M.U.G.E.N F.A.Q ---------------- Updated 1 Jan 1999 General Questions ----------------- Q. When I try to run MUGEN it gives me an error "Can't change video mode", even when I hit "yes" to switch to 640x480. What does it mean? Q. When I run in 640x480 I have a tiny screen. How do I make it big? Q. Why doesn't MUGEN work with my %s soundcard? Q. MUGEN sometimes won't load character X. Why? Q. MUGEN exits with loading errors after playing several rounds. Why? Q. How do I enable my gamepad? Q. How do I use my Playstation gamepad? Q. My PSX converter behaves erratically/slowly/turns off! Q. How do I use force feedback with my input device? Q. How do I add new characters to the select screen? Q. How do I make a stage and its background? Q. How do I add music to the stage? Q. How do I add music to the title, select and VS screens? Q. How do I switch the sounds for the hits and announcers? Q. How do I change the graphics for supers and hit sparks and life bars? Q. How do I change the title screen and character select graphics? Q. Why isn't the AI very competitive? Q. AIRView says it can't load fonts. What's wrong? Q. Where are the docs and tutorials? Q. Can MUGEN do tag-team or 3-on-3 battles? Q. Can I sell a game I make with MUGEN? Q. Will you make a Windows version? Q. Where are character endings, intros, story mode and other goodies? Character-specific questions ---------------------------- Q. How do I make an .act file? Q. How do I make an .sff or .snd file? Q. How do I make an .air, .cns, .cmd or .def file? Q. Heck, how do I make a character? Q. Making a character is hard! What's the easy way? Q. Why does my character have a colored box around him? Q. How do I make an attack move? Q. Why doesn't my command work in the CMD? Q. My character disappears when he's thrown. What's wrong? Q. Can I have a separate palette for certain player sprites? Q. Can I have a separate palette for the projectiles? Q. How do I add a KO sound? General Questions ----------------- Q. When I try to run MUGEN it gives me an error "Can't change video mode", even when I hit "yes" to switch to 640x480. What does it mean? A. You need VESA drivers to run MUGEN. It's recommended you run in VESA2, since that is usually faster for 16-bit colour. Check readme.txt for more info on tweaking your graphics settings. The default setting for MUGEN is 320x240 in 16-bit color, using VESA2 in linear mode. Older video cards may need to use banked mode, so be sure to check. Some VESA drivers such as Scitech Display Doctor may need linear mode manually enabled. Please do not contact us for help regarding VESA drivers. Q. When I run in 640x480 I have a tiny screen. How do I make it big? A. Edit data/mugen.cfg, and look under [Video]. Set "stretch" to 1. This will run slower though, so it's recommended you find a VESA driver that gives you 320x240x16bit. Q. Why doesn't MUGEN work with my %s soundcard? A. MUGEN supports SB16 and compatibles. If you have a sound card that has Sound Blaster emulation, but does not work with MUGEN, you can try setting the IRQ to 7 or lower. High IRQs may cause problems. Also, you might want make sure your BLASTER settings are correct. To see that, type "SET" at the command prompt. You might see a line BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H7 P330 T6 This is address 220, IRQ 5, DMA 1, High DMA7. You can ignore the other two settings. If this is incorrect, try changing it by typing SET BLASTER=A??? I? D? H? Where the ?'s are replaced with the correct values. Q. MUGEN sometimes won't load character X. Why? Q. MUGEN exits with loading errors after playing several rounds. Why? A. These behaviors, particularly if they occur erratically, are symptoms of insufficient memory. If you have a character named Kumquat and a stage called Kiwiland, then typical error messages in this category would be "Error loading kumquat.def" or "Error loading kiwiland.def". Here are a few suggested solutions, the first two from readme.txt: i. Run in DOS If you are running Windows, select "Restart in MS-DOS Mode" in the "Shut Down" menu. This will free up a good deal of memory. ii. Reduce the player cache M.U.G.E.N will try to keep players in memory in order to reduce loading times. You might want to reduce the number of players that are kept in memory at any one time. Open up data/mugen.cfg and look under the [Misc] section. Change PlayerCache to a smaller number. 0 will save you the most memory. iii. Change your DPMI settings If running in pure DOS doesn't solve your problems, or is not possible for some reason, you can try running in a DOS box from Windows and increasing your DPMI settings. You can follow these steps: 1. Create a new shortcut to the MS-DOS prompt in Windows. For instance, you can right-click on the desktop, select "New Shortcut", then type in "command.com" in the box labeled "Command line". Click Next, choose a name if you don't like the default "MS-DOS Prompt", then click Finish. 