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Old 11-02-22, 08:23 AM   #1
Onkel Neal
Born to Run Silent
 
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Join Date: Jan 1997
Location: Cougar Trap, Texas
Posts: 21,276
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Icon14 Onkel returns to Silent Hunter III

As many of you know, I have a deep history with the SH franchise. Way back when SH3 was a dream in our minds, I was able to become associated with the game in its early alpha state. I saw the alpha at E3 in Los Angeles and met the lead programmer and director of the project, and pitched the urgency for a "dynamic campaign". This caused an 8 month delay, but I think we all agree it was worth it.

Some months later I hosted a Subsim Meet in Houston and the dev team FedEx'ed a CD-ROM of the latest beta build so I could preview it with the meeting members. Man, was that great! This was before smartphones, so I don't think any video survives but everyone was extremely excited about SH3. For me, I was glad to have other players confirm how great SH3 was compared to all the subsims before it, so it wasn't me "hyping" the game.

Ok, skip ahead, game was released, was a success, the Subsim Mod world exploded with amazing works, spurred on SH4 and SH5 (& SHO); at some point I stopped playing SH3 regularly, probably 2015 when I was a truck driver. Around 2017, I started working with the HMS Marulkin devs on what would become Wolfpack.

Sometime between 2017 and 2019 I bought SH3 on Steam for the convenience of playing without a CD. I believe I started the game but probably only played a single mission... apparently I loaded the JonesSoft Mod tool and GWX, then stepped away to focus on Wolfpack.

FastFwd to this week: I started SH3 on Steam to play some career missions to refresh my memory on the way the campaign feels in preparation for the Wolfpack campaign. I Steam started SH3 and it came up, GWX installed, but it was playing in a tiny window, so I changed the resolution and well, the game stopped running. The Ubi logo and intro video would appear but then a mouse arrow and black screen. Oh boy, fun!

So, I did some research, found a bunch of possible solutions, and after reinstalling, checking file integrity, monkeying around with the Compatibility mode, and cfg file, got SH3 to run again in vanilla mode. I'll throw up an page of what my settings ended up so you can see what seems to have done the trick for me.

Steam Silent Hunter III setup 2022

So, I am going to play a few career missions in vanilla, then reinstall JoneSoft, and from there, I'm interested in your opinions on which mod path I should try. Over the years I have seen many, many mod paths recommended and now I am asking you, as a returning SH3 player, what wisdom you can impart, o' mighty ones.
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Last edited by Onkel Neal; 12-14-22 at 04:41 PM.
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