Windows 11 reinstall - game stuck in pause

[RoyAn75]

Had to reinstall Windows 11 due to the 22H2 update cause massive slow down. Formatted the SSD and installed Windows, then reinstalled SH4 from the installation disk. I do have multiple versions of the game already on the PC and all versions, including the newly installed SH4 are on a separate game HHD other than the system drive.

The game loads without any problem, I'm able to do everything you can until I load a patrol. When the patrol is loaded, the initial screen does not show the inside the of submarine, it is blacked out with "game paused" across the middle of it. The menus / buttons at the bottom of the screen are there but they do not work.

This occurs on all versions including the newly installed version of SH4 which leads me to suspect the problem is with Windows 11. I did have SH4 on Windows 10, which worked well, then upgraded to Windows 11, which also worked well until the 22H2 update. The only difference between then and now is that originally, Windows 10 was upgraded to Windows 11 whereas now, it is a clean version of Windows 11.

Using an AMD Radeon 6800 GPU

Event Viewer does not indicate any problems.

I appreciate your input

[propbeanie]

When you re-installed, did you keep a Stock install of the game, and run that? When in the install program, and the choice menu came up, did you choose to install DirectX 9.0c and the Codecs, but leave out Adobe Reader and the Game Shadow? Both of those will cause issue. Be sure and start the game from the newly installed directory using the SH4.exe, then try shortcuts after that. It might be that your short-cut isn't good anymore. You also might not be able to use old Saves if ANYTHING is different between the drives, or game config. What you are seeing with the "Pause" is sometimes a fail-safe game licensing thing. It is possible that the game not pulling info from the registry properly. Also, be sure your mods are compatible with the version of the game you have... Since you have a disk version, is it the old defacto v1.3, or the newer "Gold Edition" with U-Boat Missions included? These and other questions could be asked...

[Aktungbby]

RoyAn75! after a long silent run!

[RoyAn75]

Prop, thank you for the reply

When installing SH4, yes to the shadow game, direct 9c, and adobe being installed along with the game. I tried playing without U-boat add-on first, without success, then installed the U-boat add-on, also from the disk. Tried playing the game but again, same results. I tried to register the game but was sent to a page that is no longer available (not surprised). I started the game using the sh4.exe file inside the game folder (E: drive).

What is strange is when I start SH4, it loads normally, videos do play during opening screens. Menu opens, every button works, game settings work, selecting campaign or single mission works. There isn't anything that indicates a problem.

When the mission begins, the screen where the submarine interior with crew members is black, with "game paused" in the middle. All of the buttons below this screen seems to work. I can move along the selection buttons and they become highlighted. I can change the view of the depth and it changes from imperial to metric and view the ship's log. I can press escape and the selection appears and I'm able to exit to game menu or windows etc. as if nothing is wrong.

The only thing that I have been able to identify that does not work from the bottom of the screen menu is the time selection, it will not change from 0 (game paused).

black screen where the interior of the sub with crew members and cannot get out of game pause.

I thought it might be a video codex problem but the game's codex was installed when installing the game. The problem extends to all versions of SH4 I have so this leads me to believe it is a problem associated with Windows 11 missing an older version of something like Visual C++ but I do have the 2008 version of it as well as 2012, 2013, 2015-2022 with the last three having both x86 and x64 versions.

Everything worked fine from Windows 7, which was upgraded to Windows 10, which itself was upgraded to Windows 11. So the files needed to run the game was passed on from Windows 7 through Windows 11 as each OS was upgraded. This problem only occurred when I had to re-install Windows 11 cleanly, without installing it on top of a previous version of Windows.

[propbeanie]

Before you use Windows to un-install and then re-install the game again, try right-clickiing on the SH4.exe file in you freshly installed Silent Hunter folder, and choose "Properties" and the bottom of that context menu. When the "Properteis" page first opens, be sure that "Read-only" Attribute at the bottom of that first "General" tab is cleared. Then, on the "Compatibility" tab, set the Compatibility section to Windows 7, tick the "Disable full screen optimizations, tick the "Run this program as an administrator, and then click on the "Change high DPI settings" button, which will open another little window. On that new window, tick the "Override high DPI scaling behavior..." and then set the drop-down box to "Application", if it isn't already. OK your way out, and try to run that particular SH4 game you just changed. If it works, you will most likely have to change all of the other copies of the game that you have.




