============================================================================= Tex Murphy: Overseer Access Software Inc. Version 1.00 ============================================================================= Instructions/Troubleshooting Info ============================================================================= Build 247 Release Notes: 1. If you experience loss of digital sound, which is usually followed by random "popping" from the speakers, RSX audio processing is being overloaded. This is a known RSX issue with lower-end machines. Try the following steps: A. Find and run the configuration utility in the "Intel RSX 3D" folder in the Windows Start menu. B. Select the "Advanced Settings - Buffer Times" tab. C. Change the output audio device buffer from its default 120 milliseconds setting to a higher one. We suggest 240 milliseconds. 400 milliseconds is maximum. D. Select the "Audio Peripherals" tab. E. Remove the check from the "Use RSX True 3D Sound" check box. If this fails to correct the problem, go to the Config/Preferences menu in the Overseer game. Select the "Advanced Preferences" button from the dialog. Remove the check from the "3D Sound" check box. Reducing the window size (to 240 x 180, for example) and choosing interlaced "VR Style" may also help. Build 245: 1. Throughout this document references are made to DVD or DVD-ROM. The same information below also applies to the CD-ROM version of the game. The DVD-ROM version uses MPEG2 (DVD) Video, while the CD-ROM version uses Smacker Video Technology from RAD Game Tools. See the section on Differences and Similarities between DVD-ROM and CD-ROM versions of the game for more information. Build 200: 1. In order to temporarily fix an Intel(r) RSX problem with Advanced Power Management, the Tex Murphy: Overseer executable automatically changes the RSX registry entry from "directsound" to "wave". This change forces RSX to use the Windows wave device instead of DirectSound. The registry entry is not changed back after execution of the game. This change should not negatively effect the performance of other RSX 3D dependent applications. If you feel that this change causes problems with any applications, please contact Access Software Technical Support for directions on how to change it back to DirectSound. Tex Murphy: Overseer -------------------- Overseer is a virtual world adventure that melds the two prominent gaming technologies, virtual world environment and full motion video, into one package. To run Tex Murphy: Overseer you must have DirectX 5.0 installed and working properly. The DirectX 5.0a runtime libraries are included with this DVD. To experience the 3D sound available in the game, you must have Intel(r) RSX 3D audio drivers installed and functioning properly. RSX runtime libraries are also included with this DVD. Help is available within the game in the online help system. Help is also available in Windows help format. The Windows Help file is accessible via the Start menu: Start->Programs->Tex Murphy Overseer->Tex Murphy Overseer Help. AGP Enhanced Version Requires ----------------------------- Processor: Intel(r) Pentium(r) II processor, AGP Graphics Accelerator OS: Windows 95 OSR2.1 or greater RAM: 32 Megs Hard Drive: 35 Megs (during installation) 30 Megs (after installation) Differences and Similarities between DVD-ROM and CD-ROM versions of the game: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Throughout this document references are made to DVD or DVD-ROM. The same information also applies to the CD-ROM version of the game, except these differences: A. The DVD-ROM version uses MPEG2 (DVD) Video, while the CD-ROM version uses Smacker Video Technology from RAD Game Tools. The DVD-ROM can only be used if you have a compatible MPEG2 playback solution, whether that is hardware or software. B. The DVD-ROM version has an option on the Config:Video screen to select which MPEG2 device to play video with. The CD-ROM version does not need this option. C. The DVD-ROM version does not require disk swapping, so the Config:CD-ROM screen only displays the drive for the single DVD-ROM disk. The CD-ROM version has drive options for each disk. D. Everything else is essentially the same. Both DVD-ROM and CD-ROM support AGP 3D-accelerated graphics. Starting Application -------------------- To Start Tex Murphy Overseer with Autoplay: 1. Insert the Overseer DVD-ROM disc. 2. Click the LAUNCH button when it appears. If Overseer has not been installed, inserting the DVD will initiate the Overseer installation program. Once the game has been installed, inserting the DVD will provide an option to launch the game. To Start Tex Murphy Overseer from the Start Menu: 1. Verify the Overseer DVD-ROM is in your DVD drive. 2. Click the START button. 3. Point to Programs 4. Point to Tex Murphy Overseer. 5. Click TEX MURPHY OVERSEER. Install/Uninstall ----------------- To Install in Windows 95 OSR2.1: 1. Insert the Overseer DVD into your DVD-ROM drive. If Windows is set up to use the AutoRun feature, instructions will appear onscreen. 2. Follow the instructions onscreen. If instructions do not appear: 1. Verify the Overseer DVD-ROM is in your DVD drive. 