Shogo: Mobile Armor Division Version 1.0 Readme Copyright 1998 Monolith Productions, Inc. ****************************************************************** This document contains valuable information about running Shogo on your PC hardware. For more information about gameplay and general Shogo information, please refer to the Shogo Manual that came with this CD, or you can check out the Shogo Online Manual. To access the Online Manual, click the Help button on the Shogo Launcher, or click Start...Programs... Monolith Games...Shogo...Shogo Online Manual. ****************************************************************** 1. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 2. INSTALLATION 3. DIRECTX6 4. DIRECT3D 5. SHOGO LAUNCHER 6. 3D VIDEO HARDWARE 7. SOUND CARDS AND IMA 8. DISPLAY DETAIL SETTINGS 9. PERFORMANCE TUNING 10. TROUBLESHOOTING ****************************************************************** 1. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS - Pentium 166 or equivalent (Pentium II Recommended) - Pentium 233 or equivalent for software rendering - 4MB (or greater) D3D compatible video card recommended - 32MB RAM - Windows95/98 - DIRECTX6 ****************************************************************** 2. INSTALLATION If you have autoplay enabled, just place the Shogo CD into your CD-ROM drive and wait for the onscreen prompts. If you do not have autoplay enabled, run setup.exe from the root directory of the Shogo CD. The Shogo CD must be in your CD-ROM drive in order to play Shogo. ****************************************************************** 3. DIRECTX6 DirectX6 is required and will be installed automatically during a Normal or Minimum install of Shogo. You can also choose to install DirectX6 through the Custom install option. In most cases DX6 will install new video and audio drivers for your system. If you have not updated your drivers for your video or hardware recently, we strongly suggest that you update your drivers, regardless of the DX6 recommendations during installation. Although you may not be prompted for a restart after installing DX6, we HIGHLY recommend that you restart your computer anyway. ****************************************************************** 4. DIRECT3D Shogo supports Microsoft's Direct3D 3D Hardware API. Direct3D provides excellent performance and hardware support for most 3D video cards. However, you may need to install the most recent video drivers for your 2D/3D hardware to get the best performance from Shogo. For links to the most recent video/audio drivers, please check the Shogo Online Manual, or visit the Monolith drivers page at drivers.lith.com For informaton on a specific video card, see the 3D HARDWARE section in this readme. For information on sound cards, see SOUND CARDS & IMA. ****************************************************************** 5. SHOGO LAUNCHER 5.1 Launch Button Click Launch to start Shogo. The first time you run Shogo, you will be prompted to select a detail level. This detail setting will scale the content in Shogo to increase performance or increase visual quality. You can change this detail setting at any time during the game by selecting Options...Display from the in-game menus. Medium detail is the default setting, and is also a good choice for most systems. The detail settings are explained in depth in the section on DISPLAY DETAIL SETTTINGS in this readme. 5.2 Display Button The first time you run Shogo, we strongly suggest that you click the Display button in the Shogo launch box. This will test your video drivers to ensure DirectX6 compatibility. Because Shogo checks the DirectX status of your video card(s) when you click Display, if you do not have DX6 compatible video drivers, you may encounter problems. Shogo uses the same routine to initialize your video card when you click launch, but by clicking Display you can see the results. If you encounter problems after clicking Display (this is rare) please refer to the TROUBLE SHOOTING section of this readme. 5.2.1 Choose your video card Display allows you to choose your display device (e.g., the video card) that you want to use to play Shogo. Only DirectX6 compatible devices will be displayed in the display window. You can also switch your display device at any time during the game by choosing Options...Display...Change Mode. 5.2.2 LithTech Direct3D Renderer To use 3D hardware acceleration (if you have a D3D compatible 3D video card installed in your computer), choose LithTech Direct3D Renderer in the Renderers window, and then choose your display driver (your video card) in the Displays window. If you are running a 2D/3D video card such as a Riva 128, your card will show up as "Primary Display Driver". If you are running a pass-through card such as a 3DFX-based card, it will be listed below Primary Display Driver as something similar to "3DFX Interactive Voodoo". Not all video cards support 3D hardware acceleration. If you are uncertain about whether your video card has 3D hardware acceleration features, please refer to your card's documentation. For more information about a specifc 3D video card, see the 3D VIDEO HARDWARE section of this readme. 5.2.3 LithTech Software Renderer To run Shogo without 3D hardware acceleration, choose LithTech Software Renderer in the Renderers window. Then choose your video card in the Displays window. If you are running the LithTech software renderer on a system with multiple video cards, we strongly suggest choosing your Primary Display Driver (your 2D card) in the Displays window. 