Tropico Demo Readme File - 23 April 2001 Version 1.00 F TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 System Requirements 2 Playing the Demo 3 Troubleshooting A) Performance B) Crashes involving screen-savers, automatic power-downs, task switching. C) Hardware 3D, Compatibility D) Hardware 3D, Performance E) Hardware 3D, Jittery/Shifting Graphics F) Hardware 3D, Corrupt graphics on Power VR2 or Power VR3 based card G) Hardware 3D, Cracks in buildings on TNT & GeForce cards H) Hardware 3D, Flickering Mouse Cursor and/or Garbage Underneath Mouse Cursor During Movement ----------------------- (1) SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ----------------------- OS: Windows 95/98/2000/ME/NT4 CPU: 200 MHz RAM: 32 MB Disk Space: 235 MB Windows NT4 users must have service pack 4 or higher installed. You must have Direct X 7 or 8 installed on your computer (Direct X 3 is acceptable for Window NT 4 users). To preserve space, this demo does not include Direct X - most people already have it installed. If you do not have it, it can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/DirectX ----------------------- (2) PLAYING THE DEMO ----------------------- The demo is fairly self-explanatory. Launch it, and you'll be at the main menu, where you'll be given a bit of overall information about the demo. After going through this, select 'Tutorial', and you'll be taken through Tropico's interactive tutorial. When you've finished, you can continue playing the tutorial for 50 years, as a normal scenario. For further information, the full manual for Tropico has been included with the demo and is accessible through the 'Start - Tropico Demo' shortcut group. ----------------------- (3) TROUBLESHOOTING ----------------------- A) Performance The two most important factors in determining how smoothly Tropico plays are your CPU speed and RAM. Tropico is playable with the minimum specifications listed above, but plays more smoothly the faster your machine is and the faster your CPU is. In general, Tropico detects your machines specifications and adjusts certain game parameters accordingly. If you wish to tweak things yourself, bring up the settings window (press in the game world). If your CPU is slow, try turning down the options in the 'graphics' tab. Turn trees to stump only mode by pressing the key. Turn off weather animation by pressing . Don't turn the game speed above 'Normal' late in the game, with lots of people moving about (nothing especially bad happens, but running the game very fast with lots of people increases choppiness. If you only have 32MB of RAM, go into the 'memory' tab in the settings window and uncheck all the options, and turn max detail to the first or second setting. Avoid rotating the map (which loads more graphics, using more RAM). If you have more than 32MB of RAM, it's still not necessarily a good idea to turn all the memory options up - things may run smoothly early in the game, but slow down later on when more people and buildings are on the map. Typically, the default settings determined by the game for your system work best, over the course of a full game. Also, you are strongly encouraged to shut down other applications before launching Tropico - other applications can drain resources and slow the overall system down. B) Crashes involving screen-savers, automatic power-downs, task switching. Crashes can sometimes result when: i. A screen-saver saver kicks in ii. When your system automatically powers-down after a period of inactivity (as some newer computers are automatically set to do) iii. When you task-switch to other applications (by clicking on them on your Windows taskbar or by pressing alt-tab.) In general, Tropico can handle all of the above properly if it is running in software 3D mode, but, depending on your video card, can crash or hang if you attempt any of the above while running in hardware 3D mode. You are encouraged to either avoid the above activities (by disabling your screen-saver and/or auto power-down, if necessary), or to run Tropico in software 3D mode if these features must be used. C) Hardware 3D, Compatibility Also on the settings window, you can enable hardware 3D acceleration. You must have a video card with at least 16MB of Video RAM to enable this, and it works better with 32MB video cards. Certain older, more obscure 3D cards may be unable in the hardware mode even with sufficient RAM. Number Nine Revolution cards and Voodoo Banshee cards will not run correctly in hardware 3D mode. Hardware 