2. Click the START button. 3. Click RUN. 4. Type E:\SETUP (Where E: is the letter of your DVD-ROM drive.) 5. Follow the instructions on the screen. ------------------ To Uninstall: 1. Insert the Overseer DVD into your DVD-ROM drive. If Windows is set up to use the AutoRun feature, a menu will appear onscreen. 2. Click the UNINSTALL option. 3. Select the correct letter for your DVD-ROM drive in the drive list box. 4. Click OK. 5. Complete the uninstallation by clicking YES, then OK. If instructions do not appear: 1. Verify the Overseer DVD-ROM is in your DVD drive. 2. Click the START button. 3. Point to Programs. 4. Point to Tex Murphy Overseer. 5. Click UNINSTALL. 6. Select the correct letter for your DVD-ROM drive in the drive list box. 7. Click OK. 8. Complete the uninstallation by clicking YES, then OK. NOTE: You may also uninstall Tex Murphy Overseer from Add/Remove Programs in the Windows Control Panel. Direct X Setup -------------- When Tex Murphy Overseer is installed, the installation searches for DirectX 5.0a runtimes. If they are not detected, a message box will appear to inform you that DirectX 5.0a is not installed, and to ask if you would like to install it. If you need to install DirectX again, you may do so by doing the following: 1. Insert the Overseer DVD into your DVD-ROM drive. 2. Click START. 3. Click RUN. 4. Type E:\DIRECTX\DXSETUP. (Where E: is the letter of your DVD-ROM drive.) 5. Click OK. 6. Select ReInstall DirectX. 7. Click OK to restart your machine. Saving the Game --------------- To Save a Game: 1. Move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen to activate the control panel. 2. Click SAVE. 2. The COMMENT field is an optional field that allows you to give your saved game a description to help you identify it later. 3. The SLOT field defaults to 000 for the first game you save and increments automatically when additional games are saved. I.e. 001, 002 etc. 5. Click SAVE again and your game will be saved. Changing the Sound Setup ------------------------ On some systems it is necessary to adjust the Windows mixer and the volume controls within the game to get the individual feature volume levels synchronized. To Adjust Audio Preferences for Tex Murphy Overseer: 1. Activate the Control Panel by moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. 2. Click the CONFIG button. 3. Select the AUDIO tab. Your system may be equipped with more than one MIDI playback device. If your system is capable of both FM synthesis and wavetable MIDI playback you will want to select the wavetable device for superior MIDI quality. To Select a MIDI device: Highlight the name of the device you wish to be active, under the MIDI section, by moving the mouse cursor over the device name, and clicking with the left mouse button. The red highlight indicates the active MIDI device. To Adjust the Master Volume: 1. Press and hold the left mouse button on the MASTER VOLUME slide control. 2. Move the slider up for maximum volume, and down for minimum volume. Note: Moving the slider down as far as it can go has the same effect as the mute option. 3. To globally mute the volume, select the MUTE option for MASTER VOLUME. To Adjust the Sound Effects Volume: 1. Press and hold the left mouse button on the VOLUME slide control under Sound Effects Volume. 2. Move the slider up for maximum volume, and down for minimum volume. Note: Moving the slider down as far as it can go has the same effect as the mute option. 3. To mute the sound effects volume, select the MUTE option for Sound Effects. To Adjust MIDI music Volume: 1. Press and hold the left mouse button on the VOLUME slide control to the right of the MIDI device list box. 2. Move the slider up for maximum volume, and down for minimum volume. Note: Moving the slider down as far as it can go has the same effect as the mute option. 3. To mute the volume, select the MUTE option for MIDI. IMPORTANT: Click the OK button at the bottom left of the screen to save changes. 3D Sound The 3D sound in Tex Murphy: Overseer is produced via the Intel(r) RSX 3D sound technology. This option can be enabled or disabled by selecting or deselecting the box next to 3D sound in the advanced preferences applet. IMPORTANT: Click the OK button at the bottom left of the screen to save changes. Changing the Graphics Setup --------------------------- The graphical settings for Tex Murphy Overseer are accessible via Config->Preferences, Config->Preferences->Advanced Preferences, and Config->Video located in the Control Panel. To Access the Video configuration: 1. Move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen to expose the control panel. 2. Click CONFIG. 3. Click VIDEO. 4. Follow the instructions on the screen. To Access Preferences: 1. Move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen to expose the control panel. 2. Click CONFIG. 3. Click PREFERENCES. Basic Preference Descriptions Display Mode There are two display modes in which to run Tex Murphy Overseer: 800x600 and 640x480. 