New to SH3, and some nitpicks

[Gargamel]

If you play it in a windowed mode like I do, you can minimize it by right clicking the taskbar and selecting minimize. Whatever the shortcut key is would probably work too.

EDIT: Ok now as I try it, I cnat get the menu to pop-up.... hmmmm...

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

If you play it in a windowed mode like I do, you can minimize it by right clicking the taskbar and selecting minimize. Whatever the shortcut key is would probably work too.

EDIT: Ok now as I try it, I cnat get the menu to pop-up.... hmmmm...

We eagerly await your results, the whole world looks at you,

[WH4K]

Speaking of the UZO, yeah, I can't see that thing being left on the bridge when a dive happens.

It must have been a high-quality, very expensive set of binoculars. Even if that's basically all it was.

I don't see how one could use the UZO to eyeball targets much past 90° to either side. Where would you stand? I imagine the U-boat commanders painted hash marks on the bridge coaming or something, for engaging astern targets. Or just used one of the periscopes.

[WH4K]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

If you play it in a windowed mode like I do, you can minimize it by right clicking the taskbar and selecting minimize. Whatever the shortcut key is would probably work too.

EDIT: Ok now as I try it, I cnat get the menu to pop-up.... hmmmm...

I'm playing in a window right now. The problem is that the game defaulted to 1024x768 resolution, which is small and kinda ugly. I have a huge monitor (21" CRT) so I'd rather run it at something like 1280x1024.

Any way to do that in a window? I downloaded & installed the patch to get 1600x1200 res when fullscreen, but it doesn't seem to affect running in a window.

[K-61]

Originally Posted by WH4K

Speaking of the UZO, yeah, I can't see that thing being left on the bridge when a dive happens.

It must have been a high-quality, very expensive set of binoculars. Even if that's basically all it was.

I don't see how one could use the UZO to eyeball targets much past 90° to either side. Where would you stand? I imagine the U-boat commanders painted hash marks on the bridge coaming or something, for engaging astern targets. Or just used one of the periscopes.

Ever seen the film "Das Boot?" There's a scene in there where the Kaleun orders the UZO to the bridge and you see one of the officers clamp it to its pedestal in preparation for surfaced firing of torpedoes. You'd definitely not want to leave such a precision optical device clamped on, seeing as how it would be subject to pressure from deep diving and blasts from depth charges.

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by WH4K

I'm playing in a window right now. The problem is that the game defaulted to 1024x768 resolution, which is small and kinda ugly. I have a huge monitor (21" CRT) so I'd rather run it at something like 1280x1024.

Any way to do that in a window? I downloaded & installed the patch to get 1600x1200 res when fullscreen, but it doesn't seem to affect running in a window.

Nope. Windowed mode only has one resolution to my knowledge.

So do some animation work, connect the UZO to an extra torpedo tube.
Use part of the animation for opening tube doors to make the UZO appear.
Close that door, it disappears.
Done right? I'd bet you could get a fairly neat view of a guy coming out of the hatch and placeing it.
Blend a Mesh Animation of the Guy to the Key Animation of outter door opening.
The UZO is tied to the Inner Door Key Animation.

I can see it being possible.

[Axeman3d]

I can see it being a relatively huge piece of work for such a small gain, particularly in relation to some of the much larger issues the game has. Would you rather have a guy who puts the UZO on or lights that dont shine right through things, for instance?

[Tessa]

An original UZO still in good condition:



The front lenses are considerably larger than those used by the crew. The lenses being larger was as important as its magnification/precision. The larger the lens is lets in more light so you can see better at night compared to a regular set of bincoularsl. Zeiss made high quality optics to begin with, any UZO was special in that they were designed specifically for the u-boat per the above reasons. The UZO would have been the most precise optics (excluding periscopes) set on the boat, and were only taken out when for use when attacking.

Edit: From the sound of thins it doesn't seem like you've seen Das Boot. If that is indeed the case you should get it as soon as you can get your hands one (rental, Amazon or whatever) and watch it immediately. It's the most realistic and historically correct u-boat movie ever made, you can learn a lot from watching it if it's your first time.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Alt-Tab works fine for me now, but on my old system - P4, 2.66GHz, ATI X800XL, 1.5 Gig RAM - it used to CDT

[Jimbuna]

Welcome Aboard

Enjoy your GWXperience

[WH4K]

Nope, Alt+Tab doesn't minimize SH3. I can see a brief flicker of the system menu bar, and the mouse & keyboard focus is taken away (e.g. mouse clicks don't do anything in SH3) but SH3 still takes up my display.

Wonder if it's because I am running dual displays?

[Tessa]

Originally Posted by WH4K

Wonder if it's because I am running dual displays?

That is likely the culprit. Alt+tab out of a fullscreen game with 2 monitors can be unpredictable. If you leave your 2nd monitor off while you play it should work fine, if it doesn't that makes this problem a lot harder to figure out.

[Gargamel]

Run in windowed mode. That way you can suirf the net and such while your runningyour patrol, helps with the boredom. Dual screens means you can keep an eye on the game.

[WH4K]

Windowed mode is no good because the only possible resolution (1024x768) makes everything too small. I think I'll stick with having my Web browser, GWX 3.0 .pdf manual, etc. open on the second screen before I start SH3. That's why I have a second monitor, I guess.

Another nitpick: The periscopes don't move on the inside views. As I noted above, they don't rotate on the external view, no matter how you have them pointed, but recently I've realized that they are completely static on the interior views. That's a little disappointing. Does any fix exist, or is one being worked on?

Considering the huge number of doohickeys in the command room that DO move realistically, it's a bit hard to understand why the devs made the periscopes always stay down. Perhaps, as with many other features, they simply ran out of time.

Poking around in the conning tower, I noticed that the UZO is in a cabinet there, even while you're surfaced. Must be the "backup" UZO. Heh.