3D does not work at all in Windows NT 4. Cards and/or chipsets that have been successfully tested in hardware 3D mode in Tropico (with 16 MB of video RAM or more), include: Nvidia TNT 1/2 (See Troubleshooting tip G) NVidia GeForce 1/2 3DFX Voodoo 3 (See troubleshooting tip E) 3DFX Voodoo 4 and 5 ATI Rage 128 (aka ATI Rage Fury) ATI Rage Fury Maxx ATI Radeon Matrox G400 S3 Savage 4 3DLabs Permedia 3 (See troubleshooting tip E) NEC Power VR2 / Power VR3 (See troubleshooting tip F) If, in the process of switching to hardware mode, Tropico crashes, and then is unable to run thereafter, launch the game in 'Safe Mode', which will reset Tropico to use software 3D mode. In general, if you aren't sure if your system can run in hardware 3D mode, try it, and fall back to software 3D mode if the results are unsatisfactory. We have tested Tropico on a wide variety of video cards (including many not listed above), and Tropico works in software 3D mode on all of them. D) Hardware 3D, Performance Hardware 3D works well early in the game, with relatively few units and buildings, but in some cases can actually increase choppiness late in the game with more people and buildings in play, as all available RAM on the video card is used. The options in the memory tab may also be useful for you if you're using hardware 3D - using fewer and lower detail images can result in smoother 3D acceleration. E) Hardware 3D, Jittery/Shifting Graphics On some video cards, in Hardware 3D mode, the game's graphics can appear to shift around or jitter by a few pixels at times. This has been reported on Voodoo 3 cards and Permedia 3 - based cards. This problem can usually be eliminated by enabling the 'Reduced Graphics Shifting' option, in the settings window (press in the main game world to bring this up.) The downside to this is that it can reduce graphics performance (i.e. frame rate), by 5-25%. F) Hardware 3D, Corrupt graphics on Power VR2 or Power VR3 based card On NEC Power VR2 and Power VR3 based cards, switching to Hardware 3D will result in graphics that are highly splotchy, possibly with most of the screen blackened and only splotches of graphics visible. This can be resolved by enabling 'Reduced Graphics Shifting', in the settings window (press in the main game world to bring this up.) G) Hardware 3D, Cracks in buildings on TNT & GeForce cards If you're using hardware 3D with an NVidia video, particularly the TNT 1 or TNT 2, but conceivably also on GeForce cards, you may see jagged cracks or seams in buildings, where the terrain behind the building can be seen through the building itself. This is most noticeable if you're zoomed in close on a large building. This is because the buildings in Tropico are composed from a number of separate layers, and the NVidia cards sometimes introduce small errors when drawing these layers, causing gaps to show through the buildings. Here is a workaround found to usually work: 1) Make sure you have at least the Detonator 6.50 drivers or higher, previous versions do not have the necessary options enabled (go to www.nvidia.com for drivers) 2) Go into Display Properties (Right Click on an open area of the desktop, then select 'Properties') 3) Click the 'Settings' tab 4) Click the 'Advanced' button 5) Click on the tab that says TNT2, GeForce, or whatever the name of your card is 6) Click the 'Additional Properties' button 7) Click the 'Direct3D Settings' tab 8) Click the 'More Direct3D' button 9) Adjust the Texel Alignment slider. The default is 3, but the cracking problem is often resolved on the values of 7, 5, and 0 Note: This is not the same issue as faint, straight horizontal and vertical lines sometimes seen in buildings and trees while using ATI Radeon cards. The ATI Radeon problem is rare, and there is no resolution for the issue (fortunately, the effect itself is slight and seldom seen). H) Hardware 3D, Flickering Mouse Cursor and/or Garbage Underneath Mouse Cursor During Movement If your mouse cursor flickers throughout the game, or if the mouse sometimes leaves patches of garbage underneath as you move it around, this is typically a problem with your mouse drivers, sometimes seen on older computers using the original Windows 95. Update your mouse drivers and the problem will often diminish or disappear completely. Also, consider using software 3D mode, which usually resolves the problem. Finally, if you're using a color or animated mouse cursor on your desktop, try switching to the Windows default black and white, unanimated cursors.