Silent Hunter (Insert whatever number here): A waste of time?

[Stargazer]

Maybe I just have ridiculously high expectations. Maybe I'm too fussy when it comes to games. But somehow I can;t help but feel that Silent Hunter is pushing boundaries when it comes to being the biggest and most disappointing let down of them all.

I doscovered SH3 not too long ago. I didn;t have to pay anything for it which was nice and when I modded it, it was truly awesome. However, I've often felt that the load times, a well known and unfixable problem, were a little too extreme for me.

I went out and paid for SH4. I could have settled with a pirated copy, but I felt that it would be a good progression from 3 and that Ubisoft Romania would have learnt a thing or two in the process and as such deserved a seperation from my very short supply of money.

First impressions were great. It looked stunning, played well and sounded fab. Even in stock form because I had no idea how much better it could be? In my first few days of playing it, I had only two CTD's. I considered this an acceptable annoyance given how often 3 dies on me. Also, it only took five mins to get back into 4 instead of the twenty-five for 3.

However, patrol 3 is where the love story ends.

I thought initially that TMO had broken my game. Had it borked a bunch of files? Was it overloading part of my old PC with more than it can take?

I don't know.

What I do know is that regardless of what mods were activated and even returning it back to full stock/vanilla, it always crashes in the patrol. And it isn;t something terribly ambitious or unique either. it is to deliver an Intel-Bod to Honshu; almost a carbon copy of my very first mission, yet I now can't seem to get close.

Running the same mission seven times in a day and still not getting even half way through is the final insult as far as I'm concerned. Sadly, I'll have no luck getting my money back because no retailer will not accept, 'The software is broken and buggy and not worth any money at all' as a valid return reason.

But given how many people are in this community and seem to be running it and enjoying it? Where am I going wrong?

Do you run it and accept that sometimes you just have to chance the constant and seemingly random CTD's?

Do you have some magical fix that made the CTD's go away?

Do you just have exceedingly low expectations and thus SH4 doesn't bother you?

How can so many Silent Hunter followers all be wrong? I can only guess I'm doing something wrong. But what?

My PC, despite being old, meets the game requirements. I can run the game smoothly on lower setting and had done so for four glorious days. And then whammo... the thing unravels like a ball of string and now I'm at my wits end with it.

So I end with the big question: What havn't I done, or what havn't I got that you all do and allows all of you to enjoy SH4?

If it worked I'd love it.

And sicne it is going to be asked, here is my PC Specs:

AMD Athlon XP2600+ @ 2.4ghz
2GB RAM
NVidia GeForce 6800XT 512MB
Win XP SP3 (32bit)
SH4 + UBoat V1.5 in following configurations.
---Stock
---TMO 2 + TMO 2.1
---GFO

First four days (Patrols 1&2) [fully stock]: Total 2 CTD's
Today (Patrol3) [In various states listed above] Total 7 CTD's

[Gerald]

The CTD occurs, we have all suffered, I believe, and there are reasons for this, which must be explored, yes .. it could be that you are using mods, which are graphically intensive, or is it that your graphics card not just to cope with these moments, your ram memory .. as you know, there are so many different possibilities, so I suggest you can start running without mods, and it works, move on

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by Vendor

The CTD occurs, we have all suffered, I believe, and there are reasons for this, which must be explored, yes .. it could be that you are using mods, which are graphically intensive, or is it that your graphics card not just to cope with these moments, your ram memory .. as you know, there are so many different possibilities, so I suggest you can start running without mods, and it works, move on

[Stargazer]

I guess I'm just unlucky then.

I gave it another chance just now in a much lower resolution, with the graphics toned down to settings way below what I can run smoothly so there's no excuse for it to be hardware related.

I have no AV software running, nor do I have any other programs running that will fight for resources.

I started from Pearl so it was a fresh mission. Rode all the way into the bay this time, dropped off the agent and started to think maybe things were looking up. Then [make obnoxious noise here], it crashed again while I was evading a convoy in about four-inches of water.

Didn't save, didn't task-switch, nor any of the other things you mentioned.

The only other game that caused me this much grief was NASCAR Racing 2003. That was snapped into pieces and dumped in the wheelie bin. SH4 is close to going out the same way. I can't see it ever serving a purpose.

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by Stargazer

I guess I'm just unlucky then.

I gave it another chance just now in a much lower resolution, with the graphics toned down to settings way below what I can run smoothly so there's no excuse for it to be hardware related.

I have no AV software running, nor do I have any other programs running that will fight for resources.

