***************************************************************************** H Y P E R 3 D P I N B A L L V I R G I N I N T E R A C T I V E E N T E R T A I N M E N T Contents of README.TXT: * Minimum / Recommended Requirements * Windows 95 Compatibility * Memory Requirements * Video Card Compatibility * Sound Card Setup and Compatibility * CD-ROM Drives and Drivers Notes * In-game Music * Miscellaneous Notes and Hints * How to Make a Boot Disk * Technical Support ***************************************************************************** Thank you for purchasing Hyper 3D Pinball from Virgin Interactive Entertainment. While we have tried to maintain complete cross compatibility across all PC systems that fall within the basic requirements of Hyper 3D Pinball 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. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS -------------------- 486-DX33, 8MB RAM (16MB required to run from a Windows 95 DOS box), 2X CD-ROM drive, MSCDEX 2.2 or higher, a sound card with FM and PCM sound and DOS drivers, hard drive with 2MB free, SVGA video card with 1MB RAM, DOS 5.0 or higher. RECOMMENDED ----------- 486-DX266 or higher, 16MB RAM, VLB SVGA video card WINDOWS 95 COMPATIBILITY ------------------------- While we have tried to maintain compatibility with Windows 95 there may be some instances where Hyper 3D Pinball may not run correctly when launched from Windows 95. There are two things to try to get Hyper 3D Pinball running correctly: 1. Once you've installed Hyper 3D Pinball 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)" if you're not familiar with this process. 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. 3. Please note that most machines will need at least 16MB RAM to run Hyper 3D Pinball straight from Windows 95. 4. Some newer machines ship with Windows 95 drivers only. Because Hyper 3D Pinball is a DOS game it may not function properly on these machines. Contact the computer manufacturer regarding DOS drivers. MEMORY REQUIREMENTS ------------------- Hyper 3D Pinball 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 utilize 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 or see the HELP! booklet included in the box. - 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. - 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. Actual memory requirements vary from table to table. Below is a list of the tables in each resolution and the actual amount of memory they require. If you are wondering why certain combinations of a view won't work on your configuration it's probably because you don't have enough free Extended or Expanded memory. See "Making a boot disk" further on in this document should memory become a problem. Here are the requirements for each resolution and view: +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 3DLORES| MB640 | 2D | MB+2D | 3DSCR | 3D+MB | 3D+2D|3D,MB+2D| MB800 | SFX | | | | | (640) | (640) | | | +------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|------+ R-KING | | | | | | | | | ------ | | | | | | | | | 2860577|1086624|1685254|2069221|4883778|5267745|5866375|6250342|1249264|0460088 | | | | | | | | | F-FAIR | | | | | | | | | ------ | | | | | | | | | 2877340|1027488|1767843|2155599|5459179|5846935|6587290|6975046|1200017|0341700 | | | | | | | | | HORROR | | | | | | | | | ------ | | | | | | | | | 3308498|1130688|1729873|2130334|5920256|6320717|6919902|7320363|1298636|0742086 | | | | | | | | | GANG | | | | | | | | | ---- | | | | | | | | | 3115517|1096662|1979797|2373122|5610567|6003892|6887027|7280352|1263404|0522889 | | | | | | | | | S-QUEST| | | | | | | | | -------| | | | | | | | | 3056218|1126092|1949413|2348107|5559173|5957867|6781188|7179882|1293222|0565886 | | | | | | | | | MYST | | | | | | | | | ---- | | | | | | | | | 2951691|1042436|1635581|2028212|5321327|5713958|6307103|6699734|1209175|0676870 | | | | | | | | | =============================================================================== 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 Hyper 3D Pinball. This helps to ensure VESA compatibility on all of the most popular cards available. Hyper 3D Pinball 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 If you have either of these cards and experience problems please make sure to play in SAFE MODE. SOUND CARD SETUP AND COMPATIBILITY ---------------------------------- Hyper 3D Pinball has been programmed to play its sound effects through all popular digital sound cards that are fitted with DOS drivers. Some Windows 95 only machines might not have come with DOS drivers, but you can play with no sound by running the manual sound setup (see below). When installing Hyper 3D Pinball 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 SETSOUND 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 SETSOUND 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 ------------------------- Hyper 3D Pinball has been programmed to work on most 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 Hyper 3D Pinball 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. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND HINTS ----------------------------- * If you don't install the animations to your hard drive they won't play as fast on slower machines, but you'll save a lot of hard drive space. Please note that you will still get all animations in the game- you won't miss anything (we promise). * For 800x600 mode you may have to adjust your monitor to move the display to the center of your screen. * The Star Quest 2049 table has a "no choice" plunger, meaning that it only has one launch position. For a nice bonus, time your launch to hit the space ship that is speeding along in the dot matrix display! * Some ramps are very steep! This may be hard to see from some views. If you shoot a ball up a ramp and it comes back around, you'll need to hit the ball harder to make it around. Give it more umph! * To view the high scores, select a table from the main menu and press the H key. 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 Hyper 3D Pinball. 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 Hyper 3D Pinball. 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 Hyper 3D Pinball. 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. TECHNICAL SUPPORT ----------------- You may contact Virgin Interactive Entertainment's technical support department at: - 714-833-1999 24hr automated support - 714-833-1999 Live technical support (Mon-Fri 8-5 PST) - 714-833-2001 FAX - 714-833-3305 BBS - www.vie.com World Wide Web *************************************************************************** Copyright (c) 1995 NMS Software, Ltd. Licensed exclusively to Virgin Interactive Entertainment (Europe) Ltd. Hyper 3D Pinball is a trademark of Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Inc. Virgin is a registered trademark of Virgin Enterprises, Ltd. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************************