Time compression bug!

MRAD · 10-21-09, 09:51 AM

Hello, I have a bug that I need some help with...

I recently started using SH4, after swithing from SH3 and going through what I thought was most of what I could get done in the game. Now upon downloading SH4 off of steam and running it at 1.3 without the U-boat expansion, the game ran without any issues and ran quite fast. I was able to run time compression at 8K with mods loaded and did so with no lagg at all, not even a single studder within the game at that compression setting. Now comes the problem, after installing the expansion and having the game up to 1.5 [through steam] I was able to run the game for about half of my third mission as a American commander in a Gar, based off of Pearl Harbor with time compression not being an issue, as with 1.3. Now, when I finished waiting for the patrol mission to "complete", I killed a few merchants and a destroyer in the area and set course for the harbor once again, as I had completed the patrol portion of the mission and got quite a few kills in. The time compression completely froze the game, I was barely able to get compression to 250X (or was it 252) without having the compression act so slow that the game basically froze, getting it to 1500X was nearly impossible and now the compression feature seems to be completely bugged. I was wondering if anyone could help me out with the issue, my computer is not a problem, and as I said, I had this game running at max compression prior to version 1.5. I had the game running mod free, using high graphics setings (custom settings actually), but the graphics settings aren't an issue, I still have the game running smooth when not in compression. Either than this, it is the only slow-down I have faced in any application with this gaming rig, also never had a problem with steam.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer, I really want to get this running again, it worked great before 1.5.

My system is as follows:

Intel iC7 920 (2.6Ghz) OC'd @3.4Ghz and stable for several months
8GB DDR3 OCZ Platinum Ram
500GB Western Digital Caviar Black HD / Secondary as 1TB Western Digital Caviar black (game is installed on the main, the 500GB)
Windows Vista 64-bit
BFG - Nvidia GTX280 OC (software version 62.0.1c)
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (bios version F6)
Integrated sound (yeah I know, but I use a Sennheiser headset, so the card is more than good enough to get great sound)

BIGD101 · 05-31-10, 04:36 AM

I seem to have this now, anyone know what the problem is?

Chubster · 05-31-10, 05:17 AM

Does this happen all the time or just in your current position? Try going to normal TC and then go to sonar and have a listen around.

Could be a big convoy in the area which causes FPS to drop right down

Diopos · 05-31-10, 11:09 AM

something to consider: other apps running on the bachround.

.

gextm · 06-08-11, 08:15 PM

Hey all! I know this is an old thread, but I just go the expansion and am having exactly the same problem. No problems pre-expansion, definitely not my memory or any hardware issue.

Anyone figure this one out?

Thanks,
TJ

Daniel Prates · 06-24-11, 04:10 PM

TC demands a lot from the game, from your machine, from your ... anyway, from everything. You can't just speed up your TC to 8000x and expect that everything runs smoothly. Sometimes it will, sometimes it will not.

Things that may tamper with the smoothnes of TC, since they add a lot of new information for your machine to handle, are:

1 - being close to shore (and the closer you get, the lower TC will handle things right)

2 - Being close to action

3 - Gettin radar or sonar updates - enemy or not.

4 - Those damn planes!

What happens when you have high TC when one of the above happens? Maybe nothing. But maybe the game will crash, or bug, or things will happen in such a manner that your machine can't correctly calculate them, and when TC drops, you will be left with a weird situation in your hands.

This is because TC is supposed to imediately drop to a lower rate when those above mentioned situations occur, but you can't really expect that to work fine all of the time. If you are running TC at more than 1000x, well, then by the time TC lowers, a lot of things may have happened. Bad things. There are several accounts of people running in high TC, and then all the sudden they find out that they have ran aground.

Best thing to do is to lower your TC intentionally when in enemy-controled lanes, or when getting close to home, anyway, situatins where you might expect your machine having to deal with a lot of information.

Triggerfish · 06-29-11, 05:31 PM

Got SH4 (+ uboat missions download from ubisoft homepage) some weeks ago, worked fine for some time. I started a career this week but midway trough the 3rd patrol everything slowed down and froze to the point of being unplayable. And no, Im not near shore, not near any action, no airplanes. And one mission before I could do 2000-4000x no problem.
Reboot / reload save game doesnt help.