640x480 is the default display mode. The only benefit to running the game in the 800x600 display mode is for video playback. The native size for the video playback is 720x480 which is slightly larger than the default screen size of 640x480. To run the movies in 640x480, the video must be downsized in order to fit. Selecting 800x600 will allow the video sequences to be played without any shrinking. Nevertheless the video sequences will appear slightly smaller in 800x600. The option for 800x600 mode is only available when the game is 3d accelerated with an AGP 3d accelerator video card. It is not available when the software VR renderer is being used. To select a display mode, simply click the box next to the display mode in which you want to run Overseer. Captions (Subtitles) Captions are the text subtitles displayed at the bottom of the screen during movie sequences. This option turns movie subtitles on and off. To enable or disable captions: click the toggle box next to captioning. Hints Hints are only available in Entertainment mode. This option enables or disables the Hint system. To enable or disable the hint system (Entertainment mode only): select or deselect the box next to Hints. Walking Speed There are three walking speeds: fast, medium and slow. If you are experiencing difficulty maneuvering in the VR environment select the slow option. To select the walking speed: click the box next to the speed with which you want to move. Window Size Window size is the physical size of the VR display area. If you are experiencing choppy VR performance you can decrease the window size to increase performance. To Select the VR window size: click the box next to the window size you wish to use. To Access Advanced Preferences: 1. Move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen to expose the control panel. 2. Click CONFIG. 3. Click ADVANCED PREFERENCES. Advanced Preference Descriptions Texture Quality Textures or maps are the graphical materials used to cover the 3D mesh objects in the VR environment. The large complex textures used for Tex Murphy: Overseer can have a large memory footprint. Some computers equipped with only 32 MB RAM may experience performance degradation when texture quality is set to maximum. But, the vr rooms look the best with the texture quality set to the maximum. You may need to experiment with the texture quality setting to find what level works best for your computer. To adjust Texture Quality: 1. Open the Control Panel by moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. 2. Click the CONFIG button. 3. Click the PREFERENCES tab. 4. Click the ADVANCED PREFERENCES button. 5. Click and hold the left mouse button on the TEXTURE QUALITY adjustment slider. You may also click the arrows at the top and bottom of the adjustment slider. 6. Move the slider down to decrease texture quality or up to increase texture quality. NOTE: Moving the Slider all the way to the top selects maximum texture quality. Moving the slider all the way to the bottom selects minimum texture quality. The Bilinear Filter, Trilinear Filter and Mipmap options are only available when using the hardware renderer for VR. That is, these options can only be selected if you have an AGP 3d-accelerated video card and have Hardware selected on the Advanced Preferences config screen under the section, VR Renderer. If you do not have an AGP system, these options, along with the section, VR Renderer, will not be available. If you do not have an AGP video card, you are using the VR Software Renderer. It is not 3d accelerated. You have three options that can either improve performance at the cost of visual quality (goes faster, but doesn't look as good), or can improve visual quality at the cost of performance (goes slower, but looks better). These options are found on the Advanced Preferences config screen under the section, VR Style. They are Normal, Interlaced, and Quad. These options are not available with the Hardware VR Renderer. Bilinear Filter Bilinear Filtering is a technique designed to create a smoothing or blending affect on coarse textures. The algorithm scans the texture surfaces and attempts to smooth the appearance of the textures by finding color values somewhere between two distinct colors and creating a gradient. To Enable or Disable Bilinear Filtering: select or deselect the box next to Bilinear Filter. Trilinear Filter To Enable or Disable Trilinear Filtering: select or deselect the box next to Trilinear Filter. MipMap To Enable or Disable Mip Mapping: select or deselect the box next to MipMap. Interlaced VR Style This option only draws every other line on the screen. Selecting this option increases performance at the cost of visual quality. This is the recommended style if the computer is suffering from a reduced frame rate in VR. Quad VR Style This option draws each pixel on the screen as twice the size. Selecting this option increases performance at the cost of visual quality. Normal VR Style This option draws every single line and pixel at the regular size. Selecting this option improves the visual quality at the cost of performance. This is the recommended style if your computer is fast enough. Animated