That did the trick for me as well, thank you !

For me, simply changing compatibility mode to windows 7 did the trick. It runs flawlessly. I tried applying the widescreen mod but it didn't work but 1600x1200 works fine and it is in wide screen on my PC.

I don't know about anyone else, but this seems to have been fixed now? I had the stuttering in some parts of the game, but it didn't really affect my gameplay.

Apparently restarting the computer is essential for this game to be smooth, at least for me. I had to discovered it two days after the install.

Sorry to "resurrect" but I ran into this when trying to play Bridge Commander on my laptop, and I wanted to add my commentary. Basically, the performance was very choppy for many things but smooth when just panning around the bridge. I thought that maybe it's just how this game is (and I didn't remember it from when I played it 15+ years ago)... but I looked on YouTube and definitely saw videos of smooth playback.

I fought with it for a while, but the solution for me was this, basically, just reboot. After rebooting, I noticed some alerts in Action Center from Windows Store, saying that it was installing some old Visual C++ runtime and also a DirectX runtime. Maybe that fixed something with this game? Anyway, it seems fine now.

So I installed on a Windows 7 machine. Downloading and installing DirectX 11 helped, but what really madei t run smoothly for me was getting the application DXWnd. There's even a profile for Star Trek Bridge Commander included in DXWnd. Newer software doesn't use DirectX like older software, so older software on newer machines (and hardware) can get confused. DXWnd helps correct for this.

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.

I've found that if using NVidia with a newer GPU and playing an old game I sometimes get stuttering unless I go to NVidia 3D settings for that game and enable low latency mode. For some reason older games can periodically stutter without that setting enabled.

That fixed this game for me.

(Sorry for digging up extremely old threads, the thread/topic cross posting, and note that some of this is copy and paste from elsewhere.)

I have the problems as others have posted in this thread. I didn't buy the game on GOG, but rather bought a boxed CD version from EBay about a month ago.

I've installed the game, updated the game to version 1.1, and am using a NO-CD executable to minimize problems.

For several weeks everything was running smoothly, and then about two weeks ago, BAM... my framerate went to crap. I spent a day trying to sort this out to no avail.

I have a ZIP that I created of the freshly installed and patched game when I first installed it, so I can simply unzip that in order to ensure that no files are corrupt or missing. I also have a backup of my "Options.cfg" file as well. After the framerate problem, I unzipped the entire game from my ZIP, and still had the same problem. The problem was still there even after trying various Windows compatibility settings.

I finally gave up, but a day or two later decided to try running the game again. All of the framerate problems were GONE, and the game was running fluid smooth.

Fast forward to yesterday, two weeks after the issues described above, and after the game started running smoothly again:

BAM! Same problem... the framerate is terrible, and for NO apparent reason (?)!

I'm running Windows 10 and have completely disabled Windows updates when I first got this PC (about two years ago), so there have been NO updates to Windows at all.

It really doesn't make any sense: The game runs fine, a few weeks later is choppy and stuttering, a day later runs fine, and then two weeks later starts running poorly again... which is where I'm at right now.

Like I said, there have been no updates to Windows, and I have restored the game from the ZIP backup that I had made (twice). There have been NO changes to my graphics drivers or settings. I've also tried various Windows compatibility settings, as well as lowering ALL of the graphics options to their lowest settings within the game. With the graphic options and resolution set to minimum, of course the games looks like CRAP, but it STILL runs choppy (although with poor graphics).

I've also tried rebooting my PC. 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. I always power down my PC when I'm not using it, so it's restarted several times a day.

I even tried the "dgVoodoo" DirectX wrapper, and that didn't help either.

This is the strangest problem, as it was running just fine for the past couple of weeks. That is, since two weeks ago 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!

Anyhow, I've read several old messages here in the forums (and elsewhere on the internet) referring to this exact problem (e.g. "Did this, and it fixed it." / "Problem came back." / Did something else, and it fixed it." / "Problem came back." / etc... etc...). Can anyone shed any light on this?

P.S. Even though I originally bought the game from EBay a month ago, I actually just created an account and purchased the game from here at GOG... JUST so I could post this message LOL!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
UPDATE: PROBLEM FREAKIN' SOLVED!

(Note that I had the above message already typed up and saved to a text file BEFORE that I realized I had to wait 48 hours to post it here <aarrgghh>. Below is what I have discovered during my wait.)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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 power my PC down 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" (or "Fast Startup", as they call it now). 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" (the forum won't let me post a link <aarrgghh>, use Google for a link to the web page).

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++" (the forum won't let me post a link <aarrgghh>, use Google for a link to the web page) 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 can confirm new install on win 10, on my ryzen 5650u thinkpad, all that was needed was a quick reboot. Thanks for the info on this thread!