Things you like or don't like about SH4

[AirborneTD]

Thats for the info Scalelokt. Nice to hear and really looking forward to this sim.

[nhall70]

Originally Posted by Guido

I expect that even if the 8800 cards cant force the AA currently, you will get an option to enjoy both FSAA and HDR with the DX10 patch thats sure to follow.

really some people do get there knickers in a twist dont they.

A DX10 patch is hardly "sure to follow". They have said they "might" do that...they have not said they will.

Even if they do, it's not at all clear what impact this might have on the issue of FSAA. The same people who designed their current engine would probably be involved in the DX10 "patch". As much as Ubisoft would love for you to believe this is a hardware limitation, that simply isn't true. Many games support both FSAA and HDR at the same time. In technical terms, it's post-processing the image that's causing this problem, not necessarily HDR.

I think it's fair to say that "our knickers are in a twist". Imagine if you'd been eagerly waiting this last year for SH4 to come out and just yesterday...two days before release, Ubisoft announced that SH4 was cancelled! That is effectively what just happened for many of us.

[Barkhorn1x]

Originally Posted by scalelokt

5. This is a big one (but keep in mind I only played for like a half hour so I may have just missed it). I couldnt figure out any way to fire a salvo of 2 or more torpedos. It looked like you had to fire one at a time. I hope I just missed it somewhere

Dev. answer in another thread:

Well,

German submarines had "fan-shot" controls and this was replicated in sh3. You selected a group of tubes (from the historically accurate options), the spread of the salvo, and you pressed "fire".

US submarines didn't have this feature, and neithre does sh4. Instead, you select an individual tube and apply a so called "spread" to the already established gyro-angle. So you can fire tube 1 straight to Middle of Target, tube 2 with a spread of 2 degrees to the left, tube 3 with 2 degrees to the right. voila salvo control.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=107890

[Ryan]

I personally have doubts about a DX10 patch following up, for the following reasons:

- DX10 is, and will be, only supported by Vista
- You need a Graphics card capable of running DX10, like the 8800 series
- to install a card like the 8800 series you need a PCI-E board
- you better have a beefy proccesor like the most recent duo core series, or a card like the 8800 is pretty much useless..


So the question is: how many people will get advantage by such DX10 patch? Only the ones with up to date computers.

Go have a look at how many people on this board still run SH3, and going to run SH4, on systems that are a few years old. If you look at flightsim forums, and the discussions going on there about how long it's going to take to get a DX10 patch out for FSX (latest MS sim), it's quite obvious that there's some serious programming needed for such patch.. an estimated date for such FSX DX10 patch is by the end of this year..

I seriously doubt that the devs of SH4 will going to put so many resources in developing a DX10 patch, if so few actually have the hardware and software (Vista and DX10 capable card) to run it. But ey, who knows, right??

As for SH4 not supporting AA in 2007.. IMO it's just as silly as releasing a sim in 2005 that only supports 1024-768. Having said that though, I was still surprised at how SH3 looked at this resolution.. and that's a huge understatement! So who knows, maybe I'll be surprised again with SH4, even IF it doesn't support AA.


I think people should take a deep breath, just wait and see.. and only then after they have seen how it looks on their screens in full motion, state their opinion on how it looks. I can't of course tell others what to do.. but those Romanian devs have surprised me (and many with me) in the past with their fantastic SH3. I can't imagine it being any less with SH4-- with or without AA!

Can hardly wait to release date and get my order!

Ryan

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

Out of interest, what's the situation with Vista and SLI currently? I hear yes it's coming, I hear no - and lots of shades of grey.

[Guido]

DX10 may yet be utilised on XP machines, for those who havent read anything about this I suggest you read up.

As for the hardware limitations and FSAA + HDR - I dont want to get into the techno complexities of why they both dont work together on older graphics cards.

Suffice to say, VISTA and modern graphics cards drive the market, some of you guyz that hope every latest game will run just fine and dandy on your 486's DO NOT DRIVE the industry........... expect a DX10- patch for sure...why ????

Because its the future

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by 9th_cow

the audio issue is a problem, especially when submerged, you think your doing ok and next thing you know "game over" damnit...was i hit by a depth charge or what ?

more of an issue for me is this, no warning that your going below crush depth. and it seems that if you so much as enter your max depth even emergency blow wont get you back up again..

I agree, I've played this game almost a week, and several key crew reports are sorely needed. There are flashing light effects and water leaks to let you know all hell is breaking loose but I think it would be a significant improvement to have a crewmember shouting "We're taking on damage" and "We're sinking!"

