When I buy a game I expect it to be playable.

SH111 is not. I have downloaded the one available patch which has not helped prevent the frequent crashes my son and I are having. His PC equipment is similar to mine.

I am using a fairly well known branded computer, Sony P4, 2.8, 512, 64 ram, 512 KB, ATI Radeone 9200.

I strongly believe it is a fraud and disgraceful that Ubisoft has come out with such a product.

This is just an alert to any of you who are considering buying this game. Better think about this carefully.

C.A. Pedrido

I know your frustration when game does not work on your computer, as it should. I myself had a big problem with Brothers in Arms due to its copy protection.

However, SHIII is not a disaster and it works fine on a lot of peoples PC's as you can deduct from alot of the posts here.

It might be better to simply state that you have a problem and yes, people should be aware that there's no 100% gurantee that it will work fine for everyone. However, to claim that SHIII is a "disaster" is over the top.

I always stay the hell away from "BRAND NAME" made pc's. In my experience, they seem to have more trouble than those that built their own such as me. I've put my computers together since PC's were born. All the best Motherboards, memory, sound cards, video cards etc.... I do a lot of research and read reviews of any component I'm interested in. What's my point you ask? Well, I'll tell ya. Never have I had many problems with games. While others yell and scream that the games don't work, there I am fragging away with no ounce of trouble. In part, due to the fact that I put my rigs together myself and keep the drivers as up to date as the manufacturers allow. However there are few games I've run into trouble getting them to run but that's due to the copy protection conflicting with the burning software I have installed. Namely Safedisk and Starforce are the two culprits in that issue.

Perhaps when you buy a computer you should expect that to be playable as well?

SHIII is not perfect, but it's far from unplayable. I have yet to have a single crash or lockup with it in many many hours of game play. Like Dud before me said, I build my own machine and keep it running in tip top shape, making sure I am on top of new or improved drivers for my hardware.

In today's competitive climate patches are inevitable. You should be happy that a patches are not only being released, but so quickly. Many developers could learn a thing or two from these guys.

Just curious, are your computers networked together?

NO, both computers are of different makes and each located in different states, (Washington and Hawaii).

Any program that is running in the background while playing any game may cause CTD. Be sure to turn off any anti-virus programs and such.

capedrido,
Whilst I understand you fustration, I would have to say you are wrong. SHIII is not without issues, but it is very stable.

I can run SHIII whilst having these applications open and in use: outlook, netscape, IE, Terminal Server, AntiVirus, Word and Adobe Photoshop.

I actually run the game in windows mode so that I can write the review or just do other stuff and it runs in the background.

Having said all that I am sure that I speak for everyone in that we would be happy to assist you in troubleshooting your problems.

If you want please feel free to ask.

Yes I too should make mention that I am more than happy to help where I can... didn't mean to come across all holier-than-thou before .

As for stability, I can attest to that too. I frequently alt-tab out of the sim to check things such as kts/km graphs, sometimes to look up historical facts on the net (do I sink this?), and I have often had photoshop running in the background to open .tga files in game to try and find certain texture files.

It would be of more help to us if you could list the specs of your machine in more detail (see my sig for example) and just confirm you are running XP with Service Pack 2? What video card drivers are you using?

Yes one big bunch of helpful people here!

I just built this on Monday and it rocks SH3. But I still have the CTD when clicking on crew managment. Low price to pay for this type of game!