----------------------------- | WinQuake 0.992 readme.txt | | update | | 2/12/97 | ----------------------------- Implemented force_centerview. Fixed backspace bug in dedicated console. Made "player entering game" messages and "say" messages visible in dedicated console. Added description of -heapsize (how to change default memory allocation). Added description of "net play pauses every few seconds" bug. Added description of "playdemo fails across multiple levels" bug. Added hooks for QHost; however, WinQuake won't work with QHost until a new version of QHost 3.0, which uses the hooks, is released. QHost 3.0 will not work with WinQuake. Fixed bug where savegame descriptions weren't always terminated properly. Fixed bug where running -dedicated reset part of config.cfg to defaults. ----------------------------- | WinQuake 0.991 readme.txt | | update | | 2/10/97 | ----------------------------- Fixed problem with pre-1.07 (DOS) clients connecting to WinQuake. Got rid of "Starting Quake..." dialog when running -dedicated. Added -novbeaf switch to turn off VBE/AF support in case of problems, and updated documentation. Corrected Scitech's U.S. Mail address in documentation. Added joystick bug decriptions and workarounds. ---------------------------- | WinQuake 0.99 readme.txt | | | | 2/5/97 | ---------------------------- WinQuake (WQ) is a native Win32 version of Quake, and will run on either Win95 or Windows NT. It is designed to take advantage of whatever enhanced video and sound capabilities (such as DirectX or VESA video modes) are present, but has fallback functionality so it can run on any Win32 system, even if, for example, neither DirectX nor VESA is installed. You may experience problems running WQ on some systems, because driver and operating-system support for game functionality are not yet mature, and many bugs and incompatibilities remain. If you encounter what seems to be a bug, first please check through the list of known problems, below. If your problem doesn't appear on the list, please fill out and submit the WQ bug report at http://www.idsoftware.com/contact/. NOTE: This is version 0.99 of WinQuake; it is not a final, supported release. The material accompanying Quake is the reference for all non-Windows-related matters concerning WinQuake; in terms of gameplay, WQ is the same as Quake. This file contains Windows-related information only. The rest of this document is organized as follows: Installing WinQuake Common problems and workarounds A bit about how WQ video works Video command-line switches A bit about how WQ sound works Sound command-line switches ----------------------- | Installing WinQuake | ----------------------- In order to run WinQuake, you must first have Quake installed. Assuming Quake is installed in the standard directory, c:\quake, unzip wq099.zip into c:\quake. The following files from the zip file must be present in order for WQ to run: winquake.exe pmpro62.dll pmpro62f.dll wdir62.dll wdir62f.dll wdirnop.com wdirnop.pif Then you can run WinQuake by making c:\quake the current directory, typing "winquake" and pressing the Enter key. Alternatively, you can use wq.bat to run WinQuake. The wq batch file requires one parameter describing how to configure WQ for performance; just type "wq" to get a list of the five options. The first of the five options is wq fast This is the same as typing "winquake"; this runs WinQuake in an aggressive configuration that is likely to yield the best performance if it runs successfully on your system, but which has a risk of causing WinQuake or even your system to crash if there are bugs or incompatibilities in your video or sound drivers. Alternatively, you can use wq safe to run WinQuake in a conservative configuration, likely to run on almost all machines with no problems, but possibly with slower graphics, fewer high-resolution modes, and delayed sound. Or you can run wq verysafe to run WinQuake in a very conservative configuration that is pretty much guaranteed to run, but will probably have slow performance, and will have no sound. Two other options are wq fastvid which has maximum video performance, but greater sound latency (delay until the sound is heard), and wq fastsnd which uses more conservative video modes, but low-latency sound. (One odd note is that DirectSound has much lower-latency sound than wave sound, but is currently quite a bit slower overall. Thus you may find that "wq fastvid" is actually faster, by as much as 5-10%, than "wq fast"; however, it may not feel faster, because the sound will lag.) Note that DirectX is not required for WQ to run, but WQ will automatically take advantage of DirectSound and DirectDraw if they are present. If DirectSound is not present, there will generally be considerable sound latency (sound will become audible several hundred milliseconds after the event that caused it). Note