Copyright 1999 Meyer/Glass Interactive Meyer/Glass Interactive Missile Command Demo Readme file Verison 1.18 Jan. 10th, 2000 Minimum System Requirements Pentium 166MHz processor Windows 95/98 Operating System 32 MB RAM 4X CD-ROM Drive 2 MB Graphics Card * Sound card * 50 MB Free hard drive space Mouse * Indicates device should be compatible with DirectX version 6.1 or higher. 1.0 WINDOWS 95/98/NT 1.1 Microsoft DirectX Missile Command is a Microsoft DirectX application. Microsoft DirectX Version 6.1 is included on the CD and you have the option to install it when Missile Command is installed. You can re-install it by running the Autoload program on the Missile Command CD. If you have difficulty running Windows 95/98 after these new Microsoft DirectX drivers have been installed, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary, or write: Microsoft Customer Sales and Service, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399, USA USA telephone: 1-800-426-9400 International telephone: ++1-206-882-8080 1.2 Windows NT Missile Command requires Windows NT 2000 or later to be installed in order to work with Windows NT. 1.3 Alt Tab Issues Missile Command will allow the use of Alt Tab with limited support. It is not recommended that this method be used. If you should do this during single player Classic and Ultimate, the game will automatically pause. You will have to un-pause the game to continue play. In multi-player Classic and Ultimate the game will not pause, the game will continue to run while it is minimized. 1.4 Background Applications It is strongly recommended that Missile Command be the only foreground application running. This will allow Windows to devote all of its resources to Missile Command for better game play. 1.5 Screen Savers Please note that Missile Command will suppress any screen saver that would normally activate it self after a period of no keyboard activity. Missile Command will randomly demo different levels of the Ultimate game. During demo mode any key press will return you the Main Menu. 1.6 Un-Install issues If you decide to un-install Missile Command from your system you can do this 3 ways. From the "Start Menu" folder where Missile Command was first installed. You can activate the Control Panel and select "Add/Remove Programs" then select Missile Command. Or you can insert the Missile Command CD and select "Uninstall" from the menu options. The un-install program will not delete any of the files that Missile Command has created. These files are the keyboard settings, career files and hi scores. These files were kept on your system, so if you decide to install at a later date you will still retain your settings. If however you want to delete these files you can use Windows Explorer to do so. The default directory that Missile Command is installed to is: "C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactve\Missile Command". 2.0 3D VIDEO HARDWARE This section explains which 3D accelerated video cards are supported, what drivers and settings are recommended for each card, and general tips to improve your 3D hardware performance. 2.1 Requirements To use 3D acceleration when playing Missile Command you need a DirectX version 6.1 compatible 3D accelerated video card with a minimum of 4MB of memory. If you don't know if your card meets those requirements, look at the table in section 2.3 to see if your card is listed there. 2.2 Enabling 3D acceleration When you start Missile Command for the first time, it will search for any D3D compatible cards that meet the minimum requirements. If at least one is detected, you will be brought to the 3D options menu. On the "3D Rendering Mode" list box you will see several choices and the one selected by default will be "Software". Select the one called "Direct3D: Primary Device" to enable 3D acceleration. You can change this at any time by going to the Options screen and selecting 3D Options. It is possible to have more than one 3D accelerated video card in one computer. If that is the case, Missile Command will list all the available cards. Choose the one you prefer. If you don't know which one to choose, selecting the last in the list is usually a good idea. 2.3 Supported 3D hardware The 3D accelerated chipsets specifically supported by Missile Command are listed below. Any chipsets that were released after Missile Command are most likely supported since they should be fully DirectX version 6.1 compatible. 3dfx Voodoo 2 3dfx Voodoo 3 3dfx Voodoo Graphics (Voodoo 1) 3DLabs Permedia 2 3DLabs Permedia 3 ATI Rage 128 ATI Rage Pro Intel 740 Intel 752 Matrox G200 Matrox G400 Number 9 Revolution IV NVIDIA Riva 128 / 128ZX NVIDIA Riva TNT NVIDIA Riva TNT2 S3 Savage 4 Even if your card is not listed above, Missile Command will try to detect and use any D3D hardware accelerated cards. If your card does not meet the minimum requirements to play Missile Command, it will be displayed in the 3D Options menu, but it will inform you that you cannot run the game using that particular hardware. In that case you should select the software renderer. 