PSYCHO PINBALL HELP FILE ------------------------ PSYCHO is a DOS program. Do not try to install or run from within Windows 3.0 or 3.1. You should choose EXIT WINDOWS from the FILE menu of the PROGRAM MANAGER to get to the DOS prompt. We have tried our best to make this game install and run as easily as possible. However, due to the incredible variety of PC's, soundcards, video cards, system settings and other software that may be on your system, there may be circumstances where the game does not work first time. This file is designed to help you adjust things so that the game runs, if you are having problems. There follows sections on: 1. MEMORY PROBLEMS 2. SOUND PROBLEMS 3. DISPLAY PROBLEMS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. MEMORY PROBLEMS:- The game requires 3400K of free system memory. On a typical 4Meg (or more) machine there should be this much free. However, if your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files contain lots of commands that load programs in, that take away your system memory, then you may not have enough. The way to free up memory is to remove offending lines in these files, and then re-boot your system. See your DOS manual for details on CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. So that you can easily get your system back to how it was after you have played Psycho Pinball it is a good idea to make a backup copy of these files, which can then be restored afterwards. So, the procedure is as follows: ("Not enough memory to run game" error displayed after PSYCHO (enter)) Please Note:- All of the following instructions 1 to 8 should be carried out, while in your "root" directory. e.g. your prompt should be C:\ not C:\PSYCHO. 1. COPY CONFIG.SYS CONFIG.OLD (enter) 2. COPY AUTOEXEC.BAT AUTOEXEC.OLD (enter) 3. EDIT CONFIG.SYS (enter) and delete any commands that you suspect may be taking memory away - but not ones that will be required for your soundcard, or CD drive (if applicable). 4. EDIT AUTOEXEC.BAT (enter) and delete any commands that you suspect may be taking memory away - but not ones that will be required for your soundcard, or CD drive (if applicable). The most likely offenders are SMARTDRV, EMM386, QEMM and anything with the word CACHE in it. 5. Re-boot your system 6. MEM (enter) to see if you have succeeded in freeing up enough memory to play the game - if not edit CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT some more, if in doubt chop it out! 7. Try running PSYCHO again. 8. If you have had to take things out of your CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT files, in order to get the game to run, then you will almost certainly have to put them back in to make other applications on your system function properly. Let's face it, this is not good fun. If you do find yourself having to do this, to get the game to run, then why not make a copy of your game CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, once you have got it working. So, :- COPY CONFIG.SYS GAMECONF.SYS COPY AUTOEXEC.BAT GAMEAUTO.BAT Then :- COPY CONFIG.OLD CONFIG.SYS COPY AUTOEXEC.OLD AUTOEXEC.BAT to get things back to the setup you had before you started. Now, instead of going through all of that, every time you want to play PSYCHO, just do the following :- COPY GAMECONF.SYS CONFIG.SYS COPY GAMEAUTO.BAT AUTOEXEC.BAT Reboot, play, and if you want to go back to your original setup again :- COPY CONFIG.OLD CONFIG.SYS COPY AUTOEXEC.OLD AUTOEXEC.BAT Helpful Hint! Later versions of MS DOS have a menu system for your setup files CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Look in your DOS manual under "MENUITEM". Using this, you can have a menu of setups, every time you boot up your PC. i.e. You can choose 1 for A "Normal" Setup, 2 for "Games" etc. ALTERNATE METHOD - Boot from a System Disk If you do not want to change your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files you can cause your system to boot off a floppy disk by creating a System Disk. Please see your DOS manual (under the FORMAT command) for details. You can then copy your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files onto this disk. When you power-on with the floppy in drive A it will be these files, not the files on your hard drive, that will be used. This way you can edit them to remove all lines that do not relate to your sound card or CD drive without being concerned that you may mess up your system settings. So, the procedure would be as follows: 1. Create a System Disk, see your DOS manual under FORMAT for details. e.g. type FORMAT A: /S (enter) with a BLANK disk in the drive!!! 2. Type COPY C:\CONFIG.SYS A:\CONFIG.SYS (enter) 3. Type COPY C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT A:\AUTOEXEC.BAT (enter) 4. Type EDIT A:\CONFIG.SYS (enter) Then delete all lines that do not relate to your sound card or CD drive (if applicable) and save the file. 5. Type EDIT A:\AUTOEXEC.BAT (enter) Then delete all lines that do not relate to your sound card or CD drive (if applicable) and save the file. 6. Turn your machine on or reset it with the System Disk in drive A. 7. Run PSYCHO, e.g type C: (enter) type CD \PSYCHO (enter) type PSYCHO (enter) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. SOUND PROBLEMS:- If you have selected your card's settings in the SOUND utility, and the game still produces no sound, or crashes, then it is most likely that you have one of the following problems:- 1/ If the game crashes when you try to run it, then it is most likely that some other device is conflicting with your sound card. Please ensure that no other cards, share the same settings. Remember that all devices must have a seperate address and interrupt. On some PC's, mice tend to have inconvenient interrupts i.e. Interrupt 5. 2/ If the game runs, but with no sound, then it is most likely that the game cannot find your sound card. This may be a problem on Soundblaster compatibles which are not 100% compatible, although we have not found any problems on the ones that we have tried. Other than this, it is most likely that your card is not set up correctly, or is set to values that conflict with other devices. Or, it is possible that you have entered values that are not the same as the card settings. Please refer to you sound card manual for specific instructions on how to choose and set the settings. INCOMPATIBLE SETTINGS !!! It should be noted that interrupt values above 7 cannot be used. This restriction is common to many games, and if you currently have it set to a higher value you will have to change the setting to either 2,3,5 or 7. Refer to your sound card manual for details on how to do this. A FEW EXTRA WORDS... If you really have no idea what your card's settings are, then you are best advised to choose the card, then select the option "I have no idea ...". What this does is leave all your existing settings alone and when the game runs it will try to detect the settings of your card. If you have your card set up correctly using the software that came with it, then this option should work. Therefore, it is probably best to follow this procedure:- a/ If you definitely know your settings, select them. b/ If you are not quite sure, select the "Don't know" option. However, bear in mind that if you have tried to select the settings manually, and got something wrong, then you will have changed your sound card software settings. So, you will have to reboot to re-initialise your card. Then select "Don't Know" and the game will go by your software's settings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. DISPLAY PROBLEMS:- a) Problem: Game screen garbled or "rolling" or "flickering". Solution: The option screens use the most standard of VGA modes, and so should work on all VGA cards and monitors. However, the game itself uses a different mode which is higher resolution. This works on most VGA cards and monitors, but may cause the above effects on some systems. To correct this problem simply go to the OPTIONS screen in the game and change the setting RESOLUTION from HIGH to LOW. This will cause the game to play in the most standard of VGA modes, the same as the option screens. b) Problem: Ball seems to "jerk" occasionally, or slow down during play, especially during Multi ball. Solution: The game attempts to auto detect the speed and power of your machine so that it can choose the appropriate computer speed setting. This is so that a slower machine will not be required to do quite as much work as a faster machine, and therefore should still be able to play the game at the correct speed. Occasionally this auto detect may not select the best speed. If this happens you will notice the above problem. To correct this simply go to the OPTIONS screen in the game and choose a slower setting.