Funeral for this game due to graphics issues

[Endicott]

For those wondering, it is indeed true and now pretty much official. Silent Hunter 3 will *not* play on modern computers which have any type of 3D graphics card. I had an expert take a look at my machine, performing a diagnostic on the game at the same time, and this is exactly what is going on.

For some very odd reason, the Naval academy will load just fine and, about 80% of the time, if you start a campaign in 1939 and load the naval academy *first* then the game will run. However, anything after 1940, all of the single player missions, and any attempt to start a new campaign later in the game like 1943, will cause the game to crash.

The computer expert who worked on my machine did say its possible to have the game run through a very special graphics emulator, simulating a non-3D graphics card, but this would have been expensive. So, that's it for me, the game has died and I will miss it.

[BanDHMO]

Define "modern" in this context. I got a new graphics card either this year or late last, can't remember. SH3 works just fine. It does crash occasionally (and much more so after I got GWX a month ago than it did with vanilla, but that's another story), but it's not so frequent as to ruin gameplay.

Until last month when I reinstalled fresh for GWX, I've had a career going on vanilla from 1939 and made it all the way to 1943. Didn't notice abnormally large number of crashes.

I don't know what your specific situation is like and who this computer expert is, but it certainly sound like a bit of an exaggeration to say it wouldn't run on any type of 3D graphics card. Graphics cards were 3D since the 90s, I think. Maybe he means some high-end modern cards will have a problem?

Either way, share the whole story with us. Was it working for you before, then something changed and it didn't anymore? Did you get a new computer and just can't get it working?

[Endicott]

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

share the whole story with us. Was it working for you before, then something changed and it didn't anymore? Did you get a new computer and just can't get it working?

Yes, I upgraded to a new graphics card and the game stopped working. I had it investigated by an expert, a computer software engineer who specalizes in high end graphics cards for computer. We discovered that if you are running with any type of advanced graphics card which uses 3D acceleration, the game will not load. This is due to the game program being unable to display advanced graphics through a 3D graphics engine. For NVIDIA, if the graphics card is anything like a GTX 1080, the game will no longer work.

[Chaussettes]

Originally posted by Endicott:

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

share the whole story with us. Was it working for you before, then something changed and it didn't anymore? Did you get a new computer and just can't get it working?

Yes, I upgraded to a new graphics card and the game stopped working. I had it investigated by an expert, a computer software engineer who specalizes in high end graphics cards for computer. We discovered that if you are running with any type of advanced graphics card which uses 3D acceleration, the game will not load. This is due to the game program being unable to display advanced graphics through a 3D graphics engine. For NVIDIA, if the graphics card is anything like a GTX 1080, the game will no longer work.

Your "expert" is wrong and proven by the fact the there are thousands of people on steam and on subsim forums that are literally playing the game and talking about it and they use high end modern computers.

[Endicott]

Originally posted by Sugardust:

Your "expert" is wrong and proven by the fact the there are thousands of people on steam and on subsim forums that are literally playing the game and talking about it and they use high end modern computers.

Actually this problem has been widely reported, including several threads on this forum. It has to do with 3D graphics engines being too advanced for the base program. So no, the man I went to see (who owns a computer hardware consulting firm by the way) was not wrong.

[trickytrevor46]

Just too add my comment, i started this game with SH I with a low end computer ,then 2004 with mid range computer and still no problems no crashing no nothing then GWX came along all the iterations upto and including GWX gold still no problems, then this year got myself top shelf PC with top end everything, reinstalled from scratch everything and still no crashes not once and the longest i have lasted is DDAY 1944 , obviously your EXPERT just aint because my
knolledge is basic and have always managed just self taught growin up in the 60s and 70s with gaming from its earliest forms....Just keep plugging at it be patiant join subsim and reach out someone will answer good luck

[trickytrevor46]

ps playing with two gtx 1080 TI with SLI so yes it does Sugardust ?

