Having just retired and moved back to the UK I decided to install SH3 on my Dell laptop (XPS Inspiron M1710, 4 Gb Ram, Intel Core 2 CPU T7600 @ 2.33 GHz, with NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX video card, running under Windows Vista Home Premium) an old workhorse, but a good 'un.
I installed SH3 via a USB connected Philips DVD player/recorder (the one built into the Dell has become a bit iffy over time.)
My copy of SH3 is an original version 1 Ubisoft one with the disc-check program.
Before patching the game I tried to run it to check that the vanilla intallation was OK. I put the SH3 DVD into the drive from which I'd installed the game (the separate Philips drive) and clicked on the desktop SH3 icon. The "Checking Disc" window appeared, but it requested that I put the SH3 DVD into a different drive. After retrying several times I decided to give the original built-in drive a go - same rersult.
I downloaded a "no-dvd" fix and swapped the appropriate files to bypass the disc-check - naughty, but necessary, I'm afraid. This time I got the Ubisoft titles etc and the intro movie - then a blank screen. I checked the task manager and SH3.exe was running as a process, but not as an application
.
Any and all suggestions gratefully received.