A-10 II -- Silent Thunder v1.0A README 5/8/96 About This Document: This document contains last-minute information about A-10 II -- Silent Thunder and other information about the program not found in the on-line documentation. In addition to troubleshooting tips found in this document, Sierra has included other documents that will outline technical tips and gameplay questions specific to the following topics: Sound and Music (please see SOUND.WRI), Joystick (see JOYSTICK.WRI) and Video (see VIDEO.WRI). Should you experience any problems with Silent Thunder, please refer to these files for additional help on answering questions about the game and solving technical difficulties. For the answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), see section VI. Note: All comments marked WIN 3.1 apply to all versions 3.1 or higher. ======================================================================== TABLE OF CONTENTS I. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS II. GENERAL TECHNICAL ISSUES III. GENERAL GAME ISSUES IV. WINDOWS 3.1 ISSUES V. WINDOWS 95 ISSUES VI. GENERAL TROUBLESHOOTING (FAQ) VII GAMEPLAY TIPS ======================================================================== I. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS PROCESSOR 486 DX 66 OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 95, WIN 3.1 or higher MEMORY 8 Mb RAM KEYBOARD AT CD ROM 2x or better SUPPORTS Joystick, throttle, rudder pedals, sound card II. GENERAL TECHNICAL ISSUES * Windows colors: Silent Thunder will play most consistently if you have your video mode set to 256 colors. If you have Windows set to HIGH COLOR (16 bit) or TRUE COLOR (24 bit), the cockpit of the A-10 itself will play normally, but certain graphic screens may have odd colors, or may appear mostly black. * Joystick Calibration: When Silent Thunder is played under WIN 95 it uses the joystick support built into the system. For this reason your joystick must be enabled and calibrated from the desktop before running this Simulation. To do this click on the START button on the WIN 95 task bar. Move your cursor down to SETTINGS on the popup menu, and then select CONTROL PANEL. In the control panel window, one of the choices should be JOYSTICK. Double-click on the joystick selection and follow the instructions. Refer to JOYSTICK.WRI file for more information. Both WIN 95 and WIN 3.1 users should also use the JOYSTICK CALIBRATION selection of the preferences menu in the sim. To use this feature simply press

to bring up the preferences menu, and select CALIBRATE JOY. and calibrate the joystick normally. You may find it necessary to periodically recalibrate the joystick during long play sessions. Note that it is still advised to calibrate the joystick in Win95 prior to using this feature. * The "Jukebox" for CD audio: The Silent Thunder CD contains twelve original songs in CD audio format. These songs can be played as you play the game, or may be played separately using your favorite CD player utility. To play the songs within the game, make sure that MUSIC ON is selected in preferences, and click on the JUKEBOX button to select a track. You can also use the Jukebox to play your favorite audio CD. In order to play CD AUDIO your system must have a CD-AUDIO cable coming from the CD-ROM player to the sound board, or a cable coming from the head phone jack to the back of the sound card, or a speaker hooked up to the headphone jack on the CD-ROM player. If the Windows CD Player is active, you must deactivate it before the Jukebox will work. WIN 95: If you have autoplay enabled for audio disks, holding down the SHIFT key while inserting a new CD will prevent the CD Player from launching. Should the CD Player launch, simply ALT+TAB to the CD Player, close it, and the Jukebox will function normally. For more information on sound please refer to the SOUND.WRI file. * If The Game Is Slow If the game runs too slowly on your system, we have incorporated several detail options that when disabled will help increase the speed of the game. These options are located in the game preference menu when you press Shift+P during a mission. Lowering detail features and changing the screen resolution to low res will increase frame rate. If you still find the game to slow, disable sound from the preferences screen and run the game from a window. Following the suggestions in the Memory section may also help increase the performance of the game. * Utilities Be sure to close any other CD player utilities before starting Silent Thunder -- These utilities will interfere with the operation of the Jukebox. Animated Cursors: We have found that animated and 3D cursors exhibit some erratic behavior when used with Silent Thunder. To avoid these problems, simply double-click the MOUSE icon under Control Panel, select Pointers, and choose the Windows Standard. III. GENERAL GAME ISSUES MEMORY ISSUES Silent Thunder requires 8 MEGABYTES of physical memory to run. To ensure the best configuration for the game, Sierra On-Line recommends that you disable screen savers, utilities, Shadow ROM, and additional applications that are running. This configuration will free up all system resource and will increase performance in the game. WIN 3.1: It is not recomended that you run in High Res if you have only 8Mb of memory. If you wish to run in High Res and have only 8Mb of memory, you may need to disable sounds for Silent Thunder to operate properly. Silent Thunder will not function properly without Virtual Memory enabled. VIRTUAL MEMORY SETTINGS -- WIN 95 -- Check your Virtual memory settings on your system. Click on the START, SETTINGS, CONTROL PANEL. Click on SYSTEM, PERFORMANCE, VIRTUAL MEMORY, and make sure the system is set up for "Let Windows manage my Virtual Memory Settings". If you still experience memory problems you may need to free up some hard drive space to enable Windows to use it for virtual memory. Note: If you have less than 8Mb of free space on your HD, virtual memory behavior can become erratic. WIN 3.1 -- We highly recommend the use of a permanent swap file to minimize potential problems and increase system speed, both in Silent Thunder and other applications. To change virtual memory, go to the CONTROL PANEL, located in MAIN. Double-click the 386 ENHANCED and choose Virtual Memory. Here you can examine your current settings. To make changes, click CHANGE. The ideal swap file size is at least the size that Windows recommends, based on your system configuration. Remember that a permanent swap file takes up hard drive space, so do not make this file size larger than the space you can comfortably spare on your HD. If your hard drive space is lower