krash's Learnifying Thread :P

[krashkart]

This will be the place where I dump all of my useless SH3 knowedge. Feel free to add your own useless SH3 knowedge.


Decks Awash (courtesy of the SH3 community)

Today I finally figured out how to sail with decks awash. I don't know what I was doing wrong before. Anyway, for those who don't know, decks awash simply means that the sub has been submerged just enough to conceal the deck under water. Set your depth to between 7-8 meters and you can cruise around with just your conning tower sticking out of the water. Watch crew is still active, and your visibility is reduced. Some have even reported better fuel economy, but I haven't noticed that yet.



Possible Fix for CTD while the game loads (courtesy of Osmium Steele)

Originally Posted by Osmium Steele

CTD while loading fix. (It has worked for me for nearly a year now)

1. Right click on your main SH3 folder and bring up the properties menu.

2. Uncheck the read-only box. When it asks, tell it to uncheck all sub-folders too.

I used to regularly CTD if I saved within detection range of a convoy, too close to land, submerged, etc. I have had no problem with CTD while loading since I made this single change.

I have gone so far as to save while submerged directly under a 20+ ship convoy, and numerous other places which would have been death prior to making the change.

Some will tell you it doesn't work, or might be risky. I have had no ill effects on my game with this change in place.

It is worth a try.

Forcing Full Screen Antialiasing on NVidia cards (courtesy of Kafka BC)

Originally Posted by Kafka BC

This might be useful to someone, it is how I get Full Screen Antialiasing (FSAA) in Silent Hunter III with my NVidia video card. nHancer and other tools don't work for me.

I am using Windows XP and my video card is an 8600GT with drivers version 197.13, so I don't know if it would apply to Vista or windows 7 or the later NVidia drivers or control panel.

1. Find the NvApps.xml file in your C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder and make a backup copy just in case this this dosn't work for you.

2. Open the NvApps.xml file with Notepad and search for "Silent Hunter III" to find the profile settings.

3. Paste this line:

<PROPERTY Label="aa_feature_bits" Value="0x20000000" Default="0x20000000" Itemtype="predefined"/>

right after this line:

<PROPERTY Label="multichip_rendering_mode" Value="0x02000001" Default="0x02000001" Itemtype="predefined"/>

as in this example below



Doing this ensures that FSAA gets applied to the entire scene and has greatly improved my overall scene quality. Until I learned how to do this things just looked terrible in the distance.

This setting was taken from the settings for the "Most EA Strategy Games" and the "Command and Conquer 3" series of games settings in the NvApps.xml file. There are other "aa_feature_bits" values in the file, but I haven't tried them yet as this seems to work fine.

PS. The lines in the profile after the pasted line will probably be different than in the image above, depending on what settings you have in the NVidia control panel.

Good hunting!

[Sailor Steve]

And here's the first negative comment. In real life Decks Awash was useful for attacks, as it lowered the profile. It wasn't useful for cruising as the boat is technically submerged and maintaining the precise depth at any speed above minimum is extremely difficult. The shape of the boat is designed for surface cruising, and anything else will totally destroy fuel economy. If you use Decks Awash for cruising you are taking advantage of the part of the game that is screwed up.

[Victor Schutze]

Decks awash stealth benefits don't exist in Sh3. It's the same as being on the surface with less mobility and more fuel consumption.

[u crank]

I have found that the only benefit to decks awash is when there are heavy air patrols. You can crash dive much faster. Good for charging batteries. Also only works in good weather.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by Victor Schutze

Decks awash stealth benefits don't exist in Sh3. It's the same as being on the surface with less mobility and more fuel consumption.

I disagree, but I have no proof other than it seems to work. Anybody want to run a study?

And I use the fuel economy and decks awash mod. So I just hit I and info decks awash.

[flag4]

...decks awash thread coming along nicely.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

I disagree, but I have no proof other than it seems to work. Anybody want to run a study?

And I use the fuel economy and decks awash mod. So I just hit I and info decks awash.

Don't forget this is SH3, where running all day on batteries and then recharging them actually increases fuel economy.

[krashkart]

Well I've learned quite a bit from this exchange so far...