Thank you for purchasing Tilt! from Virgin Interactive Entertainment. While we have tried to maintain complete cross compatibility across all PC systems that fall within the basic requirements of Tilt! there may be some configurations that the game will not run correctly on. Following you'll find a few things to try and help you get the most from your game. Memory requirements ------------------- Tilt! has a basic requirement of a PC with 8mb RAM. However, players with 16mb or more will benefit greatly as the game will see your extended memory and utilise it as best as possible. The game does require quite a large amount of extended memory to operate and we highly recommend you generate a boot disk. General directions of how to do this follow further down the document. - 320 x 200 mode This screen mode only allows the 3D Scrolling view. While this is not as graphically appealing as the 640 X 480 or 800 X 600 views, it makes for full screen, fast, frenetic and fun pinball- try it out! This mode will work on all 8mb PCs. - 640 X 480 mode If your PC is only fitted with 8mb, you will not be able to load all three 640x480 views (2D Scrolling, 3D Scrolling and 3D Full Screen) into memory at one time. You will be limited to either 3D Scrolling only or 2D Scrolling with 3D Full Screen. Players with 16mb or more will be able to load all three views into memory and switch dynamically between them during play. Some 8mb users may experience problems with this mode, ensure your entire XMS memory is free should you not be able to use this mode. See "making a boot disk" further down in this document. - 800 X 600 mode Or "Super Detail" mode as we like to call it! Only the 3D Full Screen view is available in this mode. This is an extra mode that became available to us with a combination of the logic and physics engine from 2D and 3D scrolling mode and as we had very high resolution graphics available to us from the Silicon Graphics workstations, we thought we'd throw it in. This mode will work on all 8mb PCs. Making a boot disk ------------------ If you have an 8mb PC it may be wise for you to generate a "boot disk". This is a disk that contains the minimum system startup information to run your computer, thus squeezing out as much free memory as possible. While we cannot be specific to your PC, we have included some general instructions on how to generate a boot disk. (again, some spacing was changed for clarity) 1, Format a blank floppy disk. To do this insert a blank or erasable disk into your floppy drive (normally A:) and from DOS type: FORMAT A: /S (followed by the RETURN key) From Windows 3.X, open the File Manager and select DISK then FORMAT, making sure to select the "Make System Disk" and ensuring the floppy disk drive is selected in the "Disk In:" box before clicking OK. In Windows '95 double click the "My Computer" icon to show your active devices. Select the floppy drive you inserted the disk into and click on FILE followed by FORMAT. Be sure to click on "Copy system files" before clicking "START". For other operating systems please check in your user manual on how to format floppy disks. 2, Once your disk is formatted you will need to copy over your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. These can be found in the root directory of your C:\ drive. 3, Once they are copied over you will need to edit the files to reduce the number of "memory hogging" startup programs you have running. Do this by either typing EDIT A:\AUTOEXEC.BAT and EDIT A:\CONFIG.SYS from DOS or you can load the files into NOTEPAD for Windows 3.x and '95. MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU ARE EDITING THE FILES ON THE FLOPPY DISK, NOT THE ONES ON YOUR HARD DISK. 4, When you have one of the files on screen you need to either remove or comment out lines (see below how to do this) that are not needed for Tilt!. Lines such as these below can be found in your CONFIG.SYS file: 1. DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CSP.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 2. DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:7 D:1 H:5 3. DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS 4. FILES=40 5. DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF 6. DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS 7. DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:MSCD000 /P:170,15 8. DOS=HIGH,UMB 9. DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SETVER.EXE 10. SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /P /E:1024 11. device=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1) 12. Country=044,850,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys 13. DEVICE=C:\SCSI\ASPI2DOS.SYS /D 14. DEVICE=C:\SCSI\DRIVER.SYS While a number of these are essential for day to day work on your PC, not all of them are needed to run Tilt!. In this example CONFIG.SYS file, the essential lines are likely to be 1, 2, 3, 7 (the CD Rom Driver) and 13 (should you want to keep your external SCSI devices operational. Lines like this can be found in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file: 1. SET SOUND=C:\SB16 2. SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6 3. SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0 4. C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S 5. C:\SB16\AWEUTIL /S 6. C:\SB16\SB16SET /P /Q 7. @ECHO OFF 8. