Former semi-hater / After all my SH4 bashing (Merged)

stabiz · 03-23-07, 12:16 AM

Have to say this before I go to bed.

This game is going to be huge.

I am still not impressed by the graphics, but as soon as that was out of the way, I was hit by bad stutters at a fairly high end system. That almost made me kill my XO.

So, after finally kind of curing those issues, i could play a little. Up until that I had only spent hours reinstalling to try different things, and staring at the boat hoping the stutters would go away.

In submarine school I saw the outlines of what was going to be hours upon hours of fun. I mean, how cool is the AA action in this game? (Not FSAA, hahaha) And how freekin cool are the damage effects, and the transparant water? (okay, I knew about those last two, but seeing is believing) The explotions are also ace, really top stuff. Not that impressed by the torpedo hit simulations, the water geysirs are not in tune with the rest of the water quality.

I studied some deck gun holes in the sinking merchie, and wow, really well done that effect.

When the bugs have been ironed out this is going to be one sweet ride.

(And I cat even imagine what mods will do to this)

So, rant over, just thought I should say something positive when that is due, too.

Well done, devs!

Commander Stabiz
USS Trout

geetrue · 03-23-07, 02:07 AM

You'll sleep better for having said that ... tomorrow you sail into uncharted waters and probably die like a dog from not knowing what to do ... lol

but at least you sailed ...

Good luck skipper

Von Hinten · 03-23-07, 02:24 AM

Great post stabiz, well said. Got to admire that kind of spirit.

Now go and start making those movies I know everyone is waiting for, you lazy ...

P_Funk · 03-23-07, 02:38 AM

Of course you're right. In about 4 or 5 months everyone will be gaga for SH4. And then the REAL mods will start to be formulated. The true modding community can't really size up what needs doing until the game reaches its finished retail state and everyone can beat it to death with more legitimate SH3 comparisons.

By then I'll probably be onboard too.

But I don't think I'll ever get used to the idea of a name for my boat. I mean honestly! Is ther anything sexier than a random series of digits? None of this Trout non sense.

stabiz · 03-23-07, 08:37 AM

Hehe, for me its the quite opposite. I hav always liked that the boats have names, makes them more personal than just numbers. (Although U-96 is one mythical number to most of us) Of course, some names are not that well chosen, like Dowlys USS Bubblehead.:rotfl:

First video will come soon, von Hinten.

hyperion2206 · 03-23-07, 08:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stabiz

Hehe, for me its the quite opposite. I hav always liked that the boats have names, makes them more personal than just numbers. (Although U-96 is one mythical number to most of us) Of course, some names are not that well chosen, like Dowlys USS Bubblehead.:rotfl:

First video will come soon, von Hinten.

I was about to command USS Hoe, but I did not want to be teased by you, my fellow skippers.:rotfl:

Von Hinten · 03-24-07, 04:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stabiz

First video will come soon, von Hinten.

That's all I needed to hear to have a good weekend maestro, thanks!

gronbek · 03-23-07, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stabiz

...I studied some deck gun holes in the sinking merchie, and wow, really well done that effect.

I dont get those holes from deck guns, only torpedos

BR Anders

XanderF · 03-24-07, 04:56 AM

...I'm man enough to admit when I'm wrong.

To be fair, the lack of FSAA *is* annoying, and no mistake. BUT...I'm glad I decided to open the box instead of returning it. Believe it or not, I had pre-ordered it, and when I received it, the news of no AA and locked resolution had already broke, so I never opened it. I got the code from UbiSoft to return it, and was planning on doing just that this weekend. What decided me?

My biggest pet peeve reading on the forums was the lack of FSAA. But, hey, the devs said they intend to fix that, so...what's next?
I went into the local EBGames to pick up a copy of 'IL2: 1946' for one of my coworkers, saw the Sh4 game box on the shelf (a real box, not the empty display ones they put out) and held it. Seriously - if any of you are on the edge, go out and pick up a retail copy of this. Literally pick it up. The ****er is HEAVY. And I'm not kidding! I've held BOOKS of this size that weighed less! This tells out when opening it - in all seriousness, the amount of stuff they packed in there...I mean, I vaguely can remember a time when this was the norm, but...only vaguely. I certainly couldn't name a game that I remember with this much in it. Maybe the original Falcon 4.0 release? Bigger manual, but...

