[HELP] steam's sh3.exe won't start anymore!

[ValoWay]

hello all,
you're about to read here a rather complex and irritating problem description. I'm also not a native English speaker which complicates the whole clusterfuk even further...

Anyways, let me start from the beginning:

I bought silent hunter 3 a couple of weeks ago via steam! My OS is WIN7 Home Premium 64 BiT.
I managed to install GWX Gold 3.0 and lots of other great mods like OLC's GUI which I ran together with SH3 Commander 3.2 !

Everything was working great, I finished the naval academy and even started to have fun with the career mode!
I can say that I happily played career mode all the way to the end of december 1939 (about 6 or 7 patrols) without any technical problems!!

Time to start the madness:
Probably because of human nature I suddenly decided to get another mod to increase the graphical quality of sh3's effects just to make sh3 look that teeny tiny bit better

Originally Posted by ValoWay

I) Here you can see which mod I'm talking about:

Rbs SH4 Effects 204f1
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...do=file&id=455

II) Here how I found out about this mod:

Quotes from page 48:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...124207&page=48

After I activated Rbs SH4 Effects 204f1 via JSGME the game started but crashed during the loading process of my save game!

And here it comes now:

Suddenly it was NOT POSSiBLE! anymore to start the game AT ALL! after the just mentioned crash to desktop!

1) As reaction to this I uninstalled EVERYTHING even remotely related to SH3!
I even used CCleaner to clean up the registry and searched my hard disk for "silent hunter 3" and "sh3".

2) I reinstalled a fresh steam SH3 copy.

3) I set my desktop resolution to 1024x768 in order to force the game to start but after clicking the SH3.exe NOTHING HAPPENED AGAIN!
Please correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this the way to make the vanilla version run? I'm quite sure that I made SH3 run this way the first time!!??

Conclusion:
1) Testapp.exe works without any problems whatsoever! I just click on it and the game starts in vanilla or with mods like GWX and OLC's etc and I do not even have to lower my desktop resolution!

2) When I try to run SH3.exe the game doesn't start BUT starts when I click on it a second time!

IMPORTANT: CAREFULLY READ QUOTE BELOW!

Originally Posted by ValoWay

It is important to mention that when you try to start sh3.exe the first time - when nothing happens - you can still find the process sh3 in the task manager! When you cancel the process the task manager list doesn't show the sh3 process anymore BUT you can tell that the process WAS ACTUALLY NOT completely finished due to the CPU work load and heat development.

In order to find the hidden process I downloaded the software called "ProcessExplorer":
http://download.cnet.com/Process-Exp...-10223605.html

It turned out that you've to terminate a process called rundll32.exe to completely finish the failed SH3.exe process!

In order to run SH3 via sh3.exe and not testapp.exe (which always works!) I have to start sh3.exe once which will start the just mentioned so called "failed process".
Now that the "failed process" runs in the background I can start the game by clicking sh3.exe a second time!

MY FINAL PROBLEM:
This whole situation causes the problem now that I CANNOT use SH Commander v3.2 anymore! SH Commander v3.2 starts the game via sh3.exe.

I've just explained that the game will only run via sh3.exe if you start sh3.exe a second time with the "failed process" in the background !
Problem is that when you try that with SH Commander v3.2 the program will give you an error msg telling you that you cannot start SH Commander v3.2 because it is already running...

It was quite easy to make SH3 run the first time! I'm not sure why sh3.exe suddenly behaves this way.

Wasn't the usual approach to make sh3.exe vanilla run to simply set the desktop resolution to 1024x768 or am I missing something???

[Pisces]

Hey, stop shouting! You'll wake up the DDs.

[BigWalleye]

ValoWay, I know it is frustrating to be unable to use what you paid for. But for $10 you can get either a DVD (in a couple of days) or a download that won't have the extra DRM that causes problems for Steam users. Seems like that could simplify your life and let you get to playing SH3.

[desertstriker]

Did you activate the mod while you where in the middle of the patrol and/or without rolling back SH3 commander?

[ValoWay]

When I bought the game it was initially possible to run the vanilla sh3.exe by simply setting desktop resolution to 1024x768. After the game was not starting anymore I uninstalled and reinstalled everything but then the game was suddenly ignoring the simple 1024x768 trick... Sh3.exe only starts if I run it a second time. Problem is that sh3 commander won't work this way because of the "failed process" in the background. Sh3 commander will tell me that it cannot start cause it's already running...

Anyways, my theory is that steam maybe saves some additional information about its games somewhere else which maybe causes the problem... Maybe I just forgot something?? I'll report back when I've persuaded my stubborn executable

[ValoWay]

Okay, I think I've just found the problem/ solution!

1) If you are a steam user make sure to disable "Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game" after your sh3 installation !!!
2) Then restart your pc to make sure steam gets it !...

How to find this option in steam:
Library (Menu bar)/ ALL GAMES/ Silent Hunter III (game list)/ Properties (Right click on Silent Hunter III in game list)


You can also deactivate the overlay completely before installing sh3:

How to find this option in steam:
Steam (Menu bar)/ Settings/ In-Game


On a side note:
You can create a different installation folder for your games with steam!
How to find this option in steam:
Steam (Menu bar)/ Settings/ Downloads/ Content Libraries