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD000 /M:8 /L:E 9. C:\DOS\MOUSE 10. PROMPT $p$g 11. PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\DOS;C:\ 12. LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DOSKEY 13. C:\WINDOWS\WINST 14. mode con codepage prepare=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi) 15. mode con codepage select=850 16. keyb uk,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keyboard.sys While a number of these are essential for day to day work on your PC, not all of them are needed to run Tilt!. In this example AUTOEXEC.BAT file, the essential lines are likely to be numbers 2 (ESSENTIAL if you want sound effects), 4, 5, 6 and 8 (the other half of the CD ROM driver). To comment out a line, add the word REM (and a space) to the beginning of the line. This turns the line from a command to a REMark. For example, LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DOSKEY becomes REM LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DOSKEY. If editing out the unnecessary lines from your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files still leaves you without enough memory, make sure none of the lines start with DEVICEHIGH, LH or LOADHIGH. Replace DEVICEHIGH with DEVICE and remove any reference to LH or LOADHIGH. Once you have edited your files save them off to the floppy disk, replacing the ones you originally copied there. Leave your boot disk in drive A: and reset your PC to allow it to boot from the floppy disk. Video Card Compatibility ------------------------ While we have endeavoured to provide support for all video cards, there is always potential for some incompatibility among the thousands available and soon to be released cards. To ensure blanket compatibility, we have included the UNIVESA library in Tilt!. This helps to ensure VESA compatibility on all of the most popular cards available. Tilt! uses a video card trick to get ultra smooth, ultra fast action on its scrolling modes but this can cause some conflicts. Should you ever have any kind of screen corruption or problems with the dotmation in any scrolling mode, please make sure the large Safe/Fast Mode button in the bottom left of the main options page is set to SAFE MODE. Cards that are known to occasionally cause problems in Fast Mode are: ATI Mach 64 PCI Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM Diamond Stealth 64 VRAM If you have either of these cards and experience problems please make sure to play in SAFE MODE. Sound Card Setup and Compatibility ---------------------------------- Tilt! has been programmed to play its sound effects through all popular digital sound cards. When installing Tilt! the game checks the "SET BLASTER" statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If it can't find it you will need to manually set up the card settings by typing SETUP from the directory that you installed the game to. If the install program fails to find your SET BLASTER statement you will be asked to select your sound card and its settings. If you select the incorrect card or settings the program may crash. Should this happen, please reset your PC and re-run the SETUP utility in the directory where you installed the game and choose the correct settings for your sound card. If you don't know your settings please contact the sound card manufacturer for assistance. CD ROM drives and drivers ------------------------- Tilt! has been programmed to work on all CD ROM drives that are 2X speed or better. Improved performance will be achieved if your CD ROM is 3x speed or higher. If you experience reduced performance during animated sequences there are a couple of things to try. Ensure you have buffers set up on your MSCDEX line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT. This is typically included as a /m:## where the ## is the number of buffers. This should be set to a minimum of /m:16. Ensure you are using the most up to date version of MSCDEX. There are documented problems in versions of MSCDEX supplied with the original release of Windows 3.1. Please make sure you are using the MSCDEX that either came with DOS or with your CD ROM drive. In-Game Music ------------- In-game music in Tilt! is played directly from the CD itself as CD Audio tracks. This gives crisp and full sound. If you are getting sound effects but no CD music please check these things: 1. Make sure the settings on your sound card's mixer program are correctly set. Sometimes the CD audio volume control can either be set to 0 or can have the "mute" button clicked on. Both of these things will stop your CD audio from playing. 2. Make sure the internal audio cable is connected between your sound card and CD ROM drive. This is quite easy to check by playing an audio CD via either a DOS or Windows based CD player package. Windows comes with MEDIA PLAYER. You can also check that the music is playing by connecting headphones to the headphone socket on the front of your CD-ROM drive. WINDOWS '95 COMPATIBILITY ------------------------- While we have tried to maintain compatibility with Windows 95, there may be some instances where Tilt! may not run correctly when launched from Windows 95. There are two things to try to get Tilt! running correctly: 1. Once you've installed Tilt! you can add a PIF to the main 3DPINBAL.BAT file. Look under HELP in the Windows '95 START menu for "Optimizing an MSDOS Program (Editing PIF Files)". 2. From the START/Shut Down menu, select Restart your PC in MS-DOS mode. Make sure it is set up for using a CD-ROM drive. To return to Windows either reset your PC or type EXIT from the prompt. TECHNICAL SUPPORT ----------------- Should you require technical support on Tilt! Please contact us by mail at: Virgin Interactive Entertainment (Europe) Ltd. 2, Kensington Square, London, W8 5RB. Or by - Telephone: 0171 368 2266 Fax: 0171 468 2000 BBS: 0171 468 2022 Email : customer_support@vie.co.uk World Wide Web Site : http://www.vie.co.uk/vie HAVE FUN!