[Endicott]

Well, putting aside all the personal attacks against someone people have never met, the issue does indeed seem to be 3D graphics engines which don't work well with the game. The naval academy will load, as well as starting campaigns out of 1939, but anything later, including all single player missions, will crash upon loading.

There are plenty of threads on Subsim about this very issue and everybody pretty much agrees that the graphics cards and drivers of modern computers don't mix well with the older game. The tell-tale sign is the load bar making it all the way to the very end, loading rapidly, then freezing for several minutes, then crashing.

The solution, by the way, appears to be a graphics emulator which can "dial down" the drivers and make the game think it is playing with a lesser graphics card. I am actually looking into having one of these installed, but need to have it done professionally since I don't want to mess up my machine trying to do it myself.

Lastly, there are scattered reports (like here) of people claiming to use 3D cards and having the game still work. Don't know what to say, maybe just luck, although some reports state that the game runs with ATI Radeon but not NVIDIA.

[trickytrevor46]

PERSONAL attacks? just sayin as it is mate,didnt dis anyone ,can only say that ive never had a problem and you keep insisting that NVIDIA dusnt work so im either a liar?for what purpose or its true and its not the graphics card or 3d engine its some other problem i dont know but i am not lying....some people post that you cant save mid patrol, i always save mid patrol you have to no other choice if you use the time cmpression correctly,like at x64 script runs best at this speed from my own exspeariance sry about the misspelling mild dslexia and am on morphine so sorry if i go on

[Endicott]

Well, sorry for whatever misunderstanding there was. All I saw was people referring to my friend in quotes as an "expert", saying he didn't know what he was talking about, and I felt there was really no need for that. I mean, people on this thread don't know me, him, or the situation. But, anyway...

I actually went to see him again today and the plot thickens. We installed Silent Hunter III clean on a totally different machine, with an older graphics card. it worked initially, but then when upgraded to Grey Wolves (a **must** for this game, I might add) the SAME THING HAPPENED and it crashed when loading. After about two hours of investigations, it appears the culprit is Windows 10. The game just will...not...function...on Windows 10. And, yes, we tried compatability mod, XP, 2000, Service Pack 2 and 3. Nothing worked.

At this point, this is very upsetting and I have played this game for about 12 years. I also wrote for a website about this game and even designed a program giving detailed backstories to the crew, awarding thhm additional medals such as sports badges and the 4 year long service medal. I will really miss this game. Maybe one day Silent Hunter 6 will come out where they merge the crew management features of SH3 with the graphics of SH5. But, probably not.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by Endicott:

Well, sorry for whatever misunderstanding there was. All I saw was people referring to my friend in quotes as an "expert", saying he didn't know what he was talking about, and I felt there was really no need for that. I mean, people on this thread don't know me, him, or the situation. But, anyway...

I actually went to see him again today and the plot thickens. We installed Silent Hunter III clean on a totally different machine, with an older graphics card. it worked initially, but then when upgraded to Grey Wolves (a **must** for this game, I might add) the SAME THING HAPPENED and it crashed when loading. After about two hours of investigations, it appears the culprit is Windows 10. The game just will...not...function...on Windows 10. And, yes, we tried compatability mod, XP, 2000, Service Pack 2 and 3. Nothing worked.

At this point, this is very upsetting and I have played this game for about 12 years. I also wrote for a website about this game and even designed a program giving detailed backstories to the crew, awarding thhm additional medals such as sports badges and the 4 year long service medal. I will really miss this game. Maybe one day Silent Hunter 6 will come out where they merge the crew management features of SH3 with the graphics of SH5. But, probably not.

