Silent Hunter 4 And U-boat Missions On Steam!!

XanderF · 06-15-08, 02:17 AM

Woohoo! A great (definitely the best) digital distribution method for the Silent Hunter series!

Silent Hunter 4 on Steam!

Note that for only $28, you can buy a pack that includes Sh3, Sh4, and the 'U-boat Missions' for Sh4.

I'm re-buying these on Steam, myself (if for no other reason than this is ultra-portable. Even if the disks are scratched and no longer readable some day, any game bought on Steam can always be downloaded and played on any PC you'll ever have.) I'll be sure to report on how the mods work - so far, I've never had a problem with mods in Steam games (they are almost always VERY mod friendly), so we'll see how it goes!

This is FANTASTIC news! Advertised on the front page of Steam, no less!

(Okay, okay, a cross-post to the Sh3 board, too - but this is SO VERY EXCITING!!)

V.C. Sniper · 06-15-08, 03:45 PM

W00T!! Too bad though that the 1337 awesome Steam doesn't accept the CD key that came with my boxed copy. Ah well, hope all the Sim lovers on Steam here enjoy the hell out of it!!! >_<

100% REALISM = PWNZ THE S0X 2 TH4 B0X!!!

STEAM FTW!!!!

XanderF · 06-15-08, 07:06 PM

It's only $28 to buy all three items, I have no problem buying it again at that price. For the convenience of Steam (and yes, the mods work), I can take the copies I have and send them to my brother. Or a coworker or something.

Simply a smashing excuse to give away a copy or three! :rotfl:

Sailor Steve · 06-15-08, 08:23 PM

Great. Just great. I can't buy the add-on from D2D because they say something's wrong and they can't fix it. I just got all excited trying to get it from Steam, and they say I can't. I have to have Steam's version of SH4 to get and use the add-on.

I can barely spare ten bucks for the thing; no way can I afford to by another copy of the game, or the package.

I'm tired of these games. Why can't somebody just sell me a copy of the thing?

Feltan · 06-16-08, 09:35 AM

Sorry, but STEAM is not going on my computer. Had it once, and it was the most annoying memory hog ever devised.

Regards,
Feltan

Fincuan · 06-16-08, 11:01 AM

What is not running takes no memory, and this applies to Steam too. I have it because of HL2, CS:S and a couple of other games, but I never run it unless it's needed.

KrazyKarl · 08-10-08, 11:16 PM

I love Steam! I buy all my games from them if they sell them. Not switching CDs is the way I like it. I've never had a problem running Steam and I get to find out about cool games like SHIV!!!

zosX · 01-31-10, 10:41 AM

I just bought silent hunter IV and then the u-boat missions and the first thing I noticed was that certain ships were black, without texture. Specifically the colorado battleships that populate pearl harbor when you take off on your first mission. Odd. It seems something is wrong with the low res textures on the steam edition. Certain units are missing textures. Switching to the better texture set seems to fix this. Then I notice upon installing the u-boat missions that crew members on the bridge do not have eyes. Well it seems that a few mods fix this, and it seems that a lot of people have had this issue. (Shame on you ubisoft!) Speaking of which, what's with the texture with a picture of subsim.com printed across the side of a painted sub? Is this site owned by ubisoft or something or was that just merely a nod? I forget the file name, but it is there in the texture cache. Anyways, to make a long story short the maru mod fixes the eyes, but then upon launching the game again, steam went through its "updating game" and seemed to break and revert back to 1.3, without the u-boat missions. At this point I'm ready to break down and just download the isos. I mean, I bought the damned game. I redownloaded the whole 6-7 gig deal while I slept last night to awake and fire it up this morning to find that only 1.3 was installed again with no u-boat missions. I tried to fire the u-boat missions from steam and it updated itself again (argh) and it loads (with the correct title screen) to about the 80% and dies. Grrr. Trying to launch SH4 from steam again then results in "this game is not available." Wow. Now I have to redownload the whole thing. For the third time. Next time I am going to just back up the default stock installation. Is anyone successfully running mods with steam? And why the hell is the version of SH4 on steam only 1.3? Nice of ubisoft to make 1.5. Also I noticed you cannot seam to jailbreak the app by copying it to another directory, so it seems irrevocably tied to steam. Really not liking certain aspects of this. ISO seems the way to go, and considering the glaring bugs even on a final 1.5 patched version, I'm kind of disappointed. I did get to run one patrol and had a lot of fun (on version 1.3). I was ordered to go right up to the coastline of japan. After gunning a down a few ships I was systematically hunted by airplanes. I then pulled up into the Strait of Tokyo and gunned down a ship at night only to be hunted down by a japanese destroyer and somehow I sped up time too much and either a) had a collision or b) was destroyed by the destroyer. So much more fun than SH3 and I just can't place my finger on why, though I have always preferred american subs for a whole lot of reasons, like much better gear for instance.

