To fix brightness, just run Mafia 1 ??

[analogoldguy]

Hello to all. This is my first message here in Subsim. Seems like a great place!

I recently purchased the two disk Silent Hunter II/III put out by Encore. A really a great game! (SH3 that is). I didn't install SH2. The general brightness seemed kind of dim and dreary, and did not match the colors seen in the Tutorials run on Media Player.

No gamma, brightness, or contrast setting on my Catalyst 7.7 can bring up the brighter colors. Yet one night, after playing Mafia 1 for a while, I ran SH3 and there, like magic, were the beautiful, proper colors of the game. Great happiness!

So, life is wonderful if I boot up Mafia 1 first, and just get it to the profile screen and quit the program! Does anyone have an idea of what's happening here? I am on XP Pro, ATI 800 XT (AGP card). It is a very solid computer on all my games including fairly "newer ones" like Far Cry and World in Conflict.

Thanks. Bob P.

[Sailor Steve]

I'm not very good at helping with computer problems, but I am quite adept at saying WELCOME ABOARD!

[Jan Kyster]

Originally Posted by analogoldguy

...my Catalyst 7.7...

...life is wonderful if I boot up Mafia 1 first...

Did you install DirectX from Silent Hunter disc? Otherwise navigate to its folder and run the setup. I suspect your windows version (??) is lacking a dll...

And do go get a newer Catalyst! Newest is 11.1a, January 2011. Your's from July 2007...

11.1a is good - but for some reason I'm getting flickering hydrophone screen unless running AAx16 or disabling one GPU
This issue started for me in 10.10, so running 10.9 is your safe go, if you should experience same flickering.

But start out with 11.1a and do yourself a favour and create a restore point before updating...


Oh! and what Steve says!

[analogoldguy]

Hello Jan and Sailor Steve!

(Thanks Sailor Steve for your kind welcome) !

To Jan, I did not install the DirectX from the Silent Hunter disk. But my version is 9.0c (4.09.000.0904).

I went to Google to see how to revert backwards if a newer version of DirectX causes troubles, and it seems that it is a major chore! I also read about a tool called Nhancer here. And in the Ubisoft forums, a guy (in an old thread) mentioned setting the "stock" Catalyst settings.

I clicked the 3D settings in the Catalyst to "default", started up SH3, and got the perfect result as in the Mafia 1 trick. So I am very happy!

(I am not going to upgrade the Catalyst at this time because my computer really runs many games well, including old Windows 98 games, SH3 is otherwise showing no graphics glitches, so I don't want to spoil a good thing)!

I salute you fellows! And thanks very much Jan Kyster for your suggestions!
Robert P.

[Jan Kyster]

Originally Posted by analogoldguy

...I don't want to spoil a good thing

...a healthy and sound attitude. Wish I could have the same!

Hope you keep a complete backup of your system.

You didn't mention what Windows you're running, but there are no problems in upgrading DirectX and never a reason to go "back".
Same with Catalyst. Lots of people are working every day to improve both speed and quality, so one day you might wanna have a go at it.

But having a backup comes first.


Glad you got it working!


And Happy Hunting!

[analogoldguy]

Hello back to you Jan! I finally got some time to come back here and respond!

I am a real old-time (low budget) analog kind of guy. I am running the old original Windows XP Pro, I have never updated it.

As far as backups, I am starting to have trouble doing it with certain very large folders. I back things up to a second internal hard drive, but these are too big to fit onto a DVD anymore.

I still do images of my Windows XP partition with Drive Image 5 (a pretty old program, but reliable to me)! This could definitely save me if I screwed something up with an update. But it's not something I would love to do. (there used to be a program called Second Chance (which I have on my 98SE computer), with which you could make a restore point before doing something and it would take you back 100% (unlike the XP restore point). I know that there are one or two GoBack type programs now for XP, but they are not simple, always running in the background etc.

As far as updates, I have read (and was reading last Friday) about many people seeing bad changes when they upgrade DirectX , And not easy to reverse.

And online, many people talk about they couldn't install certain programs in XP, (one program is Red Alert 2), and I am amazed, because it went into my XP perfectly. . And I have other old classic programs running perfectly also.

I actually do have mild problems with SH3. The 3D action seems perfect, but the intro "Ubisoft" screen and the "German" intro "movie" do not play properly at all (they are in four or five blocky, bright colors like pink, orange, green, blue, red) not right at all. I have the same Ubisoft intro in the game "Far Cry", and it plays perfectly. I just hope that there are no "movie" cutscenes in SH3 because I won't see them properly!! Hang in there!

Bob P.

[Jan Kyster]

Originally Posted by analogoldguy

I actually do have mild problems with SH3. The 3D action seems perfect, but the intro "Ubisoft" screen and the "German" intro "movie" do not play properly at all (they are in four or five blocky, bright colors like pink, orange, green, blue, red) not right at all.

That could be caused by you not choosing same colour depth in game as desktop
Haven't played SHIII for years, but as far as I remember it was born with a single resolution? 1024x768? but I think there was a DirectX dll-kit released that allowed SHIII to run other (desktop) resolutions?

XP vs Win7: if I hadn't have to build all those new rigs with Windows 7, I would still be running XP. Quick, totally stable and great gaming platform. Mine ran for years with not a single hick-up. But coming home after installing and setting up a shiny Win7, my XP install did start to look a little old...

