Silent Hunter Series: Woeful, Brilliant or Both?

[scott_c2911]

Yes I have mentioned that everything is up to date. I am a relatively new user of subsim but I have been viewing the advice pages for years I know that already. I appreciate all of your help but I'm giving up officially on sh5 and sh4. I'm not buying any more ram I'm not buying another GPU I've had enough. I have met and exceeded the spec in most cases and it damn near blew my electrics. Fsx works on ultra high settings with a good frame rate released 2008. Sh5 released 2010 and it nearly blew up my tower. I know stuff advances a long way in two years but surely there's something wrong there.
My PC
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz dual core
Nvidia GeForce 210 1Gb ddr3 v296.10 (latest driver)
2 x 1Gb PNY RAM (minimum I know)
Windows XP Home Edition v2002 Service Pack 3 32bit ( fully upgraded and updated)
Direct X v10.1
If that's not good enough it never will be because I'm not buying anything else to run these games.
Compatibility test all ticked green
SH5 v1.2 (after 2hrs of installation and another 1hr auto patching) absolutely ridiculous

[Jimbuna]

Have you cleaned the registry prior to installing?

[scott_c2911]

Why should I clean the registry most games consumers don't know what a registry is. People are not getting the point. An average consumer of video games expects to put a game into a machine that meets the required spec install it in around 30 mins and be playing it is that too much to ask for. I'm not an it tech and neither is the vast majority of the games market but since you kindly took the time to reply with something I haven't tried I will and I will get back to you thank you jimbuna

[scott_c2911]

Thank you bilgerat that is probably the problem the tech guy at PC world said it would be fine and the games diagnostic program says it would be fine. Like I say I'm not an IT guy and neither is 90 percent of the video games market. As far as I was aware with the info I had the spec of my PC was more than enough. Change is needed or the PC sim will die and I will miss them.
This is Lt Scott Cooksey. Last survivor of the PC games market. Signing off.
Thanks for all your help guys but I've had enough. I'm going to stick to my Xbox.

[BigWalleye]

Originally Posted by scott_c2911

Why should I clean the registry most games consumers don't know what a registry is.

Because Windows sometimes flubs the uninstall process and not everything uninstalls cleanly. If you are using SH3 with SH3 Commander, for example, there are links through the registry entries which let SH3 Commander work some of its magic. If those links are not cleaned up properly, you might encounter problems. The fault would be with Windows, not Silent Hunter, but it still would impact your game. Other programs, not all of them games, have the same issues.

All the SH products are complex programs. You can not compare them to Flight Sim, which provides a here-and-now environment without much complex AI interaction and with no past and future. SH has campaign layers, where historical events are simulated, a scripted environment which is much larger than the game horizon, AI which must react to the player's actions but not be so good as to overwhelm him, and the real-time simulation of the sub itself, including animations within the sub. The SH games are far more complex that an FPS. And still, the stock game - SH3 and SH4, not so much SH5 - plays OK right out of the box, without any fixes by the gamer. They are all A LOT BETTER with mods, but if you can not get them to work rock-stock, then you have done something wrong. Running SH5 in an environment which is inadequate will guarantee you a very unsatisfactory gaming experience. But that is hardly the fault of the game, or of its developers.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by BigWalleye

Because Windows sometimes flubs the uninstall process and not everything uninstalls cleanly. If you are using SH3 with SH3 Commander, for example, there are links through the registry entries which let SH3 Commander work some of its magic. If those links are not cleaned up properly, you might encounter problems. The fault would be with Windows, not Silent Hunter, but it still would impact your game. Other programs, not all of them games, have the same issues.

All the SH products are complex programs. You can not compare them to Flight Sim, which provides a here-and-now environment without much complex AI interaction and with no past and future. SH has campaign layers, where historical events are simulated, a scripted environment which is much larger than the game horizon, AI which must react to the player's actions but not be so good as to overwhelm him, and the real-time simulation of the sub itself, including animations within the sub. The SH games are far more complex that an FPS. And still, the stock game - SH3 and SH4, not so much SH5 - plays OK right out of the box, without any fixes by the gamer. They are all A LOT BETTER with mods, but if you can not get them to work rock-stock, then you have done something wrong. Running SH5 in an environment which is inadequate will guarantee you a very unsatisfactory gaming experience. But that is hardly the fault of the game, or of its developers.

Originally Posted by scott_c2911

Why should I clean the registry most games consumers don't know what a registry is. People are not getting the point. An average consumer of video games expects to put a game into a machine that meets the required spec install it in around 30 mins and be playing it is that too much to ask for. I'm not an it tech and neither is the vast majority of the games market but since you kindly took the time to reply with something I haven't tried I will and I will get back to you thank you jimbuna

Already answered above...I'd suggest a free piece of software 'CCleaner'

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/132-ccleaner.html

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by scott_c2911

My PC
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz dual core
Nvidia GeForce 210 1Gb ddr3 v296.10 (latest driver)

Hey Scott,

there is your problem right there, your CPU and GPU dont meet the minimum requirement for SH5 which was CPU: C2D 4400/ GPU: NVIDIA 8800 GT.

The GeForce 210 was an entry-level card back even back in 2009.