also that there are currently no true DirectSound drivers for Windows NT, so WQ will always run using wave output on NT, and will consequently have lagged sound. See below for information about obtaining DirectX if you do not have it. Note that VESA modes aren't required for WQ to run, but WQ will automatically make VESA modes available if they're present. Your BIOS may already have VESA (VBE) 2.0 support built in, but most BIOSes don't. An easy way to get reliable VESA 2.0 support is by obtaining Scitech's Display Doctor; see below for further information. WQ can also use VBE/AF 1.0 and greater modes; again, Display Doctor is the commonest way to get VBE/AF support. Note that winquake -dedicated completely replaces the old winded dedicated Win32 server, which is now obsolete. WinQuake normally uses half the physical memory in your system for its heap, but not less than 8.5 Mb and not more than 16 Mb. You can override this with "-heapsize xxx", where xxx is the amount of memory to allocate for the heap, in Kb. ----------------------------------- | Common problems and workarounds | ----------------------------------- WQ crashes or won't run ----------------------- If WQ refuses to run or crashes on your system, try running it using "wq safe" or "wq verysafe". Or you can use command-line switches: winquake -nodirectdraw -nowindirect -wavonly This will almost certainly solve your problem; however, it may result in lagged sound (a long delay from action to hearing the sound), and may result in fewer or slower high-res video modes. If this does work, you can try removing each of the command-line switches until you identify the one that fixes the problem, thereby sacrificing as little functionality as possible. If the above command line does not fix your problems, try: winquake -dibonly -nosound which forces WQ into silent operation with bare-bones video support. Again, if this works, try removing switches until you identify the needed one. Both of the above command lines are quick fixes. Often, the problem is caused by outdated or buggy DirectX drivers or code, and can frequently be completely fixed simply by installing the latest Microsoft-supplied version of DirectX, which you may be able to find on http://www.microsoft.com/mediadev/download/directx.exe, although availability and location of the DirectX file seems to come and go; note that at last check, this is a 3.4 Mb file. (In fact, getting the latest MS-supplied version of DirectX is a good idea if you have any video or sound problem.) One known problem of this sort involves the current SB16 drivers from Creative Labs, which cause WQ to crash on some machines. The DirectSound drivers from Microsoft, available via the above-mentioned URL, fix this problem. It can also sometimes help to get the latest Windows drivers for your video adapter or sound card (although as the SB16 example indicates, this is not always a good idea), and for video boards that have flash BIOSes, it can help to get the latest BIOS upgrade. How do I select fullscreen or windowed WQ operation? ---------------------------------------------------- Check out WQ's new, spiffy Video menu, accessible from the Options menu. There are now two types of modes listed, windowed and fullscreen. You can make any of these modes the current and/or default mode, just as in DOS Quake. If you make a windowed mode the default, WQ will still briefly start up in fullscreen mode, then switch to windowed; if this is a problem, use the -startwindowed command-line switch. More complete video control is available through the console, as described in the "A bit about how WQ video works" section, below. Gee, I wish I could use a mouse to play WQ with when running in a window ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You can! While in a windowed mode, go to the Options menu. At the bottom, you'll find a new selection that lets you choose to have the mouse active when you're in a window. Of course, if you do this, you'll have to use the keyboard (Alt-Tab, the Windows key, or Ctrl-Esc) to switch away from WQ. WQ crashes when Alt-Tabbing from fullscreen WQ to a fullscreen DOS box ---------------------------------------------------------------------- We are in the process of fixing this problem, but currently you should never Alt-Tab from a fullscreen WQ session using a DirectDraw or VESA mode or VGA mode 0x13 to a fullscreen DOS box. (You can tell whether a mode is a DirectDraw or VESA mode or VGA mode 0x13 by using vid_describemodes in the console, as discussed below.) If this is a particular problem for you, try running -dibonly. Apart from switching to a fullscreen DOS box, Alt-Tab, Ctrl-Esc, and the Windows Key should work properly. Serial/modem menu is missing ---------------------------- WQ does not currently support direct connect serial or modem play. WQ causes dial-in networking popup