Seems like my adventure with SH4 will end here, too bad cause it was fun as long as it worked normally. Ubisoft really should have a look into this.

Sailor Steve · 06-29-11, 06:33 PM

Welcome aboard, both of you one-timers!

I have no idea what the problem is. I have some lag, usually near land, but I've never let it put me off the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triggerfish

Ubisoft really should have a look into this.

Ubisoft is never going to have a look into SH5, which was released last year, much less a game they finished with four years ago. We're on our own.

Triggerfish · 06-30-11, 06:08 AM

Hi, and thanks. I guess youre right, this game is too old to get much support. I will check out SH3 and Dangerous waters instead, then keep SH4 on the shelf for single missions which usually works fine.

Grooveclubhouse · 01-23-12, 11:33 AM

I have been having the same issue... (sh4 1.5)

Things were going great till about the end of my third or fourth patrol. Never had a problem with TC. Now even at very low TC (256) SH4 just freezez up. Not sure but I think it might be a particular date (I'll have to test it).

Anyways its been such a love/hate relationship with SH4..

. Personally I have never played a game THIS flawed and I really think UBI owes support on something so bugged.

Sailor Steve · 01-23-12, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grooveclubhouse

Anyways its been such a love/hate relationship with SH4..

. Personally I have never played a game THIS flawed and I really think UBI owes support on something so bugged.

The same is true of SH3, though it suffers the least, and even more with SH5, though modders are finding ways around those flaws.

Unfortunately UBIsoft care a whit what you or I think they owe us. There is no more support for these games, and almost certainly never will be.

ns1j · 08-12-21, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triggerfish

Got SH4 (+ uboat missions download from ubisoft homepage) some weeks ago, worked fine for some time. I started a career this week but midway trough the 3rd patrol everything slowed down and froze to the point of being unplayable. And no, Im not near shore, not near any action, no airplanes. And one mission before I could do 2000-4000x no problem.
Reboot / reload save game doesnt help.

Seems like my adventure with SH4 will end here, too bad cause it was fun as long as it worked normally. Ubisoft really should have a look into this.

And, here we are all the way out in 2021 and the problem is still there. It is so random, I can't identify any suspects. Whatever the problem is, it gets saved as code in a Save Game so saving, quitting, and restarting doesn't help. It is a lot more than just a "stutter". The system is unable to monitor the keyboard or mouse, so if you want to do something via the keyboard, such as surface, you must hold the key down for as much as a second.

propbeanie · 08-12-21, 12:20 PM

There are all sorts of reasons for that to happen. Number one used to be computer resources, but most modern computers can handle SH4 with two hands tied behind their backs. The use of Time Compression can also cause issues, and if you are shelling out to the Windows desktop to do email or other chores while playing, that can introduce troubles. Also, doing your "Saves" on top of each other, that can also contribute to the issue. Make each Save unique with a new name, and delete old, unneeded Saves - using the game interface...

The Stock game doesn't gain too much advantage by their use, but any modded game will generally benefit from applying either LAA or the 4Gig Patch - LAA is pointing at a CapnScurvy write-up on its use on his new install of Windows 10, and the links for the download are in his thread. The 4Gig Patch is from NTCore, and has a bit of a write-up also. You do need to have a 64-bit Windows to use those little applets. Another way the issue you describe can happen is by a bunch of traffic in your vicinity, which might be an area of roughly 30-100 square kilometers, or 20-60 square miles. The traffic doesn't have to be seen yet, for it to slow you down. But if you have a minimal computer system, no LAA, and encounter a 24 or more ship convoy or Task Force, that can really impact your computer - especially if there are errors involved.

I mention this, because some older mods have improperly terminated ships, that just keep circling the globe, while others keep spawning, and the "group" of ships near you might be 100 or more DD. This was bad in some older FOTRS versions, but it was not alone in this. If that's what you have (FOTRS - not FotRSU), let us know, and we have a small "patch" somewhere on one of my hard drives in the basement we can post somewhere for you...

hughesjr · 08-31-21, 05:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ns1j

And, here we are all the way out in 2021 and the problem is still there. It is so random, I can't identify any suspects. Whatever the problem is, it gets saved as code in a Save Game so saving, quitting, and restarting doesn't help. It is a lot more than just a "stutter". The system is unable to monitor the keyboard or mouse, so if you want to do something via the keyboard, such as surface, you must hold the key down for as much as a second.

