PGA Championship Golf '99 (Demo Version) 11/23/99 Readme File Thank you for trying the PGA Championship Golf '99 demo version. This document includes information about general questions you may have concerning the game or your computer. Should you experience any problems with PGA Championship Golf '99, please refer to this file for additional help on answering questions about the game and solving technical difficulties. *********************************************************************** PGA Championship Golf '99 Full Version includes the features included in this demo version, plus the following: * 8 18-hole Championship-quality courses, including Sahalee Country Club, Royal Birkdale Golf Course and Jocasee Shoals, created using the Course Architect * Twelve types of play including Skins, Medal, Stableford and Match * Fully customizable male and female golfer personalities * Full functionality of the PGA Golf Course Architect, including uploading and downloading of user-created courses, additional art and sound libraries and the Course Manager * Tournament-style commentary by PGA Tour Radio's Grant Boone and The Golf Channel's Mark Lye * FREE Online play via WON.net, featuring casual tournaments to sponsored events offering money and other prizes * $29.95 Suggested Retail Price *********************************************************************** TABLE OF CONTENTS I. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS II. INSTALLATION III. GENERAL TECHNICAL ISSUES IV. GENERAL GAME ISSUES V. CREATING A BOOTDISK VI. CONTACTING SIERRA I. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ----------------------- MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS Windows 95 Pentium 133 processor 32MB RAM 4X CD ROM 65MB Free Hard Disk Space required for Installation (not including DirectX drivers), 25Mb additional required when game is run 640x480, 16 bit Color Sound card with DAC PREFERRED Windows 95 PentiumII 266 64MB RAM 8xCD ROM 100MB Free Hard Disk Space (not including DirectX drivers) 1024x768, 16bit Color Sound card with DAC II. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS ------------------------------ 1. Double-click the pga99demo.exe from the location on your computer where you placed the downloaded demo file. 2. Follow the on-screen prompts to install the program. DirectX 6.1 must be installed on your computer for PGA Championship Golf '99 to run correctly. III. GENERAL TECHNICAL ISSUES ----------------------------- Please refer to the On-Line Manual, or section IV for specific game or technical questions. For information on accessing the On-Line Manual, see section IV. INSTALLATION PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS Problem: Your computer fails the Sound Card test under the Windows setup; you cannot hear the voice in the wave test. Solution: Your sound card may be incorrectly configured for Windows, assuming that your system has one. PGA Championship Golf '99 does not require a sound card, and will run perfectly without one. However if your system does have a sound card, you may want to contact your computer or sound card manufacturer for assistance. Problem: Your computer fails the Display test under the Windows setup; you get a message saying "Your video display supports 16 colors...." Solutions: Sierra's Windows games require that Windows is running in 256 or better color mode. Even though your monitor and video card may be capable of displaying 256 colors, Windows may not be set up to use this resolution. PGA Championship Golf '99 plays best in 1024x768 at 16bit High Color. To check this, right click your screens background, go to Properties. When the Display Properties box appears, click on settings. Here you will see what mode you are running in, 16 colors, 256 colors, etc..(Color palette) and what screen size, 640x480 , 800x600 , etc...(Desktop area). After changing to the correct Color and Desktop size, click on the Apply box. You will get a "...you must restart your computer..." dialog box. Click O.K. Your system will reboot and when it comes back into Windows 95 your settings should be set to what PGA Championship Golf needs to properly run. Or you will see a "Windows will now resize your desktop..." dialog box. Follow the dialog boxes and Confirm the default choices of O.K. Problem: Your video card does not meet the pixels-per-second speed requirement for PGA Championship Golf '99. Solution: #1: Try running the game anyway to see how well it works. Many testers find the video test fails but the game works well. Other factors besides video performance will help the game run better, such as a faster