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Front Page Sports: Football Pro '96
Demo Version Release Notes
Thank you for playing the Front Page Sports: Football Pro '96 demo.
Table of Contents
A Getting Started
- System Requirements
B Sound Card Issues/Music
- No MIDI-only Sound Card Support
- General Sound Card Problems
- Hardware Setting Recommendations for Sound Blaster
- Sound Blaster 16\AWE32 and Boot Disk Creator
C Windows 95 Compatibility
- Memory Requirements
- EMM386\QEMM Compatibility Issues
- Installing the game to your hard drive
- Running the game
- Screen Savers
- Ejecting the CD-ROM while Playing
- Task Swapping
- Removing the game from your hard drive
D Features not available in this Demo version
- The Play Editor
- The Player Ratings Editor
- League Play
- Game Length
E Troubleshooting
- CD-ROM Troubleshooting
- SCSI Drivers
F Smartdrive and Ramdrives
- SMARTDrive Disk Caching
- RAM drives
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
A GETTING STARTED
System Requirements:
Football Pro `96 requires the following minimum machine
configuration:
Required:
486 DX2 66MHz or better processor
SVGA color monitor
VESA Local Bus video card with at least 1MB RAM
540k free conventional RAM
6.3 MB free EMS/XMS
MS-DOS version 5.0 or above.
Double Speed CD-ROM drive
Hard Drive with:
10 MB free (Small Install)
70 MB free (Large Install)
12 MB Virtual Memory and 4 MB disk space free during game play.
(after installation)
Recommended:
Pentium processor
16 MB RAM
Quad Speed CD-ROM drive
One or two joysticks
A mouse
Sound Blaster or 100% Sound Blaster compatible sound card.
What is Virtual Memory?
Virtual memory is a method that uses disk space to supplement your
machine's RAM. When Football Pro `96 is running, it creates a file on
your hard drive (known as a swap file) which is used to store
information
when there is not enough available RAM. The size of the swap file is
equal to the virtual memory requirement (12 MB) minus the amount of
available RAM. The swap file starts out at 4 MB in size and will
increment by 4 MB chunks. Depending on the amount of RAM that your
system has, it can reach a size of up to 16 MB. Systems with more RAM
will have smaller swap files created. The swap file is deleted
automatically when you quit Football Pro `96.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
B SOUND CARD ISSUES
No MIDI-only Sound Card Support:
FB-PRO '96 requires a sound card with a DAC (Digital-to-Analog
Converter). If you have a General MIDI device, a Roland MT-32/LAPC-1 or
Adlib FM sound card, you will not hear any sounds during game play. CD-
Audio music will play during the menu screens. (Large install only)
General Sound Card Problems:
While we have made every effort to support as many sound cards as
possible, there are a few sound cards that are not supported directly
within Football Pro '96. To run with sounds, you must configure your
card for Sound Blaster or Pro Audio emulation. Some Sound Blaster
emulation utilities might not work properly with Football Pro '96 as
they
are not 100% compatible with the original Sound Blaster card.
Hardware Setting Recommendations for Sound Blaster:
Occasionally, we have noticed that Sound Blaster cards set to IRQ10
experience sound problems. Symptoms include the lack of speech or
sampled sounds during game play. For optimum game and sound
performance,
set your sound card to IRQ5 if possible.
Sound Blaster 16\AWE32 and Boot Disk Creator:
On occasion, the boot disk creator might not copy the SBCONFIG.EXE
line into the AUTOEXEC.BAT file of the boot disk. This may result in
the
introduction and the game running without any sound or music. If this
occurs, you will need to manually insert the SBCONFIG.EXE line from your
standard boot-up configuration into the AUTOEXEC.BAT file on the boot
disk. Below is an example of how the line should look:
C:\SB16\SBCONFIG.EXE /S
NOTE - the above line should appear immediately after all other Sound
Blaster statements within the AUTOEXEC.BAT file of your boot disk. For
assistance or more information about completing this step, please refer
to your sound card documentation or call Creative Labs Technical
Support.