jerm138 · 01-31-10, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zosX

I just bought silent hunter IV and then the u-boat missions and the first thing I noticed was that certain ships were black, without texture. Specifically the colorado battleships that populate pearl harbor when you take off on your first mission. Odd. It seems something is wrong with the low res textures on the steam edition. Certain units are missing textures. Switching to the better texture set seems to fix this. Then I notice upon installing the u-boat missions that crew members on the bridge do not have eyes. Well it seems that a few mods fix this, and it seems that a lot of people have had this issue. (Shame on you ubisoft!) Speaking of which, what's with the texture with a picture of subsim.com printed across the side of a painted sub? Is this site owned by ubisoft or something or was that just merely a nod? I forget the file name, but it is there in the texture cache. Anyways, to make a long story short the maru mod fixes the eyes, but then upon launching the game again, steam went through its "updating game" and seemed to break and revert back to 1.3, without the u-boat missions. At this point I'm ready to break down and just download the isos. I mean, I bought the damned game. I redownloaded the whole 6-7 gig deal while I slept last night to awake and fire it up this morning to find that only 1.3 was installed again with no u-boat missions. I tried to fire the u-boat missions from steam and it updated itself again (argh) and it loads (with the correct title screen) to about the 80% and dies. Grrr. Trying to launch SH4 from steam again then results in "this game is not available." Wow. Now I have to redownload the whole thing. For the third time. Next time I am going to just back up the default stock installation. Is anyone successfully running mods with steam? And why the hell is the version of SH4 on steam only 1.3? Nice of ubisoft to make 1.5. Also I noticed you cannot seam to jailbreak the app by copying it to another directory, so it seems irrevocably tied to steam. Really not liking certain aspects of this. ISO seems the way to go, and considering the glaring bugs even on a final 1.5 patched version, I'm kind of disappointed. I did get to run one patrol and had a lot of fun (on version 1.3). I was ordered to go right up to the coastline of japan. After gunning a down a few ships I was systematically hunted by airplanes. I then pulled up into the Strait of Tokyo and gunned down a ship at night only to be hunted down by a japanese destroyer and somehow I sped up time too much and either a) had a collision or b) was destroyed by the destroyer. So much more fun than SH3 and I just can't place my finger on why, though I have always preferred american subs for a whole lot of reasons, like much better gear for instance.

I purchased mine on Steam and fortunately haven't had any problems like you're talking about. Minor issues here and there, but no gamebreakers.

You may want to uninstall it and start from scratch:

Start with a clean install, DON'T run the game yet, reboot, then defrag, then install U-Boat missions (v1.5), then reboot, then defrag, then add Mods. That is the order I followed. Not sure if it's overkill, but it worked.

Are you using the correct version of TMO along with the most recent patch?

Which video card are you using? Have you updated to the latest drivers?

Also, upon installing I recommend going into the game options in Steam and setting it to NOT update automatically, since that seems to be what caused one of your problems.

Hope this helps. I know how frustrating it can be to deal with stuff like this.

zosX · 02-01-10, 06:17 PM

I reinstalled 3 times. On the third time I made sure that SH4 was installed by itself and then I added the U-boat missions. Next I applied Trigger Maru and the hotfixes for 1.9. No issues so far and thanks to the TMO crew for making a much better game. (On par with GWX? maybe....) On my first mission I was to go out to Hiroshima and take pictures of the harbor. Most of the water is really shallow near mainland japan. It was not easy. I sneaked in at night, sunk a carrier and crawled away from the destroyers to harbor and took some pictures. After some tense moments I escaped and made it all the way back to midway and ran out of fuel. I also forgot to save my game in all the excitement.

