The Development Team at Cityscreens Software went out of their way to test Virtual Seattle 2000 on a variety of computer systems and configurations, so you shouldn't encounter any serious problems. The following are answers to some common questions that you might have if your VS2K doesn't seem to be working well.

If you don't find answers to the questions that you have, try visiting our Online Update Page to see if any answers or bug fixes are posted that may solve your problem.

Quick Reference

• Program crashes when my monitor goes into Low-Power Standby mode. How can I fix it? (Windows only)
• When I press the space bar to go interactive, program turns off
• Program Runs Too Slow
• Program Doesn't Fill the Whole Screen
• Program Just Stays on Same Screen
• Program Doesn't Make Any Sound
• Program Doesn't Start Automatically
• Program Gives Error Messages
• Password Protect Option Doesn't Work
• DirectX error message, or screen resolution is different after program exits (Windows only)

Q: "Program crashes when my monitor goes into Low-Power Standby mode. How can I fix it?" (Windows only)
A: There are two ways to fix this. One way is to turn off your monitor's power-saving feature (recommended). The other way is to turn off Virtual Seattle's "Use DirectX" feature.

1. Access your "Display Properties" by selecting "Start->Settings->Control Panels"
2. Double-click the "Display" icon
3. Select the "Screen Saver" tab at the top of the "Display Properties" window
4. Next, you can either disable Low-Power Standby by unchecking the "Low Power Standby" checkbox at the bottom of the window (recommended); OR you can turn off Virtual Seattle DirectX graphics by doing the following:
   1. Press the "Settings" button to access the screen saver settings
   2. Uncheck the "Use DirectX" checkbox
   3. Click "OK", then "OK" to exit

Q: "When I press the space bar to go to Interactive Mode, the program turns off. How can I fix this?"
A: If you start Virtual Seattle by clicking on the desktop icon, or by running it from the Start menu, the program will start in Interactive Mode. This means that if you press the space bar at this time, you will exit the program. The only time that you need to use the space bar is when the screen saver starts by itself, and you decide that you would like to interact with it. In this case, pressing the spacebar will make it go from Screen Saver Mode to Interactive Mode. If you press the spacebar again, it will go back to Screen Saver Mode.

Q: "Virtual Seattle runs too slowly on my system. How do I make it run faster?"
A: First, check the system requirements to see if your computer fits the minimum system requirements. In order to run Virtual Seattle very well, you need to have either a computer running Windows that has at least a 486/100MHz processor and more than 8 megabytes of RAM, or a Macintosh computer that has MacOS 7.1 or higher, a PowerPC processor, and at least 12MB RAM. However, regardless of what kind of computer you have, there are a couple of things you can do to make the program run faster:

• In the Screen Savers Setup, change the Traffic to "low". This will make it run faster because there will be fewer cars driving around on the screen (wouldn't it be nice if you could use this trick during your commute!).
• Virtual Seattle runs best if your display is in 256 color mode. If your display is in either thousands or millions of colors mode, try changing it to 256 colors and see if that speeds things up.

Q: "Virtual Seattle doesn't fill my whole screen - there is a black border around the outside of it. How do I make it fill the whole screen?"
A:Virtual Seattle tries to detect what screen resolution your computer is running in, and then stretch to fill the whole screen. However, in some situations, it cannot stretch all the way to the edges. If you are running in a screen mode of 800X600 or higher and have the "Use DirectX" setting turned off, you must be in either 256 color mode or millions of colors (32-bit) mode for the program to run full-screen. If you don't know how to change your monitor's color mode, check the user's guide for your operating system.

On Macintosh systems, the program will always run at 640X480, and will usually have a border around it.

Q: "Virtual Seattle doesn't change screens - it just stays on the same one. How do I make it go to a different screen?"
A: Virtual Seattle will only cycle between the different screens when it's in Screen Saver Mode. When it is in Interactive Mode, you can move between screens by touching the mouse cursor to the very edge of the screen; if there is an adjacent screen in that direction, a green street sign will pop up. Just click on that sign to move to the next screen. If a street sign doesn't pop up, try touching the cursor to a different edge of the screen. You can also jump to any screen by right-clicking your mouse, then selecting a screen from the pop-up navigation sign that appears (Windows only).

Q: "I want to hear the sounds of the city, but my sound doesn't seem to work. How can I make it work?"
A: When Virtual Seattle is in Screen Saver Mode, you should hear the vehicles honk or rev their engines every so often; if you don't, go to the Screen Saver Settings and make sure that the Sounds check box is checked. When you go into Interactive Mode, the sounds will automatically work, even if the Sounds checkbox is unchecked. If you don't hear sounds when you click on vehicles in Interactive Mode, then there is a problem with your speakers or your sound hardware that is unrelated to Virtual Seattle. Make sure that your speakers are plugged in and turned on, and that your sound hardware is configured properly.

Q: "I installed Virtual Seattle, but it doesn't turn on. How do I make it turn on?"
A: Virtual Seattle runs in two modes: Interactive Mode, and Screen Saver Mode. If you want to get right into the heart of VS2K, you can start it up in Interactive Mode.
WINDOWS: Double-click the Virtual Seattle icon on your desktop. Alternatively, press the Start button on the taskbar in the lower left corner of the screen. Choose the Programs option. Then choose the Virtual Seattle option. Finally, choose Virtual Seattle Screen Saver.
MACINTOSH: Double-click the Virtual Seattle icon on your desktop.

Starting VS2K in Screen Saver Mode couldn't be easier. All you have to do... is nothing at all! Just leave your keyboard and mouse alone for a minute or two and Screen Saver Mode will kick in all by itself. If it doesn't turn on within a few minutes, make sure that Virtual Seattle is selected as your screen saver in your display settings. If you don't know how to set Virtual Seattle as your screen saver, follow the steps in the Customize page. NOTE: If you are using a Macintosh computer, you can also activate Screen Saver Mode by using the "Hot Corners" feature of VS2K. Do this by moving your cursor into any corner of your screen, and VS2K will start after a few seconds.

Q: "When I try to run Virtual Seattle, I get an error message that says 'Can't load bitmap' or 'Couldn't open data file'. How can I fix this error?"
A: These errors are caused by an improper or incomplete installation. You might also get these errors if some of the files in your Virtual Seattle directory (usually 'c:\ProgramFiles\VirtualSeattle2000' on Windows computers, or "Hard Drive/VirtualSeattle2000" on a Macintosh) have been moved or deleted. To fix this error, the only thing you can do is reinstall Virtual Seattle from the original CD-ROM.

Q: "I can't seem to get the 'Password Protected' option to work. How can I fix this?"
A: Virtual Seattle does not currently support the Password Protected option. Even though there may be a 'Password Protected' checkbox in the Setup dialog, checking it will have no effect.

Q: "My screen resolution is messed up after I exit Virtual Seattle. What's going on?" (Windows only)
A: When possible, Virtual Seattle uses Microsoft's DirectX technology to help the graphics look clear and crisp in full-screen mode. However, this feature may not work properly if you have an old version of DirectX, if DirectX is improperly installed on your system, or if your system is very low on resources when Virtual Seattle is running. You can either close some open programs before running VS2K, or you can disable this feature by unchecking the "Use DirectX" option in the Settings control panel (see the Customize page for instructions).