I'm the guy that built the v534_b patch for SFC 3..
In the SFC3 section of this forum, I have a thread on all the steps needed to install the patch on XP based systems..
To do a general run down of the patching process...
Windows XP
Proper Patch Install Method :
Turn off Anti-Virus scanners before Downloading and installing.. Anti-Virus can corrupt the patch when downloading and during the install process. Anti-Virus can also corrupt program installs from CD.
1) Uninstall Starfleet Command III using Add / Remove Programs file in your Windows Control Panel.
2) Delete the SFC3 game folder off of your system. Commonly the location of the folder is C:\Program Files\Activision\SFC3.
3) Reinstall Starfleet Command III from the game CD, do not install Direct X 8.1 and do not install Gamespy Arcade from the Game CD, just the Starfleet Command III game itself. Commonly the install folder is C:\Program Files\Activision\SFC3.
4) Check for the latest version of your video card drivers from the manufacturer of your video card. For Geforce cards, check the NVidia web site, for Radeon cards, check the ATI web site. Never get video drivers from a place that is not the manufacturer of your video card. If you own a laptop, please check with the manufacturer of your laptop for updated drivers.
5) Make sure your version of Windows is up to date. Go to Microsoft?s windows update and get all available updates for your Windows Operating System.
6) As a recommendation, Download and reinstall Direct X 9.0c, if you do not have Direct X 9.0c, it is strongly recommended that you update to Direct X 9.0c or you will cause others to crash in Gamespy Arcade or Dynaverse 3 servers. Direct X 9.0c is not compatible with previous versions of Direct X under direct play and people using Direct X version older than 9.0c will cause players who have upgraded ( 90% of players) to have severe in game lag, locked loading screens, or Crash to Desktop issues. This is stated in the Microsoft Direct X FAQ. Installing an older version of Direct X on top of Direct X 9.0c will cause Direct X 9.0c to corrupt and will requite DirectX 9.0c to be reinstalled to fix the corruption. You can get the new DirecX 9.0c from
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/Install using the Redistributable installer as the web installer does not check all files.. The redistributable is a 2 step installer and is usually 74 Mb.
7 Install ONLY this v534_b patch on to SFC 3. This is a stand alone installer and does not need any other Starfleet Command III downloads. This file is to be used on a clean, unaltered, unpatched version of Starfleet Command III.
DL Location :
http://www.dynaverse.net/downloads/sfc3/Patches/SFC3_Patch_1.01_Beta_2_Build_v534_b.exe (40.5 MB)
You will also need the Dynaverse 3 Access Server patch to join the Dynaverse
http://www.dynaverse.net/downloads/sfc3/Patches/sfc3_directory_server_updater.exe8 Go inside your SFC3 game directory and find the SFC3.exe file, right click, select properties, click on Compatibility tab, put a check mark into Disable Visual Themes and Disable Desktop Composistion.
9 Right click on your game directory folder (the SFC 3 folder) and select properties, uncheck Read Only, click Apply, in the new window, make sure you check All Files and Folders, click OK and when the system is done, click OK again.
10 Using your system search function, find your SFC 3 folder and search for *.x files and delete them as well as *.cache files and delete them. these are files that are created by the game while playing.. the patch is suppose to remove them, however some systems that keep the read only attribute on the game folder do not get these files removed during the patching process and must have them removed manually.. these files need to be deleted with any Mods you create / install on SFC 3.
11 When playing Single Player, it is safe to play with your Anti-Virus enabled and your Firewall up, but when playing online, disable Anti-Virus to prevent corruption on incoming data packets.. and it is preferred to disable any firewall you have so there is no accidental blockage of incoming packets.. If you know how to configure Firewalls and Routers correctly for ports, then you can refer to the Readme file for the proper ports to unblock, as well as the Gamespy Arcade Help site for the ports to unblock.
Now if you have problems playing the game after following ALL of the install instructions EXACTLY, then refer to the trouble shooting below.
Trouble Shooting Clients and Players:
1) If you are using Windows, Your DVD and Keyboard language settings must be set the same as your native Windows Language Version.. example :
If you have Windows OS English (US) version windows, but have your DVD region or Keyboard region set to German, then SFC 3 will have problems operating. Please ensure that your language regional settings for DVD and keyboard match the native language of your Windows OS.
2) Make Sure that your system is completely up to date from Microsoft® Windows® Update web site (
http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp ). This includes XPSP 3 as well as all the "Custom" updates, not just Critical updates.. You need ALL updates available.
3) Before Installing the SFC 3 Patch 1.01 Beta 2 Build v534, make sure that you DO NOT install the separate installer items below. The items below are designed for an unpatched game straight out of box (v464) and the items below are already included in the v534 patch, which means that installing the below items before or after the v534 patch will cause the game to corrupt when you install the patch.
