Birth of the Federation

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Summary of Solutions
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Use Multi installer (this has all patches part of installer)

install using "software" mode (direct3d has been problematic)

right click trek.exe and run as administrator to allow saving of games.

turning off morphological filtering and crossfire.

there are 3 option to get Birth of the Federation playable on windows 8

option 1

Use DxWnd see this post for more info
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3179

option 2

You can enlist in alpha testing of MPR++. This works great just limited to on a few mods and vanilla.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2720

option 3

this uses "wine" files to start BOTF using OpenGL instead of directdraw. This works well with intel based Processors but take a long time to load on AMD Processors (up to 8 min+)

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2427&p=37556#p37556

option 4

This is a hex code change at 0x001127F3 of trek.exe change 01 -> 00
then set the trek.exe to 16 bit color in compatibility tab

option 5

dgvoodoo2 files
helps greatly with mouse lag.
more info on dgvoodoo2 files see this topic
dgvoodoo2 files suggested by evmiller

draw back of this the game will play in upper left corner of screen, if desktop resolution is set to 1024 x 768 (min for windows 8 ) game will use 800 x 600 of the upper left corner. If desktop resolution is set higher game appears smaller depending on resolution desktop is set to.

video driver/software note
you might need to setup a profile within your video settings for each install of botf (Nvidia contol panel or Catalyst Control Center), BOTF needs lower settings than default in some cases.

thunderchero

hi fellow BotF maniacs,

I promised this a long time ago and yesterday I finally did some testing with win8 consumer preview (64 bit) and my hd6850 (12.3 ati/amd drivers)

this is how it turned out for me so far.

first of all the bad news:

windows 8 minimum resolution is 1024x768 (bc of metro). however, I was able to manually get it down to 800x600 (@desktop-mode) but the resolution @BotF was still kinda stretched. This is how it looked:




Impossible to see the buttons in the game menu and therefor not possible to do anything at all. Any resolution changes @desktop or even a direct resolution switching via ATT just for the game itself, down to it's native 800x600, failed miserably.

Even 1024 patched versions had the same problem.

I can't tell if it's just ATI/AMD related or maybe it's because of this early stage version of win8. So perhaps this'll change in the final version or even in the beta before. Imo it has to do with the win8 minimum resolution+the old mpr and nothing will change. I wouldn't be surprised if you encounter the same problem with a NVIDIA graphics card as well.


but the good news are:

mpr++ works

game started in 1024 windowed mode and worked like a charme. Haven't had the time to do much of a stability testing yet.

But at least it runs!

And since Flocke's mpr++ is going to be the future of this game anyway, I'm absolutely fine with it.

wonderfull news !!!
I think the problem would be solve in the final release, some kind of compatibily mode ???

forgotten to mention that I've tried xp-sp3 compatibility mode with no success at all. Can't say I was surprised as...srsly, when did it ever help for BotF anyway?

However, I don't really expect vanilla-mpr-BotF to work in the final as well. Metro is pretty much set up by M$ as it's their baby they wanted to show to the world. So I don't expect many changes there regarding resolution. They'll have some kernel updates for sure and will tinker around with their app store a bit but the base of the system won't change much imo.

But who am I to tell Just my personal opinion which might prove wrong as well.

However, it might be possible for a resourceful person to adjust the old mpr file. But a bit of a wasted time and effort imo since we're switching to mpr++ so or so.

Hi Everyone,

I saw there was a new "release" version of windows 8 and I gave it a try (I am posting from it even ) I have also installed vanilla and UDM3.01 both will run in correct res. but my mouse is a little jumpy when any popup (tooltips ect) happens in game. So it acts like old memory leak kind of.

Also windows defender flagged all trek.exe's I used as unknown and requested them to be sent in to check for malicious software. lol I just hope they are approved.

thunderchero

The failures with vanilla MPR could be due to it requiring 16-bit graphics, maybe win8 only supports 24/32-bit?

I don't know it will be much of a problem if MPR++ works. I'm working on a little side-project at the moment to add multi-resolution support to the WDFs. If it works out, BotF will be playable at any resolution. But it would require editing all the WDFs and graphics for vanilla and the mods. The upside is that it would only need to be done once.

