Windows 7: Black screen for Silent hunter 3

2.8 dual processor tower ( intel) with geforce 7600GT and running Windows 7 Prof 64x

Mostly I am happy, but I have tried all I can think of to get Silent Hunter 3 up and running, without success. It installs and the intro runs, but then there is just a black screen with the music playing. Thing is, other folk with Win 7 64 bit are running the game with no problem.

Event viewer says the faulting module is kernel.dll, which is an application .dll, not the system kernel32.dll.

Wondered if any wiser heads than mine can suggest a solution.

I'm having exactly the same difficulties. So far I have found from here:

59Hz

That it looks related to the 59Mhz problem.

There is also this: http://us.download.nvidia.com/Window...ease_Notes.pdf

(See Windows 7 Limitations under page 17)

and Microsoft's KB2006076.

Sorry but its not looking too good for a fix to this.

I've got a nvidia Gforce 7900GS and an Asus VW222 monitor running Windows 7 Home Premium. I'm running the latest nvidia drivers and monitor drivers.

I've tried the suggested fixes of messing with the resolution, running in Windows XP SP3 compatibility, forcing vertical sync off with the nvidia control panel and still getting the same result.

The game used to play fine with XP on the same hardware.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Tarjak, my apologies, because no-one responded to my post I did not think to write back with my progress here - my bad. I did find a solution of sorts. Try this -

Go into the Libraries - Documents folder of SH3 in Windows 7 and look in Data-cfg-main (not in the data folder inside the game folder itself- the one in Documents, although you can change the one in the Game folder proper as well). Scroll down 'main' ( you may need to open it in Notepad) until you get to VIDEO, and change the resolution there to 1024x786.

That is all it took to get the game finally working for me - but only in vanilla.

I had patched it, no-cd'd it and put GWX3 on, but it only runs in pure vanilla mode. Hopefully as we get used to the way Windows 7 does things we will be able to find a solution to that, but at least its working now, and runs perfectly. Hope this helps.

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately for me the 1024x786 res won't work for me either. I still get the same result. I'm trying to get in touch with Microsoft tech support on this but they are being a little elusive.

I think this is related to the 59Mhz screen refresh rate problem that is posted elsewhere on these boards. It is certainly down to how Windows 7 handles 3D applications.

Heya - SHIII fan here.

Any of you guys running the Comodo firewall by chance?
Defense+ keeps silent Hunter 3 from running

Here is a thread about using older Nvidia drivers & AA issues & the SH3 black screen.
AA causeing SH3 to load only a black screen... - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

You could also try what I did for SHIII under 7 x64; Installed it to c:\games\ubisoft\... GWX over that which moves a version of jsgme as well. If you use SH3 Commander don't forget the extra config files. Then try going into a carrer or Academy and check your screen. One word of caution with SH3-Commander is you start-make a new carrer with it and go to start the game, make sure the carrer is selected or the game will crapp itself.

Using k-lite codec's?
1) Start
2) All Programs
3) K-Lite Codec Pack
4) Configuration
5) Codec Tweak Tool
6) Disable the ffdshow filter

Hi Fantail, no, I do not use Comodo. Thanks for the Subsim thread - every little helps Also for the tips on installing. For me it doesn't matter too much that I can only play in vanilla as I have the GWX version on my old XP machine, so I get to play both, the machines being linked by KVM - but other folk might find the solution there.

Tarjak, sorry my solution did not work for you, disappointing. You say you think it is a refresh issue or the way Windows 7 handles 3D - and that may be so; I am not saying it is not - but I have noticed, while looking for my own solutions, that what works for one person does not work for another. That was true for me, and now we see it is true for you, so that makes me think that the problem lies in the individual machine configurations rather than a 'global' problem due to the operating system....

Thanks for the suggestions Fantail. I do use Comodo but the game is not hanging it just won't display anything. SH3 is running and I Alt+Tab out and back and see the menu and can hear the music playing but can't use the menu because there is no cusor and there is a black splodge in the middle of the menu screen. The video in the menu screen does not play either.

I was using Comodo in WinXP before migrating the Windows 7 and it never had a problem.

Pawz27 You may be right and the many config differences makes it hard to determine where the prboelm is. I know it's not the machine config because the same box worked fine with WinXP. Just not with Windows 7. I'm thinking my only way forward may be to go back to WinXP.

I managed to get it working by getting rid of AA. Any AA settings using nvidia Control Panel caused the black screen for me. Letting the application control the AA (Which means lots of ugly jaggies, lets the game run. Running at 1680 x 1050 as well.

I still reckon there is a bit to do about how Windows 7 handles 3D graphics involved but at least I can run the game, With GWX3 installed as well.

Ah, I remember a post on Subsim where the poster had a problem and couldn't run the game with nVidia's AA... glad you got it sorted, good news. Are you running GWX or vanilla??

I'm using GWX3 with some additional mods now I got it sorted out.