THANK YOU for downloading Speed Demonｪ! We hope you will enjoy the game enough to register it. Registered users will be granted access to our web server to download five additional states with new scenery, surprises, and weapons, and will have five-player network play enabled, plus more weapons in the demolition derby. You'll also receive our "secret cheat codes." Launch the Register application included with the game to get these benefits, or register on-line at http://order.kagi.com/?FX through a secure web site! See the "How to Register" document for more information.
Please note that the additional states are not available on CD-ROM or floppies. They are distributed electronically only. That way we keep our costs down, which means the registration price is cheap, and you don't have to pay sales tax either. Note also that we make no guarantees about the performance of network games.
INSTALLATION
Included with Speed Demon is a folder named "Drag CONTENTS to System Folder". Drag the contents of this folder to your System folder (don't drag the folder itself in there). You will receive a message asking if you'd like these files automatically placed in their correct places. Say yes. After restarting, launch the "Speed Demon" application.
Network play requires Open Transport 1.1, which is included in System 7.5.3 and up. If you need to download Open Transport, visit http://www.apple.com. You may play single player games without Open Transport being installed.
Make sure any calibration you need to perform on your joystick is done ahead of time. We directly support CH Products and Thrustmaster devices (including the way cool Thrustmaster Formula T2 steering wheel and pedals.)
Users of Kernel Productions' ChoiceStick should double-click the included "Speed Demon Settings" file to automatically configure the ChoiceStick to work with Speed Demon's default keyboard settings. Be sure to set the "keyboard" control preference within Speed Demon, since it goes to mouse control by default.
SETTING UP SPEED DEMONｪ
CONTROLS
Before playing your first game, visit the "Preferences" area from the main menu. If you have a control device that is directly supported by Speed Demonｪ, the "direct joystick support" option will be active. You'll probably want to check it off. Button assignments will be made automatically and intuitively. Joystick users will find that the fire button fires, and secondary buttons will switch weapons and views. Hat switches will select forward, rear, and side views. For Formula T2 users, the top button is fire, the bottom button switches weapons, and the shifter selects forward or reverse gears (you may shift only when traveling at less than 5 MPH.) Take a guess what the gas and brake pedals do. Thrustmaster users must specify whether they are using a Formula T2 or a Flight Control System. Weapons Control System users may use the throttle as an accelerator.
Otherwise, you may choose between keyboard and mouse control. We recommend the keyboard. Set up the keys by pressing the "configure keys" button. Note that some keys cannot be changed; the 1, 2, 3, and 4 keys on the main keyboard,for example, always change the perspective of the camera. 1 is first-person perspective within the car, and 2-4 are progressively farther behind the car. Command-S will always take a screenshot, and Command-Q will always quit the game. P will pause the game, and C will allow you to chat with other players during a network game. Chat is available during gameplay and while waiting for the game to start (at the traffic lights.) We recommend chatting sparingly during gameplay, since long delays in the chat window could make you "out of sync" with the other players.
SOUND
Be sure to click the "3D Sound Settings" button the first time through. For the best sound, you need to give Speed Demonｪ information regarding your speaker setup. Owners of slower Macs may want to disable true 3D sound.
MUSIC
Owners of slower machines will want to tweak the game's performance here. The higher the frequency selected, the better the sound, but the slower the performance. 22kHz 8-bit sounds just fine to me, but if you've got a 120MHz+ machine, go for the 44kHz 16-bit experience. Similarly, stereo and surround sound great but may slow things down on slow machines. Owners of 66MHz machines will probably want music off altogether.
I might add that the music rocks. Hook your computer up to some good speakers to do it justice, and let our musician Brandon Franklin (bfranklin@cerbdev.com) know if you like it!
GRAPHICS
Owners of slower machines will find the fastest framerates by enabling "draw every other line" mode. Disabling scrolling 3D landscapes will improve performance as well.
PLAYING SPEED DEMONｪ
Gameplay's pretty simple. First, make sure you set up your controls via the "Preferences" button so you know what you're doing. Note that you may only switch between forward and reverse if you are travelling at less than five miles per hour.