Music:
Pressing [M] to toggle the music on/off will enable/disable the
music in the menu system. Note: Music is only available in the shell
when you have performed a large install.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
C WINDOWS 95 COMPATIBILITY
Although Football Pro `96 is an MS-DOS program, every effort was
made to ensure that the program functions properly under Windows 95.
This
section provides detailed information on the special requirements of
Football Pro `96 when running under Windows 95.
Memory Requirements:
Football Pro `96 requires at least 12 MB of virtual memory and a
minimum of 4 MB of hard drive space to run properly. During game play a
swap file may be created on your hard drive. The size of the swap file
will be roughly equal to the virtual memory requirements minus the
amount
of free RAM your system has.
EMM386\QEMM Compatibility Issues:
EMM386 has been found to be incompatible with the Football Pro `96 when
running under Windows 95. It is recommended that you do not load an
expanded memory manager while playing Football Pro `96.
Installing the game to your hard drive:
Football Pro `96 supports the Windows 95 Autostart feature. Perform the
following steps to install and run the game under Windows 95:
1) Start Windows 95.
2) Insert the Football Pro `96 CD into you CD-ROM drive.
3) If the game has not yet been installed, you will be asked if you
wish to install it. To proceed with the install, click on
"Yes."
4) Follow the on-screen directions to complete the install process.
Note: If autoplay has been disabled on your system you will need to
double click on the CD-ROM icon in your MY COMPUTER folder.
Running the game:
Football Pro `96 is designed to start automatically when you insert
the CD-ROM into your CD drive. When you insert the CD, you will be
asked
if you want to start the game; click on "yes" to run the game.
Note: If autoplay has been disabled on your system you will need to
double click on the CD-ROM icon in your MY COMPUTER folder.
You can also start the game by selecting it from your Start Menu under
the SIERRA group. If you wish to launch the game using some of the
optional command line parameters, create a shortcut for hike.bat and
edit
the properties to include the options you want. See page 12 of the
manual and below for a listing of the available command line options.
Screen Savers:
Some screen saver programs may interrupt Football Pro `96 and
prevent it from continuing afterwards. We HIGHLY recommend that you do
NOT use any screen saver programs while playing Football Pro `96. This
includes the Windows 95 screen savers.
Ejecting the CD-ROM while Playing:
Do NOT eject the CD-ROM while Football Pro `96 is running.
Information on the CD-ROM is required during game play. If the game
needs a file from the CD-ROM and the CD is not present in the drive, the
game may experience lockups or other undesirable behavior.
Task Swapping:
Task swapping is NOT supported while playing Football Pro `96.
Football Pro `96 is a high end simulation that requires significant
system resources to run properly. We recommend that you quit all other
applications prior to running Football Pro `96, or you may experience
game lock-ups or other problems.
Removing the game from your hard drive:
To remove the game from your hard drive, open the Add/Remove
software folder in the Windows 95 Control Panel, Select "FPS:Football
Pro
`96" and click on Uninstall. All of the original Football Pro `96
program files will be removed. You will be prompted to delete any other
files which were not part of the original install process (League files,
plays etc..)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
D Features that are unavailable in this Demo
The Play Editor
Football Pro '96 has a sophisticated Play Editor that allows you to
create virtually any type of offensive or defensive scheme. You can
build customized playbooks by creating all-new plays or by modifying
some of the over 10,000 plays included with the game. After you have
created a play, you can test its effectiveness by practicing it against
a variety of opposing formations on the Practice Field. Once the play
is perfected, the Game Plan Editor allows you to assemble your plays
into opponent-specific Offensive and Defensive Game Plans. In addition
to customizing the plays you can also personalize how the computer will
use your them by modifying one of the stock coaching profiles. Each
profile consists of over 2500 game situations in which you can decide
what happens.
