisk, ect.

There are a few bugs left, like the CO2 bug, but these don't really effect game play or cause crashes. I suffered from crashes a lot when I first played. Nothing would make me madder than to lose a whole career and all my saved games corrupt....madder than hell, but with help things work rather smooth these days.

In the end, things can happen. There are many possible software or hardware related issues, but most get through these. One guy kept complaining that his game screwed up all the time. Figured it happened mostly at night at the same time. He had his virus scanner scheduled to go off everynight, followed by defrag and scandisk..these are not things you want running while playing......so just be aware of all these issues.

You probably know these things, just trying to help you cover the bases.

Good luck.