5.2.4 Resolution You can also set your resolution screen size in the Shogo Display Settings. The default resolution for Shogo is 640x480 16bit. Selecting lower resolutions (512x384) may increase performance at the expense of detail. Selecting higher resolutions (800x600, 1024x768) may decrease performance, but may look better. If you are running the LithTech Software Renderer, we suggest running a low resolution (320x200) first to test the performance on your computer. You can also change the resolution at any time during the game by choosing Options...Display...Change Mode. 5.3 Customize Button Use Customize to add in additional resources and levels for mods, patches and multiplayer. Please visit the Shogo website www.shogo-mad.com for the most up to date customize information. 5.4 More Games Button Click the More Games button to access demos and movies of other Monolith titles. All titles are available at your local software retailer. 5.5 Help Button Click the Help button to access the Shogo Online Manual. 5.6 Multiplayer Button Click the Multiplayer button to start the Shogo multiplayer wizard. For details on setting up multiplayer games, refer to the Online Manual. 5.7 Advanced Button The Advanced Options are designed for advanced users and trouble- shooting only. Some of the advanced options may not be compatible with all hardware. Mixing and matching some advanced options may cause unpredictable results. For the most up to date Advanced Options details, check out the Shogo website www.shogo-mad.com. Disable Sound This will disable all sound fx in Shogo. Disable music This will disable Shogo's Interactive Music Architecture, or IMA. Some sound cards may have incompatibilities with IMA. Used for troubleshooting only. Disable movies Disables the Monolith Logo and Shogo Intro from playing every time. Disable light mapping Turns off light mapping (a shadow-lighting effect) in all display detail settings. This option is also available through the in-game menus. Disable fog Disables all atmospheric (not clipping plane) fog. No performance increase or decrease. Strictly subjective, although may be useful on cards that "almost" support table fog. Disable line systems Disables all line systems in Shogo. Line systems are used for tracer fire on many enemy weapons. Unlikely to provide any performance increase, but useful as a troubleshooting item. Disable model full brights Some textures/models in Shogo use a palette technique that makes certain colors always bright, regardless of the surrounding light conditions (e.g., making them "fully bright"). This option is also available through the in-game menus, and is disabled in medium detail mode. Disable DirectX6 commands Use only for troubleshooting. Probably doesn't do what you think it does. Enable optimized surfaces Optimizes the way 2D surfaces (e.g., ammo, health, armor, crosshair) are drawn. Checking this on AGP cards may provide a performance increase, especially on Intel i740- based cards. This option may cause problems on some 3DFX cards, depending on which drivers are installed. Enable poly gap fixing Fixes noticable gapping between polygons on some 3D video cards. A MUST for Riva 128 video cards. May slow performance on low-end/older 3D video cards. Not a significant performance decrease on fast 3D cards. Makes everything look "nicer". Enable triple buffering Enables a feature on some video cards that can improve performance. Most AGP video cards benefit from this feature being enabled. However, this may cause lock-ups on some PCI video cards. Enable mipmap sharpening Sharpens the mipmaps (texures) for some ATI cards. Not really useful for anything other than making the textures look strange on most cards. Enable pixel doubling--LithTech Software Renderer ONLY Check this option only when using the LithTech Software Renderer. Useful for simulating low resolutions (320x200, 320x240) on 2D video cards that don't support low resolutions in 16-bit color. If you check this option and have 640x480 16bit selected as your resolution, Shogo will simulate 320x240. Can provide noticable performance increases at the expense of visual quality. Restore factory default settings This restores all configuration settings to the original factory defaults. Resets key configuration, detail level and sound. Useful if you're mucking around with detail settings and you just want things back the way they were. Command-Line Advanced users only. For more information on this feature, visit the Shogo website at www.shogo-mad.com. ****************************************************************** 6. 3D VIDEO HARDWARE This section contains specifics on 3D video cards, recommended Shogo settings, and driver information. For the most up to date information on "Shogo Certified" drivers, please visit our driver website at: drivers.lith.com 6.1 3DLabs www.3dlabs.com/drivers - Permedia2 Works well, although no lightmapping. Recommended Display Settings: -LOW or MEDIUM (lightmapping will automatically be turned off on this card) -Turning on Shadows or Model FullBrights may cause texture corruption/flickering. Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE 6.2 Rendition www.rendition.com - Rendition V1000 An older card. Recommended Display Settings: -LOW. 512x384 Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE - Rendition V2100/V2200 Works well, supports all features in Shogo. Recommended Display Settings: -LOW, or MEDIUM with Light Mapping set to off for best performance Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE 6.3 3DFX Interactive www.3dfx.com In order to get the best performance from any 3DFX-based card, we STRONGLY recommend that you upgrade to the latest 3DFX reference drivers. We have found that the 3DFX reference drivers work very well under DX6. As of our ship date, the latest 3DFX Voodoo-1 and Voodoo2 Reference Drivers are contained in a \3DFX directory on the Shogo CD. You can update your drivers from the CD or, for the most recent 3DFX reference drivers, please check: drivers.lith.com www.3dfx.com. - 3DFX Voodoo1 The standard. Recommended Display Settings: -MEDIUM, 8-bit textures Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE - 3DFX VooDoo2 Recommended Display Settings: -HIGH Recommended Advanced Settings: -Check "Enable poly gap fixing" in Advanced Launcher for increased visual quality with minimal decrease in performance 6.4 nVidia www.nVidia.com - Riva 128/128ZX As of our ship date, we have been testing all Riva 128-based cards with a soon-to-be released nVidia reference driver. This driver makes it possible to play Shogo with all features enabled. Please check the nVidia webpage or drivers.lith.com for the most up to date info on this chipset. Recommended Display Settings: -With drivers released after 9-15-98, MEDIUM -With drivers released before 9-15-98, LOW -Running in HIGH or MEDIUM or enabling LightMapping with the currently drivers released before 9-15-98 will result in gray-shaded world polygons. Disabling lightmapping fixes this problem. Recommended Advanced Settings: -Check "Enable poly gap fixing" in Advanced Launcher options for all versions of drivers. THIS IS A MUST FOR THIS CARD to remove all polygon seaming issues. -Check "Enable optimized surfaces" for a slight performance increase - Riva TNT As of our ship date, we have been testing all Riva TNT cards with beta drivers. We do not anticipate any problems with this card. Please check the nVidia webpage or drivers.lith.com for the most up to date info on this chipset. Recommended Display Settings: -HIGH, 16-bit textures Recommended Advanced Settings: -Check "Enable poly gap fixing" in Advanced Launcher for increased visual quality with minimal decrease in performance 6.5 Matrox www.matrox.com/mgaweb/drivers Please check the Matrox website for drivers.lith.com for the most recently released drivers for all Matrox products. D3D driver support is generally good. - G200 Millenium and Mystique Recommended Display Settings: -MEDIUM Recommended Advanced Settings: -Check "Enable Triple Buffer" for a decent performance increase -Check "Enable Optimized Surfaces" for a slight performance increase - Matrox MGA-1064 (Millenium II and Mystique) Recommended Display Settings: -LOW, 8-bit textures Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE - Matrox M3D - You may need to update your drivers through device manager instead of the setup program that comes with the driver set - Shogo detects that this card can't do LightMapping or "light add poly" and disables both - May experience texture mipmapping glitches - Chromed models are REALLY slow, so enabling Environment Mapping through the menus is not recommended - Some textures with alpha (4444) draw with alpha blending even if the alphablendenable state is off Recommended Display Settings: -LOW, 8-bit textures Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE--Shogo detects this card automatically. 6.6 Intel i740 drivers.lith.com - ENABLE OPTIMIZED SURFACES. We have experienced instability on this card when Enable Optimized Surfaces is unchecked. We have also experienced some problems with drivers from various board manufacturers who use the i740 chipset. The Intel Reference Drivers appear to be the most stable of the bunch. However, Intel does not recommend end-users install these drivers. Check with your card manufacturer for the most recent certified drivers. Recommended Display Settings: -LOW or MEDIUM, 8-bit textures Recommended Advanced Settings: -You must check "Enable Optimized Surfaces" on this card to avoid potential lockups -Check "Enable Triple Buffer" for a decent performance increase -LightMapping slows down this card big time. Disable it for a nice performance boost. 6.7 S3 www.s3.com - S3 Savage Recommended Display Settings: -HIGH Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE - Virge (Diamond Stealth 3D Pro 2000, IMagic 3D) - Get the most recent drivers from the S3 site. This board was an OEM video card in many, many PC's. The 3D hardware performance is questionable, but D3D will recognize this card as a 3D hardware accelerator. - runs decent in 320x240 - Lightmapping and screen flash not supported Recommended Display Settings: -LOW, 320x240 Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE 6.8 ATI support.atitech.ca/drivers - Rage Pro AGP 2X As of our ship date, ATI was in the process of testing beta drivers that improve the performance on this card dramatically. please check the ATI website for the most up to date drivers avaiable. Doesn't bilinear filter the alpha channel so stuff with alpha looks all pixelated even though the RGB is all pixelated. Recommended Display Settings: -LOW Recommended Advanced Settings: -Check "Enable mipmap sharpening" to cure the blurriness of textures ****************************************************************** 7. SOUND CARDS & IMA Shogo uses a new