At long last I've fettled it!
I have suffered hell these past 16 days trying to fathom out what had gone wrong with my system and finally came to the conclusion earlier this evening that my computer was sound, as were my drives, video card and stock version of SH3. So I concluded that I must have made an adjustment some time or other over a fortnight ago that had thrown a spanner into the works resulting in the graphics glitch on my chart.
Then suddenly, about an hour ago: EUREKA!
I remembered having, for some reason or other, chosen the option not to compress drive D (where my games folder is) in order to save disc space. This function is in the options of the disc drives: left click "My Computer" - right click a disc drive - left click "options". I remember choosing not to compress the D drive so as to see what would happen. Nothing happened, I thought, until I next loaded a saved game outward bound from Wilhelmshaven and I totally forgot about my "adjustment" to the D drive onthe previous day.
One thing that I discovered during my recent trails and tribulations is that my new Radeon HD 2600 Pro AGP video card is not (or wasn't until a couple of weeks ago) supported by ATI. When you download the latest drivers from ATI, they do not recognise this hardware: you have to download a modified ATI driver from "Saphire", the manufacturer of said card. It's a long, involved story why; if you're interested how to get by this irritating non-compatibility problem, it's all there on Google.
But enough of this! At long last I've got the taste of salt on my lips and the stench of diesel fumes in my nostrils.
Gott straf England!