No, really - pick one up and hold it. That 100+ page manual has some heft to it, the ship recognition guide (while fold-out) is no slouch, the full map of the Pacific, game DVD with 'bonus' DVD and movie, etc. It's just....it's the kind of packaging from "the gold old days" of sims.

The memory most washing over me opening up my copy and reading through it during the install was "Silent Service II" - the first PC game I ever bought all those years back, still sitting on the shelf in front of me.
So, okay, the packaging is great, what else? Alright, it's silly, but the Milton poem 'On Time' read over the intro movie is really QUITE stirring! A noticeable improvement on the bland-ish Sh3 video. (If you've not seen it, it's posted as the "Official Trailer 4" on Gamespot's page for the game. Worth downloading in HD if you have an account and haven't picked up Sh4 yet.) And yes, it's in-game footage in "high res", so you can see all the plusses and minuses of the trade-offs between post-processing and FSAA. Let's just say...I'm looking forward to the AA patch, but if it comes at the expense of the post-processing effects...well...I just hope we can toggle back and forth like with the "bloom" in Sh3.
The graphics...in motion...I mean...I'm just drooling. There are some shots in the 'official screenshot thread' that give you a TASTE of it. The desktop-worthy image in this post and this post, and the series of images in this post and finally this post, for example. But those are all STATIC. In motion, it's just...it's WAY better. Unspeakably so.
The AI seem more...tenacious. I just tried a single mission of intercepting a Saipan convoy near Japan late-war. The Japanese DDs did a MUCH better job of keeping me down than any UK DDs did during Sh3. (To be fair, the UK DDs either seemed to sink me pretty much immediately, or I was able to get away. The IJN DDs just kept...harassing me. They stayed with me and kept peppering me with depth charges for HOURS. Never killing me, but...never letting up, either. It was really starting to get nerve-wracking, which is just something I never felt in Sh3. Again, in that game I either felt like I was getting away...and did. Or died. Rapidly. Not so, here!)
The graphics. Did I mention the graphics? They are awesome! Oh, fine, to make this a seperate point - using a Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeGamer card, I can also use all the special sound effects (when set to 'game mode') with no issue. Sounds pretty good, although, to be fair, I really can't wait for the first user-created voice pack for it. The point in Sh4's favor is that the audio engine seems like it can do some cool things the engine in Sh3 just couldn't do. Pair that with the same improved treatment Sh3 got (and we KNOW Sh4 will get), and we have a winner!
Performance is fantastic. I have what is a pretty mid-to-low-end system anymore:
- AMD dual-core Opteron 165 @ 2.0ghz
- 2gb OCZ Platinum @ DDR500
- ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512mb
- Western Digital 250gb SATA HDD w/ 7200rpm and 16mb cache
- Creative Labs Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
...and Sh4 plays VERY well with all settings MAXED on this box. Slowdowns in intense action sequences, but these are minor slowdowns and happen rarely.
I know I mentioned 'Silent Service II' earlier in the post, but...I can't help but go back to it. It was the very first PC game I bought when I was very young, and it was EXTREMELY compelling to me - aided in no small part by the easy 'suspension of disbelief' achievable in youth. I'm surprised to see Sh4 hit the same note. I'm obviously decades older, now, and orders of magnitude more cynical...but Sh4 really hits that note right. If this comment is relevant (may not be to many, but for my age group...) - the feeling you had playing 'Silent Service II' as a kid, Sh4 manages to deliver to the adult version of you. Is it perfect? Hell no, of course not. Indeed, there are some bugs that are RIDICULOUS and should have been caught. But it's pretty darn amazing all the same. It's one of those games where - a testament to the game designers - it really IS immersive enough you can forgive the glitches. As in SSII, where you could sink 6 Yamatos during the course of the war, but you didn't really care (for the time), or every ship always took the EXACT same number of torpedoes to sink, or the entire enemy fleet consisted of 8 different ship 'models', and you had a 'godlike' overhead view of the battle - sure, in Sh4 it'd be nice if the rocks on the ocean floor actually obstructed you, crewmen were more interactive, and FSAA worked (what FSAA in 1990? LOLz!), etc...but...overall...the effect is made.

So, I guess, in short (or long - this took more space than I expected) - this is my way of saying...hey, I was wrong. The game has bugs, sure. Irritating ones. But trust me on this - only the most curmudgeony skinflint could really fault what we've been delivered. It is already so close to ideal. And will only get better!

