[REL] Dark Waters

[Aktungbby]

Mike76!

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Randomizer

I do not use any external views and cannot run at the designed screen resolution so much of the spectacular eye candy is wasted but I installed v3 and took it for a spin.

Started a BdU Deployment to Norway career in September 1941 and all good until entering the Narvik Fjord at TC x256. Suddenly, right is you enter the first shallows and in mid-Fjord, TC dropped to x1 and all forward torpedo tubes were destroyed with no warning or enemy action. Perhaps ran aground but had 17-metres of water under keel. sailed the rest of the way at TC x64 without incident. Maybe a mine except no hull damage whatsoever. Never hit a mine in SH4 and never survived a mine strike in SH3 so this may be working as designed.

Decided to try to manoeuvre into Narvik port as it looks like an interesting, tight squeeze but the end mission icon disappeared before I entered the port itself and coming along pier-side I could no longer end the mission. Not game-breaking but certainly inconvenient.

-C

What boat are you deploying to Norway with? You also have to pay attention to the slanted anchor, and the date. Some of the boats transfer, and in June of 1942, the base changes, as does the flotilla. Look at Kirkenes. You are probably supposed to be there until June or August of 1942, depending upon which boat you are in, and the current date. Also, remember that at 256xTC, one second of real life is 4 and a half minutes in the game. Quick enough for a fishing trawler to be passing in front of you, collide, damage, and be sunk before you'd see it. Besides the fact that if you "sound" the bottom, by the time that comes back, you have already traveled 4 and a half minutes worth of distance, which at 9 knots is over 1200 meters, and the depth can change a lot in that distance... Me thinks you sent a load of fine fish, and their Norwegian attendants to the bottom... There will be no investigation, this will go directly to Courts Martial, and you will be found guilty. You have already admitted as much.
lol - just joshin' you, of course.

Originally Posted by THEBERBSTER

You do not state in your posts what your native resolution is?
1366 x 768 is a peculiar aspect ratio as it is not quite 16.9
In your "display settings" a resolution recommendation for your system should be showing.
If it is possible it is better to match your system to the games graphics options.

That sounds like a slightly older laptop resolution, THEBERBSTER, and they are probably stuck with it. They might be able to overdrive it, but then there will be a performance hit. If they can though, then they could "Window" SH4 and use 1920x768, though things might be just a pinch tiny on the text...

[Randomizer]

Some of the boats transfer, and in June of 1942, the base changes, as does the flotilla.

Orders were to proceed to Narvik, refuel and then deploy to patrol area using Narvik as my new base. The mission objective was to reach that base. Could not have been a fishing boat collision, sailing in daylight, clear weather and full bridge watch with friendly traffic always spotted. I suspect a mine. The drop to TC x1 and damage messages were simultaneous so if it was an errant fisher it was invisible.

Typically, or at least in my SH4 experience, once the end-mission icon appears when returning to any base it does not disappear with the approach so this was something new. Boat was a Type VIIC although cannot see how that could possibly matter. Have never visited Narvik although in my Soviet career, am currently patrolling off that port.

Besides, they can't court martial me because I quit! (that career, could not enter port or bother to sail back out to where the end-mission icon showed up again).

-C

[propbeanie]

The "dock" thingie cannot change without the base moving, which is controlled in the Flotillas.upc file. At Narvik (in NavalBase base file), the anchor is in the middle of the dock. The only way that moves is if the flotilla moves, which is why I was wondering about the date of your arrival. As for 'friendly' traffic, after a "ship spotted" message, the next would be "We're taking damage, sir!" if you collide, and that's with just about anything. With the mine, you should hear the explosion, you might see water splash if you're on the bridge, but you should see a camera shake (same thing for a collision, maybe not as violent), and then you might have the "We're taking damage, sir!" message, but you would also normally get a "We have flooding, sir!", which you might not always see with a collision. With the mine, things should escalate, and there'd be no doubt about what it was, unless you are deep in the water, and then it's over quick, of course, sometimes never knowing what hit you...

