Crashes crashes and crashes

[gamer3106]

I don't know why but 75% of the time I start to load a Campagin save file it either actually loads or crashes...

I really do not know what I'm doing wrong because sometimes it crashes some other times it doesn't.

Patching it with the 4gb patch seems to help only a little because I have to re-patch sh3.exe every time...

Loading missions and trainings is fine but the campaign does want to work...

[Aktungbby]

gamer3106!

[propbeanie]

Need a little more information gamer3106. The Silent Hunter games on the 'modern' PC do need some tweaking to their configuration. First of all, what "path" do you have the game installed on your computer? ie: are you in "C:\Program Files.." or similar? Secondly, do you have any mods activated on the install, and if so, which mods have you used? Have you changed the mod configuration since starting play in the career?

When activating a memory 'manager', such as the 4Gig Patch, or LAA or whatever, you want to make certain the SH3.exe file is write-enabled first. Navigate into your Silent Hunter III folder and find the SH3.exe file. Right-click on the icon, then left-click on "Properties" at the bottom of the context menu that pops up. On the first "General" tab, toward the bottom in the "Attributes" section. Be sure that the "Read-only" tick box is empty, and "OK" that and try to enable the 4Gig Patch again.

Also, be aware that there are certain 'methods' to doing Saves in SH3 that others can point out to you. Suffice to say, you probably did not do sufficiently strong incantations prior to the Save... - just joking, but alas, it sure seems to have troubles with certain situations... Post back with the answers to the first paragraph, and someone can lead guide and direct you to a more stable gameplay experience! (sorry, 'sales' influence...)

[Mad Mardigan]

gamer3106!

[gamer3106]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Need a little more information gamer3106. The Silent Hunter games on the 'modern' PC do need some tweaking to their configuration. First of all, what "path" do you have the game installed on your computer? ie: are you in "C:\Program Files.." or similar? Secondly, do you have any mods activated on the install, and if so, which mods have you used? Have you changed the mod configuration since starting play in the career?

When activating a memory 'manager', such as the 4Gig Patch, or LAA or whatever, you want to make certain the SH3.exe file is write-enabled first. Navigate into your Silent Hunter III folder and find the SH3.exe file. Right-click on the icon, then left-click on "Properties" at the bottom of the context menu that pops up. On the first "General" tab, toward the bottom in the "Attributes" section. Be sure that the "Read-only" tick box is empty, and "OK" that and try to enable the 4Gig Patch again.

Also, be aware that there are certain 'methods' to doing Saves in SH3 that others can point out to you. Suffice to say, you probably did not do sufficiently strong incantations prior to the Save... - just joking, but alas, it sure seems to have troubles with certain situations... Post back with the answers to the first paragraph, and someone can lead guide and direct you to a more stable gameplay experience! (sorry, 'sales' influence...)

Thank you for the advices!
The game seems to crash whenever I use any mod, let it be LSH3 or GWX. Vanilla doesn't crash though.

I have a path like the one you said.

I will put on write enabled, thanks a LOT for telling me. I had no idea.

The "safe" save is about not saving in ports and near ships right?

Anyway, I'll try out your advice and tell you how it worked. Thanks again

[stork100]

In addition set the .exe to compatibility mode for WinXP service pack 2 and tick run as administrator. Seem to recall people saying you needed to set it to Win7 if running Windows 10 or later. This has helped a lot of folks with loading saves.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by stork100

In addition set the .exe to compatibility mode for WinXP service pack 2 and tick run as administrator. Seem to recall people saying you needed to set it to Win7 if running Windows 10 or later. This has helped a lot of folks with loading saves.

I can tell you that setting the Windows compatibility mode to Windows 7 helped me. (My OS is Windows 10)

.... along with the above incantations that propbeanie suggested and offerings of unguents to the Machine Spirits.

[Mad Mardigan]

Originally Posted by gamer3106

I don't know why but 75% of the time I start to load a Campagin save file it either actually loads or crashes...

I really do not know what I'm doing wrong because sometimes it crashes some other times it doesn't.

Patching it with the 4gb patch seems to help only a little because I have to re-patch sh3.exe every time...

Loading missions and trainings is fine but the campaign does want to work...

Have been following up on the thread, for a bit now... &...


Am wondering... with your copy of SH3.... just as to the source of it.


Is it from Steam... Ubi... a disk... magical leprechaun produced... (sorry, My weird sense of humor, popping up there... )


Understand that where you installed it, is thankfully... NOT in UAC's rabid attack dawg terror-tory.