Playing Route 90
Unregistered users are limited to one state: Massachusetts. Registered users may download five additional states from our web site. On any route, the objective is to finish within the time allotted. The time you have will depend on the difficulty level you select. Doing this is a combination of skill, selecting the best car for your gameplay style, and eliminating your competitors by blowing them away. Avoid potholes, barriers, and other obstructions in the road, as they will slow you down and chip away at your shields. Watch for power-ups in the road to renew your shields and weapons. Destroying your opponents with one of your weapons will also give you a random power-up in traction, speed, acceleration, or shields.
Playing the Demolition Derby
The objective here is to be the last car to survive. The best way to eliminate your opponents is to launch weapons at them or trick them into slamming into a wall. Crashing into them hurts you as much as it hurts them, but if you can keep finding extra shields, the kamikaze method will work too. Watch out for barrels and ramps.
Network Play
Is at your own risk. If you experience problems, it's most likely related to your network connection. You may play Route 90 or the demolition derby with up to four of your registered friends across a TCP/IP or Appletalk connection (unregistered users may only play 2-player games.) One player must serve as the "host" by selecting "Host Network Game" from the "New Game" menu. All others should select "Join Network Game" and select the game that is being hosted. In Route 90 the objective is to come in first; registered users may select from six different tracks. Demolition Derby play continues until the host decides to quit; the objective is to sustain the least amount of damage. If you are killed, you will be reincarnated for constant action.
Players are free to join and leave games while they are in progress. However, if you leave before the game ends, your statistics will not be reported to players that leave the game after you.
TROUBLESHOOTING
We've got some pretty steep system requirements, so first make sure you've got all of the following:
･ Power Macintosh
･ 16MB FREE RAM
･ Open Transport 1.1 for network play (included in System 7.5.3 or System 7.5 Update 2.0, also available via Apple's web site or by calling 1-800-SOS-APPLE)
･ Sound Manager 3.2.1 (included with the game)
･ NetSprocketLib, SoundSprocketLib, and SoundSprocket Filter must all be in your Extensions folder (included with the game). Absence of these files in the Extensions folder will result in network play and/or 3D sound being disabled.
If you still have problems, disable any third-party extensions and see if the problem persists.
Make sure you have some system memory left over after Speed Demonｪ has taken its share. The network code allocates memory from the system, and it may fail if none is available.
Finally, check our web site at www.cerbdev.com for any patches we may have released.
Q&A
I can't select a monitor to play on.
Speed Demon will always run itself on your main monitor -- the monitor containing your menu bar. We had it so you could select a monitor during development, but unfortunately it seems that parts of the MacOS we were using do not work properly when not on the main monitor. To select a different monitor, move your menu bar to it in the Monitors control panel.
I enabled "Fill Screen" and now Speed Demon crashes whenever I start it up.
Some machines may not respond well to resolution switching. Trash your Speed Demon Prefs file, located in the "Preferences" folder of your "System" folder. This will reset your preferences to the default settings, which do not have "fill screen" enabled.
We followed all the rules to be sure your machine is capable of switching resolutions before we do it, but we hear it still messes things up on some systems. Go figure.
I enabled "Fill Screen" and all the icons on my desktop have been rearranged.
The "icon shuffle" will happen as the MacOS places them where they are viewable from a 640x480 screen when Speed Demon switches to that resolution. If this annoys you, turn off "Fill Screen" mode or arrange your desktop icons so they would fit in a 640x480 window.
I keep getting an error that says NetSprocket could not allocate enough memory.
For network play to work, you need to have a few hundred kilobytes of memory free after Speed Demon has launched. You may have to reduce Speed Demon's "preferred size." Click once on the Speed Demon icon to highlight it and select Get Info from the File menu. Change the "preferred size" to match the "minimum size," and try launching Speed Demon again.
Network games are messed up.
Network play is provided as-is. We've tested it extensively, but WE WILL NOT PROVIDE TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR NETWORK-RELATED PROBLEMS. There's just too many possible network configurations out there for us to be able to support them all.
If you are running into problems, try hosting from a different machine. That seems to clear things up for us, sometimes.
I keep getting errors when I try to host a game.
If one of the players' computers crashed during the game, all of the players may have to reboot in order to clear the problem.
If multiple Speed Demon games are happening on the same network, you may have to name them differently in the Host dialog.
I get a "could not send message" error when joining a game over TCP/IP.
The host computer is probably not hosting a game at that time. Also be sure you have the right IP number or address for the host computer.
Network games are out of sync.