03-23-07, 12:16 AM	#1
stabiz Silent Hunter Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Norway Posts: 4,224 Downloads: 14 Uploads: 0	Former semi-hater / After all my SH4 bashing (Merged) Have to say this before I go to bed. This game is going to be huge. I am still not impressed by the graphics, but as soon as that was out of the way, I was hit by bad stutters at a fairly high end system. That almost made me kill my XO. So, after finally kind of curing those issues, i could play a little. Up until that I had only spent hours reinstalling to try different things, and staring at the boat hoping the stutters would go away. In submarine school I saw the outlines of what was going to be hours upon hours of fun. I mean, how cool is the AA action in this game? (Not FSAA, hahaha) And how freekin cool are the damage effects, and the transparant water? (okay, I knew about those last two, but seeing is believing) The explotions are also ace, really top stuff. Not that impressed by the torpedo hit simulations, the water geysirs are not in tune with the rest of the water quality. I studied some deck gun holes in the sinking merchie, and wow, really well done that effect. When the bugs have been ironed out this is going to be one sweet ride. (And I cat even imagine what mods will do to this) So, rant over, just thought I should say something positive when that is due, too. Well done, devs! Commander Stabiz USS Trout __________________

03-23-07, 02:07 AM	#2
geetrue Cold War Boomer Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Walla Walla Posts: 2,837 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	You'll sleep better for having said that ... tomorrow you sail into uncharted waters and probably die like a dog from not knowing what to do ... lol but at least you sailed ... Good luck skipper __________________

03-23-07, 02:24 AM	#3
Von Hinten Commander Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Netherlands Posts: 466 Downloads: 54 Uploads: 0	Great post stabiz, well said. Got to admire that kind of spirit. Now go and start making those movies I know everyone is waiting for, you lazy ... __________________ Regardz, Von Hinten UC3 Nautilus' engineer for 45 minutes!

03-23-07, 02:38 AM	#4
P_Funk Ocean Warrior Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Canada, eh? Posts: 2,537 Downloads: 129 Uploads: 0	Of course you're right. In about 4 or 5 months everyone will be gaga for SH4. And then the REAL mods will start to be formulated. The true modding community can't really size up what needs doing until the game reaches its finished retail state and everyone can beat it to death with more legitimate SH3 comparisons. By then I'll probably be onboard too. But I don't think I'll ever get used to the idea of a name for my boat. I mean honestly! Is ther anything sexier than a random series of digits? None of this Trout non sense. __________________

03-23-07, 08:37 AM	#5
stabiz Silent Hunter Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Norway Posts: 4,224 Downloads: 14 Uploads: 0	Hehe, for me its the quite opposite. I hav always liked that the boats have names, makes them more personal than just numbers. (Although U-96 is one mythical number to most of us) Of course, some names are not that well chosen, like Dowlys USS Bubblehead.:rotfl: First video will come soon, von Hinten. __________________