M. M.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by gamer3106

...The game seems to crash whenever I use any mod... Vanilla doesn't crash though.

I have a path like the one you said...

OK, quoting you edited like that to emphasize what I suspect to be the issue - besides the 4GigPatch and the "Compatibility" setting, which also contribute. Being in the Program Files folder with these old DirectX v9 games is the cause of a LOT of troubles on the 'modern' computer. The Stock version working fine, and the mods crashing is the main symptom. Windows interferes with your mod activation, and you do not get a complete GWX or LSH mod to play. Another possible contributor is if you did not clear (delete) the Save folder (defaults to "C:\Users \UserName \Documents \SH3") between the different mod activations and / or Stock.

If you have a Steam SH3, it is a little complicated to do the move, and the more Steam games you have installed, the more complicated it gets, and the longer it takes to accomplish. The Steam Knowledge Base has an article Moving a Steam Installation and Games that gets into the details better than I can. You can do the move 'automatically' with the Steam app on your computer, or you can do it 'manually'. Either way is involved and the copy process with Steam takes a good while. If you have a 2nd (viable) hard drive - image or restore partitions do not count - then life is easier, and you can create another Steam Library folder on the 2nd hard drive.

If you have the disk version, or even the Ubisoft (or other) download, then you can usually copy your existing SH3 install folder, and then Paste it into a new folder you make that is NOT within the "C:\Program Files (x86)" path, such as make a folder "C:\MyGames" and then copy the 'clean' Stock "Silent Hunter III" root folder and everything below it, and then paste that inside your "C:\MyGames" folder. Create a shortcut to the SH3.exe file if desired, and mod that "install" of the game. If you want to run LSH and GWX, then make a 2nd copy of that game folder and use it for the other mod. A couple of caveats though (ain't there always?). Each folder name has to be unique as always. I usually name my root folder after the mod that I install, so change the one "Silent Hunter III" to "LSH202" and the other to "GWX". Now get a copy of MultiSH3 and put it in each of those folders, and create unique 3-character Save folders for each copy of the game. Leave the Stock game where you have it for those times you feel like reminiscing with it, and let is use "SH3" for its Save folder, but do like "LSH" for Living Silent Hunter, and "GWX" for Grey Wolves eXpansion, or whatever you want, and then the mods do not interfere with each other.

Be sure and do the 4Gig Patch for each of your installs, and do like Stork100 and Kpt.Lehmann mention about setting the "Compatibility" of the SH3.exe file, which you can do when you clear that "Read-only" attribute. The disk version of the game is frozen in time with it installer, but it sure would be nice if Steam, Ubisoft and the others that sell a person these old game programs would update their installers, but alas, it is what it is.

[Captain Drastic]

I read a post where the advice was to always save the game from the F2 (Command Room) screen, same as when you start, and keep the number of saves down. So I did this and Behold!- no more saved games crashing! The advice also said you can even save submerged, which I also found to be true. I just overwrite the saves a lot to keep the number down, but I'm not sure that's even crucial.

[lederhosen]

If you also are using SH3Commander for mods with "date" folders in it, then I have found that if the 'roll back' automatically on SH3C settings was ticked then I had many CTD problems.

[Hooston]

Originally Posted by gamer3106

I don't know why but 75% of the time I start to load a Campagin save file it either actually loads or crashes...

I have run this game on a variety of hardware using Wine on Linux. At the moment Wine is pretending to be Windows XP 64, but I think I have previously had the game running with "XP 32" and "Windows 10". The very annoying crash on load has always been there but only about 1 in 50 saves for me. i think that is typical. I save away from land and on the surface; I don't know if that helps.

The thing that made crashes very regular was not having the 4Gb patch (or in my case the HSie patch). The vanilla game runs happily without the patch, but as soon as you start adding mods the 4Gb becomes essential. Worse, if you run mods and don't have the 4Gb patch the crashes often only start when your campaign has been going for a while. There must be some garbage building up somewhere. i strongly suggest you carefully go through the installation instructions and check you have your version of the 4Gb patch correctly installed. As it is a patch to sh3.exe it's a tad tricky. Some of the more recent supermods include a patched sh3.exe, which is much easier.

if you got the game from Steam there's a whole lot of extra incantations to apply, I suggest you go over to the Steam SH3 community page, which has a FAQ.