Textures To Enable or Disable Animated Textures: select or deselect the box next to Animated Textures. In some VR rooms, textures will have a video played on them. This is used for example to make the flames in a lit fireplace dance, or an animal to appear to move and come alive. Sometimes using this feature can negatively affect frame rate performance. If you experience performance degradation in a room with animating textures, try turning this feature off. 3D Sound The 3D sound in Tex Murphy: Overseer is produced via the Intel RSX 3D sound technology. This option can be enabled or disabled by selecting or deselecting the box next to 3D sound in the advanced preference applet. IMPORTANT: Click the OK button at the bottom left of the screen to save changes. Default Controls: Key Mappings ------------------------------ Key Assignment Descriptions KEY Cancel (Menus, Movies, Voice Overs etc.) ESC, Spacebar, Enter Online Help System F1 Save a Game (Available only during a game) F2 Load a Saved Game F3 Hints (Available only during a game) F4 Configuration F9 Quick Exit Alt + F4 Screen Capture Alt + F10 (Available only in VR) Decrease Screen VR Area F7 Increase Screen VR Area F8 Forward - Move forward Up Arrow Backward - Move backward Down Arrow Up - Raise eye level Page Up Eye Level - Center eye level Return [Enter] Down - Lower eye level Page Down Turn Left - Turn to the left Left Arrow Turn Right - Turn to the right Right Arrow Slide Left - Strafe to the left Insert Slide Right - Strafe to the right Delete Look Up - Increase eye angle Home Look Forward - Center eye angle Keypad #5 Look Down - Decrease eye angle End Run Fast - Fastest movement Shift Run - Move faster R Walk - Slowest Movement Control (Ctrl) Hints ----- The easiest way to move around in Overseer is to move the mouse while holding down the right mouse button. If you press the right mouse button and move the mouse in the direction you want to go, you should find it very easy to get around. Remember that to look up and down, and to raise and lower eye level, you must press the appropriate keys on the keyboard. Refer to the key mapping section in this document. ============================================================================= Known Problems and Solutions ============================================================================= PROBLEMS LISTED BY SYMPTOMS =========================== 1. If you have just purchased a DVD kit or a computer containing a DVD kit and are not able to see the MPEG video clips playing, but get the dialogue boxes for interaction with game characters, then there are a few things you should check: a. Insure that you have installed the MPEG card’s drivers correctly. Most MPEG cards will install themselves under the Sound, Video and Game Controllers area in the Device Manager. If they have installed as Other in the Device Manager, they are not installed correctly. You should delete the drivers from the Device Manager and reinstall them according to the instructions that came with your kit or computer. b. Insure that you do not have a software MPEG decoder installed on your system. Software MPEG decoders are currently not DirectDraw exclusive-mode compatible and do not work with Overseer. Checking with the computer manufacturer is the easiest method of checking for this type of decoder. Also, if you cannot locate a decoder in the Device Manager, you most likely have this type of MPEG solution. At this time, we are working with several of the companies that make software decoders to try to resolve this issue. c. You may have an MPEG card that does not support the way in which the video clips are shown or the video card in your system may not support the MPEG playback properly. We are working with these manufacturers to try to resolve any issues between our game and their hardware as quickly as we can. 2. In the course of viewing the intro or playing video sequences, you may experience choppy video or sound. This can be caused by the sound card settings not being correct for the game. To resolve this issue, follow these steps. a. Click on Start, then Settings, then Control Panel. b. Double click on System. c. Click on the Device Manager tab. d. Click on the + next to Sound, Video and Game Controllers. e. Select the sound card, then click on Properties. f. Click on the Settings tab. g. Place a check mark next to FULL DUPLEX. h. Click on OK, then close System Properties screen. i. Restart the computer for changes to take effect. 