to come up --------------------------------------------- Occasionally, WQ seems to cause the dial-in networking popup to come up when WQ is run in single-player mode. We're checking into it. Multiple Alt-Tabs sometimes leave screen blank ---------------------------------------------- Sometimes, rapidly pressing Alt-Tab multiple times leaves a blank screen. If this happens, just press Alt-Tab slowly one or two more times, and the screen will come back. DOS Quake reports unknown variables on startup after running WQ --------------------------------------------------------------------- WQ uses some console variables that do not exist in DOS Quake, and some of these are automatically archived in config.cfg when you exit WQ. If you then start DOS Quake, DOS Quake will complain that it doesn't recognize those variables. You will also lose the settings of these variables when you return to WQ. Apart from losing the settings, this is harmless; ignore it. Can't run fullscreen on NT 3.51 ------------------------------- Unfortunately NT 3.51 doesn't support DirectDraw or any other mode- setting mechanism. You can run in a window, though. Ctrl-Alt-Del does bad things when running fullscreen ---------------------------------------------------- We're working to fix this one, but it's true that in DirectDraw and VESA fullscreen modes, Ctrl-Alt-Del on Win95 results in a blank screen. Try not to do this, and if you do, hit Esc to return to WQ. (DON'T hit Enter, because that kills WQ, and then you're stuck there with a blank screen and no way to get back to the desktop.) WQ crashes while switching modes or Alt-Tabbing ----------------------------------------------- So far, all cases of this seem to be tied to Creative Lab's SB16 sound drivers, and have been fixed by getting the latest DirectX drivers, as described above. Alternatively, you should be able to fix this either by not switching modes or Alt-Tabbing, or by running -wavonly to disable DirectSound support. The maximize box on the WQ window doesn’t work ---------------------------------------------- It’s not supposed to; it’s grayed out. You don’t want to run a fullscreen window at your desktop resolution; it’d be really slow. That’s why we have all those nifty lower-resolution fullscreen modes in the Video menu. WQ sometimes runs pretty slowly fullscreen ------------------------------------------ There are several possible reasons for this, starting with "You have a slow computer." Assuming that's not the case, if you don't have either DirectDraw or Scitech Display Doctor installed (see the "A bit about how WQ video works" section), it would probably be a good thing to install one or the other, because slow operation can be a result of slow copying or stretching of pixels to the screen by a Windows driver, something that's eliminated by both DirectDraw and Display Doctor. The -noforcevga command-line switch can also help produce a faster 320x200 mode on Win95 (but may not work on some video cards); you can get the same result by doing vid_describemodes, then using vid_mode to select a non-VGA 320x200 mode, as described in the "A bit about how WQ video works" section. You can also try using a primary sound buffer on Win95 (it doesn't work on NT) by using the -primarysound command-line switch; this can improve performance by several percent, but does not work on all systems, and can result in odd sound effects on some systems when minimizing WQ or switching the focus away from it. If you use this switch, please don't report sound bugs; it's in there purely for you to use if it helps you, and we know it has problems on many systems. Finally, you can use -wavonly to select wave sound; this will increase your sound latency (sounds will be heard later than they should), but allows WQ to run 5-10% faster on some systems. That's about all you can do to speed up fullscreen WQ on Win95, other than shrinking the active area of the screen. NT 4.0 comes with DirectX installed, but doesn't have any resolutions lower than 640x480. In order to support a lower-resolution 320x240 mode, WQ has NT double each pixel in both directions to get enough pixels for 640x480. The extra stretching costs some performance, the result being that NT can seem sluggish on all but high-end Pentiums and Pentium Pros. (In fact, depending on the quality of your driver's stretching code, it can sometimes be faster to run WQ at 640x480 than 320x240-stretched on NT.) One thing that can help is using the Options menu to shrink the active area of the screen. A common cause of slowness running in a window is having the desktop run in 16- or 32-bpp mode. WQ is an 8-bpp application, and it slows things down if pixels have to be translated from 8-bpp to 16- or 32-bpp. (Note that this is generally a problem only when running in a window; fullscreen apps rarely suffer from this.) Sound is sluggish