whenever i try to start the game i can hear from the audio that credits and menu music is playing but all im seeing is a black square in the corner of my screen. Its probably windows 8s fault somehow but any help would be great?

It isn't Windows 8, because it works fine here.

same here. Black Screen and Audio in a small black box. :(
Maybe its an Graphic-Driver-Problem? Got NVidia 9650GT -> Driver 341.44

I have tried all compatiblity settings. All the same. Black Box with Audio. :(

Hallo JudasIscariot and Thanks for the Support.

i have tried everything from the support-mail. With no effect.
Now, I have found a proper solution. I deleted the ddraw.dll in the Game-Folder. And now the Game works fine! BUT NOT the sfad3d.exe. When i start this all stars are dancing arround. Like shown in sfa3d.png.
But the sfa.exe works fine. No Problems. :) (sfa.png)

I also tried some ddraw.dlls from this site. http://jiridvorak.webpark.cz/ka/ but its the same. (Black Box upper left with Audio), but it seems, the ddraw.dll isnt nessesary for runnig the game. that works for me. :)

So, i have to dismissed. :D First Mission at the Academy is waiting! :D

Thanks for the help! I renamed the ddraw.dll and now the game will run!

I'm encountering the same problem as OP, but the solution described isn't working for me...

Hello,

Indeed, after all these years, the suggestion no longer works.

I found a new solution that worked without any problems.

On this page:
https://github.com/dege-diosg/dgVoodoo2/releases

download the first zip (dgVoodoo2_82_5.zip)

From the ZIP (dgVoodoo2_82_5.zip\MS\x86)

Copy the following files from the ZIP (dgVoodoo2_82_5.zip\MS\x86) into the StarFleet Academy directory.
D3D9.dll
D3DIMM.dll
DDraw.dll

Overwrite the existing DDraw.dll or rename/move it beforehand.

Then start the sfad3d.exe and it runs.

Great job by dege-diosg, thank you for that.

Thank you very much for the information, it works very well!

If you ever see the "dgVoodoo" watermark in the bottom right corner of the screen when you play, also copy the dgVoodooCpl.exe and dgVoodoo.conf files into the game directory and run dgVoodooCpl.exe as an administrator. Under the "DirectX" tab, uncheck the "dgVoodoo Watermark" option and then click the "Apply" button.

This worked well for me on Windows 11.