Following are some frequently asked questions for the MDK Internet demo from Shiny Entertainment This faq is dated February 11, 1997 Q. Will there be more demos of MDK? A. We'll be putting another version of the demo on the internet but it is a bug fix and mouse/joystick enhancement version. It will not have additional levels to play. Q. How do I get out of the practice room? A. See the guy on top of the tower in the distance? Back away from the red wall a little (behind the depression in the floor is good), go into sniper mode, and blow him away by shooting either their targets or their heads. Kill the next two guys in the same way. Now the aliens are behind the glass...Can't hit them? Shoot the skull and crossbones "deathcrate" on the platform slightly below the middle tower top. Now use the handgrenade that falls in front of you to blow up the red wall. See the mortar on the pillar in front of you? Jump off the top step and use the parachue to pick this up. Now change to sniper mode and shoot one of your newfound mortars through the black hole above the middle window... There are arrows painted on the building pointing to this. When one goes through, wait and watch the fireworks... Q. What is dinput.dll and why do I need it to play MDK in Windows 95? A. dinput.dll is part of Microsoft's ever-changing DirectX "standard". You need to have DirectX version 3.0 or greater installed to play the Windows95 version of MDK. You can get this from Microsoft or most of the usual shareware download sites. Q. Why doesn't my performance test figure match the default ratings? A. Or, why doesn't it tell me what I want to hear? The performance test basically does what the game does, and measures the framerate (although the number displayed is NOT framerate). This depends on many factors, NOT JUST YOUR PROCESSOR SPEED. The test figures were done on machines with 32Mb of RAM and 4MB Matrox Millenium graphics cards. Factors which can possibly affect your performance figures are:- Video card transfer speed, bank switching, memory speed, cache size, processor speed, processor type... Q. But still, my performance figure is way off what it should be... A. We are planning a new version of the performance test that starts with the question "What rating would you like to get?" and then displays this rating on screen with a bit of variance and some nice swirly graphics that make it look like we're doing something impressive. What do you want? The performance test does what the game does. If it runs slow, the game will run slow. Q. I have a Cyrix x86, why doesn't MDK detect my FPU? A. The performance section of MDK does not currently detect the Cyrix FPU, since the Cyrix chip does not support the CPUID function. However, the game will still do all of the floating point stuff, since it presumes that, no matter what the state of the FPU bit, if a machine passes the 486 lockout, IT WILL HAVE AN FPU. Any bad performance on Cyrix machines is due to the fact that Cyrix FPUs have abysmal performance compared to the Intel FPUs. Q. Why does MDK say I have a 486 and not let me play? A. If your machine is locked out, it's not a 486 and it gets over a P90 rating on the stand alone, performance test, we'd like to hear from you. When writing, please give as much information about the PC as possible, at the very least the chip manufacturer and model. We are working on a solution at the moment which would look at the performance of your machine if it fails the lockout to let you play if your machine is fast enough. Q. Why can't I do x,y and z at once using the keyboard? A. This seems to be keyboard dependant and so would appear to be a hardware problem. The keyboard just won't return that key combination. Quick fix solution: redefine the problem keys. Q. Why does the Windows 95 version hang when I use the Nuke? A. This was a bug in the Windows95 version of MDK, and has now been fixed. Q. How come MDK doesn't support a mouse for movement and how come my joystick doesn't work in turbo mode. A. Mouse support has been added and the joystick code has been revamped. Look for both of these fixes in the 2nd version of the demo and in the final game. Q. Does MDK use Direct3D? A. No. There may be a Direct3D patch available after the retail release of the game (see next question). Q. Will there be a version for the xxxx 3D card? A. There will be no 3D acceleration on initial release. Although we have made no commitments in this area, expect 2 or 3 specific card versions and a Direct3D version (for all the other cards) to be released a few weeks after general release. Q. How about a multi-player version? A. We don't have plans to do this yet. It may happen but our resources are limited. Would you rather see a multi-player version of MDK, or a completely new game that's even better than MDK? Q. What does MDK stand for? A. It stands for whatever we say it stands for on any given day. i.e., it doesn't really stand for anything... Feel free to send comments, suggestions, bugs, to info@shiny.com