A couple of questions

[SuperCavitation]

Hi guys, long time no post for me.

I'm running SH4 1.4 with no mods. Just got the game the other day. I have three questions related to the simming, as it were, and all of them pertain to my brand new career in 1941, based at Pearl Harbor.

1) I have the anti-air radar installed on my brand new 1941 boat, and it does detect planes with no problem when my AI guy is at the post. However, when I go to the radar station I cannot "switch on" the radar to view anything. I click the switch and it just stays in the static position. Is this normal for the early radar? I'm sure I'm at the right station for it and I've made sure by trying to switch the other one on, even though I don't have surface available to me yet. Sonar works fine, by the way.

2) When I'm lining up a shot on a freighter, and have the recognition manual open, I'm not getting the "black boxes" that used to appear in SH3 on the manual. Was this function removed? If so, I should just make sure I hit them dead center or slightly aft of center to nail the fuel supply on the ship, right? I do have it set where the AI W.O. helps me with my target acquisition, like in SH3.

3) I can surf the Pacific on 4096+ TC with no problem, entering Japanese waters from Midway. Usually I go wherever they want me, finish the mission(s), and 4096+ TC my way back home. Last night I decided to enter Tokyo harbor just for the fun of it and ended up ID'ing about 20-30 ships and sinking a few. I managed to get out unscathed, but the rest of the trip back home was on 2048 TC at best. It lagged like I was still in the harbor. Is this because everything I "saw" in the harbor was still "resident" in memory? Is there a mod that fixes that, if so? Or a "cheat" where I can "flush entities" like in some other games?

More on the Tokyo harbor: I noticed a lot of burning ships in dock, ships that were standing dead still in the middle of the water, Subchasers that were moving *in reverse*, ships that would crash themselves into the land, and other weird things. There was even a convoy of 6-7 freighters that had apparently crashed into each other and about 1/3 of them were nose-up in the shallow water. It was sad. Is this normal?

In case any of this is performance-related, I have a 3000+ 64bit AMD on a Gigabyte NForce board, 2 gigs RAM in dual-channel, 6800 GT, fresh install of WinXP 64bit on a 120 Gig SATA1, all drivers up to date, everything fresh. Patched to 1.4, too, like I mentioned. My graphics are cranked, look beautiful, and I don't have that stutter problem I read about whenever you view an exploding freighter. It's as pretty as pie.

Thanks for any help. I love this community, just wish I could play more often these days.
@Neil: I think it is awesome they put your name on the stopwatch. That's really really cool. Esp since I live in Texas, too.

SuperCav

[fred8615]

Originally Posted by SuperCavitation

1) I have the anti-air radar installed on my brand new 1941 boat, and it does detect planes with no problem when my AI guy is at the post. However, when I go to the radar station I cannot "switch on" the radar to view anything. I click the switch and it just stays in the static position. Is this normal for the early radar? I'm sure I'm at the right station for it and I've made sure by trying to switch the other one on, even though I don't have surface available to me yet. Sonar works fine, by the way.

The SD radar doesn't use or is affected by anything in the radar station. It only warns you, and only displays anything on the map. If you have it, it's always on. In fact, unlike the later surface search SJ radar, it turns itself back on when you surface after being submerged.

I can't help you on the other stuff.

[SuperCavitation]

Thanks for that, Fred.

Anyone else that can sound off on my other two questions? I'm about to start patrol #3 and it'd be great to have these answers at hand. :p

SuperCav

[SuperCavitation]

Well I ran another patrol last night and the same thing happened, although the harbor wasn't as filled with "broken" ships as much as before. I still couldn't TC past 2048 on the return trip.

I'm guessing with the lack of responses (against the number of reads) on this thread that my remaining questions must be as the game is intended.

Thanks.

[bcarter3]

I've only been playing a week, but the only times I have time compression issues like this is when I'm near high traffic areas. Once I clear out into the deep blue seas in the middle of nowhere it ceases to be a problem. It may be that your getting too many radio contacts - I think there is a mod around to limit the contacts you get to ones that are more reasonable, and ones that you can realistically approach in terms of distance. Sorry I cant be of much use.

[peabody]

Just a thought, but if you go all the way there on 4096 and then engage a lot of ships (which puts a load on your video card) is it possible your card if overheading? Crusing the ocean doesn't put a big load on it, but if you add to that the harbor engagement, it might be enough to heat it up and then you go as fast as you can on the return trip so it doesn't get a chance to cool down enough. Just a thought? It may be something in the game but I can't help there.

Peabody

[SuperCavitation]

Originally Posted by bcarter3

I've only been playing a week, but the only times I have time compression issues like this is when I'm near high traffic areas. Once I clear out into the deep blue seas in the middle of nowhere it ceases to be a problem.

I have the same thing happen if all I do is run the missions that are given me. But if I enter a high traffic area, like the harbor, the lag follows me on my return trip.

Someone would probably counter with, "Just don't enter the Tokyo harbor then," but I say, "What's the point of even playing if you can't run that kind of risk/reward and see what the dev's worked so hard on modelling?"

Originally Posted by peabody

Just a thought, but if you go all the way there on 4096 and then engage a lot of ships (which puts a load on your video card) is it possible your card if overheading? Crusing the ocean doesn't put a big load on it, but if you add to that the harbor engagement, it might be enough to heat it up and then you go as fast as you can on the return trip so it doesn't get a chance to cool down enough. Just a thought? It may be something in the game but I can't help there.

I know that isn't the true cause for two reasons: I can cruise the Pac chasing missions without the problem cropping up, and I did have to exit the game and take a break (wife, kids) last night. The lag was still there later on when I reloaded.

It has to be the number of entities loading into memory that I can actually contact (sonar, radar, visual) and they are not unloading when I leave the general area. Or maybe they couple with the contacts. Who knows.

You'd think after this game being out a year, and all the old salts on this board, that I wouldn't be the only one noticing this....

[-Pv-]

Bad pathing on escorts when they are near coastlines is normal. You just have to live with it.

Use lower TC until you get far enough from contact areas that they drop off the map. Slowly work your way up to higher TC as your system responds well.
-Pv-

[Torplexed]

More on the Tokyo harbor: I noticed a lot of burning ships in dock, ships that were standing dead still in the middle of the water, Subchasers that were moving *in reverse*, ships that would crash themselves into the land, and other weird things. There was even a convoy of 6-7 freighters that had apparently crashed into each other and about 1/3 of them were nose-up in the shallow water. It was sad. Is this normal?

Yeah...I've seen this too. Probably poor pathfinding by the AI which results in ships running aground and getting damaged. Storms will have the same effect. Just use your imagination and chalk the damage up to other subs, air raids or the occasional Halsey-sized typhoon.

[SuperCavitation]

Now that is what I'm talking about. Thanks, guys, truely!

Originally Posted by SuperCavitation

2) When I'm lining up a shot on a freighter, and have the recognition manual open, I'm not getting the "black boxes" that used to appear in SH3 on the manual. Was this function removed? If so, I should just make sure I hit them dead center or slightly aft of center to nail the fuel supply on the ship, right? I do have it set where the AI W.O. helps me with my target acquisition, like in SH3.

I'm guessing since nobody touched this one that it is indeed a function that has been removed?