2. Right-click on the new shortcut, choose "Properties", then select the Memory tab. 3. At the bottom, there's a box for "MS-DOS protected-mode (DPMI) memory". Click in the box and type in 65535, then click OK. 4. Enter the DOS prompt using your new shortcut and run MUGEN. Q. How do I enable my gamepad? A. Edit to data/mugen.cfg and find [Input]. Set "P1.UseJoystick" to 1, and set P1.Joystick.type to the appropriate setting (2,4 or 6 button) Q. How do I use my Playstation gamepad? A. You need to build a converter to connect your joystick to the computer. MUGEN supports the DirectPad Pro converter; schematics are available at www.ziplabel.com. You do not need to download the DirectPad Pro drivers, although they are recommended for testing your converter. The converter connects to the parallel port, so you will need to disconnect your printer cable if you wish to use the pad. The DirectPad Pro schematics specify a +5V power supply for the main controller electronics, and a +9V power supply for the shock motors. The standard voltages supplied by the Playstation for these purposes are, respectively, +3.5V and +7.6V. It is up to you to decide whether you wish to run at the higher voltages, or build an external power supply to provide the +3.5V and +7.6V inputs. An external power supply, though more inconvenient, may be able to supply more power, to controllers that require it, than the parallel port can. We have received no reports of damage to Playstation controllers from running at +5V/+9V, but that does not mean the possibility does not exist. In any case, neither we nor the DirectPad Pro author can answer questions about the construction of a PSX converter. Please find a friend knowledgeable in electronics to help you if you have difficulties. When your converter is completed and functioning, set "P1.UseJoystick" to 1, and P1.Joystick.type to 22. The PSX pad buttons are numbered consecutively as follows: 5 = L2, R2, L1, R1, Triangle, Circle, X, Square, Select, L3, R3, Start = 16 Here is a sample joystick configuration for the Namco PSX joystick. [P1 Joystick] ;Namco stick A = 11 B = 10 C = 6 X = 12 Y = 9 Z = 8 Start = 13 Note that you can bind the Start button to any physical button on the PSX joystick, if you choose. The "X" button functions as a cancel button in most menus. This is not configurable. MUGEN does not support analog input. The L3 and R3 switches are supported. Q. My PSX converter behaves erratically/slowly/turns off! A. The PSX pad code is at an early stage of development, and the process of polling the controller is inherently imperfect. If you have problems, use the DirectPad Pro controller calibration routine to see if your converter has been properly constructed or not. If that fails, please report the problem, along with your processor speed and the value of the "delay" variable that can be read from the debug output. Q. How do I use force feedback with my input device? A. The only force feedback device currently supported is the Playstation Dual Shock controller. Force feedback defaults to disabled. To enable it, set ForceFeedback = 1 in the [Input] section. Q. How do I add characters to the select screen? A. Open data/select.cfg. in the [Characters] group at the top, add a line that looks like: player, stages/stage.def Substitute "player" for the name of the player, and "stage.def" for the name of his stage. If you do not specify a stage, it will randomly choose one. Q. How do I make a stage and its background? A. You need a def and an sff in the stages/ directory. stages/stage0.def has some comments on how to make a background. We will work on real documentation later. Q. How do I add music to the stage? A. Edit the def file for the stage, and go to [Music]. For "bgmusic", put in the name of the midi, mod (also s3m) or mp3 file. For example, if you have music.mp3 in the sound/ directory, the line should read: bgmusic = sound/music.mp3 Or if a file is on other drive the line should read: bgmusic = d:/music/mp3/music.mp3 Q. How do I add music to the title, select and VS screens? A. For the title screen, open up data/system.def, and look under [Music]. Add the mp3 or midi to "bgmusic". For the char select and VS screens, open up data/select.cfg and check under [Music]. Q. How do I switch the sounds for the hits and announcers? A. You'll need to build your own fight.snd in the sound/ directory. Q. How do I change the graphics for supers and hit sparks and life bars? A. You'll need to change staticfx.sff and staticfx.air in the graphics/ directory. Q. How do I change the