I started from Pearl so it was a fresh mission. Rode all the way into the bay this time, dropped off the agent and started to think maybe things were looking up. Then [make obnoxious noise here], it crashed again while I was evading a convoy in about four-inches of water.

Didn't save, didn't task-switch, nor any of the other things you mentioned.

The only other game that caused me this much grief was NASCAR Racing 2003. That was snapped into pieces and dumped in the wheelie bin. SH4 is close to going out the same way. I can't see it ever serving a purpose.

Not necessarily, how did you do with the installation, maybe there is some corrupt file...

[Stargazer]

The initial install was flawless.

Ran setup from the DVD which according to the readme put V1.3 in.

I ran the 1.4 patch straight away and then ran SH4 to confirm all worked.

I ran two or three of the Sub-School missions while I acclimatised and balanced graphics settings.

Then I applied the Uboat add on.

Then ran stock for a little while with only a couple of glitches and then it all went to hell.

I'll forego destroying the discs, but I shall run an uninstall and then file them away in a very dark place. I couldn;t possibly sell them or give them to somebody else because I honestly don't think I'd be doing them a favour.

Other heavy games run fine. rFactor, IL2 1946, I even managed to (somehow) run Dragon Age, not a single CTD in any of them after what must be hundreds and hundreds of hours of combined running time. And SH4 clocks up 10 in less than a week.

No thanks. Given the state the Silent Hunter titles are released in (and I don't think I'll get any argument on that comment) I tend to think that some things, no matter how hard one tries to fix it, are just unfixable.

For those of you not getting all these problems, I'm fairly confident you're the fortunate minority.

I hope it lasts for you.

SinceI no longer have a Silent Hunter game installed on my PC and have no intention of doing so again, I suppose there's little point in me continuing to spread my negativity.

Thanks to those who have helped me over the last few months with SH3 and over the last week with 4. Alas, it was all in vain.

Finding a good game these days is getting harder and harder.

[magic452]

I have been playing this game for better than 3 years and maybe had 5 or 6 CTDs and they were a long time ago so the game can be very stable.

I have run many mods in many different combinations and very seldom have even a bad save. I save any time' any place and under any circumstances with no problems. Only thing I do when saving is go to the Nav map and pause the game before I save.

Just my own personal option but it seems to me that most CTDs and bad saves are either conflicts with other programs or are hardware related.

Maybe post your system specs and some of the sharper folks can find the problem. Hate to loose a fellow submariner. There is a war on fella and we need all the help we can get.

Magic

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by Stargazer

But given how many people are in this community and seem to be running it and enjoying it? Where am I going wrong?

You're not going wrong, mate, it's just that diferent people appreciate diferent kinds of games. Sure enough, the extreme lonelyness and emptiness of traveling for 10 days across the pacific just to deliver some guy in enemy shores is sometimes boring, but the game aims at being close to the real experience -where those things were a constant.

Now, regarding buggines... yeah, the game is extremelly bugged. But is still the very best in its genre, that I can say.

[NorthBeach]

TMO or GFO, your choice. Not both. They're both megamods & aren't meant to play together. Not for long, anyway.

[joea]

Originally Posted by NorthBeach

TMO or GFO, your choice. Not both. They're both megamods & aren't meant to play together. Not for long, anyway.

That's your problem!!!

[Armistead]

I haven't had a CTD in years. The game is very stable. The biggest issue some have is corrupt saves, but that's usually from saving around ships, land, etc.

Your system specs are really too low for this game. I think that's the issue. I've never seen a game play worth a crap on the min requirements. To me it's nothing but a sales scam.
I doubt even at the lowest settings you could play it. When my PC was broke, I tried a older one with specs still a lil better than what you listed and got CTD's, game played and looked terrible.

You may be able to get around a clear ocean at lowest settings, but when you run into lot's of action, I see no way it could take the load.

As others have said, can't run two supermods. GFO is more fixes, but I think he added some better graphics. Certainly TMO's better graphics would be too much. Best you could try is cutting off all programs and unneeded services. Make sure you use DX9 from the disc, game needs it. Make sure you DT res matches your game res. Still, even if you get sailing, you get around lot's of action things would probably come to a crawl and crash.

With the right PC and mod setup, best game I've ever played.

[Dogfish40]

I hope that I read enough here, I don't know if this has been mentioned, One, check your megamod compatibility, Two, install the game outside of the program files partition; EX; C/SH4. Not; C/Program Files/SH4

If this has already been done cool. I had to get a new computer to have this game play right. However, even with my old one, I kept trying differant configs and got the game to play pretty well with the old box. Keep trying differant setups, it'll work.
Good Luck and Good Hunting.
D40