03-24-07, 04:56 AM	#9
XanderF Samurai Navy Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 554 Downloads: 14 Uploads: 0	After all my Sh4 bashing... ...I'm man enough to admit when I'm wrong. To be fair, the lack of FSAA is annoying, and no mistake. BUT...I'm glad I decided to open the box instead of returning it. Believe it or not, I had pre-ordered it, and when I received it, the news of no AA and locked resolution had already broke, so I never opened it. I got the code from UbiSoft to return it, and was planning on doing just that this weekend. What decided me? My biggest pet peeve reading on the forums was the lack of FSAA. But, hey, the devs said they intend to fix that, so...what's next? I went into the local EBGames to pick up a copy of 'IL2: 1946' for one of my coworkers, saw the Sh4 game box on the shelf (a real box, not the empty display ones they put out) and held it. Seriously - if any of you are on the edge, go out and pick up a retail copy of this. Literally pick it up. The ***er is HEAVY. And I'm not kidding! I've held BOOKS of this size that weighed less! This tells out when opening it - in all seriousness, the amount of stuff they packed in there...I mean, I vaguely can remember a time when this was the norm, but...only vaguely. I certainly couldn't name a game that I remember with this much in it. Maybe the original Falcon 4.0 release? Bigger manual, but... No, really - pick one up and hold it. That 100+ page manual has some heft to it, the ship recognition guide (while fold-out) is no slouch, the full map of the Pacific, game DVD with 'bonus' DVD and movie, etc. It's just....it's the kind of packaging from "the gold old days" of sims. The memory most washing over me opening up my copy and reading through it during the install was "Silent Service II" - the first PC game I ever bought all those years back, still sitting on the shelf in front of me. So, okay, the packaging is great, what else? Alright, it's silly, but the Milton poem 'On Time' read over the intro movie is really QUITE stirring! A noticeable improvement on the bland-ish Sh3 video. (If you've not seen it, it's posted as the "Official Trailer 4" on Gamespot's page for the game. Worth downloading in HD if you have an account and haven't picked up Sh4 yet.) And yes, it's in-game footage in "high res", so you can see all the plusses and minuses of the trade-offs between post-processing and FSAA. Let's just say...I'm looking forward to the AA patch, but if it comes at the expense of the post-processing effects...well...I just hope we can toggle back and forth like with the "bloom" in Sh3. The graphics...in motion...I mean...I'm just drooling. There are some shots in the 'official screenshot thread' that give you a TASTE of it. The desktop-worthy image in this post and this post, and the series of images in this post and finally this post, for example. But those are all STATIC. In motion, it's just...it's WAY better. Unspeakably so. The AI seem more...tenacious. I just tried a single mission of intercepting a Saipan convoy near Japan late-war. The Japanese DDs did a MUCH better job of keeping me down than any UK DDs did during Sh3. (To be fair, the UK DDs either seemed to sink me pretty much immediately, or I was able to get away. The IJN DDs just kept...harassing me. They stayed with me and kept peppering me with depth charges for HOURS. Never killing me, but...never letting up, either. It was really starting to get nerve-wracking, which is just something I never felt in Sh3. Again, in that game I either felt like I was getting away...and did. Or died. Rapidly. Not so, here!) The graphics. Did I mention the graphics? They are awesome! Oh, fine, to make this a seperate point - using a Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeGamer card, I can also use all the special sound effects (when set to 'game mode') with no issue. Sounds pretty good, although, to be fair, I really can't wait for the first user-created voice pack for it. The point in Sh4's favor is that the audio engine seems like it can do some cool things the engine in Sh3 just couldn't do. Pair that with the same improved treatment Sh3 got (and we KNOW Sh4 will get), and we have a winner! Performance is fantastic. I have what is a pretty mid-to-low-end system anymore: AMD dual-core Opteron 165 @ 2.0ghz 2gb OCZ Platinum @ DDR500 ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512mb Western Digital 250gb SATA HDD w/ 7200rpm and 16mb cache Creative Labs Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeGamer ...and Sh4 plays VERY well with all settings MAXED on this box. Slowdowns in intense action sequences, but these are minor slowdowns and happen rarely. I know I mentioned 'Silent Service II' earlier in the post, but...I can't help but go back to it. It was the very first PC game I bought when I was very young, and it was EXTREMELY compelling to me - aided in no small part by the easy 'suspension of disbelief' achievable in youth. I'm surprised to see Sh4 hit the same note. I'm obviously decades older, now, and orders of magnitude more cynical...but Sh4 really hits that note right. If this comment is relevant (may not be to many, but for my age group...) - the feeling you had playing 'Silent Service II' as a kid, Sh4 manages to deliver to the adult version of you. Is it perfect? Hell no, of course not. Indeed, there are some bugs that are RIDICULOUS and should have been caught. But it's pretty darn amazing all the same. It's one of those games where - a testament to the game designers - it really IS immersive enough you can forgive the glitches. As in SSII, where you could sink 6 Yamatos during the course of the war, but you didn't really care (for the time), or every ship always took the EXACT same number of torpedoes to sink, or the entire enemy fleet consisted of 8 different ship 'models', and you had a 'godlike' overhead view of the battle - sure, in Sh4 it'd be nice if the rocks on the ocean floor actually obstructed you, crewmen were more interactive, and FSAA worked (what FSAA in 1990? LOLz!), etc...but...overall...the effect is made. So, I guess, in short (or long - this took more space than I expected) - this is my way of saying...hey, I was wrong. The game has bugs, sure. Irritating ones. But trust me on this - only the most curmudgeony skinflint could really fault what we've been delivered. It is already so close* to ideal. And will only get better! __________________