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HP Envy Windows 8.1 Laptop STO Compatibility/Setup Guide

gulberatgulberat Member Posts: 5,505 Arc User
I actually do not have a problem anymore--at least I THINK I have most if not all of my issues with STO and this new laptop ironed out now, but I wanted to post this for anyone else who may have just bought one of these computers and is having frustrations trying to get into and use STO.

Basically, your HP Envy will NOT play STO out of the box. You will need to do some updating and change some settings to make that happen.

1) Your first thing to do should be to update your graphics drivers. I had the Nvidia GeForce GPU--I don't know if the Intel card will present the same problem, but when I first tried to get into STO, I could not log in at all; it just stuck on the loading screen or got caught in a loop or crashed. Fixing this required downloading and updating to the latest drivers. Other Win 8.1 users have reported the same thing and you can see it on Microsoft.com. So most likely, driver update is mandatory as soon as you get the new computer.

2) You will need to disable two settings right off the bat, on your trackpad should you be planning on playing at any time without a mouse. To do this, go to Control Panel and click on the Synaptics box. (You will have to expand the Control Panel to see all of your choices.)

2a) Disable SmartSense. This is critical or else you cannot have keyboard and trackpad input simultaneously. Obviously a killer in space combat.

2b) Disable Edge Swipe. Wonder why your Charms Bar and other toolbars come up at random while using the trackpad? This will stop it from happening. If you have a touchscreen, I recommend using that exclusively if you need the Charms Bar for anything. If you do not, you can still get to it through keyboard commands, etc. You don't want the Charms Bar popping on you in the middle of an STF--major pain in the rear.

3) Remember that STO is not fully touchscreen compatible, should you have a touchscreen laptop. You CAN get away with some touchscreen use in stuff like DOFFing, but it will take a double click to emulate a single click and the sensitivity/precision of the screen is NOT sufficient for activating your powers in battle unless you're really good.

4) It may not look it, but you DO have right and left click buttons on your trackpad. They are at the bottom part of the trackpad, but there is no visible button to indicate that you do. If anyone needs help finding them I can take a pic of my trackpad and circle the areas where you will find the buttons.


This may help you guys if you just got one of these laptops. While I am overall enjoying the laptop the number of quirks I had to deal with in getting set up for STO merited passing these tips along. If I run into anything else as I continue to get reacclimated to the game, I will let you guys know!

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