ST Armada 2 with WIN Vista

posted on May 29th, 2010, 6:07 pm

Hello there, I'm brand new to this forum and this is my second post!

My OS is Windows Vista and back in the time when I worked and played with XP the game was fine and working well but now that I've installed it onto Vista I have several problems:

After having started in compability mode for Win98, being the administrator and having deactivated the desktop composition, the game goes through the intros as normal. But when coming to the main menu, I have a black screen with just the mouse pointer available, I can just hear the music. I can make the interfaces visible after opening the task manager and closing it again. So far so "good".

When I try to start a single player game, everything is fine (exept the screen's resolution isn't fitting well) until I want to move the cursor. The problem is that it's so slow, it needs nearly a second to be where I'm trying to point at. This is bad but it can get worse...

So I then tried to start a multiplayer game with a friend, just to check. In gamespy mode I was not able to find his hosted game and when I try to hast a game myself, Armada crashes, having experienced a problem (windows error message). This also happens when I try to go into a LAN game, after checking the game's version it crashes.

But this isn't the end of the story as I tried to eliminate the error(s) by installing several patches:
I tried out the 1.1 patch that told me it wasn't needed. Then I tried the inofficial community patches which mostly made the game crash even before the intro, none did make the game work on my Vista.

So, I don't know what to do. I just want to play against my friend and I feel like having tried everything, even the resolution of 640x480, no change :-(


I would be so glad if anyone has worked his way through my long post and knows how to proceed Smiley
Thanx in advance!

Malte

posted on May 29th, 2010, 7:29 pm

Whats your computer specs?

Did you run in in XP compatibility mode?

posted on May 29th, 2010, 8:38 pm

I tried it in compatibility mode for WIN 98 as well as for XP ;-)
My specs is: Windows Vista 32 Bit, 4GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 @ 2.00GHz 2.0 GHz
Hope there is anything you can tell me to solve those ugly mistakes

thanx
Malte

[Anonymous]

posted on May 29th, 2010, 8:52 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on May 29th, 2010, 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well i have vista 32 bit and it works perfectly for me.
Sometimes a reinstall of Armada fixes weird things like that.
Armada works great for me. Is your OS updated and everything?
What is your Graphics Card?

posted on May 29th, 2010, 11:03 pm

Well, I have reinstalled for 3 times now and it doesn't help in any way
My drivers are up to date as well as my Vista updates. My graphics card is Nvidia Geforce 9600M GS 512MB
And, again, the drivers are updated, that can't be the problem.
Unfortionately there is no way to make the game be widescreen, doesn't look very nice with my normal resolution of 1680x945  :-/

Any other suggestions? (Thank you for the previous try)

posted on May 30th, 2010, 12:00 am

To the widescreen problem: Armada 2 doesn't support widescreen resolution, you gotta live with that (or become a hardcore modder - FleetOps is the only known mod with widescreen support).

I really recommend to force the aspect ratio to stay in a 4:3 mode (in the Nvidia control center) as streched 4:3 resolutions look very crappy on 1680x945 screen (as you have pointed out).

posted on May 30th, 2010, 12:06 pm

Yea, thanks, I'll keep that in mind I think I've read something like this before so I installed the "FleetOps"- Patch onto my game, just into the original game folder and that made the game crash right at the beginning with an error screen. So I wasn't even able to test a widescreen resolution coz it didn't start the game.
Well, I now have 3 different folders in my ST Armada folder, all backups and wrong versions.
I recently just tried out one game out of the folder which seemed to be broken but the game works, although it's running in 800x600.
The lagging-mouse-problem hasn't appeared either but unfortionately the ships' graphics look like less than 8 bit :-/
Have changed it into 1024x768 and the game is still stable =)
When I go to the options menu, there is: Star Trek Armada II Patch Project (FleetOps)  right at the bottom of the page but I don't know if it's the patch you were talking about!?!
Some days ago, I had installed another patch onto another game version which changed the game's music in the main menu, is this what you meant?

