PC GAMER APRILE 1998 CD Siamo tornati con un sacco di numerose demos strabilianti! Battlezone! Check it out -- you can play two combat missions and four training missions. They tell us it takes a player familiar with the interface about 45 minutes to play through the demo. Don't ever say we didn't give ya nothin' for Easter! We've also got some great sports demos, to coincide with this month's feature in the magazine. You can try out some baseball action for yourself in VR Sports' VR Baseball (this one is only for hardware accelerators), Sierra's Front Page Sports: Baseball 98 and Golf, Accolade's Hardball 5 and their course designer for Jack Nicklaus 5 Golf, and Access' award-winning Links LS 98. Talk about a sports frenzy! Check out the add-ons, too -- the Quake 2 stuff is coming in, and this month we have a great add-on that lets players complete to throw each other in jail. Get behind a turret and guard your prisoners well! We've also got additional levels for original Quake, WarCraft II, and Command & Conquer: Red Alert. REMEMBER: SOME OF THESE ADD-ONS MAKE MODIFICATIONS TO YOUR DEFAULT SETTINGS! ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR GAME BEFORE MESSING WITH ADD-ONS! Now on to the nitty-gritty. Some things to watch for while using The CD this month: DIRECTX 5.0 Some of you aren't reading the Disc Pages! If you try playing a demo, and you receive the error message, "Cannot find DINPUT.DLL," it means you need to install the latest version of DirectX. Currently, it's version 5.0. You can do this by choosing to install DirectX 5.0 through our front end, or install it manually by running the DX5ENG.EXE file in the \DIRECTX directory on The CD. Also, pay attention to the requirement boxes for each demo in the Disc Pages. It will list whether or not the demo requires DirectX. Remember, folks, READ THE DISC PAGES! That's what they're there for! VR BASEBALL This demo will work ONLY WITH 3D ACCELERATORS! If you don't have a 3D accelerator (specifically 3DFX, Rendition, or a ATI 3D Rage Pro), you won't be able to play the demo! F1 RACING SIMULATION The F1 Racing Simulation demo is also only for 3D accelerators. If you have anything besides a 3Dfx Voodoo chip, run the file F1_D3DV5.EXE from the \F1RACING directory on The CD. If you have a 3Dfx-based accelerator, you should run V1VOO.EXE. The demo should run straight off The CD. THE SANITARIUM NON-INTERACTIVE DEMO When you first enter Coconut Monkey's Island Paradise, you'll see one of the scrolling banners at the bottom of the screen say "Sanitarium." Click on it, and you'll see a video of ASC Games' new adventure. We've noticed, however, that on some machines you won't hear sound immediately. To hear the sound, deselect the front end as your active window, and then select it again. For some reason, this re-initializes the sound so you can hear what's going on. If you want to view the movie outside of the front end, go to the \MEDIA directory on The CD and double-click on ASCM.AVI to view it under the media player. Also, if you pay attention to the very last screen in the movie, you'll see a hint that will help you solve the first puzzle in the game. FRONT END STUFF Remember that in some cases, we provide links to web sites. In order to use these links, make sure you specify the web browser you want to use in the Communications Hut (if you don't have one chosen, you'll be prompted to do so). Also, to get to the sites, you'll have to dial in to your Internet service provider. Sometimes, you might click "Install Software" under the front end, and it seems nothing happens. Please be patient. We test each installation program to make sure it runs under the front end. But sometimes, the program takes some time to load images or sub-programs. If you're patient, you'll be rewarded with the installation program loading up. If you're impatient and continually click the "Install Software" button, you might accidentally run the installation program multiple times. A good clue to figure out if your computer is still working on loading the install program is to take a look at your hard drive and CD-ROM lights. If they're flashing, they're still working. We always recommend that if you use the front end to install the demos, make sure you exit out from it before you actually run them. Sometimes demos will conflict with the front end, making the demo do weird things. In extreme situations, we put a warning in the front end itself, but it's a good rule of thumb to use the front end to install the demos, then close it to run them. Remember, you can always bypass our front end all together by manually installing the demos, as described on pages 8 and 9 in the magazine. GENERAL CD STUFF We've gotten quite a few reports of high-speed CD-ROM drives having difficulty reading our CDs. We're not sure why yet, but we're working on it. Until then, the best thing we can suggest is to make sure you have the latest drivers possible for your CD-ROM drive. If that doesn't work, try getting a replacement CD from "subscribe@pcgamer.com" If you have a Toshiba drive, we've encountered a strange error that sometimes says "Cannot find requested sector." If you encounter this, open the CD-ROM drive door, and then close it again with the CD in the drive. Eventually, the drive heads will get aligned correctly and you'll be able to read The CD. The best way to see if this works is to keep inserting The CD until the icon under "My Computer" changes to the PC Gamer icon and the Autorun splash screen loads. THINGS IN THE WORKS We've heard the suggestions, and we're going to do something about it. A project is currently underway to compile a list of all the patches we've ever put on one of our CDs, culled from Tom McDonald's Extended Play column. The list will include the name of the game, the version, and what CD its located on. We're also going to put together a list of all the demos we've put on one of our CDs. Please be patient with us, however. The data entry will take some time, and it's low on the priority list right now. If you have any other suggestions on how we can improve our CD, please go to support.imaginemedia.com and select Choice Three to send us your suggestions. We'd love to hear them! TECHNICAL SUPPORT If you have any difficulties with any of the demos on The CD, please contact the manufacturer of the demo. The technical support numbers for each publisher are listed on The CD, as well as in the Disc Pages. These demos are culled from a variety of independent sources, and we provide them "as is." We can't even guarantee that every demo will run on your system. If you have problems, contact the manufacturers -- they know more about their product than we do.