We'll have a bigger problem once we get to higher resolutions because of BotF's non-hardware accelerated 2D graphic system (MPR++ has some limitations due to the way BotF uses it). As the resolution gets bigger, the game will only get slower (I think...)

QuasarDonkey wrote:I'm working on a little side-project at the moment to add multi-resolution support to the WDFs. If it works out, BotF will be playable at any resolution.

sounds interesting

QuasarDonkey wrote:We'll have a bigger problem once we get to higher resolutions because of BotF's non-hardware accelerated 2D graphic system (MPR++ has some limitations due to the way BotF uses it). As the resolution gets bigger, the game will only get slower (I think...)

Well it would slow down a bit but if it's 300fps or 200fps doesn't matter much in 2D mode. The real speed problem as of now is 3D combat. In case the 2D UI makes much of a difference we can go identify the button callback functions and render our own gui.
Maybe your gui system can be integrated by the time so available botf resources can be used. On the other hand I still believe learning to use CEGUI is not too hard for the artists and it's a very flexible and moddable gui system. But that we'll see when time has come.

Hi Everyone,

After getting windows 8 installed (with my new video card), I was testing BOTF and I have ran into a very very bad mouse lag as soon as game starts click delay and movement (worse when moving ships).

windows 8 uses a new driver but same driver has been released for XP and XP has no problems (but this is onboard video chip system). If I install MPR++ problem goes away on windows 8 with new video card.

I still need to test how it reacts with changed setting to see if it helps. And also try using onboard video chip.

if anyone has any other idea let me know.

Edit; no setting changes in nvidia control panel had any effect. and the onboard video chip in windows 8 has been disabled or not compatible with windows 8 (no display). I did have to install DX9 redist to get MPR++ to display ships.

thunderchero

Hi @ all

is here anyone who have tested botf Multi inst on Windows 8 Pro 64?
Ive played the game on Win 95/98/XP and Windows 7 64, in past on XP a had an problem with my mouse, the Inputs from my mouse had a massive delay from any seconds.
And now on Windows 8 64 i have ingame the same prob ... i have changed my mouse and the settings from hades too Software but it doesnt works.
My fault is i have forgotten how i have fixed it in past ....

System:

C:\ Win 8 Pro 64 on SSD
Core i7 2600K
16GB DDR3 RAM
botf is installed at E:\botf\... on an HDD

Tested Mouse: Logitech G700 and Logitech RX250/RX1000
I have already changed the mouse Speed on Windows but no effect, iam open for any ideas

sry for my bad english

Yes I am having same problem without any fix on windows 8 64 (see post above)

I moved your post into windows 8 topic, But if you find any fix please post here.

thunderchero

So i have tested something and i think ist a problem with the process and memory Management because if i start i new game i have an delay but ist almost Play able but if i load a game in round 400 500 or 900 the game needs so much resources under Windows 8 that Windows 8 wont spent him this one ....
i see a max cpu use 10% and max RAM usage of 16MB i hope that anyone other can commit this ...


Edit:

So i have tested much more and i have talked alfter testing with microsoft Support. so that i have bad news for botf players on Windows 8, there are probs in time with games with DirectX 7 or older ...
So it is not possible to Play games with older direktx Versions in the same Performance like Windows 7.

Aightball wrote:So i have tested much more and i have talked alfter testing with microsoft Support. so that i have bad news for botf players on Windows 8, there are probs in time with games with DirectX 7 or older ... So it is not possible to Play games with older direktx Versions in the same Performance like Windows 7.

I suspected this would be Microsoft's response, But I would not count out the gaming community yet. with all the different older game still being played they may be forced to do something.

But in the mean time we do have the option to install MPR++

viewtopic.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewd ... ls&lid=196

This is still a work in progress but will fix mouse lag.
downside to using MPR++ currently is a large slowdown in combat in larger battles.

thunderchero

I'm using all the ages mod with mpr++ and 1024 patch, I get the stretched menu page though like above and can't get any further, vanilla game with mpr++ and 1024 patch works though... Sigh..windows 8

Hi DarExc,

You do realize you have to install mpr++ to each install path?

thunderchero

I just got a new computer with a real video card but with Win8; imagine my disappointment on finding out that Win8 does not run botf properly.