Without any mods the game is in 4:3 aspect ratio due to its age (2005). To get it to be 16:9 at 1080p you need to install JSGME (or equivalent mod manager) in the game directory and activate a widescreen mod. The one I went with is the Ahnenerbe WideGui 1920 x 1080 Final option which you can find easily on subsim.com by googling or searching in there. I also installed GWX. GWX adds many mods to the game, and whether its a memory issue (this game came out at a time when games were limited to 2GB memory usage, and as technology advanced had to be patched to 4GB - this is handled automatically by proton nowadays on linux) or something else, when run with any fairly modern version of proton it would CTD whenever loading into a career patrol. Training and single missions ran fine. I tested it with versions 8 and 9 of proton. Version 4 did allow you to enter into the patrol, but it didnt seem to play nicely with the widegui mod. Eventually I settled on proton version 6.3 and it seems to be working just fine.
Note: A handy tool to be able to install windows software that is not the game within the games directory is SteamTinkerLaunch. Follow the instructions on its github to set it up as your compatibility layer, and then you can run one-time-commands from its interface (run the JSGME.exe installer, or the GWX installer)
The game's control scheme is not well-suited to controller play, even wtih workarounds
remapped, like, every button. The game is of the old-school simulator design where almost every button on the keyboard is used for something, and there aren't enough mouse elements on screen.
because the game is locked to 1024x768, some of the message text is a little hard to make out.
big problems with steam+x launching the virtual keyboard. Sometimes, closing the keyboard would unfocus the game window, and it was not easy to get the cursor to interact with it again.
You need the function keys, and a pile of others. It's very hard to program the deck's control scheme to work around this. you can make it work ok if you launch from desktop and use a BT keyboard, but the deck is notably less portable in this case.
Runs flawlessly, but you will need to get JSGME and widescreen mod to play it properly.
Game is old and has some problems not releated to Proton. Works flawlessly after tinkering. Proton version: 8.0-4
Game just worked out of the box, no crashes or graphical glitches. But is pretty old, so first thing I did is to install "resolutionfix" mod. Dropped the downloaded files to the game directory. Made some changes to the "d3d9.cfg" file. ( Changed resolution to their respective values, 1920 x 1080 in my case). Also modified the "main.cfg" file in "game directory"/SH3/data/cfg/. This changes fixed the resolution.
Next I got "always game paused" error. Apparently this one emerges because of missing "main.cfg" (same one that was mentioned earlier) that should have resided in C:/Users/"username"/Documents folder if it was a Windows installation. What I did is to copy the earlier mentioned main.cfg file to the same SH3 directory and all of its subdirectories. And then copy the SH3 to the "/home/username/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Silent Hunter 3/SH3/data/cfg" directory. This one was the hardest part to figure out and took me a day.
Game has its own issues releated to this.
Doesn't launch.
Installed GWX Gold 3.0 overhaul mod
Magnifier
Fonctionne directement après installation dans steam
Once it's set up, it's fantastic. I can even load mods with JSGME.exe. Look for a 1080p mod.
gamemoderun WINEESYNC=1 WINEDEBUG=-all DXVK_LOG_LEVEL=none
Default game mode appears to be (fullscreen) 1024x768 (which crashed) and I want to run it at 1080p. Launched once to an error, browsed to edit (base game dir)/SH3/data/cfg/main.cfg set Resolution=1920 x 1080 and edited (base game dir)/d3d9.cfg to these lines resX=1920 resY=1080
Then, I had to use winecfg under protontricks to change, I have "Allow the window manager to decorate the windows, Allow the window manager to control the windows, and Emulate a virtual desktop". Filled in Deskop size of 1920x1080.
I could switch windows, but couldn't go back to my desktop within game.
This game fails upon startup on windows as well because of the outdated resolution and configuration. The game is kept alive through modders on steam forums or at subsim, so I believe that someone will really need to do some research to get the most out of this game. I could run this without so many changes on Proton 3.x and 4.x, and 5.0-10 (this version was slow). Past that, I needed to use these tweaks to get it to play on newer versions of Proton.