on NT ----------------------- NT doesn't have any real DirectSound drivers yet, so there's no way to do quick-response sound on NT. When DirectSound drivers for NT appear, WQ's sound should automatically be snappier. Sound breaks up or gets choppy, especially in menus --------------------------------------------------- This is generally a sign that WQ's frame rate is too low on your system. Try reducing resolution or shrinking the active area of the screen (getting a faster computer is another, more expensive alternative). In some circumstances, it may help to set the console variable _snd_mixahead to a larger value. The color black doesn't change with palette flashes sometimes ------------------------------------------------------------- DirectDraw lets WQ change all 256 colors, so when a palette flash happens, we can change all the colors, including black. However, on NT, DirectDraw doesn't allow changing black; likewise, black can't be changed in a window, either a normal window or fullscreen. Consequently, some parts of the WQ screen (such as the sigils on the status bar and the spray where a shotgun blast hits) stay black when the palette flashes. There is no workaround. Problems can result if Office shortcut bar is running ----------------------------------------------------- Various odd behaviors, especially with sound, have been reported if the Office shortcut bar is running while WQ is running. If you experience odd problems, you might try shutting down the Office shortcut bar and see if that fixes anything. Other apps fail to play sound while WinQuake is running ------------------------------------------------------- The sound hardware is not a fully shareable resource on Win32 currently. Consequently, while WQ is running, it always has the sound hardware in use, to make sure that Quake sound is never lost to another app. This means that normally, other apps that use wave sound (most non-game apps) will not be able to play sound while WQ is running, even if WQ is minimized or not the active app, although other DirectSound apps will be able to play sound when WQ is not the active app. If WQ is using wave sound (either because -wavonly is used on the command line, or because there is no DirectSound driver, as is always the case on NT), then no other app will be able to play any sound while WQ is running. WQ gets funny colors when it’s not the active app ------------------------------------------------- We're working on fixing this. But WQ puts everything back again as soon as it is reactivated, and anyway, when it’s not active, you can’t actually do anything in WQ, so it doesn’t really matter anyway, right? Desktop redraws a lot when WQ runs windowed ------------------------------------------- We're fixing this, but right now when WQ runs windowed with 256-color wallpaper and the palette changes, the other stuff on the desktop often redraws, sometimes flickering as it does so. Apart from being ugly, the extra redrawing can cause a major slowdown. The best fix is to run fullscreen or to change to 16-color wallpaper; otherwise, minimize as much stuff as possible to reduce redrawing. Desktop is weird colors when WQ runs windowed --------------------------------------------- WQ needs all 256 colors to look right, which causes it to have to change the 20 colors used to draw the desktop. We may fix this if people think it's important enough, but for now, if this is really a problem, run fullscreen. Fullscreen WQ sometimes drops the connection when switched away from -------------------------------------------------------------------- We're working on fixing this, but right now, if WQ is running in a fullscreen mode that’s not a fullscreen window mode (that is, if it’s a DirectDraw mode, a VESA mode, or 320x200 VGA mode 0x13), then if you switch away with Alt-Tab, Ctrl-Esc, or the Windows key, WQ will be suspended. Not paused--completely suspended, doing nothing. After about 30 seconds, your net connection to the server will be dropped. We’re really sorry about this, but right now we can’t change it. One workaround is to change to a windowed video mode when you want to switch away; there’s no connection dropping if you’re running in a normal window. You could also try running -dibonly, which uses fullscreen windows for fullscreen modes; WQ is not paused when you switch away from fullscreen in this case. The downside to -dibonly is that it can be significantly slower than normal fullscreen modes, especially at low resolutions. High-resolution modes don’t work on the Intergraph Reactor ---------------------------------------------------------- Sad but true. Working on it, but for now try -nowindirect and see if that fixes things. Or maybe their latest BIOS upgrade fixes the problem. Or you can get Scitech Display Doctor (see below), which fixes this problem. Sometimes Permedia boards crash