CD-ROM drive or a faster CPU MHz speed. #2: Try setting your Display to 640x480, 256 colors. This may speed up the video performance. Question: Why is the tested MHz number different than your computer's marked MHz number? Explanation: These numbers should be close to each other. Our tests indicate that is the actual speed of the CPU when we ran our tests, not the rated speed. Any difference between these numbers will not affect gameplay. Note: On brand new processors, such as the Pentium Pro, the CPU type may be misidentified as a 386. For NextGen processor users, you can contact AMD/NEXGEN for utilities which may report more accurate processor speeds. This will have no effect on gameplay. Ignore this CPU report, if you feel it tested lower than it should have. Again, this is mainly used for tech-support reference only. DirectX INFORMATION PGA Championship Golf '99 is designed to use Microsoft's DirectX 6.1 software. Specifically, PGA Championship Golf '99 utilizes the DirectSound3D, DirectSound, and DirectPlay components of DirectX. Because of this YOU MUST have DirectX installed in order to play PGA Championship Golf '99. NOTE: Not all sound and video cards support DirectX, but most do. It is recommended that you refer to your hardware manufacturers to find out if your components are compatible with DirectX before installing it. In addition, some older modems might not work reliably with DirectPlay's modem features. GENERAL TIPS SYSTEM MEMORY INFORMATION Despite having sufficient RAM installed on your system to run the Sierra product that you purchased, you may find that you experience errors such as "Out of Movable Memory" or "Insufficient Memory" or other symptoms of low system resources such as slow performance. Sierra products are not designed to multitask and will operate best when given all possible free system resources. Here are the best ways to maximize available resources: Make a boot disk. A boot disk is a diskette that your system uses to restart with a minimal, standardized memory configuration. This configuration helps to assure that as much of the system's resources are available for your PGA Championship Golf '99 as possible. Additionally, the boot disk allows you to make changes to the memory environment that are strictly temporary in nature. See section V for instructions on creating a bootdisk. Shut down all active Windows programs in the Task List. Windows tends to load many utilities and programs automatically when it starts. To see a list of these, press on your keyboard. The only program that is required is Explorer. For all other tasks, highlight them individually and click on the "End Task" button. Disable alternate Windows desktop shells. There are many alternate Windows desktops available for computer systems; many of them come pre-installed. These included Norton Desktop for Windows, PC Desktop, Tabworks, Navigator and others. Disabling these will free up system resources. Specific instructions to disable them will vary by product, so you will need to check the desktop's documentation. Check virtual memory settings. Windows 95 creates a swap file to use hard drive space as a replacement for RAM memory. By default, the system handles these settings internally; however, if they are manually set problems can occur. To check the virtual memory settings, go to the Start menu, choose Settings and then Control Panel. Choose the System icon and the Performance tab. Select Virtual Memory and make sure that "Let Windows manage my virtual memory." is checked. If not, check it and click on Apply. Also, make sure that you have plenty of hard drive space as the swap file can be extremely large. To check how much hard drive space you have free, double click on "My Computer" on your Desktop and right-click on the drive Windows is running from (usually your C Drive). Select "Properties" and make sure that your Free Space is at least 20,000,000 Bytes (20 MegaBytes). For optimal performance, try to keep at least 40 MB available on your C:\ drive. This space is needed AFTER the game has been installed to the hard drive. Disable wallpaper on the desktop. The default Windows wallpaper selections take up a minimal amount of memory. On the other hand, custom pictures used as wallpaper are very memory-intensive. To disable them, go to the Start menu, choose Settings, Control Panel and then Display. Click on the Appearance tab and then set the Background option to (none). Click on Apply and then OK. DISPLAY SETTINGS: This game was designed and optimized for 16 bit Color and a resolution of 800x600. If you wish to play the game 256 colors or 640x480, you