“Troubleshooting” file, version 1.0, shareware version
This file includes a troubleshooting section; a section explaining where you can obtain Sound Manager 3.1 and the Apple Modem Tool; and technical support contact information.
Troubleshooting
You should have no trouble running Descent on any Power Macintosh computer. But in the unlikely case you do have problems, here are some helpful pointers:
Extensions and Control Panels
=> Q: ARE THERE ANY KNOWN EXTENSION OR CONTROL PANEL CONFLICTS WITH DESCENT?
A: You must disable the "RAM Doubler" extension if you have it, or your life will never be happy. We have also seen lockup problems with the "Speed Doubler" extensions; if you have Speed Doubler on your Mac and you experience lockups or hangs while playing Descent, use the Speed Doubler installer to uninstall Speed Doubler. The "Control Strip" control panel should also be disabled while playing Descent. Use the "Extensions Manager" control panel to disable the extensions and control panels you don't want to load.
=> Q: IN GENERAL, SHOULD I DISABLE UNNECESSARY EXTENSIONS WHEN PLAYING DESCENT?
A: If you want to play Descent with maximum speed and reliability, yes. See "Speed Pointers", below.
Speed Pointers
The easiest tip we can give toward running Descent as fast as possible: "Buy the fastest Power Macintosh possible and load it up with 16MB or more of memory. And we're not talking virtual memory."
=> Q: DESCENT RUNS SLOWLY ON MY MACHINE, ESPECIALLY IN LARGE BATTLES. WHAT CAN I DO?
A: Press the F2 key and try putting your detail level on a lower setting. Make sure "Pixel Double" is turned on. Also try using the F3 key and +/- to change the size of the game window. Lowering the number of available sound channels in the Options/Detail/Custom menu can help significantly in large battles.
=> Q: I HAVE A SMALL GAME WINDOW AND A LOW DETAIL LEVEL, BUT DESCENT STILL LOADS AND RUNS SLOWLY.
A: Running virtual memory can cause this to happen, especially if you have only 8MB of memory installed on your machine. Try booting your machine with only the necessary extensions and control panels. This will free up some physical memory for Descent to use, and should cause the game to load and play faster. You should also go to the "Memory" Control Panel and reduce the "Disk Cache" setting to the minimum possible size, so as to free up as much memory as possible for Descent.
=> Q: SHOULD I DISABLE MY EXTENSIONS AND CONTROL PANELS TO TRY TO SPEED UP DESCENT?
A: Great idea, for two reasons: Extensions and control panels add to the complexity of your system, slowing it down; also, they consume memory, which will slow down Descent significantly on systems with less than 16MB of memory. If you want Descent to play at optimal speeds, you should use the "Extensions Manager" control panel to disable all extensions except those which are required. On most Macs, you can disable everything except:
Sound Manager 3.1
MacIPX control panel and extensions (if you are going to play network games)
Any joystick control panels that are needed
=> Q: I'M RUNNING WITH VIRTUAL MEMORY AND THE GAME SEEMS SLOW TO LOAD, AND I GET BURPS DURING GAMEPLAY.
A: Because of the amount of disk traffic that Descent requires to load levels and other data, using virtual memory with Descent can dramatically increase the load time of the game, and the load time between levels if you don't have much physical memory on your Macintosh.
General Problems
=> Q: DESCENT CRASHED.
A: This is a rare occurrence; Descent is reliable. However, we have occasionally seen problems from time to time on Power Macs with only 8MB RAM. (These problems usually occurred only during network games.) Keep in mind that you need a minimum of 4000K of physical memory to play Descent. You will be able to fix a lot of problems if you up your RAM such that Descent has the full 8704K available to it without having to resort to virtual memory.
=> Q: SOME OF MY SOUND EFFECTS APPEAR TO BE MISSING. FOR EXAMPLE, MY FLARES MAKE LASER FIRING SOUNDS, AND WHEN THE MONITORS EXPLODE, THEY DON'T SOUND LIKE SHATTERING GLASS.
A: Because of Descent's stringent memory requirements, if there is less than 7.5 MB of memory available to Descent, the game recycles sound effects to save memory. Descent will also recycle sound effects if virtual memory is turned on. To avoid this recycling, turn virtual memory off in the "Memory" control panel, restart, and try again.
=> Q: THE WALLS IN MY GAME SEEM TO JUMP AROUND IN THE DISTANCE. WHY?
=> Q: I GET A COLORED WALL IN THE MIDDLE OF MY TUNNELS. WHAT IS THIS?
A: These are due to the Detail Level being set below the highest setting. Consult your Descent Manual.