3. If you are running Windows 95, versions 4.00.950 or 4.00.950a, and you are playing the DVD version of the game, you may experience intermittent lockups when you try to solve puzzles or look at objects in the game. This is caused by the CDFS.VXD file that is included with these versions of Windows 95. It does not allow Windows to properly work with any data above 2 GB and may erroneously report the size of the Overseer DVD. At this time, Creative Labs is the only known DVD kit producer that makes a UDF file to alleviate this issue. Unfortunately, the file DXR2UDF.VXD, located in the Windows\System\Iosubsys folder, causes the game to crash when asking Eve Clements about anything on the Ask About list. As a temporary workaround you can rename the DXR2UDF.VXD file to DXR2UDF.BAK, then restart the computer to get through the conversations with Eve Clements. After speaking with Eve Clements, you will need to rename the file as DXR2UDF.VXD and restart the computer to load the file back into memory. You will need to do this each time you talk with Eve or your computer will crash unexpectedly. We are working with Creative to resolve this issue and we are looking to find a file that will allow other after-market kits to operate properly with these two versions of Windows. NOTE: If you have the OSR2 or OSR2.1 versions of Windows 95 and own a Creative DVD kit, you will crash at Eve Clements as stated above, but simply renaming the file DXR2UDF.VXD to DXR2UDF.BAK should be all you need to do as these versions of Windows have a CDFS.VXD capable of supporting up to the full 16 GB of data a DVD is capable of holding. 4. Customers with a DVD kit may experience video that appears to be squashed either vertically or horizontally. This is normally caused by not having the DVD Player software set up for the resolutions that the game runs in. Overseer supports 640x480 resolution if you have a PCI video card. With an AGP video card and hardware rendering active, the game will also run at 800x600. The Windows 95 desktop resolution must be set to these resolutions BEFORE running the DVD player so that the player software can set those resolutions in the registry. The Creative Labs Kits do not currently support cropping of the video to fit the 640x480 playback window. Follow these steps to properly set up the MPEG playback modes. a. Click on Start, then Programs, then PC-DVD Encore, then PC-DVD Player. b. Click on OK when informed that DVD contains no DVD Video Directories. c. Click on the ‘Open’ folder. d. Double-click on the data folder. e. Double-click either the Accelogo.vob or the Tutorial.vob. f. Click on OK to configure the video. g. Click on OK to configure the alignment. h. Click on the Play button. i. After the video has finished, close the playback window and the DVD player software and start the game. NOTE: If the video still appears to be squashed, the following steps will help to resolve this issue. a. Open the DVD Player software. b. Click on the Settings button. c. Click on Video Configuration. d. Reduce the Alignment Ratio by exactly 300 points. e. Increase the X-Offset by exactly 100 points. f. Click on Save. g. Close the DVD Player software and start the game. This will restore the proper aspect ratio to the video playback window, but will reduce the size of the window. We are currently working on a work-around that will correct this issue and are working with Creative on a solution. If you own an original Creative PCP-DVD kit, then you can get the MPEG playback to work properly by editing the TEX.INI file and changing the line MCIMPEG2=pcdvdvideo to MCIMPEG2=mpegvideo. The original Diamond Maximum DVD kit uses an Auravision MPEG decoder card. The drivers for this card are not compatible with Overseer at this time. We are currently working to resolve this issue, if possible. 5. If you have a Yamaha sound card and the game is starting normally, then the screen goes black and the game locks up, you should edit the TEX.INI file and change the line that reads RSXDeviceType=wave to RSXDeviceType=directsound. 6. If you are getting a black screen when the game is initially starting, there are two possible solutions. If you have an S3-based video card, see the hardware listing below for instructions on modifying the TEX.INI file. Otherwise, you may need to upgrade your video drivers to the most current version. If you know the video card that is installed in your system, then you can visit the Internet site for the manufacturer to get the drivers. We are working to provide you with these drivers at www.accesssoftware.com, so keep an eye on our website. If you see a driver that is outdated on our website, then please let us know at info@accesssoftware.com and we will try to get the most current driver from the manufacturer. 7. If you are receiving an error message indicating that you are unable to load a VR room, then your video card may not have the necessary capacity to load the room at the highest texture quality. To resolve this issue, start the game and follow these steps. a. Click on Config, then on the Preferences tab, then on the Advanced button. b. Slide the Texture Quality down to about 70%. NOTE: You may need to drop it even further depending on your system. c. Click on OK. 8. If you have an Intergraph video card with the Rendition Verite chipset, you will need to edit the TEX.INI file in the Overseer directory and change the line that reads RasterMode=1 to RasterMode=3. PROBLEMS LISTED BY HARDWARE =========================== Graphics Issues --------------- -- QUADRANT CINEMASTER I MPEG2: The first time the game ever uses the Quadrant Cinemaster to play MPEG2 video, Cinemaster may display a configuration screen. The screen has a white box in each corner of the screen