Neal

[flintlock]

Originally Posted by Ryan

you better have a beefy proccesor like the most recent duo core series, or a card like the 8800 is pretty much useless..

Powerful processor notwithstanding, running a low resolution like 1280x1024 is waste on a 8800GTX. You really need to be running a good sized widescreen at it's native resolution with AA/AF to really start taxing the GPU, and start tansferring the load off the CPU.

So the question is: how many people will get advantage by such DX10 patch? Only the ones with up to date computers.

I suspect you may be right about an SH4 DX10 patch ever seeing the light of day. Keep in mind that Ubisoft is trying to attract the casual gamer with SH4. There is a decent market of people who have powerful compters but aren't hardcore gamers. They may pick up a game here and there, but it's not the primary use for their systems. Personally I'd love to see a DX10 SH4 come to fruition, but I won't be holding my breath. Still, you never know.

[nhall70]

Originally Posted by Fat Bhoy Tim

Out of interest, what's the situation with Vista and SLI currently? I hear yes it's coming, I hear no - and lots of shades of grey.

The current Vista drivers don't support SLI (as well as quite a few other things like forcing vsync) but I'm sure that NVIDIA will eventually get all this straightened out. SLI is not going to die with Vista. Personally, I don't mind waiting all that much...I just like to know that they're at least working on it and they have publicly stated that SLI support will be included in a future release.

Running two 8800GTX's in SLI is currently pretty pointless anyway. I don't have a single game that can make an 8800GTX sweat...even with everything cranked all the way up (including FSAA ) at 1920x1200.

[Cigol]

The cynic in me suspects that any DX10 improvements will be shoe-horned in to a new product. There was just too much new content to justify giving it away type situation.

[kaluin Otto Werner]

there are always problems people just deal with it,im from europe sow i have no cluw what your depth mesuerments are,so i look it up sow i know for the next mission that 150 feet aint 150 meter

[scalelokt]

@Payoff: It is like this whistling sound, I've heard it in movies before but I'm not sure how to describe. Its like a computer whistle that comes over the intercom to get everyone's attention, and then a voice says relieve the watch.

So I got to play it more this morning, here are some new things I noticed.

1. I said in an earlier post that the escort AI seemed pretty easy, I still think its the case. However one thing is a lot harder, and that is setting up yourself for a torpedo attack. The reason is because it seems like every unit I run into makes drastic course changes almost constantly, unless you spot a contact close to you that is on a perfect angle for a 90 degree shot, you can be pretty sure you will have to hunt it for a while and play cat and mouse because they keep changing course! Unlike GWX where most targets take a straight line for miles and miles (other than convoys of course)

2. I seem to have found a bug, when you enter your firing solution there is a button you can push that allows the targeting computer to continue to track the target over time. Seems like about half the time I hit that button it erases all the data I just entered and comes up with values that are way off, like 9800 distance when I entered 700, etc.

3. Ok this is a biggie. So far my friend and I have seen almost no weather changes. All we have seen is fog, higher waves, and either cloudy or clear skies. So far not a drop of rain, lightning or thunder. I'm hoping we have just been experiencing weeks of beautiful days in a row, but I'm a bit suspicious. I certainly hope they didnt decide to not have storms in the game or other weather effects.

Those are my biggest concerns right now. On the bright side the game is showing mad potential in about every other area, and its a lot of fun. If you all have any questions about the game let me know and I'll see if I can answer.

Complaints about aiming. Sounds ok to me. I know a lot of US skippers actually did not do any of the calculations and many did not even look through the scope! They had underlings to do all that. And often some of the best skippers main function in battle was saying: "Well, fire on the SOBs!"

My only concern is the early war torpedo failures which ought to be 70% for mag attacks. I note in the SH4 vid that they show one torpedo headed for the ship. Late in the war that was done. But early in the war most attacks used 3 torpedoes per ship since the fish (I can actually now use FISH instead of the eels since these are not U-boats) were not reliable.

But everything else I am hearing sounds like mods can fix it.

[tedhealy]

Originally Posted by scalelokt

The reason is because it seems like every unit I run into makes drastic course changes almost constantly, unless you spot a contact close to you that is on a perfect angle for a 90 degree shot, you can be pretty sure you will have to hunt it for a while and play cat and mouse because they keep changing course! Unlike GWX where most targets take a straight line for miles and miles (other than convoys of course)

for zigs
and
for zags

[Cigol]

Thunder, storms, rain.. they are all in the game. Not seen lightning myself but I imagine it's there in some form (audio if nothing else).