Does SH4 need 4GB Patch

[sonicninja]

Ahoy Shipmates, i've just purchased SH4 Gold (UPlay version) and installed it on my W10 64Bit, 8GB RAM PC, a 7 year old system.

I've also installed the Dark Waters mod and ran the game, I had a quick scoot about on the surface and at PD with no issues whatsoever, the boat inside and out looks beautiful and first impressions of the mod are stunning.

I've not played SH4 before, I've got plenty of hours on SH3 & SH5 but fancied something different whilst in quarantine, anyway my question is do i need to install the 4GB patch for memory purposes like we do in SH3 and is it the same patch or a seperate application for SH4?

[XenonSurf]

Yes, 4GB patch is highly recommended when you're using mods like TMO, FOTRSU or Ralles Modpack, the game will run smoother with less tearing also if you put Vsynch ON. That's what I have seen in the last days by experimenting with those mods. The 4GB Patch is a necessity IMO.




XS

[3catcircus]

Some people indicate 4GB patch, others indicate Large Address Aware instead.

[XenonSurf]

Originally Posted by 3catcircus

Some people indicate 4GB patch, others indicate Large Address Aware instead.

Yes, both programs do the same - get the game to use a bigger RAM which can only be good.


XS

[Mad Mardigan]

Have a question, that I sincerely hope is NOT derailing the thread asked for by the Op, but.. this was brought up by XenonSurf, with their reply in post #2.

With regards to Vsync, have seen some posts of Not using it, and some saying to use it.



What exactly does Vsync do & does it benefit SH4, with activating it... or not?

I do understand & have a good grasp of most things computer related, enough so as to feel confident in mucking about, as it were in the bowels of them per se as it relates to making adjustments, not to the point of being an expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but enough to at least understand the rudimentary basics... while on other things, not so much & will ask or suss out info when in doubt.

This would be a case of the latter half...

[Kal_Maximus_U669]

Originally Posted by Mad Mardigan

Have a question, that I sincerely hope is NOT derailing the thread asked for by the Op, but.. this was brought up by XenonSurf, with their reply in post #2.

With regards to Vsync, have seen some posts of Not using it, and some saying to use it.



What exactly does Vsync do & does it benefit SH4, with activating it... or not?

I do understand & have a good grasp of most things computer related, enough so as to feel confident in mucking about, as it were in the bowels of them per se as it relates to making adjustments, not to the point of being an expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but enough to at least understand the rudimentary basics... while on other things, not so much & will ask or suss out info when in doubt.

This would be a case of the latter half...

The vertical sync limits the game to 60 fps which provides a certain stabilization to the game on the other hand it avoids the tearing of the image ... it is advisable to activate it after it is you who sees

In terms of graphics I advise you to read the forum in the section dedicated to it get yourself nvidiaInspector create a profile and fine tune your settings forecast several hours

do not forget to restart the game at each setting if you want them to work

[XenonSurf]

It's important to note that SH4 was written for 30 FpS. That's important for synchronizing the game's clock for the weather and other game related time factors when you play. Here is an extract of the FOTRSU 'stable game' PDF tips:


----------------
4. Time-of-day was an issue that has been known for a while, and some folks even knew of its roots and cause, but most folks do not want to pay attention to it. Ignore it at your own “peril”. But the game was written in the DirectX v9.0c days, to run on Windows XP, and as such is basically a 30fps game.
Most computers back in March of 2005 when Silent Hunter III was released (older brother of the SH4 game), were hard-pressed to attain that threshold, unless the latest / greatest hardware was used. As more ‘modern’ equipment, OSes and games have come out, the “holy grail” of gaming has been “the more fps, the better”, so that gameplay is “smoother”. Silent Hunter 4 however, is written to run at 30fps. If you exceed that, or (heaven forbid) cannot reach that, the game’s clocks will not “sync” properly, and will drift apart from each other. If you have a 60Hz display, and an nVidia graphics card (except maybe the newest series), you can use the nVidia Inspector to set your card to “Half frame rate”. In other words, 60Hz divided by two equals 30fps. Otherwise, the use of “antilag” can help – after some trial-and-error – get you close enough to 30fps. Having the “clocks” of the game in-sync with the graphics adapter will keep the daytime light, and the nighttime dark. In FotRSU, with CapnScurvy’s work on the sun and moon, will allow for proper lunar cycles, and maybe even some semblance of “real” navigation, if desired.
----------------------------------


This may easily apply to other mods too. I use MSIAfterburner to set a framecap, you can also use NVidia Inspector which is very good too. But as said, VSynch ON means a cap that corrisponds to your monitor HZ value, so you need further tweaking like "Scanline Synch" in MSIAfterburner or someting corrispondent in NV Inspector to reach 30 FpS with Vsynch ON. Currently I'm playing very fine with 60 FpS stable, but this will maybe cause time synch problems in the game afterwards, I have yet to see that and correct if necessary.