unless -nowindirect is used ----------------------------------------------------------- Still working on this one too; for now, use -nowindirect. Keys whacked during mode switches sometimes go to other apps ------------------------------------------------------------ We're working on this, but right now during a mode switch, there is a small period when WQ doesn’t have any window, and if you hit keys then, they will go to the next app on the desktop, possibly doing things you won’t like. So please don’t whack keys during mode sets. Problems if an autorun CD is inserted while WQ is fullscreen ------------------------------------------------------------ If you insert an autorun CD, then exit its window, you’ll switch back to the WQ window, but input won’t be going to WQ properly for some reason. Just do an Alt-Tab and you’ll probably be fine. We're doing our best to fix this one. Right-click|close on WQ button in system bar to close doesn’t work ------------------------------------------------------------------ Right-click doesn’t work at all when minimized WQ is minimized in fullscreen modes. Working on it; for now, don’t do it. Quake turns system sound down to zero ------------------------------------- This happens occasionally, although we have no idea why yet. If it happens to you and you see any potential causative event, please let us know. Screen saver never kicks in when running fullscreen --------------------------------------------------- Something about being fullscreen convinces Windows that the machine isn't idle. We’ll fix this in the future if people think it’s a problem. WQ doesn’t work in a window in 16-color mode -------------------------------------------- That’s 16 *colors*, not 16-bpp. If you’re still running 16-color mode, only run WQ fullscreen. Can't minimize window while mouse active ---------------------------------------- When running in a window with the mouse active as a WQ input device, there is no easy way to minimize the window, because the system menu can't be brought up from the keyboard (because some of you use Alt and Spacebar for playing the game), and the mouse can't be used to manipulate the window because it's controlling WQ. Even if you switch away with Alt-Tab to get the mouse back and then click on the Minimize box of the WQ window, WQ doesn't minimize. This is a bug, and we hope to fix it, but for now, if you really need to minimize WQ, enable the mouse and use it to minimize the window. WQ behaves oddly if Scandisk starts defragmenting ------------------------------------------------- If WQ is running fullscreen on Win95 when Scandisk starts an automatic defragging, WQ is minimized, and when it is brought back up, may either be in a strange mode where it runs one frame for each keystroke (in which case Alt-Tab generally fixes things), or may hang the system. We don't know what the problem is right now, but you may want to make sure you don't leave WQ sitting there fullscreen overnight if you have automatic defragging. Changing desktop resolution on Win95 can cause problems ------------------------------------------------------- Changing desktop resolution on Win95 can cause problems when running WQ in a window. We're checking into it. If you encounter this problem, don't change the desktop resolution while WQ is running. Hang reported with zero sound volume ------------------------------------ When sound is turned all the way down via the WQ menus, hangs have been reported. We're looking into it, but don't know any more yet. WQ runs very slowly when it has the focus under NT -------------------------------------------------- In one case, WQ ran very slowly when it had the focus, but fast when it didn't (obviously this is only visible in windowed modes). The problem turned out to be that NT had a Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick driver installed; when the driver was removed, things were fine. If you see a similar problem, check whether WQ is detecting that your system has a joystick when you don't think it should; if so, try doing "joystick 0", or -nojoy on the command line, and see if that fixes it. If so, there's something flaky in your system joystick setup. Joystick doesn't seem calibrated properly ----------------------------------------- WQ relies on the information about your joystick stored in the registry. If the joystick seems miscalibrated, run the joystick applet and recalibrate and see if that fixes things. Net play pauses every few seconds --------------------------------- Not as in the Pause key, but as in stopping briefly as if the net connection were glitching. All we have is a report of this--no details. If you experience something like this, please send info. Playdemo fails across multiple levels ------------------------------------- If "record" is used to record a client-side demo, bad things will happen on