Silent Hunter II
 

Ahoy komrads.

It has been quite a while since I haunted the halls on any regular basis.

Back in the day, we were AODing and SH1/2ing everything to death. I enjoyed SH2 and DC multiplayer and actually enjoyed learning the DC side and got pretty good at it. Yes, I suppose you could call me old school, but more like, failed to keep up once the real-world job stuff pressed in.

Well, to get to the point, I always said when I retired I'd go back and spend more time on this. In the meantime, SH3 came along and (at least in my opinion) brought an almost end to SH2/DC. I suppose it makes sense, as SH3/4 are awesome sims. SH5 never worked well for me and I could never get the SHOnline to work either. I'm sure my laptops were way underpowered at the time. The gameplay and graphics are just amazing, even today. However, allow me to tell a quick story:

I own several old vehicles. I can go out and tinker with them and make them run however I want. No need for a computer or nothin. I just get my tools out and spend some time and bang!! more horesepower and it runs smooth as silk. Not the superrigs of today, but I enjoy them old muscle cars way more than these new jobs.

Now, SH2 is somewhat the same way for me. The ability to modify and tinker was amazing. SH3/4, not so much (although some would disagree, I still believe SH2 has much more tinkering room, but yes, way less realism in the graphics and responses.

Well, blah, blah........so what??

I would like to ask some help on how folks are playing SH2/DC these days. I've noticed a few posts discussing VMsomething and DOSBox, but surely this is old technology by now. Please someone give me the latest scoop on these 2 games. I'm running a HP laptop with lots of speed, graphics and space. I'm hoping to relive some glory days in SH2/AOD and would like some help/feedback.

Yes, I'll get back to SH3/4 and probably try to get SH5 and SHOnline going. Yes, I'm on Wolfpack/Discord, but darn confusing to me and don't know how to find other discord server/discussions for SH2/3/4. lol, I can hear some of you laughing out there, but so it is....

Thanks in advance for the help and time.

welcome back!
 

Hi KapitanDB, I haven’t played SH2 in a long time. I do know It runs on win 7 &10 64 bit. You generally need to run the game as administrator and set the compatibilities of the exe. I can’t give advice regarding using a laptop or win 11. On newer equipment You may need to install an earlier version of directX like 9c and perhaps “large address aware” as well. You should’t need VMware or Dosbox for SH2. - hope this helps.

I still occasionally play DC on a desktop. I like it because its’s a first person sim with all stations modeled ( Radar, sonar, TDC, depth charges), large variety of ships from different countries, and their devices/ equipment. But most of all I return to it because I enjoy it’s scenario editing capability. Because SH2 and DC were designed to work together they share assets and editing ability too. So like you, I enjoy tinkering too.

If you want to play AOD you'll have to use dosbox which is very easy and simple to use. Be sure to check out Andreas86's AOD work in the threads in this forum too. :up:

Thanks for the Welcome back Acktungbby.

I've had my pariscope up now n again. I don't really care to post too much. That could be like surfacing in the Bay is Biscay in 1944.

I appreciate the feedback on SH2 and AOD gents. I'll do some homework.

I'll scoot over to SH3/4/5 forums to ask about them over there.

if anyone gets some SH2/DC/AOD groups going, please let me know.

Thanks again komrads.