2.4 Specific video issues Intel 740: With drivers from June 1999 the lines in the HUD are drawn incorrectly. Drivers released after that date might fix this problem. Matrox G200: Drivers before June 1999 will cause parts of the screen to go black. Upgrade to the latest drivers available from the Matrox web site. Matrox G400: Some older drivers will cause the game to freeze when entering the ultimate game. Upgrade to the latest drivers available from the Matrox web site. NVIDIA Riva 128 / 128ZX: Some cards misreport how much memory they have. If you have a 4MB card you will not be able to play at a resolution of 1024x768 even if it's listed as an available mode. Make sure to leave the default settings in the control panel of NVIDIA's reference driver; otherwise the fonts might look misaligned and corrupted. S3 Savage 4: For this particular chipset, don't use the reference drivers from S3; instead, use the latest drivers from your manufacturer. Voodoo 2: Make sure you install the latest reference drivers from 3dfx. This is particularly important because some of the latest drivers from the manufacturers cause some problems with Missile Command. Some users may experience problems restarting Missile Command after exiting to the desktop without re-booting their system. Voodoo 3: Older drivers cause this card to crash when starting the game. Please, upgrade to the latest reference drivers before running Missile Command. Voodoo Banshee: The latest reference drivers available in August 1999 cause this card to lockup randomly during the game. The only solution at this time is to play in software mode. Future drivers from 3dfx might fix this issue. Diamond Stealth III S520/S540: On some systems this card may improperly display the menu icons. To correct this, press ESC to quit out and then ESC again to abort the Quit menu. This should fix this issue. 2.5 General tips Drivers: Always, always and always get the latest drivers. You can either get them from your card manufacturer, or from the chipset manufacturer. We recommend you get them from the chipset manufacturer whenever possible (unless it says otherwise under your particular chipset in section 2.4). Always follow their instructions carefully when installing new drivers. For a list of web sites for the chipsets supported in Missile Command, see section 2.6. Resolution. Changing the screen resolution can improve gameplay. If you find that the game runs too slowly, try playing in a lower resolution. You can do this from the Options | 3D Options menu in Missile Command. Level of detail. Changing the level of detail can also improve gameplay. The lower the level of detail, the faster the game will run. The faster your computer and video card, the higher level of detail you will be able to set. You can change the level of detail from the Options | 3D Options menu in Missile Command. 2.6 Latest drivers You can get the latest drivers for your video card from the web site of the chipset manufacturers: 3dfx http://www.3dfx.com/view.asp?PAGE=nusdrivers 3DLabs http://www.3dlabs.com/drivers/index.html ATI http://support.atitech.ca/drivers/drivers.html Intel http://developer.intel.com/design/graphics/drivers/inde x.htm Matrox http://www.matrox.com/mga/drivers/latest_drivers/home.h tm Number 9 http://www.nine.com/support/drivers/index.html NVIDIA http://www.nvidia.com/Products.nsf/htmlmedia/software_d rivers.html S3 http://www.s3.com/swlib/ You can also check for the latest version of the game at http://www.atari.com 2.7 Troubleshooting If you are having any problems running Missile Command with hardware acceleration such as crashing, graphic corruption, or very slow gameplay, first you should check you have the latest drivers (see section 2.6 or Hasbro's Missile Command web site). As a last resource, you can try setting some 3D options manually. This is usually not needed since Missile Command automatically detects the best settings for your 3D hardware, but it might be necessary if you have faulty drivers. To force a certain 3D option you need to edit the INI file 3DOPTIONS.INI in the Missile Command directory (just double click on it from Windows). Symptom: The Ultimate game starts but most of the screen is either black, untextured, or with wrong colors. Solution: Change the entry DisableModulate2X to 1 (default is 0). Symptom: The screen flickers. Solution: Change the entry ForceBlitting to 1 (default is 0). Symptom: The game is very slow. Solution: Change the entry TextureScaling to 2 (default is 1). If it is still very slow, you can try changing it to 4. This will cause a degradation in the graphic quality, but it will significantly improve the speed of the game. This should only be necessary in the case of video cards with 4MB of RAM that misreport how much memory they have. Symptom: Small HUD objects and text seem misaligned or chopped off. Solution: Change the entry TextureAddressing to -1.0 (default is 0.0). If that doesn't fix it, try 1.0, 0.5 or -0.5. Symptom: Colors appear wrong or sky has strange artifacts. Solution: Change the entry FogModeEnabled to 0 (default is 1). This will turn off fog and might fix those problems. Symptom: Colors appear wrong only at the highest detail level. Solution: Change the entry DisableSinglePassMultitex to 1 (default is 0). This change will cause the game to run more slowly at the highest detail level, but it will probably fix the problem. If that makes the game too slow on your computer, change to detail level 3.