The Interactive Periodic Table ============================== November 1993 Release 1.1 This file contains information not found in the User Guide and that may be of help in installing and using this product. Running this application with less than 4MB of memory ----------------------------------------------------- While every effort has been made to ensure that this product will run on the minimum specification machine, you may still experience problems with some configurations. To optimize the available memory on your machine, try the following. 1 Run Windows in Enhanced mode by typing "WIN/3" 2 Configure the largest "Swap file" you can, from the Control Panel 3 Don't load DOS high on 2MB machines 4 Don't run any other applications at the same time. The Interactive Periodic Table will be slower on a machine with less than 4MB. If the product is short of memory then it will start using an alternate set of graphics for the screen backgrounds. This will result in the loss of the background picture, but the program will continue running normally in all other respects. If the pictures don't look very good ------------------------------------ Run Windows Setup to check that you have a 256 colour display driver configured. Users with Cirrus 54xx v1.1 800x600x256 screen drivers may notice some distortion of text on screen backgrounds. If the application runs very slowly ----------------------------------- This application has been tested on a 20MHz 386 PC with 2MB RAM, but will be better on faster machines. One way to improve the speed of your existing machine is as follows: In Control Panel: Select "386 Enhanced" Click on "Virtual Memory" Your machine will run fastest if you have a large Permanent virtual memory (using 32-bit access) Follow the instructions to set one up. If you find that the swap file is less than 4,000K, it may help to use a disk compaction utility. Errors running at some high screen resolutions ---------------------------------------------- The application will run at 640x480 and 800x600 256-colour screen resolutions. The program will not work correctly if you are using higher resolutions. You will need to run Windows Setup to reconfigure your machine to one of the above resolutions. Audio device not found ---------------------- This occurs when an audio driver has been installed under Windows, but the card is no longer in the machine. To resolve the problem edit the file "SYSTEM.INI" in the MS-Windows directory. Find the section labelled "[MCI]". Find the line beginning "WaveAudio=...". Comment out the line by adding a semicolon at the start of the line. If the Audio or Video break-up ------------------------------ Some CD-ROM drives or machines cannot play audio or video back without the sound breaking up. If you encounter any problems while playing audio, you could try changing the amount of buffering used by sound. To do this: In Control Panel: Select "Drivers" Click on "[MCI] Sound" Press "Setup" Extend the audio buffering to the maximum. Video File Not Found -------------------- In order to display film clips, it is necessary to install the Microsoft Video Drivers. To do this, run: d:\winvideo\setup.exe from the CD in Windows Program Manager. If the CD ROM drive is not drive d: then change the line appropriately. If you have a video driver already installed on your system but do not have any video appearing in the product it is because the driver is not compatible with the video format used. To get round this, first try changing to the INDEO format video as described below. If this doesn't work, then install the Microsoft video drivers as explained above. Video Formats ------------- There are two versions of the video clips on the CD. The product will initially be set up to use the best format for software only playback (Microsoft Video 1). If you have a DVI video card on your system then you may prefer to use the alternative (INDEO). To do this install the product as normal, then edit the file "PERIODIC.INI" that will have been placed in your WINDOWS directory. Change the line: VideoPath=D:\VideoM1\ to: VideoPath=D:\VideoIn\ If the CD ROM drive is not drive D: then change the line appropriately. Graphing -------- If you have more than one graph displayed and select the PRINT or CUT options, the product will prompt you for which graph to act on. When copying a graph to the clipboard, it will be saved in both DIB (device independant bitmap) and MetaFile format. Most products that allow you to paste graphics into them will either use the most appropriate format or ask you which format you wish to use. Comparison Table ---------------- When you copy the comparison table to the clipboard it will insert a TAB character between each cell and add a carriage return at the end of each row. This format may be pasted directly into most spreadsheets, such as Microsoft's Excel. It may also be pasted into text editors and word processors, but some may not recognise the carriage return at the end of each line.