It is not a likely cause, but I would verify the system time is reset on start, such as by a system restart. It is also worthwhile to test that it is assigned to a single cpu only. Another option is to test other wrappers for its graphics api.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've tried all of those to no avail, though. As far as a system restart, I always shut down my PC (and unplug it) after every use, as we have quite severe thunderstorms in my locale.

This is the strangest problem, as it was running just fine for the past couple of weeks. That is, since two weeks when I had this exact same problem, and it "magically" fixed itself. IMHO it just HAS to be something to do with WinDoZe itself, but I'm at a loss here. Really drives me NUTZ too, as I was REALLY getting into this old game!

https://www.gog.com/forum/star_trek_bridge_co … oppy_fps/post37

Thanks for the info, but I've already read that message thread. Like I replied to hail-to-the-ryzen, I've restarted my PC (I always power down my PC when I'm not using it, so it's restarted several times a day).

feda wrote on 2024-07-25, 05:36:

https://www.gog.com/forum/star_trek_bridge_co … oppy_fps/post37

PROBLEM FREAKIN' SOLVED!

After again reading this post at GOG:

"I can confirm rebooting your computer fixes the problem. This is similar to the animation stuttering you will see in Neverwinter Nights 2. Same fix. Bad coding is the problem, shame on those guys. If your computer's clock is running for a very long time (a week+) then the internal counter gets very high and the math in the game starts to break down. Just shoddy programming."

Then, I read in the Steam forums about "Neverwinter Nights 2", which apparently has the same problem:

"The animation system in NWN2 uses values from your computer's internal clock for timing. If your computer has been running for a long time without restarting then the internal clock's value is too large for NWN2 to handle. For most people, restarting fixes the issue because it resets the clock to 0."

I then ran "systeminfo" from the command prompt. Just under the OS information, you'll see "System Boot Time". Note the difference between the "System Boot Time" and the actual current date and time. This is the amount of time that Windows 10 THINKS that the system has been running.

I then saw that my "System Boot Time" was 7/11/2024, 12:53:27 PM, ABOUT THE SAME TIME that the original problem seemed to have "magically" fixed itself. Note that when I ran "systeminfo", it was actually 7/25/2024 at 3:05:00 AM... according to the "System Boot Time" my PC hadn't been hard booted for two weeks!

THIS made ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE to me, as I posted earlier, I always shut my PC off and unplug it anytime that I'm not actually using it. I always THOUGHT that this was the same as a cold hard boot. I GUESS NOT!

THEN, something dawned on me... "Fast Boot". Everytime you have a hard crash in WinDoZe (e.g. blue screen of death), Windows will do a 'slow boot' (even if "Fast Boot" is enabled in Windows), which in turn will reset your "System Boot Time". If I remember correctly, I ACTUALLY HAD a BSOD on 7/11/2024!

Sure enough, I disabled "Fast Boot", shut the PC down and restarted it, ran "systeminfo" from the command prompt, and it reported the current date and time for the "System Boot Time".

I then started Star Trek Bridge Commander, and my framerate was fluid smooth again! YIPPEE!

Of course, disabling "Fast Boot" is really slow during a cold boot (at least on my PC), so I simply re-enabled it. At least I know what voodoo ritual to perform now when the problem rears it's ugly head again!

Side Note: Once the game was FINALLY running fluid smooth again, I again tried the "dgVoodoo" DirectX wrapper, and it actually bumped up my framerate a little more 😀 I noticed an increase in framerate when using "dgVoodoo v2.82.5", ESPECIALLY in the game's "Map Mode", and when there are a lot of starships in "Quick Battle". To install "dgVoodoo v2.82.5":

Download "dgVoodoo v2.82.5" from here -> https://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/bin/dgVoodoo2_82_5.zip .

Copy the files "MS/x86/D3D8.dll", "MS/x86/D3DImm.dll", and "MS/x86/DDraw.dll" from the ZIP to the "Star Trek Bridge Commander" folder.

Run "gVoodooCpl.exe" and set the "Config Folder/Running Instance" option to the "Star Trek Bridge Commander" folder on the "General" tab by clicking the ".\" button ("Adds the folder to the list where the control panel app is located.").

Note that this will create the file "dgVoodooSetupPaths.dat" located in the "Users\User_Name\AppData\Roaming\dgVoodoo" folder.

Uncheck the "3Dfx Watermark" and "3Dfx Splash screen" check boxes on the "Glide" tab.

Set the "Videocard" option to "dgVoodoo Virtual 3D Accelerated Card" on the "DirectX" tab, set the "VRAM" option to "1024 MB", and uncheck the "dgVoodoo Watermark" check box.

One Last Side Note/Hint: Windows Notepad will TOTALLY COBBLE up your "Options.cfg" file. For some STRANGE reason, the game substitutes Hex(00)s for SOME of the spaces in the file. If you edit the file in Windows Notepad, the Hex 00's are changed to "space" characters, and the game will then choke and crash when started again. To overcome this problem, use the freeware utility "Notepad++" from here -> https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads to edit your "Options.cfg" file.

When loading the "Options.cfg" file into "Notepad++" the Hex(00)s will be displayed with the inverse text of "NUL" in the editor. Don't edit/touch those entries, and you should be OK when editing and then saving the file.

I was going to reply that restart vs shutdown do different things when you have fast boot/hybernation on, but fortunately you figured it out yourself 😀

The thing that confused me was, if the damn thing is off and unplugged, well, it damned sure sould be OFF 🤣

You've already discovered that Fast Boot is a thing, and that restarting is different than a shutdown. If you want to keep Fast Boot enabled for general use but want to force a complete shutdown, you can enter the following from a Command Prompt:

1shutdown /s /t 0

You can change 0 to any other integer number of seconds before the shutdown will occur. This command can also be used with /r to trigger a restart.

I learned all of this back when Windows 8 came out, and I was having trouble accessing my Windows drive from my Ubuntu installation on a second hard disk. It turns out that hybrid shutdown leaves the drive mounted to save time, which means another OS can't mount it!

MANY MANY THANKS for that, MadMac_5!!!! Batch file and desktop icon, HERE I COME 😀 Hehe, a good place for the desktop icon will be next to my one to temporarily disable the Windows Defender realtime antivirus 🤣

Fast Boot is basically Hibernation-lite. Only the Restart option does a full boot from a zero state, or Shutdown when Fast Boot is disabled.

eddman wrote on 2024-07-25, 23:50:

Fast Boot is basically Hibernation-lite

I like your description 😀 After learning more about it, that's basically what I was thinking of.