There have not been any updates to the game or many of the mods in more than 10 years .. any issues around back then are still in the code.

One of the biggest problems is the 2GB memory limit. You need version 1.5.0.0 of the game to be able to apply the 4GB memory patch. Have you applied that?

zacharius · 04-29-15, 08:47 PM

Does anyone know if there if there is any real fix for this? I was looking at some of the coding, but I dont really see anything that handles time compression other than main config.

10-21-09, 09:51 AM	#1
MRAD Swabbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 6 Downloads: 22 Uploads: 0	Time compression bug! Hello, I have a bug that I need some help with... I recently started using SH4, after swithing from SH3 and going through what I thought was most of what I could get done in the game. Now upon downloading SH4 off of steam and running it at 1.3 without the U-boat expansion, the game ran without any issues and ran quite fast. I was able to run time compression at 8K with mods loaded and did so with no lagg at all, not even a single studder within the game at that compression setting. Now comes the problem, after installing the expansion and having the game up to 1.5 [through steam] I was able to run the game for about half of my third mission as a American commander in a Gar, based off of Pearl Harbor with time compression not being an issue, as with 1.3. Now, when I finished waiting for the patrol mission to "complete", I killed a few merchants and a destroyer in the area and set course for the harbor once again, as I had completed the patrol portion of the mission and got quite a few kills in. The time compression completely froze the game, I was barely able to get compression to 250X (or was it 252) without having the compression act so slow that the game basically froze, getting it to 1500X was nearly impossible and now the compression feature seems to be completely bugged. I was wondering if anyone could help me out with the issue, my computer is not a problem, and as I said, I had this game running at max compression prior to version 1.5. I had the game running mod free, using high graphics setings (custom settings actually), but the graphics settings aren't an issue, I still have the game running smooth when not in compression. Either than this, it is the only slow-down I have faced in any application with this gaming rig, also never had a problem with steam. Thanks for any help you guys can offer, I really want to get this running again, it worked great before 1.5. My system is as follows: Intel iC7 920 (2.6Ghz) OC'd @3.4Ghz and stable for several months 8GB DDR3 OCZ Platinum Ram 500GB Western Digital Caviar Black HD / Secondary as 1TB Western Digital Caviar black (game is installed on the main, the 500GB) Windows Vista 64-bit BFG - Nvidia GTX280 OC (software version 62.0.1c) Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (bios version F6) Integrated sound (yeah I know, but I use a Sennheiser headset, so the card is more than good enough to get great sound) Last edited by MRAD; 10-21-09 at 11:50 AM.

05-31-10, 11:09 AM	#4
Diopos Ace of the Deep Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Athens, the original one. Posts: 1,226 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	something to consider: other apps running on the bachround. . __________________ - Oh God! They're all over the place! CRASH DIVE!!! - Ehm... we can't honey. We're in the car right now. - What?... er right... Doesn't matter! We'll give it a try anyway!

08-12-21, 12:20 PM	#13
propbeanie CTD - it's not just a job Join Date: May 2016 Location: One hour from Music City USA! Posts: 10,098 Downloads: 451 Uploads: 2	There are all sorts of reasons for that to happen. Number one used to be computer resources, but most modern computers can handle SH4 with two hands tied behind their backs. The use of Time Compression can also cause issues, and if you are shelling out to the Windows desktop to do email or other chores while playing, that can introduce troubles. Also, doing your "Saves" on top of each other, that can also contribute to the issue. Make each Save unique with a new name, and delete old, unneeded Saves - using the game interface... The Stock game doesn't gain too much advantage by their use, but any modded game will generally benefit from applying either LAA or the 4Gig Patch - LAA is pointing at a CapnScurvy write-up on its use on his new install of Windows 10, and the links for the download are in his thread. The 4Gig Patch is from NTCore, and has a bit of a write-up also. You do need to have a 64-bit Windows to use those little applets. Another way the issue you describe can happen is by a bunch of traffic in your vicinity, which might be an area of roughly 30-100 square kilometers, or 20-60 square miles. The traffic doesn't have to be seen yet, for it to slow you down. But if you have a minimal computer system, no LAA, and encounter a 24 or more ship convoy or Task Force, that can really impact your computer - especially if there are errors involved. I mention this, because some older mods have improperly terminated ships, that just keep circling the globe, while others keep spawning, and the "group" of ships near you might be 100 or more DD. This was bad in some older FOTRS versions, but it was not alone in this. If that's what you have (FOTRS - not FotRSU), let us know, and we have a small "patch" somewhere on one of my hard drives in the basement we can post somewhere for you... __________________ "...and bollocks to the naysayers" - Jimbuna