Oh well, I think I know what I'm going to be doing next. Also does the water do funny things on nvidia cards? Like skip a frame every once in a while with it being really noticeable on time compression? Also why is it that the all stop issued at the end of a course or when you resume a save game causes damage to your ship? I randomly seem to end up with damage whenever I resume a save.... Finally it seems that the steam version looks to me like a stock 1.3 dvd or something. That being said, there is no way to patch it outside of upgrading to the u-boat expansion. Also you cannot run the executable outside of steam (from what I can tell...launching sh4.exe also invokes steam...need to test this.....) I don't know if stock sh4 came this way, but if you click off the high res textures option, you'll find that a lot of 512x512 textures are missing for various objects like the colorado battleship. Sorry about all of that. Just thought I'd reply that yes, it all does work pretty well.

Oh and thanks! Didn't know that option existed in steam and that was precisely what I was looking for!

jerm138 · 02-01-10, 06:43 PM

Glad it worked for you. Couple things:

Quote:

does the water do funny things on nvidia cards? Like skip a frame every once in a while with it being really noticeable on time compression?

I use an ATI card and I have noticed a few funny things with the water. I occasionally get the skipped frame like you mentioned. It kills the immersion a little, but it's something I can live with. I don't expect anything to look good while using time compression since I'm almost always looking at the map when I do that.

Another funny thing I've noticed with the water is that when I pan left or right, regardless of if I'm looking through the scope, uzo, binoculars... whatever... the wave animation "speeds up" making it look like jiggly jell-o. Again, I can live with it, but haven't found a fix.

Quote:

why is it that the all stop issued at the end of a course

If you plot a course, you're giving your crew an order to follow it. When you get to the end, they assume you wanted to stop there.

Quote:

when you resume a save game causes damage to your ship? I randomly seem to end up with damage whenever I resume a save

I've occasionally had a weird anomaly where my crew yells out "taking damage!" when I load a game. I've noticed it happens if I save a game while I'm damaged, but don't seem to incur any extra damage when this happens.

Quote:

Finally it seems that the steam version looks to me like a stock 1.3 dvd or something. That being said, there is no way to patch it outside of upgrading to the u-boat expansion

That's right. Not sure if it's a clever marketing scheme, or just lazy people working at Steam. Either way, it was worth the extra $5 to upgrade.

Quote:

you cannot run the executable outside of steam (from what I can tell...launching sh4.exe also invokes steam...need to test this.....)

I didn't know you could run ANY game outside of Steam if you purchased it on Steam. People complain about it taking up too much resources, but I don't have a problem with it.

Quote:

I don't know if stock sh4 came this way, but if you click off the high res textures option, you'll find that a lot of 512x512 textures are missing for various objects like the colorado battleship.

I've never used the low res textures. Can't help you there.

Zosxavius · 04-04-10, 08:15 AM

Anyone have luck with the following mod stack and a steam install?

TMO 1.9
TMO Patch 25012010
RSRD TMO v502
RSRD Vxxx Patch 1

Installed in that order?

Going to the museum results in a CTD with most of the ships being black. I've played through 5 patrols before I realized I had problems, and then I went and loaded up the museum and noticed most of the american ships were missing textures and then bam CTD. First of all the steam version is missing low res textures for a lot of the ships, though the high res ones are all there. Don't know if the DVD install is the same, but I suspect that the steam version might be missing some files. The strange part is that if I uninstall all mods the museum works with nary a CTD. Then if I install TMO it still works fine, so I know its not TMO causing the problem. I then uninstalled TMO and checked with steam and had it validate the install. It said that 400+ files were invalid and redownloaded those. I figured that the install might be ok, so I tried again with the same results. I'm asking here, because I'm sure some people are running steam with this modstack. If that is the case, go to the museum and tell me if all the ships have textures. In the meantime I'll reinstall SH4 (AGAIN!) and see if I can duplicate the results from a stock steam install. And yes, I am using the TMO RSRD.