Recently I upgraded my external HD-box, so I have an extern USB HD-box for IDE-drives floating around. Can't remember if I put a 40 or 80 GB drive in it, but if you want it, PM me your address

[Gerald]

[analogoldguy]

Hello fellows,

Thanks Vendor, for your nice Welcome!

Well Jan, now I have to go on Google and find out what a "USB HD-box for IDE-drives" is !! (I am thinking that it is a case to put on top of the desk, connected with a USB cable) ?? Could be wrong here !!

I might have to pass on your kind offer because I now have about four extra 40 and 60 Gig IDE hard drives from junk computers that people have thrown out, so I have plenty of backup drives for storage.

I'll have to experiment with your Desktop idea. Right now I run the desktop at 800x600 32-bit. I'll change it!

I have been searching a lot, and have heard about wrong codecs, and also (like you said Jan, different Catalyst, or DirectX. I read that Cat 8.07 works well with SH3. (I actually just received SH4 from Ebay Saturday, and when it asked to install DirectX 9 and all the runtime stuff, I let it do it. Didn't fix the darkness problem though. I still have to do it manually from the Catalyst Center (setting it to default).

Are you guys able to adjust Silent Hunter's brightness, contrast, gamma etc. from your video cards' front end programs? Over and out for now !!

Bob P.

[Jan Kyster]

Originally Posted by analogoldguy

Are you guys able to adjust Silent Hunter's brightness, contrast, gamma etc. from your video cards' front end programs?

I don't adjust for SH from CCC for the 3 specific items you mention. But for AA, AF, SSSA etc. I certainly do.
SH will use your desktop setting - somehow I feel you haven't configured SH in the graphics settings?

Pleased to hear you have your backup needs covered!

I'll probably have to get rid of the darned thing in another way!

[analogoldguy]

Neither SH3 or SH respond when I increase (brightness, contrast etc.)in the Catalyst, when I do it manually, or make a profile for them. The programs only get correctly colorful when I restore "defaults" for the 3D.

In fact, I tried manually putting in the exact default numbers and applying and saving them, same numbers, and it doesn't work. I have to click Default or whatever that button says!

Inside the SH4 game, I have brightness or whatever it is called, set all the way up. SH3 doesn't have a brightness.. (don't remember).

I saw another guy in a thread somewhere who had the same problem. I cannot brighten or increase contrast or gamma for the Sub games through the Catalyst. If I do it for instance, for Battlefield 2, it works!

But I am so happy that the sub games are actually looking very good! I found it better to reduce the 3D foam and the textures in SH4 but it still looks excellent to my eyes! I'll keep re-reading what you have said, and do more experimenting. Thanks so much! Bob P.

PS, I changed the desktop to 1024x768 and the games looked mildly better!

[Herr-Berbunch]

Welcome aboard

I think Catalyst for XP only goes to 10.2, later versions may work but not as well or have support for it!

[analogoldguy]

Hello Herr-Berbunch, and thanks for your welcome!

Yes, I believe that I read that too, that somewhere after ver.10, you are into Vista country. But trying a newer Catalyst is something I'm going to do eventually.

But that being said, Jan Kyster said this, "somehow I feel you haven't configured SH in the graphics settings?"

So, I spent a lot of time in there, and found the magic button !! And the button is ..... Post process filters !! That has never been on, since I've had SH4. It acted like the "turn on the colors and contrast" for me. Lovely, lovely contrast, and colors !!

Before, the Command Room had colors, but looked as if a few of the men had been smoking in there! Now, there are colors by the bucketful !! And no more smoking allowed !!

Outside on the water,more beauty, but it got a wee bit laggy (hey, I am running a single core Sempron here! ) I then turned off "environmental effects" and the game is beauty to me! Continued thanks to you guys!

Robert P.

[Jan Kyster]

I so rock!

Re. XP drivers, then ATI/AMD certainly still support XP. Latest driver is 11.1 (year 2011, month 1) and if you're looking for older drivers, here's the list for XP 32-bit: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...eonaiw_xp.aspx

They don't have drivers back pre 8.10 though.

AMD driver download page: http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloa...downloads.aspx

If you still suffer from the need to select default before changes takes effect, maybe you should try clicking your ATI installer (in Add/Remove programs) and let it do a repair install.
Or if you still have the original download, just run that.


User kapitan_zur_see made an alternativ post process filter that removes the grainy effect - perhaps that's something to try?
If you disable PPF you'll also loose fog and other thing, but then again, it is a fps-killer... http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=114496

Happy Hunting!

[analogoldguy]

Well hello again!

My head has been spinning through all these references ranging from DirectX versions, Catalyst versions, Driver versions. I'm going crazy already !!

Yes, the default click still has to be done. But after choosing the "post processing", the game is looking absolutely beautiful and getting very decent frame rates. And has been as solid as a rock!

Like my daddy used to tell me, " if it ain't broke, don't fix it" !

Thanks for those nice links, Jan ! I will use them at the library (where I do my heavier downloading). I gotta get the 1.4 patch for the game first. I went to "add and remove" and did not get to see a "repair". I'm sure I will find it!

The post processing doesn't seem to create a grainy effect on my machine. Also, right now, I have the fog turned off. It's the Environmental effects that creates some jerky lag. I still don't understand what the grainy effect is. I'll run it longer with the environmental effects turned on. I'll go read that "grainy fix thread". Thanks all you guys for the help!

Bob P.
I noticed that the thread was from May 2007, (maybe that was for the V1 version)? Mine is V1.2. Maybe it was fixed?