When you re-install the game, it is supposed to "set" the Windows registry for the game, and Windows then uses that entry to "verify" your copies also. So if you still end up with trouble after trying to adjust the scaling behavior of the executable, then you might have to un-install, then re-install. If that routine fails again, un-install, clean the registry (I do not like "registry cleaners", and do not have a recommendation), and then try another re-install... My Win10 just updated to 22H2 and didn't have any issue. However, I do know 2 others that have had issues also...

[RoyAn75]

Yes sir, I have the properties listed as you have shown under compatibility and overriding DPI.

Uninstalled and reinstalled twice so far.

An interesting development. I decided to take a screen shot of what I am speaking of but when I pasted the image onto a canvas, the entire screen is black. This is not what I see when in the game. I see the normal game play screen with the exception of the game window. I see the menus along the bottom but they do not show up on the screen shot.

thank you

[propbeanie]

Usually speaking, a Windows screen capture will be blank, except under certain circumstances. You cannot "capture" the splash screen, nor other associated images. Once in the game though, you can use the <Ctrl><F11> key combo to get a screen grab, that is then a bitmap image in your game's root folder, which can then be edited, resized and converted to like png or jpeg for posting.

So, what is the "native" resolution of your display monitor? What do you have the Windows screen resolution set to? The setting with the "... (recommended)" tag next to it is the one to try first. Then, in the game Options menu, Graphic Settings menu, see if that resolution shows in the game's drop-down for resolution. If not, you should choose a lower resolution setting that is "proportioned" the same, such as a 16:9 or 5:4 setting. If you have an ultra wide screen like 21:whatever, then you would probably have to use the "Windowed" choice and a 16:9 setting that does not exceed your screen's native in either direction. You might also have to experiment some with the settings in the "Properties" window shown above. On one of my computers (recently passed, a moment of silence please) I had to use the top choice in that DPI settings dialog for "Program DPI", and tick that box, and set it to "Whenever I run this program". That particular display I had allowed Windows to "zoom" the display, for whatever unknown Windows reason. I don't know if it was a "disabilities" thing or what, but I would only see a portion of the screen in a DirectX v9 game, no matter which game it was.

Don't attempt to use any of your old installs, or to run a Saved game folder. ie: if you run MultiSH4, and your new install is pointed at the Documents \SH4 folder, then be sure and delete the contents of that folder, so that you have "fresh" data populating that folder when you go to start the game the first time, else you'll pull in setting from the previous install, which was in the older version of Win11, and that might be what's hanging you... Once you get your new install properly running, you might be able to use the older copies of the game, but you might have to delete the Save data for them as well...

[RoyAn75]

Monitor Native resolution = 2560 x 1440, 144 hertz refresh rate
Game Resolution setting = 2560 x 1440
Yes to the resolution being available as a game option (with 60, 120 and 144 hertz refresh rates, I have it set for 60)
Yes, used lower resolutions full screen mode with the same results
Yes, used windowed mode with lower resolution with same results

With a new, fresh install of Windows, registry entries and SH4 folder under documents did not exist. I installed from disc SH4 thus creating these. I am working with the new install to fix this issue. Only working with files inside the newly installed game folder.

to post in forum 2.bmp

I think I uploaded an image of what I see. It is an attachment.


and now I have Windows User Account Control (UAC) blocking the program. States I need to get with the administrator. Funny, I'm the administrator, so I think this might be related to the number of times I started the game numerous times as I tweak the settings and/or worked different possible solutions. Now I will have to get this sorted out before we can move forward. FYI - I have disabled UAC as part of my Windows install. Me thinks I know what programs I want to install.

thank you

[RoyAn75]

I decided to uninstall the game again and upon completion of this, cleaned the registry and shut down the pc completely. For the other reinstall efforts, I only did a restart, not shut down.

Reinstalled SH4 from original disc (not gold version.) Then I did something I did not do before. I installed the old patches "silent_hunter_4_1_1" "silent_hunter_4_1_2" "silent_hunter_4_1_3" and "silent_hunter_4_1_4" before I installed U-boat add-on from the original disc.

Now everything is working as before. Either it was the cold boot before installing or the installing the patches before installing U-Boat add-on or a combination of both, fixed the problem.

thank you for your time

[propbeanie]

Wow. Glad you are finally going there RoyAn75. Usually, a person shouldn't have to do all that patching, and you should be able to go from the disk directly to v1.4, then to v1.5, but there might have been something stuck in the computer's craw that it just could not deal with. Now, go Sink 'Em All... lol