=> Q: MY JOYSTICK ISN'T RESPONDING IN THE GAME. WHAT'S WRONG?
A: Be sure you have JOYSTICK selected in the Options/Controls menu, and that it's calibrated. Also, be sure that you have selected the appropriate type of support for the axis in your joystick's control panel. For Thrustmaster, be sure that all controls are directly supported. For other sticks, be sure that you have the stick in the absolute mouse mode.
=> Q: HEY! SOME OF MY POWERUPS DISAPPEARED. WHAT HAPPENED?
A: Certain powerups will remove themselves from the game if they have been around 4 or 5 minutes. This only happens to Concussion Missiles, Energy, and Shield powerups dropped by a dead player.
Modem / Serial Game Problems
=> Q: WHEN PLAYING A MODEM/SERIAL GAME, MY GAME FREEZES ON THE "WAITING FOR OPPONENT" SCREEN. WHAT GIVES?
A: This screen will appear if you have died in or escaped from an exploding mine. If the other player is still flying there can be up to a 60 second delay. This is normal. However, if your game sits at this screen much longer, chances are something is wrong. Likely culprits: Your opponent is having technical difficulties, interference with unshielded serial cables, loose cables, baud rate set too high, or uncorrected errors in the modem transmission.
=> Q: MY MODEM GAMES ARE MUCH SLOWER THAN NORMAL SINGLE-PLAYER GAMES.
A: Try using a higher baud rate in the Connection Settings menu.
=> Q: I HAVE TWO MACS SITTING IN THE SAME ROOM AND I WANT TO PLAY NET DESCENT WITH MY STYLEWRITER CABLE LIKE YOU SUGGESTED IN THAT "HOW TO SET UP A NETWORK GAME" FILE. SHOULD I USE LOCALTALK OR THE SERIAL TOOL?
A: We recommend you use LocalTalk and play an IPX or AppleTalk game. The Serial Tool will also work, though the two Macs will probably communicate more slowly, which may affect game play.
=> Q: STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN IN MY MODEM/SERIAL GAMES. WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP THIS?
A: This may be a result of dropped serial characters. Some examples of "strange" things: players not dropping powerups when killed, ships jumping from place to place on screen, or ships flying through doors that appear closed. If you get error messages during play or during the "waiting for opponent" screen, this could be the cause as well.
These problems may occur for several reasons. Serial play adds an additional burden to the CPU when playing the game, so a computer capable of playing the game in single-player mode may have difficulties with modem or serial play. If you are using a machine that is very low on memory, the disk activity needed to run the program in a small memory space can cause lost characters. A lot of sound activity can also cause lost serial characters. Increasing the RAM for the game or reducing the number of sound channels in the detail settings menu can sometimes help. Of course you can also reduce the baud rate in the Connection Settings menu to slow down the game somewhat while improving reliability. Also try setting your music volume slider to 0 in the Options menu.
Problems With Network Games
General note: If you experience reliability or connection problems when playing network games of Descent, first try switching to the other network protocol -- that is, if you have been playing AppleTalk games, try playing IPX games instead, or vice versa.
=> Q: I'M GETTING AN ERROR SAYING MY IPX DRIVERS AREN'T LOADED PROPERLY. WHAT DO I DO?
A: Be sure that the MacIPX control panel is enabled when your Macintosh boots. In general, you should not have to change any of the values inside this control panel.
=> Q: DESCENT SAYS THAT APPLETALK IS NOT ACTIVE WHEN I TRY TO START OR JOIN AN APPLETALK GAME. WHY IS THIS?
A: Be sure that Appletalk is enabled in the Chooser before starting Descent.
=> Q: DESCENT TELLS ME MY NETWORK CARD IS MISSING PACKETS. WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN?
A: This can be a result of heavy traffic on the network. If you get this message, you can rejoin the game and try again. If the problem persists, one of the following could be to blame:
- Loose cables. Happens to the best of us. Check the plugs on the back of your computer, specifically the ones running to/from your network port.
- Too many players. While 8 players is offered as the maximum in Descent, it's possible that your LAN or computer configuration can only support 4-6 players reliably. Descent will limit the number of players in a LocalTalk game to 3 for this reason.
=> Q: I AM RUNNING DESCENT WITH VIRTUAL MEMORY ON DURING NETGAMES. WHEN THE GAME MOVES TO A NEW LEVEL, OR I LOOK AT THE AUTOMAP, I GET DROPPED AND THEN RECONNECTED IN THE GAME. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?
