Jane's Fleet Command
 

I loved that game. I bought it on chance ages ago, five years perhaps? Who can remember anymore? It was an exceptional game. I liked commanding the overall picture with some eye candy to see your plans unfold first hand, instead of playing a spreadsheet like Harpoon or the like.

I played that baby 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for at least three months. It was just realistic enough that it didn't make things overly complicated, and really gave the sense that one was commanding a true fleet. I was definately disgruntled when it wouldn't install under Windows XP. I was forced to shelf it. :(

Which would bring us to the present day. I found that Win XP patch by chance, and I was quite delighted. Unfortunately, the game is running like crap. I'm getting about 10 fps if that, on 1024 x 768. Ironically, it ran better on my old P3 600 then it does on this monster. Anyone have this game and have any ideas as to how to improve the game's performance? It would be nice if I get this baby working in it's full glory with a little AA and AF.

I looked around the net for some dedicated forums but there doesn't seem to be any out there. I did find a rather massive project to reprogram the game to match the weaponry of the current generation. It looked extremely impressive. For the die-hard realism junkies anyway. I was quite content with the game as it was. If I wanted anymore realism, I'd join the Navy and work my way up to Admiral.

I just got up now (Yup. I wake up when the sun goes down. I have to feed :D ) so I'm gonna look around and see if I can find the site again, maybe the mod will fix the performance problem. I'll post a link back here in case any of you are interested in it.

Edit: Finally found it. Rather difficult to find. Naval Warfare Project v18.0 is the current release. You can find more info here. Quite the project. The FAQ is especially interesting. These fellows have definately put alot of work into that project.

Yep. Fleet Command is a great game. I've never removed it from my hard drive(s) since I bought it in late 1999. I love putting some little naval strategic scenarios together to kill 30 minutes here and there.

It would help if you posted what you're specs are. I'm currently running with Pentium 820 2.8 GHz, XP SP2 and have a Nvidia 6800 - 256 MB and 1 GB RAM. 160 MB hard drive. Fleet Command runs OK on my system, but I still have a screen flicker effect. I've tried to end all unnecessary programs running in the background to no effect. I'm still working on it, but I've gotten used to it...kinda. Maybe you have alot of stuff running in the background. I would suggest you start there.

At any rate, it's good to see others here interested in this game.

Hmm. Problem solved. A Glide wrapper did the trick quite nicely. You know, for a game of it's age, it has graphics are that are suprisingly pleasant at 1024 x 768 with 4x AA and 16x AF. I have a terrible for memory for everything else in my life, yet I always manage to remember all the keys for every game I've ever played soon as I fire it up. I sanitized every track in the Iranian attack scenario within about 2 mins. That's not bad. I even got the neutrals, not bad considering I haven't played it in 5 years probably. :)

I have similar specs. Sort of anyway. Athlon XP 3200+, 1 GB of DDR 400, XFX Geforce 6800 GT running at 400/1.2. As a general rule, I don't run anything in the background that isn't essential to Windows operation. My system tray always remains empty, just the volume and my net connection icons. Sometimes I even shutdown explorer, run a game, then relaunch it via task manager after I've finished playing. One can never have too much speed after all ;)

Edit: The obscure text file I found with the hint of trying Glide is signed Rubini. I wonder if it's the same fellow that floats around in the SH3 forum here? Hmm. :hmm:

NWS project has in one form or another been around since Fleet Command was released. NWS is also great for cheaper games.

My system is 1.6Ghz, 1meg ram, and GeForce FX and it still crashes on me. :cry:

ditto, mine crashes all the time too, I have to turn off the sound as well because any time a missile or a plane is launched or somthing is blown up, it crashes. I can run it a bit longer when I turn 3d off, but it still crashes ALL the time, I'm lucky if I can get the game to run for more than 10 minutes.

Yeah, mine crashes on occasion too. It's mostly when I'm trying to run larger scenarios with lots of missiles in the air. This is rather unfortunate as some of those are the funnest missions to play. And I have to plan for that every time I'm building mission scenarios. Fun game, I just wish there were some fixes to these things that limit it's stability.

ahh yes, the good ole days of Fleet Command. We had some damn good years of multiplayer action at Seawolves with FC. I never was very good, but I enjoyed the game quite a bit for a while there. I loved being able to make a scenario and control every aspect of one side of it and not being constricted to a single platform.