playback via playdemo if a level change is recorded. (Timedemo works fine.) This is unfortunate, but WinQuake internals make this not fixable without a good chance of breaking something more important, so it'll have to stay this way. ---------------------------------- | A bit about how WQ video works | ---------------------------------- WQ has the built-in ability to draw into windows, both normal, framed desktop windows and fullscreen, borderless windows. It also has built- in support for VGA 320x200 graphics, and supports both DirectDraw and VESA (VBE) 2.0 graphics modes if those are available. In order for DirectDraw modes to be available, you must have DirectDraw installed; some systems come with it preinstalled, but if it's not on your system, you can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/mediadev/download/directx.exe (the exact may vary), and install it. In order for VESA (VBE) modes to be available, a driver must be installed; a VESA driver can either be built into the BIOS, or loadable software. The most common VESA driver is Scitech Display Doctor, from Scitech Software. Display Doctor is also the commonest VBE/AF driver (VBE/AF is similar to VESA, but adds support for accelerated hardware features, although WQ does not use such acceleration); WQ supports VBE/AF 1.0 and later. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ************************** * Scitech Display Doctor * ************************** The latest version of Display Doctor can be obtained from the following locations: www: http://www.scitechsoft.com ftp: ftp.scitechsoft.com CIS: GO SCITECH AOL: Keyword SciTech SciTech can be contacted at: email: sales@scitechsoft.com SciTech Software 505 Wall Street Chico, CA 95928 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- What all this means is that on Win95, WQ will always be able to run in the following modes: 1) in a window 2) fullscreen 320x200 VGA mode 0x13 (unless -noforcevga is used) 3) fullscreen high-resolution of some sort Category #3 can be any of several configurations. On Win95, if either DirectDraw or VESA modes are available, then all the DirectDraw and VESA modes will be presented as high-res choices. (320x200 will always default to VGA mode 0x13 unless the -noforcevga command-line switch is used.) In the case that a given resolution is supported by both DirectDraw and VESA, the VESA mode will be used. (However, the command- line switch -nowindirect can turn off VESA modes entirely.) If neither DirectDraw nor VESA modes are available, then high-resolution modes will be provided by using fullscreen, borderless windows in whatever resolutions the Windows driver supports, usually starting at 640x480 and going up. NT is similar but not identical, because neither VESA modes nor VGA mode 0x13 are available. On NT, WQ will always be able to run in the following modes: 1) in a window 2) fullscreen high-resolution of some sort On NT, category #3 can be one of two configurations. If DirectDraw modes are available, then those will be the high-res choices; otherwise, fullscreen, borderless windows will be used in whatever resolutions the driver supports, usually starting at 640x480 and going up. Because there is normally no low-resolution mode such as 320x200 or 320x240 on NT, a pseudo low-res mode is created by rendering at 320x240, then stretching the image by doubling it in each direction while copying it to a 640x480 screen. However, stretching performance depends on the driver, and can be slow, so sometimes 640x480 is actually faster than 320x240 on NT. The bottom line here is that you can generally just use the Video menu and pick one of the modes and be happy. In some cases, though, you may need to use command-line switches (described next) to get the types of modes you want. One useful tip is to go into the console and do vid_describemodes, which lists all the modes WQ supports on your machine given the command-line switches you've used. Each mode is followed by the name of the internal WQ driver that supports it, so you can tell which modes are DirectDraw, VESA, and so on, as follows: WINDOWED: WQ runs in a normal window FULLSCREEN VGA8.DRV: VGA 320x200 mode FULLSCREEN LINEAR8.DRV: VESA (VBE) 2.0 mode FULLSCREEN ACCEL8.DRV: VBE/AF 1.0 or later mode FULLSCREEN DDRAW8.DRV: DirectDraw mode FULLSCREEN DIB: fullscreen borderless window You can use vid_mode from the console to set any of these modes. So, for example, if you see that there are two 320x200 modes (such as one VGA mode 0x13, normally mode 3, and one VESA mode, normally mode 4), you can choose the VESA mode, which will often be faster, with vid_mode 4. The windowed modes are more interesting than they seem. 320x240 is just what you’d think, but 640x480 is actually rendered at 320x240 and stretched up to 640x480, because most machines can’t handle real 640x480 rendering. Likewise, 