title screen and character select graphics? A. To put in a title image, replace graphics/title.pcx with one of your own. To change more of the title screen, open up data/system.def and edit the background parameters. The corresponding background is graphics/system.sff. To change the select screen stuff, open up data/select.cfg. The background sff is graphics/selectbg.sff. Q. Why isn't the AI very competitive? A. The AI implementation is incomplete. For now, engine bug fixes and improvements are the priority. Q. AIRView says it can't load fonts. What's wrong? A. You need to run AIRView in the same directory as MUGEN. It uses the MUGEN fonts. Q. Where are the docs and tutorials? A. We are working on it. There are some in the docs/ folder, but some are not complete yet. Q. Can MUGEN do tag-team or 3-on-3 battles? A. This is under development. Q. Can I sell a game I make with MUGEN? A. You can't sell MUGEN betas. MUGEN betas are free. However, what you do with the characters and files you make is your decision. Q. Will you make a Windows version? A. No, not yet. We would like to get more engine development done before considering ports to other OSes. Q. Where are character endings, intros, story mode and other goodies? A. These will be worked on when the game engine is more complete. Character-specific questions ---------------------------- Q. How do I make an .act file? A. You can do it one of several ways: 1. If you have Adobe Photoshop, you can save .act files from a 256 color image. 2. You can download PCXClean from our Tools section in our homepage. The PCXPal tool can be used to extract .pal files from a PCX file. 3. You can get the Paint Shop Pro .pal to .act converter from the new PCXClean package (v1.5). Q. How do I make an .sff or .snd file? A. You will need sprmaker and sndmaker. They are available in the MUGEN Tools package. Q. How do I make an .air, .cns, .cmd or .def file? A. They are all text files, that you can edit with EDIT or Notepad, or the like. CNS files can sometimes get too big for Notepad, however. Q. Heck, how do I make a character? A. It's not easy, but here's a brief outline to get started. Read up on the docs for more details. - download KFM from our site. He's a good reference. Also get his work files, which contain his sprites, and a txt file for piping into sprmaker. - get ready some sprites to use. Even just the standing sprites is enough to get started - make the txt file for the sff of his standing frames - make the sff using sprmaker - make a def file (or copy over and edit KFM's) - make an air file (or copy over and edit KFM's) - make a cns file (or copy over and edit KFM's) - try it out, tweak the axes until it looks right type: MUGEN player player to test the char - add walking frames to the sff, then animate them in the air. Add jumping, getting hit, etc. - when you're done with basic movement, it's time to add attacks! That's when the fun and real work begins (also lots of frustration) Q. Making a character is hard! What's the easy way? A. Sorry, there isn't any. MUGEN is very flexible, but with that flexibility comes work. You can try replacing sprites for KFM and tweaking with his AIR and CNS to get started though. Q. Why does my character have a colored box around him? A. You need to set the color of that box to color 0 in his palette. Make sure your sprites are all 256 colors, with that same palette. Q. How do I make an attack move? A. You need several things. 1. Sprites for the attack move (SFF) 2. An animation action for the attack (AIR) 3. A move definition (CMD) 4. State entry (CMD) 5. States (CNS) See the respective documentation for details. Q. Why doesn't my command work in the CMD? A. You need to put state entry for a move (call it Move A) before all other moves that have commands that are subsets of Move A. So if Move A has command "D, F, a" then Move A has to be place before another move that has command "a" in the CMD file. Q. My character disappears when he's thrown. What's wrong? A. You do not have all the required sprites as specified in spr.txt. Make sure you've added all the get-hit sprites, including the ones that have axes in the middle of the body, as well as at the head. Q. Can I have a separate palette for certain player sprites? A. Except for the big portrait (9000,1), the answer is no. To see how to use a different palette, download KFM's work files and look at the .txt file for his .sff. Q. Can I have a separate palette for the projectiles? A. Not yet. Put the colors for the projectile in the player's palette. We are working to remove this limitation. Q. How do I add a KO sound? A. If you have a sound 11,0 (that's group 11, sound 0) in your character's .snd file, it will automatically be played as the KO sound.