Game.EXE 2001 January

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This is patch 1.5 to 1.6 for the English version of X-TENSION. You can see which version you have installed at the top of the startup windows when starting the game. This is a beta version! Do not distribute this patch! For feedback about this patch and bugreports please subscribe to the developer section at http://www.egosoft.com/x/questsdk and post on the developer messageboard! Problems executing the patch: ------------------------------------------------------------- In some cases it can happen that the patch utility aborts patching with a message telling you that not all files could be patched. The important files that have to be patched are: X-TENSION.EXE 01.dat 01.cat There are different possible reasons why the patch may fail: 1) Make sure you entered the correct path when starting the patch program. 2) Make sure you are using the right version of the patch for your version of X-TENSION 3) If only X-TENSION.EXE could not be patched, this indicates that your system may be infected with a computer virus. Check your system with a virus checker, then reinstall X-TENSION and apply the patch again. 4) The patch can not be executed from a CD or another none writable media. You have to copy the patch EXE to your harddisk and make sure that there are at least about 30 MB of free memory left on it. PATCH 1.6 for English version of X-TENSION. ------------------------------------------- Changes from 1.3de / 1.5uk to 1.6: ----------------------------------- - Possible income per factory increased (please test this indepth!) - Shields of ships now reload in non-active sectors too (please test for its consequences on the game balance!) - New option menu with "Shift O" allows: Adjustment of SETA speed Enable warp tunnel effect Disable docking clamps - Freight can be moved directly from one player owned ship to another if both are docked in the same station from inside a ships infomenu. Also freight can be "beamed". (Please test for possible bugs with non compatible upgrades) - Player owned ships can be told to drop freight remotely - SETA possible without flying. - Keys 1 - 4 now toggle active lasers in bay! - Ships no longer explode immediately but struggle for a moment (please test for consequences) - Galaxymap, sectormap and property menu can now be accessed from inside stations - Logbook now marks new entries in log since last visit with yellow text color. - New command to clear the logbook. - Attacked playerproperty now only marked for a limited time Playerpropertymenu now marks attacked properties with a red text. - Satellites / Mines and Orbitallaser won't change their position anymore after leaving and re-entering a sector. - Orbitallaser now also protect one another (as a group) when set to protect a station. - Various changes to the notoriety behaviours of races (please test) - Menu to entera string: black text color in headers instead of white color. - Asking for a quest related destination sector reactivated based on notoriety - Jump device upgrade: If player leaves ship during jump drive sequence, the ship jumps away without the player. - Notification of ships under attack changed - Free floating astronauts now try to make it into a near station. They also have a limited oxygen supply of about 2hours - Shipinfo menu now shows the total number of used and free cargo bays in the "cargo" header bar. - Police license now bound to the player not to his ship! - Ships now also use missiles during galaxy fight (please test) - NPC ships could use fightingdrones now (?) - When buying a new ship in a shipyard, there are now 3 versions of a ship type to buy: minimal version: only with a 1 MW shield and minimal lasers standard version: good shield and good lasers luxus version: max shield and max lasers - Newly bought ships do not leave shipyards automatically, they are set to "Follow player" by default - TL ships can be bought and flown by player (work in progress, this will also require a couple of new commands to tell other player ships to land in this TL). Also it should not be possible to take such ships over!) - Pirates now also fly in different formations with transporters - Instead of collecting illegal wares police ships now destroy them (this could theoretically lead to conflicts caused by NPC ships with illegal goods scanned by other NPC ships) - And various bugfixes... Changes from Version 1.1 to 1.5: ------------------------------------------------------------- - Savegames will be smaller. There was a memory leak causing some savegames to grow faster than needed The patch fixes this and saves memory. This can help make the game run considerably smoother - 25MW shield factories were not producing goods. This has been fixed. However the time it takes to produce just one shield is still more than 7 hours! - Several changes to help make full SINZA mode run smoother. Especially low end systems can sometimes have problems with the game running at full SINZA speed. The patch tries to solve this problem. However especially systems with a slow CPU or too little RAM may still have this problem. - And many more small changes. FAQ about X-TENSION an X-BTF: ------------------------------------------------------------- In the following text we summarized some frequently asked questions and the answers for you. Among other things this text also makes suggestions that should help if you have difficulties starting X-BTF or X-TENSION on your computer. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR X-TENSION !!! Please always insert your original X-Beyond the Frontier CD in your CD-ROM before starting X-TENSION. X-TENSION requires the X-BTF CD for playing! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Game related issues about X-TENSION: - Most information about X-TENSION is explained in detail in the X-TENSION manual. You can find this document as an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file on this CD together with the software required to read or print it. If you run into any problems, make sure you read this document first. However, there are some last minute updates not covered in the manual: - You can now sell ships in a shipyard. As soon as you land with two ships in a shipyard, you can now sell the one that you are not currently flying from the trading menu. Order your ships to land at the shipyard or order them to follow you before you land in a shipyard, then wait for them to arrive. You can switch between ships with the "change ship" menu, and even sell the ship you are currently using this way. - When buying new ships in a shipyard you can now immediately choose some basic upgrades from the local equipment dock. Some other frequently asked questions about the gameplay of X-TENSION: - The "Turbo boost" upgrade works a bit differently with X-TENSION than it used to work in X-BTF. It now "only" accelerates your ship faster but does not make you faster than the maximum speed of your ship. To increase the maximum speed you still have the option to buy "engine tunings". - You can fly more than 30 different ships in X-TENSION, and many of them have unique special features. Most of the freighters you can buy can not be equipped with lasers while most of the fighter ships can not transport as many goods as a freighter can. If you see other people (e.g Pirates) flying ships that you would like to have, you may consider to steal them. Some ships that you can not buy can still be taken over in a fight. Pirate freighters ,for example, are a nice compromise between a fighting ship and a transporter. - Compared to X-BTF you will find that in X-TENSION you will have to spend a little more time on planning where you want to build your factories. Most factory types only make a good profit for you if you put them in a good location. Check the demand for your product as well as the supply with the needed resources. Only when you buy your resources cheap and sell your products expensive will your factory make you a rich tycoon fast :) - Like in X-BTF, in X-TENSION you still need to hire a TL class transporter ship when you want to build a factory. Hire the ship, then dock at a shipyard! - Check your logbook for details about possible missions you are playing. For more and updated news about X-TENSION and links to many interesting fanpages about the game, visit EGOSOFT on the web at: http://www.egosoft.com/x The following FAQ covers technical problems with X-Beyond the Frontier. Some of the hardware related issues can still happen with X-TENSION, so if you have problems running the game, please read through this text: X-Beyond the Frontier version 1.9 (English) The most common question related to X: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technical Problems --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The game does not start. It hangs while loading or it is easily terminated, so that the desktop appears again. Q: The speech output is missing. What can I do? Q: The speech output does not seem to stop. What can I do? Q: No music is played. What's wrong? Q: The game runs very slowly, if I leave a space station or during the intro sequences. I do not hear any music? Please examine the following possibilities. Every single one can be a reason for your problem! Possibility 1: Media Player is not correctly installed. Either the newest version is not installed by DirectX Media (a part of the Media Player) and/or no MP3 codec. In order to solve this problem, make sure you install the Microsoft Media Player completely. Possibility 2: You have tried to play X directly from the CD-ROM. Another (rather improbable) possibility could be the fact that you start X directly from the CD ROM without having installed it on your hard disk! Thus the music and speech output is faulty. Possibility 3: You did not create sufficient virtual memory: initially the game loads for a while and then locks up before the first 3D scene. The reason for this problem COULD be that you did not create sufficient virtual workspace. Read also the previous responses with tips for correct music playback. An incompatible MP3 codec or MPEG streaming component can be a reason for X not to start. Possibility 4: A conflict with a virtual CD-ROM drive Another reason that X maz not start could be that you used a program for the creation of a virtual CD-ROM drive. Please terminate this program before you start X! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The game locks up after a short time. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A: If the intro sequence from X and the credits run error free (with sound, music and speech output) perhaps one of the following paragraphs may help to locate the problem. 1) Please find out if there is a new update patch for X These are available from Egosoft or THQ and also from their homepages (www.egosoft.com or www.thq.de). You are currently using version 1.7. For this reason only patches with a higher version numbers will work for you. 2) Some graphics cards need newer drivers. Particularly for graphics cards based on the Voodoo Banshee chip, e.g. the Diamond Monster Fusion you should use the newest reference driver released by 3DFX. Similar problems related to drivers were observed with Voodoo3 graphics cards. 3) Software e.g. a Screensaver runs in the background and uses processor time. From this various problems can result - even crashes can occur. 4) Please make sure that your graphic card doesn't share its IRQ with another PCI card. If you have an AGP graphics card the PCI card in the card slot next to the AGP card usually receives the same IRQ. This can slow down the system. In the worst case this can cause a crash when the system is too heavily loaded. Many graphics card manufacturers offer a solution for this on their homepage. 5) Your 3D-Card or your CPU is over-clocked, RAM is defective, your system is unstable, etc... Sometimes instabilities of the hardware occur only if the system is running at full load! 6) You are using old and possibly defective drivers for your sound card (A3D based cards in particular may require an updated driver). 7) Please make sure your system has enough virtual memory. Check your Windows virtual memory settings, and check if there is enough space left on your hard disk. A good setting may be a minimum and maximum of 200MB virtual memory. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The ship rotates as soon as I start the game. A: Press F8 in order to get to the options menu. Click on input devices, and adjust your joystick in the upper left corner. Even if your joystick is currently not attached it may be registered in Windows! Now click on OK. This should solve the problem. Another cause could be that the third axis of your joystick (sliding control or turning function of your joystick) is not calibrated. You can do this in the "system control". --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The game does not start up. It stops with a message saying "wrong graphic settings". What is wrong? A: Maybe you have some incorrect settings stored in your registry. De-select the "use settings" button on startup. If this does not help, try to start the game in window mode. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The ship de-accelerates, although I do not press the Z key? A: Probably you have a joystick with thrust control (Throttle). This input mode overwrites the keyboard entry. Either you use the thrust control of your joystick or you deactivate it using the the options menu or you remove your joystick. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The displayed textures are sometimes incorrect. Problems with clipping? (as far as we know this only happens on Riva TNT graphics cards.) A: This is a known problem that occurs on some DX6 drivers. Please try to use the XDX6.exe which we installed as alternative to x.exe, also on your computer. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: I would like to use a colour depth of 32 bits with my graphics card (e.g. RIVA TNT) What do I have to modify? A: Start the game with the default settings. Press F11 during the game and select a texture format like 8-8-8-0 or 8-8-8-8 for both types of texture. Select a screen resolution with a depth of 32 bits. Remember that more graphics memory is needed and the game possibly refuses to run on some computers. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The volume adjustments are ignored? A: In addition to the Windows volume adjustment you can change the volume within the game. Press F8 to display the options menu and click on the sound settings icon. Here you can make the adjustments to the different volume levels. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The sound quality when using SB16 or AWE32 sound cards is bad / I hear clicking noises? A: Sound cards without accelerated sound buffer like the AWE32 and the SB16 can have a bad sound quality. Particularly if the sounds are too loud, distortions can occur. There are some adjustments which can try you out: deactivate the 3D surround sound effect in the driver for the AWE32. Select a sampling rate of 22kHz within the sound menu of X. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Sometimes I cannot control the speed of the ship (a/z)? A: Your joystick probably overwrites the speed setting with thrust control settings. Please decide if you want to use the thrust control of your joystick, re-calibrate your joystick or disconnect your Joystick from the system and remove it from the Windows system control. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The game will not start, I double click on the icon but nothing happens? A: The installation of necessary DLL files went wrong. "X - Beyond the Frontier" uses the file ijl10.dll. This file MUST be in the same directory as the rest of the game. If you cannot find this file, try installing X again. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The game crashes / hangs while loading, or after the Intro sequence? A: Make sure you have enough virtual memory. X temporarily uses a lot of memory. Make sure your virtual memory settings (system settings -> performance) do not limit the maximum possible virtual memory, and check how much space is left on the drive. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Game related issues --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: How can I save a game in X? A: You must buy Salvage Insurance. Among other things you can obtain this in each factory, or trading station. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: What does the number tell me when I scan asteroids with a mineral scanner installed on my ship? A: The higher the number you get, the more minerals it contains. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Some Alien races don't allow me to dock at their stations? A: They don't trust you. You have to work on your reputation, try to shoot down a couple of Xenon's or pirates in their sector, this might help. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Can I hire transporters to bring crystals to my Solar power plant? A: No you can't. You will have to bring them to your power plant yourself. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Where do I find further information about the game controls and the flow of the game itself? A: Within the game there are different possibilities to obtain help. With <h> or <k> you receive an outline of the key assignment (refer to the manual as well). With <Shift h> you can get some game TIPS. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: How do I know which version I have of X? A: When you start up the game, a small window will be opened before loading. Here you can see the version number. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: If I load a new logo, the whole screen becomes distorted? A: This is because of some driver problems which appear on some 3D cards. Press F8 to get to the option menu, then click on the Graphics device / 3D card and then press cancel. This will solve the problem. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: I have problems with my Voodoo 3D card and have a motherboard with an ALI chipset, what do I do? A: There is a new driver(1.6) available for motherboards with ALI chipsets. Using this driver should correct the problem. For more information, please check the following Website: www.ali.com.tw and please make sure to use the newest (reference) driver for your graphic card. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Why are the credits I am earning in the game halfed after some time? A: This problem is related to the copy protection. Are you using an Original (and not a copy)? If yes, please check the following things: 1) Check if you hard drive is virus free. 2) Make sure that you are not using any programs which simulate a CD-ROM drive etc. 3) Make sure that you are not using an old DOS driver for your CD-ROM drive but a Windows driver instead. If this doesn't help you, please write an E-Mail to: info@egosoft.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: X slows down and the music starts to stutters after a while, what is wrong? A: Please make sure that Windows is not running any programs like Virus Scanners (for example Norton Antivirus) in the background, and make sure that the Mediaplayer is fully installed. Further Tips & Tricks can be found on our web pages: http://www.egosoft.com/X http://www.beyondthefrontier.com EGOSOFT Aug-01-2000