A: Loading levels and using the automap are both memory-intensive operations. When running under virtual memory, the machine will take a while to be sure that all of the appropriate data is paged in before you can continue. When data is being paged in, no network traffic is sent or received. So, while you are paging in data, you aren't sending or receiving Descent netgame packets. When other players don't receive packets after a certain amount of time, they will disconnect that player. When your system is done paging, you start sending packets again, and the other players will then rejoin your player. To avoid this problem, if you have a Mac without much memory, you should probably play network games with virtual memory off ... or purchase more memory for the Mac.
=> Q: MY POWER MAC HAS 8MB RAM AND VIRTUAL MEMORY IS ON, AND THE MAC LOCKS UP SOMETIMES WHEN I'M PLAYING A NETWORK GAME. WHAT????
A: If you have a Mac with only 8MB of RAM and you play network games of Descent, especially with lots of players, you may encounter lockups during memory-intensive operations. If you do happen to encounter reliability problems like this, you should make absolutely sure to maximize the amount of physical memory available to Descent by the usual methods (disabling unneeded extensions and control panels, reducing the Disk Cache in the "Memory" control panel, or buying more RAM). Descent needs a minimum of 4000K free physical memory -- that is, Descent must be able to work with 4000K memory without having to resort to virtual memory. If you are down around this threshold then you may experience problems and you should try to give Descent more physical memory to work with.
Other Level Files
You can play Descent with level files that were made for the PC version, if you're a technically oriented user. Strip the linefeeds out of all the level files, throw them into the "Data" folder, and go.
Where To Obtain Sound Manager 3.1 And The Apple Modem Tool
Sound Manager 3.1 and the Apple Modem Tool (for modem games) are required by Descent. MacPlay isn't allowed to distribute Apple's system software electronically, but you can get it from several online sources maintained by Apple. We've listed a few of them below.
Note that electronic sources of information are notoriously short-lived! The sources listed may well have changed their directory structures somewhat, and you may have to search a bit to find what you're looking for.
Internet FTP: ftp.support.apple.com and ftp.info.apple.com are the two Internet FTP support sites maintained by Apple. At this writing, Sound Manager 3.1 is available in the directory:
Apple_Modem_Tool_1.5.3.sea.hqx is the most current version of the file at this writing.
Internet World Wide Web: http://www.info.apple.com is the address of Apple's support WWW site. At this writing, you can access Sound Manager 3.1 via an http address in the directory:
Apple_Modem_Tool_1.5.3.sea.hqx is the most current version of the file at this writing.
America Online: To obtain Sound Manager 3.1, type Command-K and go to the keyword applecomputer then click the following bits of text in order: "USA Apple SW Updates", "Macintosh", "System SW", "Other System SW", and finally "Sound Manager 3.1".
For the Apple Modem Tool, go to the keyword applecomputer then click the following bits of text in order: "USA Apple SW Updates", "Macintosh", "Net & Comm", "Communications Toolbox", "Apple Modem Tool".
eWorld: To access Apple's support area, type Command-G and go to the shortcut support then click the "USA Apple Software Updates" icon.
To find and obtain Sound Manager 3.1, click the "Find" icon. Type sound manager and press return. Then double-click "Sound Manager 3.1" to display a description of the file, and then click the "Get File Now..." button to download the file.
To find and obtain the Apple Modem Tool, click the "Find" icon again. Type apple modem tool and press return. Then double-click "Apple Modem Tool" to display a description of the file, and then click the "Get File Now..." button to download the file.
Installing This Extra System Software
Once you have finished downloading and decompressing the files, drag them to your "System Folder" icon. The Finder will place the "Apple Modem Tool" and "Sound Manager" files in your Extensions folder, and the new "Sound" Control Panel in your Control Panels folder. At this point you should restart your Macintosh and go for it!
Technical Support
=> Q: YOU'RE NO HELP AT ALL! I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT'S HAPPENING! CAN'T YOU SEE I NEED PROFESSIONAL HELP, MAN?
A: Don't panic. MacPlay Technical Support is happy to help with any problems you have. Help is available 24 hours a day through our Automated Customer Service system, with representatives available during normal business hours. Here's how to contact us. Please try to be at your computer when you call.
Internet e-mail: macplay@interplay.com
WWW site (FAQs and discussion board): http://www.macplay.com
America Online: Keyboard INTERPLAY or e-mail to IPTECH
eWorld: Shortcut MACPLAY
GEnie: Type "M805;1"
CompuServe: GO GAMBPUB
Prodigy: E-mail to PLAY99B
Snail Mail: MacPlay Customer Service, 17922 Fitch Avenue, Irvine, CA, 92714, USA
MacPlay Technical Support & Customer Service: 714-553-3530