04-29-15, 08:47 PM	#15
zacharius Bilge Rat Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 1 Downloads: 31 Uploads: 0	Time Compression Issues Does anyone know if there if there is any real fix for this? I was looking at some of the coding, but I dont really see anything that handles time compression other than main config.

05-31-10, 04:36 AM	#2
BIGD101 Watch Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 27 Downloads: 36 Uploads: 0	I seem to have this now, anyone know what the problem is?

05-31-10, 05:17 AM	#3
Chubster Frogman Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 288 Downloads: 162 Uploads: 0	Does this happen all the time or just in your current position? Try going to normal TC and then go to sonar and have a listen around. Could be a big convoy in the area which causes FPS to drop right down

06-08-11, 08:15 PM	#5
gextm Bilge Rat Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 1 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Hey all! I know this is an old thread, but I just go the expansion and am having exactly the same problem. No problems pre-expansion, definitely not my memory or any hardware issue. Anyone figure this one out? Thanks, TJ

06-24-11, 04:10 PM	#6
Daniel Prates Grey Wolf Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Curitiba, Brazil Posts: 938 Downloads: 65 Uploads: 0	TC demands a lot from the game, from your machine, from your ... anyway, from everything. You can't just speed up your TC to 8000x and expect that everything runs smoothly. Sometimes it will, sometimes it will not. Things that may tamper with the smoothnes of TC, since they add a lot of new information for your machine to handle, are: 1 - being close to shore (and the closer you get, the lower TC will handle things right) 2 - Being close to action 3 - Gettin radar or sonar updates - enemy or not. 4 - Those damn planes! What happens when you have high TC when one of the above happens? Maybe nothing. But maybe the game will crash, or bug, or things will happen in such a manner that your machine can't correctly calculate them, and when TC drops, you will be left with a weird situation in your hands. This is because TC is supposed to imediately drop to a lower rate when those above mentioned situations occur, but you can't really expect that to work fine all of the time. If you are running TC at more than 1000x, well, then by the time TC lowers, a lot of things may have happened. Bad things. There are several accounts of people running in high TC, and then all the sudden they find out that they have ran aground. Best thing to do is to lower your TC intentionally when in enemy-controled lanes, or when getting close to home, anyway, situatins where you might expect your machine having to deal with a lot of information.

06-29-11, 05:31 PM	#7
Triggerfish Nub Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 2 Downloads: 51 Uploads: 0	Got SH4 (+ uboat missions download from ubisoft homepage) some weeks ago, worked fine for some time. I started a career this week but midway trough the 3rd patrol everything slowed down and froze to the point of being unplayable. And no, Im not near shore, not near any action, no airplanes. And one mission before I could do 2000-4000x no problem. Reboot / reload save game doesnt help. Seems like my adventure with SH4 will end here, too bad cause it was fun as long as it worked normally. Ubisoft really should have a look into this.

06-30-11, 06:08 AM	#9
Triggerfish Nub Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 2 Downloads: 51 Uploads: 0	Hi, and thanks. I guess youre right, this game is too old to get much support. I will check out SH3 and Dangerous waters instead, then keep SH4 on the shelf for single missions which usually works fine.

01-23-12, 11:33 AM	#10
Grooveclubhouse Swabbie Join Date: Nov 2011 Posts: 8 Downloads: 37 Uploads: 0	I have been having the same issue... (sh4 1.5) Things were going great till about the end of my third or fourth patrol. Never had a problem with TC. Now even at very low TC (256) SH4 just freezez up. Not sure but I think it might be a particular date (I'll have to test it). Anyways its been such a love/hate relationship with SH4.. . Personally I have never played a game THIS flawed and I really think UBI owes support on something so bugged.