Silent Hunter III question

Hi all, Im quite new to these forums and plan on purchasing Silent Hunter 3, 4 (Gold) and 5 here soon. My computer in its current state would have problems running 5 at high graphics so for now Im going to stick to 3 and possibly 4 if my comp can handle it.

I have a few questions about 3 for you all however.

First; Can the game actually look pretty dang good with graphics all up and mods? Ive seen quite a few pictures of 3 and it looks good but not too impressive, however, Im owing it to the fact that pictures in many cases do not do th game justice

Second; After looking at amazon, it says this game can only run on XP? I have windows 7 atm, and am wondering if it would run on 7

Third; What are Mods that you guys reccomend, as far as realism adding effects, eye candy (weather effects, some uboat skins as well) anda anything that would affect playability (UI's and stuff like that)

And fourth, how can I edit my emblem on my conning tower, I definately want to have my own 'thing' going on with my sub so that when I surface do deliver the coup'e de grace on a lonely merchant, they know exactly who it is that just sunk them

Oh and please if possible add a short description of each mod they post as well as if I need to get earlier versions and what not.
Thanks all!

[K-61]

Yes, mods do add better effects to the game. The main mod is GWX Gold, which ramps up the difficulty, corrects certain game flaws, though some bugs are hard coded, adds more content, etc. The game can run on Vista and W7; I am running it on a gaming notebook under W7 64 bit. You do have to follow a different installation routine; do not install it into the default directory, but straight to a folder of your choice in C:\. Mine is installed into C:\Ubisoft, others install it into C:\SH3. Also, use the no-disc installation method so you completely avoid any hassles with the original game release's copy protection scheme. If you need help, post here and there will be plenty of help. As for sub emblems I am not sure how to do that, but again, there are folks here who do and will help you with that.

[Flaxpants]

New to Sh3 myself and had the same questions myself not so long ago.
Here's my answers to your questions based on my limited experience:

First: Was also a query of mine b4 I bought the game. The answer is yes it certainly can look good, especially with the addition of a few mods. See below.
Second: It can run on Win7, best u check out the thread about it in this section as there are some issues you need to get round. I use XP so cannot elaborate.
Third: Got to go GWX, it adds loads of detail, realism and general depth and excitement to the game. To improve the graphics I also use the resolution fix mod so I can run it a higher resolutions, SH5 water for SH3, Fubars skins, Torpedo damage mod. In general you should be able to find mods that can deal with issues you may have with the game, so it's really up to you to find out what those are. All are easy to install- especially with JSGME which comes with GWX, basically an easy to use Mod enabler. I haven't had a problem with any mods I've used to date.
Fourth: Can't help you here as never tried, but I do believe there is a mod that allows you to do this.
I'm sure the more experienced guys will chip in some help b4 long and fill in the gaps. Good Luck!

[OSU]

1) Yes, the game can look awesome. I don't have the best PC, but the game looks pretty good on it. I don't have any mods installed to make it look better, but there are a bunch in the downloads section. The link is right next to the User CP at the top of the page.

3) The main mod that almost everyone here uses is the Grey Wolves Expansion 3.0. Improves gameplay, more realisim, more fun, cool stuff like that. Awesome mod, this is a must have if you want to get the most out of SH3. I also use the ACM-GUI Reloaded - hsie's Edition V1.15 GUI mod. Awesome if you want an OLC GUI look, but not the drain on your system as that mod uses the 16km atmosphere mod from GWX.

4) Yes, you can make custom emblems for your u-boat. I changed the Laughing Swordfish emblem from black to red, (that's mine, don't use it ) but there are others that you can download too. I know that in the downloads section there are two versions of the Laughing Swordfish, a black one and a green one. All you need to edit one would be a program like paint, PhotoFiltre, or Photoshop. I think that you have to save it as a TGA file though. Not sure on that.

I was thinking more of something along the lines of a paint scheme as well. Personally I would like the tip of the metal of my u boat to be yellow.. heres why Im kinda wanting to go with that...

If you ever played Ace Combat Four you know what Im talking about but for those who dont, well basically there is a fighter sqaudron named the yellow sqaudron who are the deadliest aces of that time.

But yeah

[OSU]

Oh my God!!! I loved that series!!!!! I had Ace Combat 4, 5 and Zero for the PS2. I loved all of them! I personally liked AC5 & Zero the best. I have 6 for the 360, but it doesn't even begin to touch the stories of the previous games for PS2. If only I still had a memory card for my PS2, I'd still be playing those. I never realized how much I miss them.

Yeah they were all great, and looked pretty dang good too for being PS2 games. at least 4. I liked 4 5 and 0 6 too cuz of eye candy. 3 was meh for me

[Tessa]

SH3 can run on Win 7 fine, if you purchase it online and get the direct download version it will install without any of the miseries that many experience with the CD. I've always thought of SH3 to be like the first few Final Fantasy games for the NES, the graphics left a lot to be desired by the content of the game was amazing and was what made the game enjoyable, not a bunch of eye candy with a flimsy plot. Since it's realease 5 years ago there's been many mods to improve its graphics (and more continue to come out even as Ubisoft releases more (bugged) versions of the SH series) and gameplay.

When I first saw the trailers for SH5 it looked like everything we'd been asking for; for me at least the biggest change being a dynamic campaign where the course of the game isn't always the same regardless of your performance (mainly that the course of the war can change in the players favor). Shortly after it came out and it saw pretty much unanimous 1/5 or 1/10 stars on the reviews (not to mention the DRM, that's probably the most volatile subject I've ever seen in these forums ever) and that the hard core vets seemed to gravitate back to SH3 said it all for me.

Alot of the guys ive talked to though said after mods it gets much better, and the DRM i dont mind, I mean as long as they tend to keep their servers up alot more than theyre down.

As far as SH3 goes, I have a fast internet connection but Idk where to download it at?? any help would be awesomely appreciated. however I may just buy the CD because my father is into sub games (we played wolfpack back in the day) and id like to get this so me and him could be playing in the house on our seperate computers lol

Which brings me to another question, you can play LAN with SH3 right?? because Id love to have a two man wolfpack going haha.

EDIT: I like the boat in your sig lol