06-15-08, 02:17 AM	#1
XanderF Samurai Navy Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 554 Downloads: 14 Uploads: 0	Silent Hunter 4 And U-boat Missions On Steam!! Woohoo! A great (definitely the best) digital distribution method for the Silent Hunter series! Silent Hunter 4 on Steam! Note that for only $28, you can buy a pack that includes Sh3, Sh4, and the 'U-boat Missions' for Sh4. I'm re-buying these on Steam, myself (if for no other reason than this is ultra-portable. Even if the disks are scratched and no longer readable some day, any game bought on Steam can always be downloaded and played on any PC you'll ever have.) I'll be sure to report on how the mods work - so far, I've never had a problem with mods in Steam games (they are almost always VERY mod friendly), so we'll see how it goes! This is FANTASTIC news! Advertised on the front page of Steam, no less! (Okay, okay, a cross-post to the Sh3 board, too - but this is SO VERY EXCITING!!) __________________

06-15-08, 03:45 PM	#2
V.C. Sniper Watch Officer Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 339 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	W00T!! Too bad though that the 1337 awesome Steam doesn't accept the CD key that came with my boxed copy. Ah well, hope all the Sim lovers on Steam here enjoy the hell out of it!!! >_< 100% REALISM = PWNZ THE S0X 2 TH4 B0X!!! STEAM FTW!!!! __________________ I only need one torpedo. Last edited by V.C. Sniper; 06-17-08 at 03:07 PM.

06-15-08, 07:06 PM	#3
XanderF Samurai Navy Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 554 Downloads: 14 Uploads: 0	It's only $28 to buy all three items, I have no problem buying it again at that price. For the convenience of Steam (and yes, the mods work), I can take the copies I have and send them to my brother. Or a coworker or something. Simply a smashing excuse to give away a copy or three! :rotfl: __________________

06-15-08, 08:23 PM	#4
Sailor Steve Eternal Patrol Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: High in the mountains of Utah Posts: 50,369 Downloads: 745 Uploads: 249	Great. Just great. I can't buy the add-on from D2D because they say something's wrong and they can't fix it. I just got all excited trying to get it from Steam, and they say I can't. I have to have Steam's version of SH4 to get and use the add-on. I can barely spare ten bucks for the thing; no way can I afford to by another copy of the game, or the package. I'm tired of these games. Why can't somebody just sell me a copy of the thing? __________________ “Never do anything you can't take back.” —Rocky Russo

01-31-10, 10:41 AM	#8
zosX Swabbie Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 11 Downloads: 55 Uploads: 0	Is anyone else having these problems /with Steam? I just bought silent hunter IV and then the u-boat missions and the first thing I noticed was that certain ships were black, without texture. Specifically the colorado battleships that populate pearl harbor when you take off on your first mission. Odd. It seems something is wrong with the low res textures on the steam edition. Certain units are missing textures. Switching to the better texture set seems to fix this. Then I notice upon installing the u-boat missions that crew members on the bridge do not have eyes. Well it seems that a few mods fix this, and it seems that a lot of people have had this issue. (Shame on you ubisoft!) Speaking of which, what's with the texture with a picture of subsim.com printed across the side of a painted sub? Is this site owned by ubisoft or something or was that just merely a nod? I forget the file name, but it is there in the texture cache. Anyways, to make a long story short the maru mod fixes the eyes, but then upon launching the game again, steam went through its "updating game" and seemed to break and revert back to 1.3, without the u-boat missions. At this point I'm ready to break down and just download the isos. I mean, I bought the damned game. I redownloaded the whole 6-7 gig deal while I slept last night to awake and fire it up this morning to find that only 1.3 was installed again with no u-boat missions. I tried to fire the u-boat missions from steam and it updated itself again (argh) and it loads (with the correct title screen) to about the 80% and dies. Grrr. Trying to launch SH4 from steam again then results in "this game is not available." Wow. Now I have to redownload the whole thing. For the third time. Next time I am going to just back up the default stock installation. Is anyone successfully running mods with steam? And why the hell is the version of SH4 on steam only 1.3? Nice of ubisoft to make 1.5. Also I noticed you cannot seam to jailbreak the app by copying it to another directory, so it seems irrevocably tied to steam. Really not liking certain aspects of this. ISO seems the way to go, and considering the glaring bugs even on a final 1.5 patched version, I'm kind of disappointed. I did get to run one patrol and had a lot of fun (on version 1.3). I was ordered to go right up to the coastline of japan. After gunning a down a few ships I was systematically hunted by airplanes. I then pulled up into the Strait of Tokyo and gunned down a ship at night only to be hunted down by a japanese destroyer and somehow I sped up time too much and either a) had a collision or b) was destroyed by the destroyer. So much more fun than SH3 and I just can't place my finger on why, though I have always preferred american subs for a whole lot of reasons, like much better gear for instance.

