TWOS 2.2.24 - Day-Night cycle a bit off

[Markus Witt]

I've noticed im my last few patrols that the day-night cycle gets out of whack. It seems that the sun is always a bit behind schedule, setting and rising too late.
In one patrol this was off by 3-4 hours at one point! Now, in that patrol I may have saved the game too close to land and/or enemy units which might explain the offset.

Now in my current patrol I've made sure my saves are very clean and I've been monitoring the sun cycle. After about 5 days the sun sets/rises about 18 minutes late. Now, my questions are:
1.) Do other players have the same issue?
2.) Does anybody know what causes this and is there anything I can do to prevent this, a game setting or a computer setting?

[Mad Mardigan]

Originally Posted by Markus Witt

I've noticed im my last few patrols that the day-night cycle gets out of whack. It seems that the sun is always a bit behind schedule, setting and rising too late.
In one patrol this was off by 3-4 hours at one point! Now, in that patrol I may have saved the game too close to land and/or enemy units which might explain the offset.

Now in my current patrol I've made sure my saves are very clean and I've been monitoring the sun cycle. After about 5 days the sun sets/rises about 18 minutes late. Now, my questions are:
1.) Do other players have the same issue?
2.) Does anybody know what causes this and is there anything I can do to prevent this, a game setting or a computer setting?

As to query 1, yeah... have noted this... but more so in SH3 & 4... since I don't much dink about playing 5, not near as much as I do with the predecessors before 5.



As for query 2... 1, of 2 things come to mind here...


1. That, you are forgetting to take into account time shift differences... aka namely, different time zones... The clock is set up for your base time, aka the base you are ported out of... that's 1 possibility.


2. Instances of running or pushing the time compression too hard...

running faster than 512 TC... will do that or begin, depending on 1's computer rig... some may not experience issues with the day/night cycle until they push past 1024 TC...

With this, 1 can... adjust the figure on just how high up the 'TC' ladder, 1 can go... think the preset is somewhere in the 8,192 TC.

What I do, is to go into the main.cfg & set up max TC to either 512 or 1024... & no higher than that.

That .cfg file, I do that on... is the 1, located in your games save folder... not the one where the game/sim is housed. Although... 1 could do it there... IF... 1 did it, BEFORE running the game... after getting all the mods set up 1st &... with having set up a brand new, unused, game save point folder... using MultiSH5.

Hope this info... helps.




M. M.

[Mad Mardigan]

1 other thing, a 3rd possibility, on point 2 of My reply to query 2 of yours... is...

failing to take into account the time zones & pushing well past what TC your rig can handle... before the day/night cycle gets skewed up... but... know that I too... once did that, as well. Well before I learned NOT to do so.

What's that ol' expression...

Ahh yesss.... Live & learn.




M. M.

[Mad Mardigan]

1 other possible solution beyond adjust/editing the main.cfg (which I would still recommend looking at doing , by the way... ) is...

locking down your SH5.exe by going into the control panel for your graphics card.. & setting it to go no higher than... 30, or would 60 be better, for the frame refresh rate... wanna say, I think 60... but... can't swear to that 100%.

Am sure 1 of the others here... with more... working knowledge of that area, will chime in & can outline that process a lot better than I.




M. M.

[Markus Witt]

Originally Posted by Mad Mardigan

As for query 2... 1, of 2 things come to mind here...


1. That, you are forgetting to take into account time shift differences... aka namely, different time zones... The clock is set up for your base time, aka the base you are ported out of... that's 1 possibility.


2. Instances of running or pushing the time compression too hard...

Well, I never use time compression higher than 128X so that can't be the issue.
As for time zones, I always use GMT in the game. (In SH5 you can bring up a notepad that shows you the times for sun rise and sun set. This time is given in local time.) So all I need to do is take in account the time difference between local time and GMT, which is easy to do. So I know to the minute when the sun should rise and set.
Mmm, when I start a new patrol I will monitor the sunrise and sunset daily to see if I can detect a patern.

[propbeanie]

I have not tested this in SH5, but I do know that in SH4 and SH3 that the "time of day" is tied to the graphics card and a 30fps factor through the DirectX v9.0c dll interface. What can happen in 4 & 3 is that the newer computers, with higher possible framerates with the newer video cards and displays can get over 100+fps rather easily, which will then make the DirectX dll library run 3 or more times faster than desired. Front Runner did a study in SH4 about this, in conjunction with his "Base Time 2018" thread, and shows his set-up for a 144Hz display in Interesting new issue regarding sync rate - it took a lot of experimenting for him, since he does 1x TC almost exclusively. A couple of posts above that is his "conventional" set-up. If you have ATI/AMD graphics, rumor has it that they have a similar function in their driver front-end.

A ~REALLY~ big contributor to the issue though, even if you have everything configured "correctly" (what, after all, is the definition of "correctly" in a Silent Hunter game???), is shelling-out to Windows, whether intentional, for using external tools with the game, or accidentally when a Windows 'background' process pops to the fore. You would usually have other graphics anomalies, and maybe even Sound issues. Those generally, in SH3 & 4 anyway, 'correct' themselves with a Save, exit of the game, re-start the game, and then a Load of the Save game. You do have to exit the game in SH4 for those issues to "re-set"... I cannot remember about SH3 in that regard, and I have never had the issue in SH5... YMMV, and experimentation or the name of the game.

btw, I really appreciate your patrol reports Markus Witt. Excellent reading, and ~very~ authentic looking. Cool beans!

[Markus Witt]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

A ~REALLY~ big contributor to the issue though, even if you have everything configured "correctly" (what, after all, is the definition of "correctly" in a Silent Hunter game???), is shelling-out to Windows, whether intentional, for using external tools with the game, or accidentally when a Windows 'background' process pops to the fore.

I do shell out to windows but only after I've saved the game. I do this to save maps etc. for my logbook. Should not be an issue me thinks, I never shell out while playing.

Originally Posted by propbeanie

btw, I really appreciate your patrol reports Markus Witt. Excellent reading, and ~very~ authentic looking. Cool beans!