will lose some of the graphic quality and detail, however, the program should run without any problem. Some older graphics cards may not be able to run the game in High or True color. If your mouse cursor becomes very large and you aren't able to select anything after launching the game, or if the game runs very slowly or will not load at all, you are experiencing this problem. To correct this, go to your CONTROL PANEL, choose "Display" and click the Settings tab to change your color palette to 256 colors. Cursor Problems: If your cursor flashes or behaves erratically, you may not be using the standard Windows mouse settings. To verify this: 1. Click on Start, Settings, then select Control Panel 2. Double-click on the Mouse icon. 3. Click on the Pointers tab. 4. Set the Scheme to Windows Standard. 5. Click on the Motion tab. 6. Make sure that Show Pointer Trails is not checked. 7. Click on Apply, then OK. This will set Windows to using the standard mouse configuration. Disk Fragmentation: If your hard drive is highly fragmented, you may experience poor sound quality or performance in the game. If you find this is the case, defragging your hard drive with Win95's "Disk Defragmenter" should fix the problem. Network Support: Both the TCP and IPX network protocols are supported by the game. Modem Support: Head-to-Head modem play is supported through Microsoft's DirectX DirectPlay component. However, some older modems may not work reliably with this feature. Common symptoms are an inability to see or participate in a game after a connection is established. If you are having trouble connecting, check the modem settings from within DirectX and make sure that both modems have the same settings. If you are trying to connect at high speeds, try dropping down to a slower one. It is also recommended that you disable Error Correction and Data Compression. If none of these suggestions help, contact your modem manufacturer about DirectX compatibility. IV. GENERAL GAME ISSUES ---------------------------- ON-LINE MANUAL The on-line manual contains useful information about PGA Championship Golf '99, and can be accessed from the Start Menu or from within the game. To access it from the Start Menu; 1. Select Start from the Taskbar 2. Select Programs 3. Select Sierra 4. Select the PGA Championship Golf '99 Help option. Please refer to the on-line manual for tips on how to play the game, how to configure the game to allow it to perform well on your system, as well as for trouble-shooting tips. Because there were a number of changes and additions made to the game after the printed version of the manual was created, these changes were not included in the printed version. For that reason, the on-line manual should be considered the most up to date and accurate version of the two. ------------------------------PERFORMANCE---------------------------- DETAIL SETTINGS Performance can be improved by lowering the course detail settings, also found on the Course tab of the Game Options dialog. V. CREATING A WINDOWS 95 BOOTDISK ---------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT NOTE: Please read the entire instructions prior to starting at Step 1. STEP 1: FORMATTING THE DISK Place a high-density diskette that you do not have any information on in your A: drive. Then, open My Computer from the desktop and highlight the icon for Drive A:. Right-click on the icon and choose Format. In the resulting dialog box, make sure that checks are in the boxes for "Full" and "Copy System Files". Click on OK to start the process. STEP 2: COPYING THE MSDOS.SYS FILE While still in My Computer, double-click on the icon for the C: drive to open it. Look for the file called MSDOS.SYS in the list of files. If you cannot find it, click on the View menu, choose Options and then the View tab. Make sure that "Show all files" is checked and that "Hide MS DOS file extensions…" is NOT checked. Once you've found the file, right-click on it and choose Send To 3 ½ Floppy (A). You will be prompted to replace an existing file - click on OK. NOTE: Try your boot disk at this point by going to the Start menu and choosing Shutdown and Restart the Computer with the disk in your A: drive. If your computer has Windows '95 drivers for all of your hardware, it should work fine. Otherwise, continue this process. STEP 3: LOCATING THE CD ROM DEVICE DRIVER (Skip if you can access your CD when using the boot disk.) The CD ROM drive requires a device driver loaded in the CONFIG.SYS file if it does not have native Windows '95 support. To make sure that the device driver loads correctly on the boot disk, look at the CONFIG.SYS on the hard drive and copy the driver line from there. To display the CONFIG.SYS, go to the Start menu, choose Run, type in NOTEPAD C:\CONFIG.SYS and press . The CONFIG.SYS file will display on the screen. Look for the line that loads the CD ROM device driver. The line should look something like this: DEVICE=C:\DRV\CDROMDRV.