FleetOps Hardware

posted on June 4th, 2011, 1:03 pm

Heyho community!!!

I just saw the topic of Tryptic
Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Quick! I need to know how much RAM Flops uses!
and then I had an idea...

What do you think about making a sticky page here on the forum or a page on the Guide, which tells us, what Hardware is best used to play FleetOps.

I thought about 3 seperate categories:
- minimum Hardware to play offline
- minimum Hardware to play online
- optimum Hardware to play online

Each categorie would tell specific data about needed RAM, CPU, GPU, etc.


So, if someone is about to buy a new Computer and wants to play FleetOps online, then he could see, which components he has to buy for sure...


What do you guys think about that??? I hope u like the idea... Thx for your replies!

Alpha Line

posted on June 4th, 2011, 1:16 pm

Fleet ops will run on anything modern along with a modern deticated graphics card, or a decent intigrated card like an 8200 or something.

Aside from this the only issue would be driver issues as some people with new gtx 400-500 cards that some people have but these can only be solved by the manufacturer.

posted on June 4th, 2011, 7:02 pm

i dont think there are exact numbers for this. i mean some general guidelines that are above what fleetops needs could be floated around such as:

almost anything dual core will be fine
over 1gb will be fine on xp, 1.5gb for vista/7

graphics cards are trickier, i run fleetops at 720p (and fraps) at max on a budget integrated chip, the intel 945gm with gma950 graphics (with a core duo @ 1.86ghz, wei of 3.1).

fleetops isnt very graphics card intensive i dont think, maybe that stems from a2 being made in a time when graphics cards were generally weak.

posted on June 4th, 2011, 7:37 pm

Well, maybe u are right... but idk.

For example:
The thing is that I am able to play FO with my Notebook (which is nearly 3 years old...)

But being able to play doesn't mean that it is fun to play. Massive cloaking or massive borg explosions lags my Notebook to hell (only in single player).

In Multiplayer it is hard to play when a borg player is just around (not to mention the explosions...)

I have a Centrino Duo P8600 and 4 GB RAM (Vista), so if U two are right then that can't be the problem.
If Kestrel is right then it is my GPU because I have a GeForce 9700m GT (512 MB).

I just thought that it might help noobs like me in the future to take some stats into consideration when buying a new PC or Notebook...

But idk...

posted on June 4th, 2011, 7:41 pm

your graphics card is pretty good. your processor is a bit weak, its a budget processor, a centrino, and fleetops is more processor intensive i believe. your ram is way better than necessary.

borg ships dont lag for me just being there. when i first see borg i get 2 seconds of lag, a lot of people do. borg explosions and explosions in general are ok for me. its massive amounts of cloaked ships that kill my frame rate. thats why i have to avoid them lol.

i think this isnt because my laptop is weak, its because armada 2 has that annoyance.

posted on June 4th, 2011, 7:53 pm

fleetops isnt very graphics card intensive i dont think, maybe that stems from a2 being made in a time when graphics cards were generally weak.

That depends on if you mean in comparison to modern hardware or hardware from when A2 came out. My old computer could run A1 and A2 with dozens of ships on screen and might slow to 40 fps, but could hardly barely hit 15 fps with 10 ships on screen in FO, and that's what you can expect from almost anything from 2000-2003. Something from 2004 or later will most likely run the game just fine, but even then you can find quirks. My current video card, for instance, handles large textures, high poly counts, and resolutions at least up to 1280x1024 very well, but chokes if there are more than a few sprites on screen (at least in the games I've tested; I can't seem to get FO running on Wine at all).

posted on June 4th, 2011, 8:56 pm

aye, i think an aprox. collection of systems on how games run on them would be a nice addition for the guide 

posted on June 4th, 2011, 9:38 pm

Well, maybe u are right... but idk.

For example:
The thing is that I am able to play FO with my Notebook (which is nearly 3 years old...)

But being able to play doesn't mean that it is fun to play. Massive cloaking or massive borg explosions lags my Notebook to hell (only in single player).

In Multiplayer it is hard to play when a borg player is just around (not to mention the explosions...)

I have a Centrino Duo P8600 and 4 GB RAM (Vista), so if U two are right then that can't be the problem.
If Kestrel is right then it is my GPU because I have a GeForce 9700m GT (512 MB).

I just thought that it might help noobs like me in the future to take some stats into consideration when buying a new PC or Notebook...

But idk...

Your graphics card is fine in fact its pretty decent, i cannot think of any logical reason that you are lagging unless your running other memory hogging applications beneath the game.

Your cpu isnt that bad either i assume its operating around 2.4Ghz? i used to use a laptop with a core2duo 1.86 Ghz and a much worse graphics card and just 1gb of ram and fleet ops ran fine on that with no lag at all.

Maybe try using a 32bit OS rather than a 64bit OS perhaps that will improve your performace or lower your screen res in game and reduce the graphics settings a bit.

posted on June 4th, 2011, 10:09 pm

Now, that's just confusing. Because I've tried to Fraps before with my super fancy NVIDIA card before it died, and I was just barely able to do it.  And Myles is able to do it with a much older card...

There are also a number of OS optimizations you can do, which I'm a bit hesitant to suggest because you can mess up your computer if you don't know what you're doing.  For example, with windows Vista you can sometimes get a sizeable speed boost by disabling the indexing service and findfast along with a few other processes.  However that tweak tends to affect RAM, and 4GB is a ton so that shouldn't be your problem...

I can still suggest the most basic fallback that has worked for me an increasing number of times:  start the game, alt-tab to minimize it and ctrl-alt-delete to get the task manager.  Go to the processes tab and find the Armada II process, then set it to priority->realtime.  You should see a noticeable speedup if your computer was diverting some of its resources elsewhere.  If you had an older rig I would suggest using the "high" setting first as it's less extreme, but the computer you described SHOULD be able to handle Flops fine if it was really trying.

posted on June 4th, 2011, 10:23 pm

Now, that's just confusing. Because I've tried to Fraps before with my super fancy NVIDIA card before it died, and I was just barely able to do it.  And Myles is able to do it with a much older card...

thats the thing, a2 was designed for much weaker graphics cards, its the processor on modern machines that a2 needs. and anything dual core should get the job done.

my graphics chip doesnt have a huge amount of work to do for fleeotps.

posted on June 5th, 2011, 7:01 am

Thx all of U for ur advices !!!

I'll see how i can improve my performance...
But setting down the details or resolution should be the last option, because FleetOps is just sooooo pretty  ...

Thx again!