It doesn't sound like you have that Save available anymore though, so it'd be a bit tough to trouble-shoot now. When you say the "Dock" prompt went away, do you mean from the middle of the screen, or from the upper-right corner of the screen, up by where the Silent Running and Underwater icons show? Do you remember if you had emptied the Save folder after activating the mod? Was / is the 4gig patch (LAA or another) properly activated on the SH4.exe file? Does it seem to be OK now? Thanks

[Fifi]

Originally Posted by Randomizer

Could not have been a fishing boat collision, sailing in daylight, clear weather and full bridge watch with friendly traffic always spotted.

-C

Be aware game always drop to TC1 for enemy spotted, but never for friendly...had already bad surprises with that

[propbeanie]

... or when incurring damage also...

[THEBERBSTER]

Hi guys
I am on my first patrol with V3 and tonight I had a strange thing happen when I loaded my 3rd game save and went to the nav map after a short while my frame rates went very low to fps20 at TC32 then to fps6 at TC64, I ended up on the bridge with fps0. I hit the windows key and came back into the game at TC1 as normal. As I started upping the TC down went the frame rate.
Somehow L.A.A had dropped out. As soon as I re-connected the game it was back to normal.
Never happened before in any of my previous SH4 games!
Peter

[Randomizer]

That career (BdU to Norway September 1941) and its saves are gone but there was never any "We're Under Attack", "Taking Damage" or "Ship Spotted" reports. Could have been an invisible fisher (unlikely) or a mine or the phase of the moon. Not Cat though, he was out with his cat friends at the time.

Friendly traffic always seemed to trigger the "Ship Spotted" message even if TC remains as set.

Plan to revisit that career setup again to see if the damage repeats but expect a nil return if the issue does not re-occur.

-C

[fitzcarraldo]

Originally Posted by THEBERBSTER

Hi guys
I am on my first patrol with V3 and tonight I had a strange thing happen when I loaded my 3rd game save and went to the nav map after a short while my frame rates went very low to fps20 at TC32 then to fps6 at TC64, I ended up on the bridge with fps0. I hit the windows key and came back into the game at TC1 as normal. As I started upping the TC down went the frame rate.
Somehow L.A.A had dropped out. As soon as I re-connected the game it was back to normal.
Never happened before in any of my previous SH4 games!
Peter

Do you use the Antilag thing? I noted the same behaviour with FOTRSU running W10. It seems the AL doesn't work well with W10, but it is good for W7.

Regards.

Fitzcarraldo

[propbeanie]

When it comes to "antilag", I direct your attention to Front Runner's post #89 & 90 in his Base Time 2018 thread. Very interesting discoveries... one must be careful when "mixing". You might create something noxious...

[Mike76]

Hi THEBERBSTER thanks for the welcome! I did not know I was supposed to
state my native resolution, sorry. It is 1366X768 at 60p Hz.

I am running on an old windows 8 laptop. I think I am fine where I am, no need to switch to 1920x1080.

[Mike76]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Mike76!

Thank you!

[Fifi]

Originally Posted by THEBERBSTER

Hi guys
I am on my first patrol with V3 and tonight I had a strange thing happen when I loaded my 3rd game save and went to the nav map after a short while my frame rates went very low to fps20 at TC32 then to fps6 at TC64, I ended up on the bridge with fps0. I hit the windows key and came back into the game at TC1 as normal. As I started upping the TC down went the frame rate.
Somehow L.A.A had dropped out. As soon as I re-connected the game it was back to normal.
Never happened before in any of my previous SH4 games!
Peter

Hi Peter,
I already experienced this with old version of Fifi Compilation for OM+OMEGU, but never again since Dark Waters...
I couldn’t explain why suddenly this critical FPS drop, even though i too suspected LAA malfunction...
Hopefully since Dark Waters game has never been so smooth and stable here
All my .exe are set for win7 compatibility (SH4, Jsgme, MultiSH4 etc)
Windows 10 can be so strange sometimes …

[THEBERBSTER]

Hi Mike

my native resolution, sorry. It is 1366X768 at 60p Hz.

You are quote correct, this is an old laptop resolution. However SH4 does support this resolution so that is what should be used.

fitz

Do you use the Antilag thing?

No it should not be needed in SH3 or SH4. I have a 6gb gpu which has a high fps rate.

Fifi
It was L.A.A. dropping out for some reason between game saves leaving me with only the 2gb of game ram which is too little for modded games.

Peter

[Fifi]

Ah, you figured out it was LAA?...good...well, you managed to fix it?