Star Trek Armada I and Windows 7 x64 Ultimate Edition

[GuruNino]

Alright first off, I've waited YEARS for your Future Tense mod to come out and I'm looking forward to playing it. Although technology has changed and thus new bells and whistles arise along with new problems and challenges such as running Star Trek Armada I on my new PC. I've used the compatibility mode kept fiddling around with the settings, the menu works the game does load. But the video will lock up in the actual game I kept testing it with the first mission of the Federation campaign "Premonitions" you'll hear Picard ramble on about the dominion war and all that then it goes to the game and freezes there when it pans out and you have control finally or it freezes before that. I am currently running a Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, AMD X4 2.6 CPU, 4GB DDR2 RAM and an Nvidia 9800 1GB 512-bit PCI-Ex2 card. Any help with getting Armada I to run would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[MajorPayne]

One thing that I've always had to do in order to play A1 is to change my sound hardware acceleration to none. It might help. It might not.

[GuruNino]

I know that trick worked in windows XP but I can't find the same thing in windows 7. I mean there has to be a way for it to work in windows 7 I doubt everyone who's been waiting the past like 5-8 years for Future Tense have an Xp box laying around just to play this game. Although I've googled it and can't turn up much sadly.

[GuruNino]

Can anyone help me with this or no? It seems that all is quiet on this topic..

[ktegate]

Dunno if this is a dead post or not if it is i apologize in advanced. Me and a few old armada vets like 14 of us play late night on game ranger. We all use windows 7 to keep the game from going out of sync. i will try my best to give you guys a check list to do it may help. Also if you want to come play online you can do.

Checklist:

-Install armada on windows 7
-Patch to 1.2
-go to armada Dir C:/program files/activistion/star trek - armada
-right click on armada.exe - properties (here comes the fun part)
-go to compatibility tab
-set it for windows xp sp2
-run in 256 colors
-set to run as administrator
-Check armada CD is in the drive and gl have fun

Note: that Sometimes lowering the screen resolution May help fix some gfx problems. Also there are problems known with some sound cards which is more complex to fix and results in screen lag or slow down we are trying to find a way way to fix this (mainly has to do with your drivers). Another noted problem is on machines with more then 2 GB ram, armada seems to hate going over 2gb and makes it run into the negatives telling u not enough disk space.

For online play, won servers are no longer supported o joy. So we use Game ranger, which is a free small program and is able to host armada as well as other games. I'll walk you threw online.

-Google, Game Ranger (not hard to find)
-Download, install, register.
-run and connect and you will shown a list of games
-click on the top bar community
-click: search user
-Enter acct ID: 1221160
-That's me, and i will try help out with any other issues as we find work arounds.

Note: Armada does not need to be installed to run game ranger.

[Matress_of_evil]

I have almost the exact same problems, but I have Windows 7 Professional, an Nvidia GTX 480 1536mb, and 4Gb of RAM. I've followed your suggestions ktegate, but they haven't worked.

I can load the game up without problems. However, when I go on the first Federation mission, "Premonitions" and the game starts loading, this is the loading screen:


...So *something* isn't right. But the game continues to load as though there isn't anything wrong.

It then goes to the cut scene with a planet fading into view and the Enterprise gliding past - except the planet appears a tad on the slow side compared to how I remember it appearing. The video then completely freezes the exact moment the Enterprise appears. The audio continues as though there is nothing wrong though, and if I press "space" to skip the intro movie, the audio skips just like the game was continuing as normal, except the screen remains completely frozen.

If I reload the game and press space to skip the video with the Enterprise gliding past, then the game loads and immediately starts flickering with weird graphics oddities going on:



The problems continue if I go to play an instant action game instead. The graphical problems with the yellow grid are actually being caused by my mouse. And if I try to move the camera at all the game instantly freezes.



Any ideas as to the cause of this? I've already checked my drivers and I have the latest versions.

[ktegate]

400 series is a newer card and does not support older games like armada , but fear not try find a program called nvtweak this adds extra options that where removed or thought not necessary like options for supporting older games aka open gl 2.0 etc play around with that also the newest drivers are not the best in this case as it is an older game some older drivers maybe better required, you only need to update ur drivers if ur trying to play a game that is out now lol.

Ati seems to run games like armada with no problems so if you have an old ati card you could use that save urself lot of trouble lol.


I do have my own forums where i do tech support and such for the game best i can your welcome to browse threw that as i can give better support.
I will prob get in trouble for posting a link so will pm it to you.

Ktegate
Commlink

[ktegate]

ok for some reason the pm's are really screwy on here and keeps telling me invalid session.

grab hold of game ranger add me and i'll take you threw it on there

or just add my email to ur msn and send me a message.

[Matress_of_evil]

Lol I specifically chose to go with an Nvidia card because I was absolutely fed up with ATI cards. My last two computers had ATI and they were nothing but trouble. Updating the drivers was a nightmare, updates never did what they were supposed to and I was constantly encountering graphics problems with games. They were unreliable cards too, rarely lasting more than a few months.

I've had this new computer (And Nvidia card) for 6 months now and Armada is the only game i've had any trouble with. Updating the drivers is a breeze, and the card runs a hell of a lot cooler than my old ones did. And everything plays on max settings with no problems to boot.

...Well, almost everything. that's why i'm posting here lol.

I did a Google and found the Nvtweak program you mentioned. I installed it but it's not made any difference to Armada. What settings am I supposed to select? I'm not even sure if it's working properly, as none of the options are selectable when I load up the Nvtweak program window. The right-click menu works but I have no idea what settings I need to apply. When it comes to graphics, I usually just select the highest available option.

There doesn't seem to be anything special about this program as far as I can see though. It looks like it has the exact same options that the Nvidia Control Panel has.

[kobayashimaru]

I'm so glad you posted those screens Matress. I just upgraded my nvidia card and I'm getting that same white/grey load screen that looks like it was stolen from a modern art museum. My game screens look similar to yours as well.

Unfortunately, I haven't solved the problem on my end yet. If I can't get the nvidia settings to fix it, I may swap out an older graphics card. I'll let you know if I figure something new out.

[Matress_of_evil]

Sorry about resurrecting an old thread, but it looks like the latest Nvidia drivers have fixed the problem. Armada works (almost) perfectly now!

I only encountered two problems with the new drivers:

Mouse lag
I fixed this by trying a different compatibility mode. Windows XP SP2 was the one that worked for me.

Blank Videos
This only happened when you play the single player campaign and you complete a mission. The game continues on and plays the video of the next mission - but the screen is blank. The audio plays fine. Alt-tabbing out of the game and back in restores the video.

[pepperman]

What Nvidia drivers are you running? I have never been able to get my GeForce 880 GT to run this game after upgrading so I basic quit trying and plating.