and a color bar box in the center of the screen. The machine will lock up. The Cinemaster driver is waiting for a response from the user about the configuration screen, but due to DirectDraw exclusive mode the user never sees the response dialog and the response dialog can never receive input from the user. You should be able to get past problem by hitting Enter 3 times. The problem will sometimes not go away if the video card in the machine is changed and the Cinemaster driver is not reinstalled. In this case the Cinemaster driver must be removed completely from the Windows device manager, and reinstalled. Adding the following lines to end of the \windows\cinemast.ini file, before the game is started may prevent this problem from occurring. ;========================== [0x1002/0x4742/640/480/15] OffsetFormat=1 StartOffset=0 OverlayPossible=1 BytesPerRow=1280 BytesPerPixel=2 PixelFormat=3 Retest=1 [0x1002/0x4742/800/600/15] OffsetFormat=1 StartOffset=0 OverlayPossible=1 BytesPerRow=1600 BytesPerPixel=2 PixelFormat=3 Retest=1 ;========================== -- CHROMATIC MPEG2: This MPEG2 card does not work with the game, since it does not support playback in DirectDraw fullscreen exclusive mode. -- SIGMA DESIGNS REALMAGIC: This Hardware MPEG2 decoder does not playback correctly if the Windows desktop is not set to the same resolution as the game, whether that is 640x480 or 800x600 with 16 bit color (Thousands of Colors). -- ZORAN COMPCORE SOFTDVD/SOFTPEG: This software MPEG2 player does not work with the game, since it does not support proper playback in DirectDraw fullscreen exclusive mode. We are currently working with Zoran on a solution to this problem. -- NVIDIA RIVA128-based AGP Cards: (Diamond Viper V330, STB Velocity 128, etc.) On machines with more than 32MB of memory, the Riva128 does not always allocate AGP memory correctly. If you get a "Room Load Failure" in the game while a room is loading, you will need to reduce the Texture Quality. This is done while in the game by bringing down the Control Panel from the top of the screen, and pressing the Config button. Select Preferences and then press the Advanced Preferences button. Slide the Texture Quality Bar down to reduce the Quality. This reduces the amount of memory used by the game's VR textures. For example, on a 64MB machine, move the bar below halfway. On a 128MB machine, move the bar below one quarter of the way from the bottom. -- S3 864 thru 968-based Cards: (Orchid Fahrenheit 64, Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM, etc.) In order to get the game to work on this video card, you must edit the tex.ini file. This file is created when the game is played. If you have never run the game, this file will not exist. In this case, edit the default.ini file instead. 1. Using Notepad, open the tex.ini file that is in the \Overseer directory. If you do not find a tex.ini file in the \Overseer directory, open the default.ini file instead. 2. Under the heading [SYSTEM], change the following line from: LockVideo=0 to: LockVideo=1 If you have any problems using one of these S3-based cards with the game, look for a game update, which is sometimes called a patch, on the website www.accesssoftware.com or call Access Software Technical Support, who can guide you through this process. Sound Quality ------------- -- MIDI Music: The game will default to the MIDI mapper. If the MIDI mapper is mapping to the FM Synthesizer the MIDI quality in the game will be poor. If the system has a General MIDI synthesizer, the game should be directed to use the capabilities of the GM Synth. Follow the instructions under Audio Preferences in this document or see the on-line documentation and/or the Overseer Windows Help file. Windows System Problems ------------------------ Controller Problems ------------------- Tex Murphy Overseer does not support Joysticks, control pads, VR helmets etc. Mouse and keyboard are the only supported input devices. ============================================================================= Performance Issues ============================================================================= The VR rooms for Overseer are very elaborate and detailed. We have tried to make the computer environment as realistic as possible, and we have added several cutting-edge features to the game. Because of this, lower-end machines and even mid-range machines may experience low frame rates in VR with all game features turned on. It may seem strange to think of a Pentium(r) 200 MHz computer as a mid-range machine, but for this game it is. The best possible perfomance is obtained on machines with AGP 3D accelerator cards. These machines can run full screen or near full screen, and take advantage of all the advanced features available in the game. Please note that this does not include PCI 3D accelerators, which do not have enough on-board memory to run Overseer. The software VR renderer must perform all of the calculations that are normally handled by the hardware accelerator when using AGP, and therefore runs slower than the AGP renderer. How much slower depends on the speed of your computer. When you use the software renderer you will probably need to use a smaller screen size, and other adjustements to your system may be necessary. If you are experiencing low frame rates in VR, the following steps may be taken to improve the frame rate. Decrease the Texture Quality ---------------------------- If you notice that the hard disk is being accessed all the time when you are in a VR room, you can increase performance by decreasing the room texture quality. This loads smaller bitmaps into memory and decreases the amount of memory swapping that is needed to display the room. To adjust Texture Quality: 1. Open the Control Panel by moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. 