Default game mode appears to be 1024x768, fullscreen, which gave me a popup error initially. for 1080p, I updated (base game dir)/SH3/data/cfg/main.cfg and set Resolution=1920 x 1080 and (base game dir)/d3d9.cfg updated to
resX=1920
resY=1080
I seemed to have the best experience under Proton 5.0-10, and I had trouble with newer versions of Proton( 5.13-6, 6.x, 7.x, 7.x-GE). I was able to launch this at lower versions of Proton, but I saw some graphics glitches (smoke textures or effects did not look right) and there were black bars on the sides of the screen.
in Proton 5.0-10, I noticed that when I was at the periscope spotting ships that when I clicked the left mouse button to change the view of the periscope that clicking again would immediately move the mouse to the fire button and launch a torpedo. Strangely, I didn't see this in Proton 4.11-13.
disk load time appeared to be slower in 5.0-10 than with other Proton versions (159 second load time vs 3.x, 4.x load time of 16s ) but those versions had trouble displaying smoke.
I was able to install mods with no problems by copying JSGME.exe into the base game folder and then running JSGME.exe with Wine (7.1), then copying the directories into the MODS directory under the base game folder . I loaded a couple of mods that way.
Easy to open and play, just make sure to use an older proton version.
Sometimes the game fails to save when exiting a patrol unless you do it twice in a row
Fails to launch on newer versions of Proton. Works on some versions but has missing textures. Works perfectly on 4.11-13.
Able to install improvement mods like GWX3 if you point the installer (using WIne) to the right folder. Was not able to make the 1080p support work.
GWX + Ahnenerbe WideGui
http://www.thegreywolves.com https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=215433
Alt-tabbing causes poor performance in the OS
dire need to mod this game req"d. full screen and graphics a must, but can run flawless as
60inch TV 1920x1080 native
There is a good guide to run/mod this game but unfortunately not easy enough for a noob to use I don't want to read 100's of articles on the many aspects/language of linux , wine, winetricks etc etc
GWX3 installed
Smoke from ships is rendered as a transparent, checker board pattern
Works out of the box
Water splashes and smoke appear strongly dithered, which looks weird for a 2005 game. I don't know if this is a Proton/Wine or a GPU driver issue or if it's just how the game is, but it doesn't look the same in some gameplay videos so I'm assuming it might be a mild graphics issue.
Generally works the same as in previous reports. (Single player Naval Academy and career work; didn't try multiplayer.)
Added the report to mention that the game also works on Intel graphics.
No issues, perfect, even the aspect-ratio is correct!
Runs fine out of the box. I could even install GWX (through regular Wine) and there are no issues at all!
AT the time of this review I have played over 14 hours of Silent Hunter 3, the game runs flawless. no tweaking at all Proton 4.2
Runs perfectly. I even see minor graphical advantages over Windows, especially the fact that the aspect ratio is displayed correctly instead of stretching the game.
Runs perfectly fine without any issues or adjustments necessary.
Works absolutely perfect in every way. Tested career, single missions, naval academy and museum. Did not test multiplayer.
First one. Paused screen indefinitely on mission launch. Happens rarely, but is solved by verifying integrity of game cache on steam and launching a different normal single mission. Not Naval Academy! It solved it for me anyway.
Second one: A spinning screen error that's related to mouse sensitivity. If you've messed with Transformation Matrix values in libinput or xinput to increase mouse sensitivity, then you'll have a spinning screen as soon as you capture the mouse and try to look around.
A solution:
Open the terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) and type: xinput list Note the ID number your mouse has. Mine has id=11, and that's what I'm using in this example. You will have to use your own id number
Type in xinput list-props . Example: xinput list-props 11 The third row from the top is usually 'Coordinate Transformation Matrix'. Don't worry about the decimals, unless they're something other than zeroes. The default is 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1, but yours might be different, so write them down.
I had mine set to 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 1. That increased my sensitivity to double the default value, but caused the spinning screen issues.
Next, type the command: xinput set-prop 11 'Coordinate Transformation Matrix' 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Run the game and enjoy. Once you're done, run the above command and set the numbers in Coordinate Transformation Matrix back to the default.
Mods works fine, unless they use an executable to install themselves. In that case, you're going to move all the Silent Hunter 3 files from the steam folders into wine and install the mod there, then move the files back into steam.
None
Plain Vanilla game runs perfectly, but of course you cannot install the mods, since most of them use an .exe installer.