Interactive Music Architecture for music playback. You may experience problems with certain sound cards and music playback. Upgrading to the most recent drivers for your sound card usually solves the problem. For specific information about problems you might be having with your sound card, check the TROUBLE SHOOTING section of this readme. For the most up to date information on sound card driver combinations and settings, please visit drivers.lith.com. ****************************************************************** 8. DISPLAY DETAIL SETTINGS Shogo contains several detail settings that will affect performance. You can change these detail settings through the in-game menus by choosing Options...Display. You can also choose Advanced through the in-game menus and and tweak each detail setting individually. Once you choose Advanced and change a setting, your detail setting will be displayed as "Advanced". Changing your Detail Setting back to LOW, MEDIUM or HIGH will reset any advanced options. Switching detail settings while in the game will result in a restart of Shogo's renderer, which may take several seconds. LOW A good choice for systems near or at the minimum system requirements. Uses the least amount of texture memory. Turns off just about every detail option available in Shogo. Also the best choice when using the LithTech Software Renderer. MEDIUM A good choice for most systems. Uses less texture memory than high, but keeps most other special effects in place. HIGH Turns up everything in terms of visual look. Recommended only for high-end systems with fast 3D video cards. Uses the most texture memory, but looks the best. ****************************************************************** 9. PERFORMANCE TUNING Game speed and performance are dependent on several different hardware factors. The 3 major factors that affect performance in Shogo: CPU, 3D Video Card, and memory. If you are experiencing slow performance on your system, first try setting the Detail Setting under Options...Display to LOW. This setting will have the biggest single impact on performance. Shogo will default to using 8-bit (LOW) quality sounds unless you chose HIGH the first time you ran Shogo. Changing the Sound Quality to LOW under Options...Sound will save memory and can increase performance. Turning Music to OFF under Options...Sound may also increase performance slightly on slower CPU's. If you've turned everything else off and you're still looking for a couple of extra frames-per-second, set Music to Off. Model FullBrights and Environment Mapping can have a large impact on slower systems. These options are both set to ON when HIGH is selected, but are set to OFF in MEDIUM and LOW. Lightmapping can also slow some systems down. The Intel i740, for example, will see a large performance increase just by setting Lightmapping to OFF. For the most recent updates on performance tuning, go to the Shogo website at www.shogo-mad.com ****************************************************************** 10. TROUBLESHOOTING Q: Many of the sounds in Shogo seem to be garbled. What's wrong? A: If you are running Shogo on a 3DFX card, your driver may be stealing some cycles from the bus. Install the latest 3DFX reference drivers located on the Shogo CD. This should cure the problem. Q: I installed DirectX6 during the Shogo installation, but now I can't use my 3D video card to run Shogo. A: This is likely the result of non-DirectX6 compliant video drivers. Please visit drivers.lith.com for the most recent information on drivers for your card. Or, try reinstalling DirectX6 and updating your video drivers when prompted. Q: When I click the Display button in the Shogo launcher, it pauses for a long time, and then nothing happens. What gives? A: Make sure that you have installed DirectX6. If you installed DirectX6, you may not have updated your video drivers. Reinstall DirectX6 and update your video drivers when prompted. Q: I have a joystick plugged into my comptuer, but Shogo won't recognize it. A: Check the joystick configuration in Windows. Go to Settings... Control Panel...Game Controllers and check to make sure that your joystick is configured correctly. Q: I can't switch to some video resolutions that are displayed under Display in the launcher and in the Change Mode option under the in-game Display menu. A: Shogo uses DirectX to query your card about display resolutions. Your driver may be reporting to DirectX that it can display at a certain resolution, even though the hardware does not support it. This is common on many 2D cards when running in software. Q: I can't get my 3D card to work with Shogo no matter what I try. A: There is a DirectX diagnostic tool that is installed when you install DX6 during a Shogo installation. You can access this diagnostic tool in Program Files...directx...setup....dxdiag.exe. Please refer to the help file that accompanies dxdiag.exe for more information on using it. ****************************************************************** Monolith is dedicated to supporting its products! For the most up to date information on patches, updates, drivers, multiplayer and add-ons, please visit the Shogo Website at www.shogo-mad.com We hope you have as much fun playing Shogo as we had making it. Shogo: Mobile Armor Division Developed and Published by Monolith Productions, Inc. www.lith.com www.shogo-mad.com www.lithtech.com www.captainclaw.com www.rageofmages.com www.getmedieval.com www.blood.com