I don't know anything about your friend, all I'm telling you is that your conclusion is too broad. I don't care who came up with it and what their credentials are, I'm just trying to help by giving you more data points. I am on Windows 10, and I'm playing a patrol with GWX right now, minimized as I write this. I have an AMD RX 580-series card, a series, which launched in mid-2017, any my specific model is newer than that, I'm just not sure if it's this year or late last. So it's not correct to say that SH3 cannot work on Windows 10 or that it cannot work with all newer graphics cards, because my case and those of other people here are counter-examples. This is a good thing for you, because it means it might be possible to isolate what exactly is preventing it from playing for you and change that. This should be the main takeaway, not that your friend is wrong. I don't know them or care whether they are right or wrong, frankly. I'm just trying to tell you there may be hope and you shouldn't give up, since you like this game so much.

One thing that comes to mind is that although GTX 1080 is older than my video card, it is a very expensive card, so it's possible it does something exotic that my peasant hardware does not. So it's possible the high-end card is the problem. In this case, you could investigate temporarily turning off your high-end card and running with a cheap and crappy one. SH3 does not need much in the way of graphics hardware, being such an old game, and many computers come with a simple and crappy graphics card right on the motherboard, which gets turned off when you buy a fancy standalone graphics card and plug it in. But you still have that hardware and it should be possible for you to run with it on and your fancy graphics card off. Your friend may be able to help you do that and maybe teach you how to boot up with either old or new video hardware depending on whether you feel like playing SH3 or other games.

And, like I said in other posts, for me GWX did cause some stability problems too, with the same symptoms as you are describing: loading and then crashing either during the load or the initialization, much more than I had in vanilla game. But it's still manageable and I can play, just have to load a couple of times on occasion, and I always keep multiple saves just in case.

The other way, if it truly is solely Windows 10's fault, though I suspect it isn't, is to have your friend install a dual-boot OS on your machine. This will allow you to choose either Windows 10 or another OS (like Linux or maybe an earlier version of Windows) every time you start. Then you could try to install SH3 inside of a version of Windows where it works, or even in Linux, inside an emulator of Windows.

Point is, there are things you can pursue, if you really want to get the game working again, which it sounds like you do. Though they are hard and require a lot of work and a lot of learning to pull off.

Good luck, and I hope it works out for you.

[Endicott]

The fact that is happened on more than one machine is very telling. Some threads on the Internet have also talked about this, mainly that certain updates to Windows 10, which happen automatically in most cases, will cause the game to stop working. If you have it working on Win 10 with a high end card then count yourself very lucky. A lot of other people cant get it to work. I have given up at this point. The only other option is to buy a vintage machine with Windows XP and this is not worth that kind of effort.

[trickytrevor46]

Im just wondering are you using a TV or a monitor and what is your screen res set too.

[Mostly Harmless]

FWIW, running fine on my lappy
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
Driver ver 24.21.13.9836

EDIT, actually I was wrong. For some reason the lappy has two display adapters. When I disabled the onboard intel one
(Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630)
and restarted I got a 'Could not initialise 3D engine error on launch. I'll need to look further...

[AFG_vet_Psycho]

I'm no expert at computers, graphics cards, etc. However, I do know how to use DuckDuckGo. I typed: "silent hunter 3 work on windows 10".

I used the advice from the VERY FIRST RESULT:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-win_upgrade/how-i-got-silent-hunter-iii-to-run-on-windows-10/346f02ae-d135-4eea-90e3-cb0a441e2722eb

...and it runs great on my NVIDIA GeForce 1050 Ti.

Another search result was found within the the MICROSOFT Forum entry from THE DEVs that know about this issue:
http://www.lsh3.com/v15/dl/LSH3-EDITION-2015-INSTALLATION_EN.pdf

I won't resort to name calling, I just hope you didn't pay that 'computer engineer' because you've been taken, good sir.

[BanDHMO]

It's not that simple, AFG_vet_Psycho. I did everything those guides suggested as much as my card's software controls allow, and did not see any difference in the periodic crashes I'm getting. Other people hardly ever see a crash, and others like OP are giving up trying to fix it. I can only guess it depends on your specific situation.

But the point is, as your findings show, it's not necessarily hopeless, so trying different ways to fix it on a given system could work. Best of luck to everyone trying.