Ever since the dreadful Harpoon 4 cancellation I have been thinking of undusting my FC as well. I remember how much the NWS mods improved FC. Still it felt not deep and realistic enough and therefor I uninstalled 3 years ago. In the end nothing can beat 1st person simulation (my EUR 0,02).

PS H3 and H2002 (was it?) dont seem my cup of tea entirely in case you were about to suggest. I liked watching the action unfold in FC once you decided to carry out tactics. Its absent in old Harpoons

I have that game also. I found that if I went into the Vidro Card menu and selected "let program select" or something like that and took out mt settings for AF and AA, it worked a lot better.

I played Harpoon for years before I played Fleet Command, and thought Harpoon was much better. I've tried giving it 2nd and 3rd chances when I get bored with what I'm currently playing, but it crashes way too much. If you can give me a link where I can get all the patches, I may give it a 4th chance.

Here is Sonalysts link...

http://www.sonalystscombatsims.com/

and NWS's website

http://www.navalwarfare.org/~content/nwp.html

You may wish to use a Glide wrapper, otherwise you'll probably experience performance problems. I was able to run it quite smoothly with Glide at 1024 x 768 with 4xAA and 16xAF. It's still on the crashy side though.

How crashy are we talking about. Can you give me a rough average on how many minutes of gameplay you usually get, or is it completely random?

Digging through Sonalysts site, I came up with a Windows XP installer for Janes Fleet Command. Did you try using this? It also had fixes for graphical anomolies that people describe on this board. You might consider checking that out.

-S

XP Installer:

http://www.sonalystscombatsims.com/s...dInstaller.exe

************************************************** ************
** **
** Readme for Jane's Fleet Command **
** Windows 2000/XP Install Patch **
** 1.38 **
** **
************************************************** ************

================================================== ============
*** NOTE: This will bring your version of Jane's Fleet command
*** to version 1.38.
================================================== ============


This Installer includes the following updates
================================================
Fixes in this installation include:
- v1.38 of FleetCommand.exe (also available as a separate download)
- v1.00 scenario update (also available as a separate download)
- 3D update to fix the crash to desktop on launch of Phoenix missile


Installation Instructions:
--------------------------
***IMPORTANT: You must have Administrative privileges to install
and uninstall on Windows 2000/XP.

1) Download the patch (FleetCommandInstaller.exe) to a temporary
folder on your harddrive.

2) Insert your Jane's Fleet Command CD into your CD-ROM drive.
When the Jane's autorun splash screen appears, press Quit.
(If you have turned the autorun option off for your CD drive,
you may not see the Auto-run splash screen).
This is important for step (4) below.

3) Run/(double-click) FleetCommandInstaller.exe from the temporary folder.

4) A dialog box titled Jane's Fleet Command v1.38 Update should appear.
The dialog suggests:
"Please verify your Fleet Command CD is in your CD drive before continuing."
The drive can be a CD or a DVD drive.
The patch will look at what the operating system considers the default drive.
The dialog should also display the fixes in this installation.
If you already have the Fleet Command CD in a drive, go to the next step.

5) Click Yes on the dialog.

6) Another dialog titled: "WinZip Self-Extractor - FleetCommandInstaller.exe"
should appear.
Click "Unzip"

7) A small dialog will display: "18 File(s) unzipped successfully."
Click "OK"

8) At this point, the patched Jane's Fleet Command installer will start.
Follow the installation steps in the installer.
NOTE: It is not necessary to install DirectX6 components if you have a higher
version of DirectX already installed.

9) After installing this patch, you cannot use the autorun feature of the
original CD to play Fleet Command, you must start it using the shortcuts
that were installed to "Start-->Programs" or to the desktop.

Jane's Fleet Command is beyond it's technical support lifespan.
This patch is officially not supported.

Testing on this patch was limited, but nonetheless the patch
is believed to fix at least two crashes to desktop that have been
recently reported to our computergames email system.

Email for Sonalysts game technical support can be reached at
computergames@sonalysts.com.