06-16-08, 09:35 AM	#5
Feltan Watch Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 28 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Sorry, but STEAM is not going on my computer. Had it once, and it was the most annoying memory hog ever devised. Regards, Feltan

06-16-08, 11:01 AM	#6
Fincuan Admiral Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Suomi, sauna, puukko, perkele Posts: 2,346 Downloads: 39 Uploads: 0	What is not running takes no memory, and this applies to Steam too. I have it because of HL2, CS:S and a couple of other games, but I never run it unless it's needed.

08-10-08, 11:16 PM	#7
KrazyKarl Nub Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 2 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	I love Steam! I buy all my games from them if they sell them. Not switching CDs is the way I like it. I've never had a problem running Steam and I get to find out about cool games like SHIV!!!

02-01-10, 06:17 PM	#10
zosX Swabbie Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 11 Downloads: 55 Uploads: 0	I reinstalled 3 times. On the third time I made sure that SH4 was installed by itself and then I added the U-boat missions. Next I applied Trigger Maru and the hotfixes for 1.9. No issues so far and thanks to the TMO crew for making a much better game. (On par with GWX? maybe....) On my first mission I was to go out to Hiroshima and take pictures of the harbor. Most of the water is really shallow near mainland japan. It was not easy. I sneaked in at night, sunk a carrier and crawled away from the destroyers to harbor and took some pictures. After some tense moments I escaped and made it all the way back to midway and ran out of fuel. I also forgot to save my game in all the excitement. Oh well, I think I know what I'm going to be doing next. Also does the water do funny things on nvidia cards? Like skip a frame every once in a while with it being really noticeable on time compression? Also why is it that the all stop issued at the end of a course or when you resume a save game causes damage to your ship? I randomly seem to end up with damage whenever I resume a save.... Finally it seems that the steam version looks to me like a stock 1.3 dvd or something. That being said, there is no way to patch it outside of upgrading to the u-boat expansion. Also you cannot run the executable outside of steam (from what I can tell...launching sh4.exe also invokes steam...need to test this.....) I don't know if stock sh4 came this way, but if you click off the high res textures option, you'll find that a lot of 512x512 textures are missing for various objects like the colorado battleship. Sorry about all of that. Just thought I'd reply that yes, it all does work pretty well. Oh and thanks! Didn't know that option existed in steam and that was precisely what I was looking for!

04-04-10, 08:15 AM	#12
Zosxavius Watch Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 17 Downloads: 2 Uploads: 0	RSRD and Steam? Anyone have luck with the following mod stack and a steam install? TMO 1.9 TMO Patch 25012010 RSRD TMO v502 RSRD Vxxx Patch 1 Installed in that order? Going to the museum results in a CTD with most of the ships being black. I've played through 5 patrols before I realized I had problems, and then I went and loaded up the museum and noticed most of the american ships were missing textures and then bam CTD. First of all the steam version is missing low res textures for a lot of the ships, though the high res ones are all there. Don't know if the DVD install is the same, but I suspect that the steam version might be missing some files. The strange part is that if I uninstall all mods the museum works with nary a CTD. Then if I install TMO it still works fine, so I know its not TMO causing the problem. I then uninstalled TMO and checked with steam and had it validate the install. It said that 400+ files were invalid and redownloaded those. I figured that the install might be ok, so I tried again with the same results. I'm asking here, because I'm sure some people are running steam with this modstack. If that is the case, go to the museum and tell me if all the ships have textures. In the meantime I'll reinstall SH4 (AGAIN!) and see if I can duplicate the results from a stock steam install. And yes, I am using the TMO RSRD.