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:220 The device driver in your CONFIG.SYS may differ somewhat from those listed above. Carefully write down the line for use in your boot disk. STEP 4: LOCATING THE SOUND CARD DRIVERS (Skip if sound works properly when using the boot disk.) Some sound cards have drivers or initialization lines that must be loaded in the AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS. The attached Sound Card Configuration supplement contains the sound card lines for many common sound cards If your sound card is on this list, you will need to add the appropriate lines to the AUTOEXEC.BAT and/or CONFIG.SYS on your boot disk. If your sound card is not listed, you should check your documentation for information on what needs to load in the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS. STEP 5: CREATING THE CONFIG.SYS FILE To create the CONFIG.SYS file on the boot disk, go to the Start menu. Choose Run, type in NOTEPAD A:\CONFIG.SYS and press . Enter the CD ROM and/or sound card driver lines that you have written down in Notepad. When done, choose , and . STEP 6: CREATING THE AUTOEXEC.BAT FILE To create the AUTOEXEC.BAT file on the boot disk, go to the Start menu. Choose Run, type in NOTEPAD A:\ AUTOEXEC.BAT and press . If you need to run any sound card initialization programs or load any drivers, copy them from the "Sound Cards" section now. Finally, if you are loading a CD ROM driver in the CONFIG.SYS file, you will need to load the MSCDEX DOS CD ROM extension. You will need to know the /D: parameter on the CD ROM driver; the /D: parameter on the example in Step 2 is italicized. Add the following line: C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX /D:MSCD001 /M:12 When done, choose , and . STEP 7: REBOOT THE SYSTEM AND START WINDOWS Restart your system with the disk in drive A:. Go to the Start menu, select Shut Down and then check Restart The Computer? and click OK. STEP 8: CREATE A CLEAN WINDOWS ENVIRONMENT Make sure there are not any non-essential tasks running before starting the game. Press to bring up a Close Windows dialog box. Explorer is mandatory. For all other items, highlight them and click on End Task. Repeat the process until all are disabled. Now you can use your product! VI .CONTACTING SIERRA --------------------------- A) Customer Service and Sales B) Legal Information A) Customer Service and Sales ---------------------------------- United States U.S.A. Sales Phone: (800) 757-7707 International Sales: (425) 746-5771 Hours: Monday-Saturday 7AM to 11 PM CST, Sundays 8 AM to 9PM CST FAX: (402) 393-3224 Sierra Direct 7100 W. Center Rd STE 301 Omaha, NE 68106 United Kingdom Havas Interactive Main: (0118) 920-9111 Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Fax: (0118) 987-5603 Disk/CD replacements in the U.K. are £6.00, or £7.00 outside the UK. Add "ATTN.: Returns." 2 Beacontree Plaza, Gillette Way, Reading, Berkshire RG2 0BS United Kingdom France Havas Interactive Téléphone: 01-46-01-46-50 Lundi au Jeudi de 10h à 19h Vendredi de 10h à 18h Fax: 01-46-30-00-65 Parc Tertiaire de Meudon Immeuble "Le Newton" 25 rue Jeanne Braconnier 92366 Meudon La Forêt Cedex France Germany Havas Interactive Tel: (0) 6103-99-40-40 Montag bis Freitag von 9h - 19Uhr Fax: (0) 6103-99-40-35 Robert-Bosh-Str. 32 D-63303 Dreieich Germany On-Line Sales CompuServe United Kingdom:GO UKSIERRA CompuServe France: GO FRSIERRA CompuServe Germany: GO DESIERRA Internet USA: http://www.sierra.com Internet United Kingdom: http://www.sierra-online.co.uk Internet France: http://www.sierra.fr Internet Germany: http://www.sierra.de B) Sierra Warranty & Legal Information ----------------------------------- Sierra's end user license agreement, limited warranty and return policy is set forth in the EULA.txt, found on the CD, and is also available during the install of the product. Copyright (1999 Sierra On-Line, Inc.) MICROSOFT SDK LICENSE AGREEMENT This End User License Agreement grants you a limited license to use the Redistributable Code licensed to Sierra On-Line, Inc. by Microsoft Corporation, Inc. together with Microsoft operating system products. All intellectual property rights in Microsoft's Redistributable Code contained in this product belong exclusively to Microsoft Corporation, Inc.