The Player Ratings Editor
Football Pro '96 includes a Player Ratings Profile Editor that lets
you reassign player ratings based on your own criteria. You may edit
any of the eight ratings for any position and, from the Pro Bowl Screen,
edit and apply Pro Bowl player selection criteria. The Formula screen
allows you to create a formula for the rating, while the Results screen
allows you to see how players are ranked and to assign new ratings based
on one of four distribution curves. When you are satisfied with the
results, you may save the new ratings to the original league or to a
newly-created league. You may also go the View All Ratings screen to
edit the ratings for individual players. In addition , you can save any
formulas you create into a Player Ratings Profile. You may create
formulas to establish each individual rating for each position. For
example, you may create a QB strength formula, a Defensive End agility
formula and so forth.
League Play
Football Pro '96 offers you the choice of competing in the default
NFLPI 1995 (30 teams) league or building one or more new leagues of your
own. The full version includes six career leagues filled with players
who are members of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA). In addition to
the NFLPA leagues there are several other fictional player leagues of
varying sizes (8,10,12,18,28). Over the course of a season players and
teams will accumulate statistics in over 1500 available categories. At
the end of a season players will age and possibly retire. When starting
a new season you have the option of dumping all of the players into a
common draft pool. Each team can then draft players one at a time to
fill out their rosters. A Free agent draft is also available at the
beginning of each season. After the draft your players are run through
training camp where you can allocate training time for each position.
You might want your running backs spending training time on wind sprints
to increase their speed while having the Defensive backs spend time
watching game films to increase their intelligence. It is all up to you
take your team to the championship.
Game Length
This demo version only allows you one quarter of play (5-15
minutes). At the end of the first quarter it will return you back to
main menu.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
E CD-ROM Troubleshooting:
If you are experiencing "CDR-101 Read errors" or are experiencing
random
lock-ups, then make sure you are using the latest CD-ROM drivers and
the
correct version of MSCDEX.EXE for your revision of MS-DOS. To verify
that you are using the correct device drivers in your CONFIG.SYS file,
contact your CD-ROM drive manufacturer. To verify that you are using
the
latest version of MSCDEX.EXE, please examine the chart below:
MS-DOS 5.0 Users....................Use MSCDEX 2.21 or above
MS-DOS 6.0 Users....................Use MSCDEX 2.22 or above
MS-DOS 6.20-6.22 Users..............Use MSCDEX 2.23 or above
Windows 95. ........................Use MSCDEX 2.95 or above
NOTE - MSCDEX 2.22 is included with MS-DOS 6.0, and MSCDEX 2.23 is
included with MS-DOS 6.20-6.22. To update from an older version of
MSCDEX, simply copy the updated file from the DOS directory into the
directory where you are loading MSCDEX. For more information, please
refer to your CD-ROM hardware manual or contact your CD-ROM drive
manufacturer.
SCSI Drivers:
If your system is equipped with a SCSI hard drive, you will need to make
sure that you are loading the appropriate SCSI driver in your CONFIG.SYS
file. For additional information or instructions on how to accomplish
this task, please refer to your hard drive or SCSI controller
documentation or manufacturer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
F Smartdrive & Ramdrive
SMARTDrive Disk Caching:
If you have a machine with 8 MB of RAM you will NOT be able to run
SMARTDrive and have enough available RAM to play the game properly. If
your system has more than 8 MB of RAM you may see performance
improvements by enabling SMARTDrive.
RAM Drives:
Football Pro `96 will perform better with more memory; we recommend
that you disable any RAM drive programs to provide the maximum amount of
memory for optimal program performance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(c)Copyright 1995, Sierra On-Line, Inc.
Front Page Sports and Front Page Sports: Football Pro are registered
trademarks of Sierra On-Line, Inc.
MS-DOS and Windows 95 are registered trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation.
Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro are registered trademarks of
Creative
Labs, Inc.
Pro Audio Spectrum is a registered trademark of Media Vision, Inc.
Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation.