Armada on Windows 7

[OVCathens]

Well it had been a month or so since playing Armada, networking issues aside (if you've seen my other thread), and I decided it was time to do a little modding again.

However, after a month ago of previously working, my Armada.exe crashed after executing.

Essentially, the screen would flicker on and off between my desktop and the Star Trek - Armada splash box at the center, before eventually going to the intro. But now it flickers back and forth a few times, but when the screen is black, instead of going to the intro it just returns to my desktop and Armada closes.

This isn't a compatibility issue, as I already was playing the game on windows compatibility for Windows XP (service pack 3), and Armada II works just fine under these settings. I managed to get task manager to write a dump file for Armada.exe just before it crashed. I viewed it, and this is what it said.

Code: Select all

........................................WARNING: msvcp60 overlaps msvfw32
.....WARNING: samcli overlaps uxtheme
..............WARNING: winspool overlaps apphelp
...WARNING: SortServer2003Compat overlaps shunimpl
..
..WARNING: ddraw overlaps SortServer2003Compat
....WARNING: rsaenh overlaps cryptsp
.....WARNING: cryptnet overlaps bcryptprimitives
.............
The wow64exts extension must be loaded to access 32-bit state.
.load wow64exts will do this if you haven't loaded it already.
wow64!Wow64NotifyDebugger+0x1d:
0033:732ec9f1 <Effective>

[OVCathens]

Well, the above information is useless, I needed to find a way to convert the dump information to 32-bit format.

Code: Select all

WARNING: Frame IP not in any known module. Following frames may be wrong.
0018feb0 683b5c64 0x65726168
*** WARNING: Unable to verify checksum for Armada.exe
*** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found.  Defaulted to export symbols for Armada.exe - 
0018fee0 0043b147 0x683b5c64
0018feec 005bbee0 Armada!EndCredits+0x1a7
0018ff88 7524339a Armada!Starfield_Load_Background_Geometry+0x5970
0018ff94 770b9ef2 kernel32!BaseThreadInitThunk+0xe
0018ffd4 770b9ec5 ntdll_77080000!__RtlUserThreadStart+0x70
0018ffec 00000000 ntdll_77080000!_RtlUserThreadStart+0x1b

[MrVulcan]

Seems unusual that it worked before, but now started flickering. Have you updated your graphics drivers between then and now? Might have to roll back the update.

Does this happen with a mod? What about unmodded game? There is a slight chance of this being caused by non-standard texture sizes. They should all have dimentions in powers of 2 (16x16, 32x32, 512x512, etc), square, and 24bit/32bit uncompressed tga. Some cards are fine with non-standard, while others can give all sorts of weird problems.

First see if playing unmodded game gives you problems.

[haloklingreborn]

listen to vulcan !
i had a similar problem ...while altering the textures back in xp i never had that prob.. but recently yes ..fixed i rolled back my patch and checked the textures in my case my turret textures weren't exported correctly the size was wrong and i got the same prob plus and error message

i hope your prob is solved!

[OVCathens]

Well the flickering between the desktop and the splash screen only occurred after running Armada.exe.

The little "Star Trek Armada" box would appear, and the screen would go black. After a little while, the screen would go back to the desktop (the ST:Armada box still in the middle) only with a portion of the upper left screen blacked out (I figure this is the computer adjusting to the screen resolution that Armada uses), then it would return to a black screen again. This would usually happen one more time before it would return to an all black screen with my mouse cursor visible, then the opening cinematic would start.

Now, the screen swaps back and forth between the black screen and the desktop with the upper left portion of the screen blacked out a few times (as before), but when it goes to the final all-black screen, the mouse cursor isn't visible, and it sits there for awhile before going back to the desktop (also right before the screen returns to the desktop before the program fails, the lights in my laptop screen go out) Occasionally I'm told the program has crashed.

I've uninstalled and re-installed the game (yes I was playing with mods, but I have them all saved to a separate folder). This hasn't helped anything.

I've been running the game as an administrator on a Windows 7 64 bit system. I also have it running in compatibility mode for Windows XP SP3.

[OVCathens]

I haven't made any changes to my graphics cards whatsoever, I did do a few HP updates between then and now, and I know HP upgraded/updated my bios. Could this have any effect on whats going on?

[OVCathens]

Also, I posted a Microsoft query on the Microsoft forums hoping to get some answers.

They weren't very helpful to me, but here it is anyways.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... 9e862e19c3

[MrVulcan]

I haven't made any changes to my graphics cards whatsoever, I did do a few HP updates between then and now, and I know HP upgraded/updated my bios. Could this have any effect on whats going on?

Any kind of driver updates could have caused this. I'd recommend reading through some troubleshooting tips here: STA2011

[Lurker]

I am having the same problem as OVCathens.

I was playing the game then stopped to watch three episodes of DS9, went right back to the game and it wouldn't start. The flickering effect appears to be the game trying to resize from desktop rez to game rez. I too had some mod, but atm they are not installed. And, I too, uninstalled and re-installed the game.

I would like to try rolling back the driver as suggested above, but I don't know how to. I have an ATI Radeon HD 4350 with driver version 8.01.01.1152. Any ideas?

[MrVulcan]

http://starmada.freeforums.org/armada-e ... g-t97.html

OVCathens was able to resolve the problem by installing 1.3 Patch provided by the fleetops team. Good luck

[Lurker]

Thanks!

That 1.3 patch seems to work. It's great that someone took up the challenge of creating a patch for the newer operating systems. 8^)

[Lurker]

I would like to note that while the game does work, I have to unplug my HDMI cable. For some reason the game will not start with the cable plugged in.

Which kinda explains why the game stopped working after I watched DS9. I was using the HDMI cable to watch the show from my computer to my TV.

Oh well, it works. X^P

[OVCathens]

I should have have replied earlier, but that 1.3 patch solved all of my issues.

Now I can get back to my main problem... Getting my LAN to work properly.

[walkinjo]

I just got a new computer--trying to get Armada to run. I've been playing it for years on all types of computers and hardware, applying all the tips & tricks over the years. I can't get it to run on this one.

Win 7 Pro, 64-bit
i7 chip, Intel HD Graphics 4600 graphics chip
8 GB RAM

I've tried all the settings provided in starmada.fleetops.org, including running in Win XP SP-2 compatibility mode, 256-color, administrator mode, I tried the msconfig adjustments (with reboot to the machine) and installing patches 1.2 and 1.3, then trying again with all these settings. I've tried with various combinations of settings but always get the same result: the screen blinks several times as it displays the Star Trek Armada title panel, and then when I would expect it to take over the screen it quits back to Windows with no errors or fanfare. I'm not sure how to capture a dump file from task manager because it doesn't stay loaded long enough for me to elect that option for it. Any other options to debug the issue? Is my hardware beyond being able to run this? Could I do it in a Virtual machine? If so, anyone have a recommended setup?

Thanks,
walkinjo

[fuller]

if you've tried both of those patches and had no luck i'm not really sure what to suggest, more often than not they're a real wonder cure. have you tried any of the other armada forums? this one is not the most active of websites.