Your network connection is too slow. Speed Demonｪ interpolates players' positions between network packets, so if you're running into this problem, you've really got a slow connection on your hands.
Another possibility is that you or another player is spending a lot of time typing in chat messages. Limit your chatting to before the gameplay starts, and it may help.
I don't get a score report for everybody who played in a network game.
You will only receive rankings for players that are still playing when you quit. If a player quits prematurely, his or her results will not count. Since games could, in theory, last forever with new players joining and leaving at will, we didn't want to keep track of everybody who's played.
I installed SoundSprocketLib, Sound Manager 3.2.1, and SoundSprocket Filter, but I'm still not getting 3D sound.
Go to your preferences and make sure that you have checked off the "true 3D sound" option. Also make sure you click the "Configure 3D sound" button to tell the game whether or not you have stereo speakers or headphones.
The game quits itself as soon as it starts up.
Our beta copy of MacOS 8 would not work with Speed Demon because Sound Sprocket was incompatible with it. We're assuming this problem will be fixed before MacOS 8 is released, but if it isn't, remove your SoundSprocketLib file from your Extensions folder and play without true 3D sounds.
I can't play any states other than Massachusetts.
You've gotta register! Only then can you download additional states and play them.
My framerate sucks.
See "Optimizing performance" below. We've gotten good framerates on a 6100/60 with the steps detailed there.
FREEING UP MEMORY
If you don't have enough memory to launch Speed Demonｪ, try the following steps:
･ Enable virtual memory.
･ Reduce the size of your disk cache.
･ Disable any extensions you don't need via your extensions manager.
OPTIMIZING PERFORMANCE
On lower-end Power Macintoshes, try these steps to improve your framerate:
･ Disable music or reduce music quality.
･ Disable scrolling hi-res background landscapes.
･ Enable "draw every other line" mode.
･ Disable sound effects as a last resort.
Free up more memory if you can and increase Speed Demonｪ's preferred size. The more memory Speed Demonｪ can take, the better it will perform. Be sure to leave a few hundred K available, or network play won't work.
Be sure to set up your 3D sound effects via the Preferences dialog for the best sound. Speed Demon needs to know if you're using speakers, headphones, or a mono device.
DISPLAY MANAGER 2.0
Speed Demonｪ will automatically switch your monitor resolution to 640x480 and restore it to its original setting if you're running System 7.5.3 or newer, and you've enabled the "Fill Screen" option in the preferences. Users of earlier systems may also get this capability by placing the "Display Enabler" file included with the game in your Extensions folder. If you find this annoying, you may disable it by unchecking the "Fill Screen" option in the preferences.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Note: WE WILL NOT PROVIDE TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR NETWORK PLAY PROBLEMS. We are aware that network play does not work properly under certain conditions. Unfortunately, the network code has been provided by Apple and we have no control over it, so we can't help you. Likewise we have no control over your network and how well it performs. It does work in most cases, but if you're having problems, try hosting from a different machine.
Please consult our web site at http://www.cerbdev.com/mac/ for patches and frequently asked technical questions before contacting us directly. The Mac division of Cerberus Development currently consists of two people working in their spare time, and so I make no promises about technical support. That's why this is shareware; if it doesn't work for you, don't pay for it, and nobody loses anything except I lose your potential money :-) . I will make every effort to help out registered users quickly, but for a game this complex, I doubt I'll be able to help everybody who can't get five-player network games working over a 14.4 modem across the Internet.
If you cannot find an answer to your question, you may contact us at macsuprt@cerbdev.com or by writing us at:
Cerberus Development
48211B Lindsay Lane
Oakhurst, CA 93644
THE CERBERUS DEVELOPMENTｪ PHILOSOPHY
There's more to Cerberus Development than just fun and games. Visit our web site at http://www.cerbdev.com/ for the latest on our research and for what the folks in our PC division are up to. We want computer technology to improve the quality of life; www.cerbdev.com clearly states our commitment to this ideal and what we're doing about it.
LEVEL EDITORS
If anybody wants to write a nice shareware or freeware GUI-based level/weapon/sprite/physics/object editor for Speed Demonｪ, I'll be happy to give you some information regarding our file formats. You should start off by examining both the resource and data forks of the state files, paying particular attention to the ResEdit templates that we've left in for you. If you're serious about it, contact us at macsuprt@cerbdev.com.