2. Click the CONFIG button. 3. Click the PREFERENCES tab. 4. Click the ADVANCED PREFERENCES button. 5. Click and hold the left mouse button on the TEXTURE QUALITY adjustment slider. You may also click the arrows at the top and bottom of the adjustment slider. 6. Move the slider down to decrease texture quality or up to increase texture quality. Disable 3D sound ----------------- The Intel RSX technology can be used to create the sensation of 3D sound. However, the calculations used to create the 3D sound are very intensive and can use a large percentage of the CPU time, especially on systems without MMX. Disabling this option will remove the 3D effect, but will result in better frame rates. Please note that disabling this option has no effect on playback of the Dolby Surround Sound encoded in some of the video sequences on the DVD. To Disable 3D Sound: 1. Open the Control Panel by moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. 2. Click the CONFIG button. 3. Click the PREFERENCES tab. 4. Click the ADVANCED PREFERENCES button. 5. Click the 3D Sound Box to clear it. Set VR Style to Interlaced or Quad ---------------------------------- Performance can be improved by reducing the amount of Video data sent to your monitor. Changing the VR style to Interlaced causes only every other line of the VR room to be displayed. The room will appear slightly darker but will run faster. Changing the VR style to Quad will draw fewer pixels but at twice their normal size. This will reduce the sharpness of the video image but will increase the frame rate. Normal Mode produces the best image but runs the slowest. Try experimenting with both modes to see which you prefer. To Set the VR Style: 1. Open the Control Panel by moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. 2. Click the CONFIG button. 3. Click the PREFERENCES tab. 4. Click the ADVANCED PREFERENCES button. 5. Click the button next to the VR style you wish to use. Change the VR Window Size ------------------------- Reducing the size of the VR window reduces the amount of data processed and improves frame rate. Please note that changing the VR window size will not affect the size of the movie sequences. To Change the Size of the VR Window: From a VR room, press F7 to decrease the size of the window, F8 to increase it. Otherwise: 1. Open the Control Panel by moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. 2. Click the CONFIG button. 3. Click the PREFERENCES tab. 4. Click the button next to the window size you want Animated Textures ----------------- On some machines, the video hardware does not support rapid locking of video buffers to allow animating of textures. On these machines, most rooms will play fine, but some rooms will slow down considerably because many animated textures are playing. If you encounter a room that is much slower than the other rooms, you can temporarily disable the animated textures from the control panel until you go to a new room. To Disable or Enable Animated Textures: 1. Open the Control Panel by moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen. 2. Click the CONFIG button. 3. Click the PREFERENCES tab. 4. Click the Animated Textures box. ============================================================================= Contacting Access Software Inc. ============================================================================= Access Software Inc. 4750 Wiley Post Way Building 1, Suite 200 Salt Lake City, UT 84116 Orders 1-800-800-4880 M-F 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. MT Tech Support 1-800-793-8324 M-F 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. MT Main Office 1-801-736-7000 M-F 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. MT Internet www.accesssoftware.com Tech Support Email tech@accesssoftware.com Info Email info@accesssoftware.com America Online linkspro1@aol.com ============================================================================= Additional Credits ============================================================================= Special Thanks to: ----------------- Stan Barnett Sandy "Sandholio" Khaund Sandeep Kundra Chuck M Jewell Bob Hicke Joe Becker Mike Redding Rand Crippen Testers ------- Russ Jenkins Jason Bowler Thorsten Moeckel Bruce Darby Legal ----- Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation MMX is a trademark of Intel Corporation All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.