Armada 1 and 2 crashes in windows 8

posted on April 12th, 2013, 11:29 pm

Does anyone know why these games crash to windows at start up.
Both patch projects applied for both games.
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

posted on April 12th, 2013, 11:57 pm

Have you tried installing them outside of the default Program Files folder and tried something like C:\Games\Armada?

posted on April 13th, 2013, 7:07 am

Using Windows 7, this games works fine.
Is possible that new operating systems no longer provide support for old games. But, you can try to install Armada 1 and 2 in the Mod directory of the Fleet Ops.

Install the Classic Armada 2 into Fleet Operations:
http://www.moddb.com/games/star-trek-ar ... a2-classic

Works fine.

posted on April 13th, 2013, 4:20 pm

@cabal
No I have not. I have my games installed on a separate hdd drive. My main drive is a ssd I use for dual booting windows 7 & 8. I had to keep windows 7 just so I could run these two games on an older nvidia driver version due to the new drivers causing extreme texture problems. I can't even run the games in windows 8. It's odd because some older games that I have like Diablo 1 and Red Alert 2 (after unofficial patch project is applied) run perfectly in Windows 8. I will try to install it on the C: drive and see if that works. Thanks.

@miklosgo
The games worked fine under Windows 7 with patch projects applied. I think I read something about Windows 8 not supporting 16 bit color anymore and that may have something to do with it. It installs fine but when I try to start the game it just crashes to desktop. I have Armada 2 running in the fleet ops mod section. For some reason the small cut scenes that run in the lower right box do not activate at the specific times. For instance, during the first mission when they encounter the Borg, in the original game a Borg .bik animation can be seen in the box to the right. It does not do this in the version that runs in fleet ops. It bugs me. lol. Also I am not sure Armada 1 will even run in Fleet ops mod section. Thanks.



Update: Actually it doesn't even load into the game. Splash screen comes up and then crash to desktop.

posted on October 2nd, 2013, 9:47 pm

I too am experiencing this issue. Took a look in the Armada log file and found the following:

Code: Select all

Warning::ST3D_GraphicsEngine::   71@   1767] Storm3D Error: Not all DirectDraw surfaces have been released. Warning::ST3D_GraphicsEngine::   71@   1870] Storm3D Error: Create surface : Operation requires the application to have exclusive mode but the application does not have exclusive mode.

After a bit of a Google this seems to be a common error afflicting games of the era & Windows 8. Long story short, I downloaded an application called DXWnd (http://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/) and whilst I have yet to find the combination of settings to make the game playable, it progresses further than the Splash screen and loads to the main menu. Ultimately this isn't the solution to the problem but can aid in diagnosing the cause - I'm not a DirectX guru but maybe someone else is and could lend a hand?

posted on October 4th, 2013, 12:18 am

I think I see you problem there..............you are using Windows 8.

posted on October 7th, 2013, 7:46 pm

^ heh I will definitely second that. If you're still playing a decade plus old games(which we all here automatically are) then there is no reason for anyone to switch to 8. Afterall, 7 barely works for many older games as is.

posted on January 19th, 2014, 12:54 am

I think I see you problem there..............you are using Windows 8.

Nope
I like Windows 8, it's just that old games can sometimes get a bit glitchy when put in new operating systems, and if it gets too far ahead they don't work without patching.

posted on January 19th, 2014, 12:59 am

I run Windows 8 and Armada II wouldn't even OPEN successfully before an error about there being not enough memory on my computer popped up. That's completely bogus because my RAM is 8gb and my hard drive is 750gb. I found out the DVD drive I was using wasn't compatible with Windows 8, so I got a new one (blu-ray this time) that was definitely compatible and then tried again, same result. But then I found out that by downloading FleetOps and then using this download (http://www.moddb.com/games/star-trek-ar ... a2-classic), and making a "mods" folder inside the Data folder in FleetOps and extracting the rar of the A2 Classic into the mods folder, and then running the A2 Classic mod from FleetOps, you can actually get a better version of Armada II than you could off the real disc. And another plus? You don't need the disc in the drive to play!

posted on January 19th, 2014, 8:21 am

Windows 8 was not designed for old games :-) or any games :-)

If you a player, just install Windows XP or Windows 7 to can play PC games, the older ones like Doom 2 (my favorite) or newer ones (like Fleet Operations).

And keep Windows 8 just for your administration or writing letters, going on the net, and other thinks like that :-)

Right now, I have Windows 7 installed on my computer and it works just fine for older and newer games :-)

posted on January 19th, 2014, 2:13 pm

Windows 8 was not designed for old games or any games

If you a player, just install Windows XP or Windows 7 to can play PC games, the older ones like Doom 2 (my favorite) or newer ones (like Fleet Operations).

And keep Windows 8 just for your administration or writing letters, going on the net, and other thinks like that

Right now, I have Windows 7 installed on my computer and it works just fine for older and newer games

A lot of games DO work on Windows 8 (I run 8.1). Dual operating systems are complicated to install, so I don't want to do that. Windows 8 is pretty nice and stuff - it runs most programs. Pax Imperia (older than Armada II) sort of ran even with an incompatible disc drive, but with a new compatible drive, hopefully it works better (haven't tested it yet). Minecraft works great (never hasn't) and now Armada II (patched with FleetOps) works fine as well.

posted on April 15th, 2014, 10:50 pm

I actually got this to work in the end. I used OllyDbg to decompile the Armada.exe and changed the window style which the USER32.CreateWindowExA method was passing (originally WS_POPUP [HEX:80000000] and changed to WS_CHILD|WS_VISIBLE [HEX:50000000]). The main menu animations no longer work with this window style, but the rest of the game is fully playable. This would be a neat addition to an Armada Patch 1.4?

posted on April 16th, 2014, 1:42 am

I think I see you problem there..............you are using Windows 8.

Amen to that, plus it has such vast security leaks that many experts in the field refuse to use the operating system preferring Win7. I'd personally give up PC's before installing Win8 on any system in this household.

My recommendation to the OP, go back to any earlier version of Windows, doesn't matter if it's XP, Vista or 7 they are all vastly superior and much more secure on their bad days than 8 is on it's good days.

posted on April 16th, 2014, 6:57 pm

Windows XP is an end of life operating system now vulnerable to attack as it no longer receives security patches from Microsoft. It should now be limited to use on machines with no external Internet access. Windows 7 and above only.

Let's respect the sentiment of the original poster and try not to get too off-topic - the above solution I posted works, but needs to be commoditised. I don't think I'm permitted to re-post my modified Armada.exe but happy to help anybody over Private Message who is interested - the game is still very entertaining and deserves to be preserved

posted on December 1st, 2014, 3:52 am

FWIW, I have the armada 2 working in win8 by running the free version of the vmware player v 6.0.4 and windows vista in the vm.