A) SFC 3 DirectX 9 Fix
B) Nemisis Add-On Package
C) Borg Mini Compaign
4) Players may experience CTD prior to mission loads. This may be caused by software running in the background, such as Logitech Mouse Dirvers, certain brands of Firewalls, Connection Accelerators, Web Accelerators, etc. It is recommended that you click on the Start Button, click on RUN, type in MSCONFIG and click OK. Then in the Pop-up Dialog box, click on the START-UP Tab and uncheck everything that is absolutely not needed at system start up. the majority of times, on Windows XP machines, You can uncheck everything if you like. On Windows 98 / ME, you must leave SYSTEM TREY and SCANREGISTRY checked, and the rest can be unchecked in most cases. Doing this will also speed up system performance as well as increase system speed.
5) With some system software installed, there may be interference with the game's built in Movies.. You might need to rename 4 movie files prior to game play. In the Program Files\Activision\Sfc3\Assets\Cinema folder, rename the file extensions on Taldren.bik, Activision.bik, Paramount.bik, and Intro.bik
to
Taldren.old, Activision.old, Paramount.old, and Intro.old respectively.
6) Due to some driver versions to Video Cards, it may be necessary to lower screen resolution to 800x600 or lower Color resolution to 16 bit.. You can alternatively try to use other drivers as well. Also turning down in game graphic settings may help with how the game plays on older video cards.
7) Do not use the Hacked version of DirectX 10 for XP. This does nothing for your computer in the range of Sound or Visuality of a game.. all the Hacked DirectX 10 for XP system does is allows a DirectX 10 only game to play on XP, but the audio/visual components of DirectX 10 will not be produced on an XP system, however it can break other software on your computer as well as corrupt vital Windows system files. No matter what you do, everything on XP will render in DirectX 9.0c, even if you have the DirectX 10 XP hack installed. It is a good way to corrupt your system and prevent programs from working properly.
8 SFC 3 is registry dependant. This means that the game must be inthe location from where you installed it from the game CD. If you reinstall from CD, the game patch will change to the last CD install location. As such, I have 2 examles :
#1. If you installed SFC 3 once from the game CD to say for example C:\Program Files\Activision\SFC3 and then you copied the SFC 3 game folder and pasted it into a different directory and renamed the Copy of the SFC 3 game folder, let's say for example, to SFC 3 GAW, then because the last place the CD installed to is C:\Program Files\Activision\SFC3, the player will have to rename his SFC 3 game folder to something like SFC3Orig and rename the SFC3GAW folder to SFC3 and put it in the C:\Program Files\Activision folder in order for the game to operate correctly online.
#2 If you installed the SFC 3 game from the CD first to C:\Program Files\Activision\SFC3 and then reinstalled SFC 3 again from CD to C:\Program Files\Activision\SFC3DOM, in order to play the first install of the game, you will need to rename SFC3DOM to something else like SFC3DOMWAR and then rename the SFC3 folder to SFC3DOM. You can just rename the game folders as you wish to play the game, however SFC 3 is Registry Key reliant in order to play Multi-player. Problems that occur when playing SFC 3 outside the proper game folder are as follows :
1) Lock-ups or non connection during Direct Play test when joining the Dynaverse
2) CD Key in Use error
3) Dropping during mission
4) Ghosting in missions or on server
5) Causing the Server Economy for your race to not update correctly
6) Causing Server to give incorrect mission matching paramaters
7) Causing others to drop during missions.
8) Failing to join in missions.
9) Causing others to fail in joining in missions.
There are more problems that occur, but these are the top 9 problems occurring when running SFC 3 outside the proper game folder, not counting the problems that occur due to game bugs. These problems also occurs to those using a No CD exe file crack instead of the Taldren authorized No CD sfc.ini tweak mentioned below.The SFC.INI tweak mentioned below is designed to let the game operate properly. A NO CD EXE FILE CRACK is designed to rewrite code within the game exe file, which in itself is 100% illegal plus it removes the CD Key checks and the Install path check to the system registry, which would be identical to playing SFC 3 outside the CD Install folder as mentioned above.
A No CD Crack is not needed with SFC 3, to play the game without having to insert the game CD each time, in the SFC3 folder find the sfc.ini file and find the entry MakeItSo=0 and change it to MakeItSo=1. If this entry is not in the SFC.ini file, just add it to the bottom of the [UI] section. This is only available with patch versions newer than the Activision 1.01 Beta.
In order to properly check which folder you need to launch the game from, the v534 patch will automatically show you the folder that your game should be launched from. If you are still not sure which folder the game should launch from, then go to your Start button, click on Run, type in "regedit" (without the quotes) and then look for
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Activision\Star Trek Starfleet Command III
and look for the sub key of "Install Path". This is where you must launch SFC 3 from in order to reduce the number of problems that you may experience with the game. Do not attempt to change the registry entry nor add entries to the system registry.. SFC 3 only allows for 1 valid entry in your system registry which is created by your CD install of the game (the last time the game was installed from CD).
I hope that this helps..
Topic: Problems with Patch Version 1.01 Build 534 (Read 7261 times)