XS

[sonicninja]

Thank you for the feedback shipmates, as usual with this site with quick responses with valuable information.

Stay Safe

[Mad Mardigan]

Ok, I appreciate the explanation.

So, having a fps setting of 30, is the 'golden' # to shoot for as it goes for the fps then.

If that is the case, was able to go into the Control panel for my graphics card (which is Nvidia a GEForce GT720, by the way...) and was able to add the .exe for each modded SH4 I have, and through the program settings, under the manage 3D settings section & tell it where to find the SH4.exe at & to allow for 30fps as max frame rate for each 1.

I have a solid runnable copy of SH4 (modded out for each of the following mega mods, as follows:

Fall of the Rising Sun

Operation Monsun: Enhanced

Operation Monsun: Dark Waters

Will check & see if this went through & works as it should and will report back on the results...

[propbeanie]

"V-Sync" is actually from the old days of analog monitors, and corresponds to the refresh rate, for interlaced video. A frame rate cap is for Frames Per Second, of course. We would have to have a graphics expert explain the differences, but there is a difference. Most systems are now digital displays (LCD etc). From what I remember of other's explanations, is that you should not use a frame cap with v-sync, and vice versa. Now, with v-sync enabled, my games frame rate is up there, with the nVidia cap, or the new Intel set-up for their onboard video, they are based on the frequency of the display, such that 1/2 frame on a 60Hz display results in different figures than 1/2 frame on a 40Hz display. I am not good at these explanations, because I forget 1/2 of what I read every 15 minutes of being away from the subject matter

I have been trying to follow what Front Runner found in Post #90 of Base Time 2018 thread. He has a link in there to TomsHardware were some folks discuss the differences between v-sync and fps limiting. Just be aware, as Front Runner discovered, that if you use very much TC, it really doesn't matter as much.

[mikehcl]

Originally Posted by XenonSurf

It's important to note that SH4 was written for 30 FpS. That's important for synchronizing the game's clock for the weather and other game related time factors when you play. Here is an extract of the FOTRSU 'stable game' PDF tips:


----------------
4. Time-of-day was an issue that has been known for a while, and some folks even knew of its roots and cause, but most folks do not want to pay attention to it. Ignore it at your own “peril”. But the game was written in the DirectX v9.0c days, to run on Windows XP, and as such is basically a 30fps game.
Most computers back in March of 2005 when Silent Hunter III was released (older brother of the SH4 game), were hard-pressed to attain that threshold, unless the latest / greatest hardware was used. As more ‘modern’ equipment, OSes and games have come out, the “holy grail” of gaming has been “the more fps, the better”, so that gameplay is “smoother”. Silent Hunter 4 however, is written to run at 30fps. If you exceed that, or (heaven forbid) cannot reach that, the game’s clocks will not “sync” properly, and will drift apart from each other. If you have a 60Hz display, and an nVidia graphics card (except maybe the newest series), you can use the nVidia Inspector to set your card to “Half frame rate”. In other words, 60Hz divided by two equals 30fps. Otherwise, the use of “antilag” can help – after some trial-and-error – get you close enough to 30fps. Having the “clocks” of the game in-sync with the graphics adapter will keep the daytime light, and the nighttime dark. In FotRSU, with CapnScurvy’s work on the sun and moon, will allow for proper lunar cycles, and maybe even some semblance of “real” navigation, if desired.
----------------------------------


This may easily apply to other mods too. I use MSIAfterburner to set a framecap, you can also use NVidia Inspector which is very good too. But as said, VSynch ON means a cap that corrisponds to your monitor HZ value, so you need further tweaking like "Scanline Synch" in MSIAfterburner or someting corrispondent in NV Inspector to reach 30 FpS with Vsynch ON. Currently I'm playing very fine with 60 FpS stable, but this will maybe cause time synch problems in the game afterwards, I have yet to see that and correct if necessary.


XS

I have a rtx 2080ti I do 400 fps holy god, and my monitor is a 144Hz G-sync. What do you advise me to do? to set 30 fps in nvidia control panel settings?

[XenonSurf]

Originally Posted by mikehcl

I have a rtx 2080ti I do 400 fps holy god, and my monitor is a 144Hz G-sync. What do you advise me to do? to set 30 fps in nvidia control panel settings?