Thanks so far, would be glad to hear more

posted on May 30th, 2010, 12:14 pm

you cant install fleet ops to the same folder as armada 2. remove them all, then start again lol. install only armada 2 and the patches from here:
Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Star Trek Armada II: Patch Project

fleet ops doesnt need to be installed.

also if you want to play fleetops (which i advise, its way better than armada 2) u dont need armada 2 installed, just an original armada 2 disc.

posted on May 30th, 2010, 12:42 pm

thank you so much, this was really helpful
I'm going to download version 2.25 (currently have 2.21 or so) and test it out =)

The only two questions remaining are: How do I start the St Armada FleetOps (different folder ;-) ), there is no exe...
And then, am I able to change the resolution into widescreen in the graphic options menu?

Thank you =)

posted on May 30th, 2010, 12:54 pm

To clearifiy the patch situation: the latest official version is 1.1 and the last Patch Project version is 1.25, which remains compability to version 1.1 (multiplayer).

The only two questions remaining are: How do I start the St Armada FleetOps (different folder ;-) ), there is no exe...

If you have installed FO to a separate folder (you've got to install the full version of 3.10 of FleetOps, optionally the 3.12 patch and the multimedia pack 2) the FleetOps.exe is in the main folder and the armada2.exe in the data folder. You can use both to launch the game.

And never try to install FleetOPs over stock Armada 2, that won't ever work. 

posted on May 30th, 2010, 12:57 pm

How do I start the St Armada FleetOps (different folder ;-) ), there is no exe...
And then, am I able to change the resolution into widescreen in the graphic options menu?

the installer should have placed a fleet ops shortcut on your desktop. if not it probably placed a start menu item as "Star Trek Armada II Fleet Operations" you can launch fleetops from in there.

u can change the resolution for fleetops to many things, fleetops has full support for many resolutions.

posted on May 30th, 2010, 1:36 pm

Great! I installed version 1.25 and the game works well =)
But this patch is fully different and incompatible to FleetOps, right?

I got it, I just installed the FO's patch 3.12, now downloading the full version =) Is FO with the additionally installed Multimedia pack still compatible to my friend's regular version 1.1 of ST Armada II ?

Thank you very much, this is so helpful

posted on May 30th, 2010, 1:44 pm

Version 1.25 is for regular Armada 2 and everything in it is already in Fleet Ops. The FO version is far more advanced.

Fleet Ops and regular Armada 2 are completely different, they can only be played if both have the same one.

posted on May 30th, 2010, 1:48 pm

Great! I installed version 1.25 and the game works well =)
But this patch is fully different and incompatible to FleetOps, right?

I got it, I just installed the FO's patch 3.12, now downloading the full version =) Is FO with the additionally installed Multimedia pack still compatible to my friend's regular version 1.1 of ST Armada II ?

Thank you very much, this is so helpful

fleetops is a very different game from armada 2, so they are definitely incompatible. they can both be installed on the same computer (as long as they are in different folders) but they are multiplayer incompatible as they are in essence different games.

try fleetops, its vastly superior to armada 2.

what do you mean by installed patch 3.1.2 and now have to download full version?

you have to install 3.10 first, then install 3.1.2 i dont even know what installing 3.1.2 without 3.1.0 will do lol. it certainly wont be playable.

multimedia pack is totally optional and wont cause any version differences, all it does is add music, so its totally your choice whether to install or not. i dont have it.

again on your last point: you cannot have a game where you are playing fleetops and your friend playing armada 2, they are different games, play fleetops and you will see the vast differences.

[TheChiller]

posted on May 30th, 2010, 2:40 pm

Last edited by TheChiller on May 30th, 2010, 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yea, I got that one So I might send him my complete FO folder and he will be able to play against me again? (btw., he owns the original CD )

I meant with version 3.12 that I had just installed the patch without the previous (full) version of FO so there was no exe to launch xD

Then I'm going to install 3.1 of FO now, hope everything's working fine
Thank you again!