800x600 is a stretched 400x300. Actually, though, vid_mode 2 (the 800x600 mode) is a user-configurable mode. By setting the following console variables, you can change the characteristics of vid_mode 2: vid_config_x: width of window vid_config_y: height of window vid_stretch_by_2: whether to render at half-resolution in each direction and stretch up to the specified size, or render at full resolution After setting these variables in the console, do a vid_forcemode 2, and you’ll have the window you specified. Note that after making these changes, the new resolution will show up as the third windowed mode in the Video menu. ------------------------------- | Video command-line switches | ------------------------------- The full list of video-related command-line switches is: -dibonly: WQ will use only windows (both normal, framed windows on the desktop and fullscreen, borderless windows), not any direct hardware access modes such as DirectDraw or VESA modes, or even VGA 320x200 mode. This is the closest thing to a guaranteed-to-run fullscreen mode WQ has. -nowindirect: WQ will not try to use VESA (VBE) 2.0 modes, or VBE/AF 1.0 or later modes. Note that if there are both DirectDraw and VESA modes for a given resolution, WQ will normally use the VESA mode; -nowindirect allows DirectDraw modes to be the preferred choice for all resolutions except 320x200 (see -noforcevga below). -nodirectdraw: WQ will not try to use DirectDraw modes. -novbeaf: WQ will not try to use VBE/AF 1.0 or later modes. -startwindowed: WQ will come up in a windowed mode, without going fullscreen even during initialization. -noforcevga: normally, WQ uses VGA mode 0x13 for the default 320x200 mode, even if a DirectDraw or VESA 320x200 mode exists. However, DirectDraw and VESA modes can be considerably faster than mode 0x13, because they can set up a linear framebuffer with higher memory bandwidth. If you specify -noforcevga, the default 320x200 mode will be a DirectDraw or VESA mode if one exists. The downside to this switch is that DirectDraw and VESA modes can cause problems in some systems, due to driver bugs or hardware incompatibilities; if you experience problems with this switch, don't use it. -noautostretch: don't stretch windowed mode selected with -startwindowed to double resolution. -nofulldib: don't use fullscreen, borderless windows, even if there are no DirectDraw or VESA modes available. -allow360: allow listing of 360-wide modes in the video mode menu. These are normally filtered out to make sure the menu doesn't fill up, which would cause high-res modes not to be displayed. ---------------------------------- | A bit about how WQ sound works | ---------------------------------- WQ can use either DirectSound or Windows wave output to generate sound. If DirectSound is available, it is used; if not, if wave sound is available it is used; and if neither is available, there is no sound. DirectSound results in the best sound quality, and also the lowest- latency sound; use it if you can, because you will be happier with the results. (Note, though, that no NT sound drivers yet support DirectSound.) Wave sound will often have high latency, lagging the events that generate sound by hundreds of milliseconds on some machines. You can tell what kind of sound WQ uses on your system by looking at the startup portion of the console; you will see either "DirectSound initialized" or "Wave sound initialized" (neither message is printed if there's no sound). Any sound failure messages will also be printed in the startup portion of the console. Note that WQ generates sound only when it is the active app, the one with the input focus. ------------------------------- | Sound command-line switches | ------------------------------- The full list of sound-related command-line switches is: -wavonly: don’t use DirectSound, but use wave sound if available. Note that wave sound is generally faster than DirectSound, but has considerably greater latency. This switch is redundant on NT, because all sound output on current NT drivers is wave sound. -nosound: don’t output any sound -primarysound: use DirectSound primary buffer output. This is generally faster than normal secondary buffer output, but does not work in some systems, and produces odd sound glitches on minimization and focus switching in other systems. Use it at your own risk, and please do not report sound bugs if you're using this switch. -snoforceformat: WQ will not create a primary buffer and try to force the sound hardware to 11 KHz, 16 bits per sample. This may be useful if DirectSound is failing for no apparent reason, but generally WQ will produce better sound and better performance if this switch is not used. ======================================================================== End of Document 2/5/97 ========================================================================