What I would do:
Yes, set 30 FPS but turn VSynch=OFF in SH4 grafics menu, and of course max-out all grafic settings except Window Mode and Gamma. Also you can set your power card to not run in Turbo Mode for this game, so you will save GPU load. With my GTX 1660 6GB I reach a max of 40% load only at 50°C and I try to get even lower. It may be that you see tearing when moving the mouse to change the view in-game, in that case you can set a higher FPS cap, say 60, but not higher than your 144 which is your monitor refresh rate. Or: don't set a FPS cap and turn VSynch=ON in the game menu, but this will come at more GPU load for your card, the game running as smooth and best it can - but way too good than necessary.


I'm not an expert in these things, but I have just discussed with a guru at guru3d.com for that matter. Still his answer is pending...But it's really not simple and also depends on the tool you use to set performance tweaks.


XS

[mikehcl]

Originally Posted by XenonSurf

What I would do:
Yes, set 30 FPS but turn VSynch=OFF in SH4 grafics menu, and of course max-out all grafic settings except Window Mode and Gamma. Also you can set your power card to not run in Turbo Mode for this game, so you will save GPU load. With my GTX 1660 6GB I reach a max of 40% load only at 50°C and I try to get even lower. It may be that you see tearing when moving the mouse to change the view in-game, in that case you can set a higher FPS cap, say 60, but not higher than your 144 which is your monitor refresh rate. Or: don't set a FPS cap and turn VSynch=ON in the game menu, but this will come at more GPU load for your card, the game running as smooth and best it can.


I'm not an expert in these things, but I have just discussed with a guru at guru3d.com for that matter. Still his answer is pending...But it's really not simple and also depends on the tool you use to set performance tweaks.


XS

Exactly, if I set 30 fps when I move the mouse I have a lot of tearing, I try to set 60fps and I leave the G-sync active in the nvidia control panel

[Mad Mardigan]

Reporting in, on my findings after going in & setting up 30 as the max frames rate...

Ok, tried the whole set max frame rate to 30... and got tearing, so.. I set it all back to run under the universal settings, applied that, closed out the control panel for my card... went into SH4 & set vsync to on... and... no tearing...

Live & learn, as they say...


And that concludes this report.

[XenonSurf]

After consulting some expert links about FPS, my system is now as follows (from my post in the Fleet Interiors mod thread):




---------------------------
To add to my above report about performance with these additional rooms and open hatches, I have consulted various good links about how and when to cap FPS, and wether to use VSynch=ON in the game settings, this also to run at best the FOtRSU mod package. Here my conclusions:

a)
Set Vsynch=ON in the game.

If you have a 60 Hz monitor you will get 60 FPS with a larger frame delay and latency, but the good is: With any reasonable GPU the FPS will not drop much for you to see a real difference, and you will get rid of screen tearing and input lags. Also good is that your GPU load will be reduced compared to illimited FPS and Vsynch OFF.

b)
Set Vynch=OFF in the game, but...

First run the game with a tool that tells you the FPS onscreen. If you see a very large number like 500+ FPS while in your sub and moving, then you can safely set a framecap of 2x your monitor refresh rate, say 120 if you have a 60 Hz monitor. With that, if you don't get tearing or imput lag, great Very good is: Even if the FPS drop during game, you will never see or notice this at such high FPS.
From there, measure your GPU load, if it's just below 50% with a good GPU you are just fine, if it's around 20-30% you can raise the cap, the more FPS the better until you get around 40%-60% load and your GPU temperature doesn't get too high.

If instead you get tearing after capping your FPS at 2x your monitor Hz, then you need to raise the cap until it goes away while still not exceeding 50-60% GPU load. With a lower card this may not be possible, so better go with a) and set Vsynch=ON, also if your GPU load is around 70-80+% which is not necessary for this older game.


I hope this little excursion in the FPS world helps!
---------------------------

After trying both a) and b) with my GTX 1660 6GB VRAM, I just set Vsynch=ON in the game and it remains constant @60 FpS (60Hz monitor) without any tearing, at very low GPU load, I never hear the vent. That's with the modded interiors. Wihtout interiors you should get even less GPU load.

If you can do b) with little GPU load and without tearing, then chose this solution because: the more FPS, the better.
In the case of a) with Vsynch=ON, you want to experiment with Tripple Buffering (set it in your NVidia panel for the app) which often gives better colors and image for pre-2012 games at basically the same GPU load.

Finally, returning to the title: The 4gb patch is always good for games developed for WinXP because they have a 4GB RAM limit minus the OS consumed RAM, which is: Little, especially if mods are loaded with the risk to go out-of-RAM which means CTD. The 4GB patch will enhance all those games and use your system RAM if necessary.
The 4GB patch requires your OS to be 64-bit.






XS