than the amount needed to create a swap file, it will be necessary to free up space on your hard drive. BOOTDISK INSTRUCTIONS -- A bootdisk maker has been include on the CD-ROM. In DOS type X: (where X is the letter of your CD-ROM drive). Then type ts\bootdisk and follow the on-screen instructions. If this resolves the problem start the system every time with the bootdisk when you want to play Silent Thunder. IV WINDOWS 3.1 ISSUES WIN32S In WIN 3.1, Silent Thunder uses the new WIN32S libraries. These libraries will be installed when you install Silent Thunder and will require you to reboot your system. Silent Thunder will not run in WIN 3.1 without the WIN32S libraries. SHARE AND INSTALL Prior to running the install for Silent Thunder under Windows 3.1, make sure you have SHARE enabled. This is necessary for all system files to be properly updated. If your system does not currently have SHARE installed, or if you are uncertain whether SHARE is currently installed, exit Windows, and from the DOS prompt type: SHARE . Restart Windows then run the Sierra Setup. If you have already installed Silent Thunder, run the MSETUP.EXE located in [CD]:\WIN32S\DISK1 (where [CD] is the drive letter of your CD drive). You can verify that WIN32S is running properly by selecting the option to install the game Freecell. If Freecell.exe loads and runs properly, WIN32S is correctly installed. Silent Thunder should now run normally. CD AUDIO To play the CD music in Silent Thunder, you must have the MCI CD Audio drivers enabled. To add the MCI drivers, go into the CONTROL PANEL, click on DRIVERS, and click ADD. Select [MCI] CD Audio from the list and follow the onscreen instructions. VOICES Due to the constraints of the WIN 3.1 sound system, you will not hear the briefing and in-flight voices when playing in WIN 3.1. ONLINE MANUAL The online help system uses the new 32-bit version of Windows Help. If you run the help file from the ? icon in Silent Thunder, the help system will function normally. However if you double-click on the help file from File Manager it will launch the standard 16-bit help viewer that is shipped with Windows 3.1, and the Online Manual will not function. You have three options to solve this problem: 1) Always view the Online Manual using the ? icon from the game. 2) From your File Manager, change the association for HLP files from WINHELP.EXE TO WINHLP32.EXE. NOTE: This will cause all HLP files to be viewed under the new 32-bit executable. 3) You can RUN WINHLP32.EXE and OPEN the appropriate .HLP file manually. These files are located in a directory reflecting the language that the game is being played in (for example, ENGLISH for the English help file). V. WIN 95 ISSUES * DirectX install: DirectX is a series of WIN 95 extensions, including DirectDraw and DirectSound, which improve video and sound performance. These extensions should be present on your system before running Silent Thunder, and will be installed or updated by the Sierra Setup program, as needed. In WIN 95 the DirectX install will inform you if it detects hardware that is not compatible with DirectX. This applies primarily to sound cards which do not have hardware support for DirectSound. If the installer lists *NO* under the DirectSound choice you should make sure DirectSound is disabled from the Preferences menu prior to entering the sim, and you should adjust the Sound Delay (see below) from the Preferences menu in the sim. The DirectX install also detects whether you have DirectX previously installed on your machine and gives you the option of updating to newer files, should your files be older than the current version. Updating may not be necessary in order for Silent Thunder to run properly, unless the DirectX installer marks the CERTIFIED DRIVER column with a "NO." This indicates that the system has checked your version of DirectX and found that it doesn't conform to current standards. Check the VIDEO.WRI file for further information about the DirectDraw component of DirectX. Before updating DirectDraw over existing drivers, check your video card manufacturer's instructions. Some newer video cards use custom video drivers and updating these with standard Win95 drivers can cause problems. If you are in doubt, contact your video manufacturer before updating DirectDraw. Addresses and phone numbers for major video card manufacturers are listed in the VIDEO.WRI file, which is located in the A10II directory. * Full-screen Mode: For Silent Thunder to function in full-screen mode, you must have DirectDraw installed. Sierra's Setup utility should autodetect for DirectDraw and install it, if necessary, when you install Silent Thunder. However, you must reboot before the changes can take effect. To use DirectDraw during the game, go into the preferences menu from the main screen menu. Activate the full screen option. For more information about DirectDraw or for video troubleshooting tips, see the VIDEO.WRI file. *Sound delay setting: Users who have sound cards that do not support Direct Sound and who have not enabled Direct Sound may find that delays between actions and the accompanying sound are rather long. To help alleviate this problem we have added a new selection to the preferences menu that allows you to adjust the length of delay to suit your sound card. To use this feature simply press

to bring up the preferences menu, and choose SOUND DELAY. Follow the onscreen instructions to set the delay to the minimum that your sound card will support. We have found that the default value, 12, works on virtually all sound cards, however some newer cards will allow the user to set the values to 4 or lower. "Powertoys" and Silent Thunder: Many WIN 95 users have the popular Powertoys accessories installed as part of their default Startup options. We have found Powertoys to be quite safe and stable, however two of the utilities, XMOUSE and FLEXICD have some potential to cause minor difficulties with Silent Thunder. As noted above, if Flexicd is active, you will be unable to use the Jukebox function in the Simulation. Users of Xmouse may find that Silent Thunder will behave erratically if the mouse cursor is placed outside the program window. We suggest you disable these two utilities while playing. To close Flexicd, right click on the CD icon on the taskbar and select EXIT FLEXICD. To close Xmouse, double-click the Xmouse icon (usually in the CONTROL PANEL directory) and click REMOVE. Both can then be restarted normally when you are done playing. VI. GENERAL TROUBLESHOOTING (FAQ): QUESTION: I have selected full-screen mode from preferences in the main menu. When I fly a mission, the game crashes or hangs. What should I do? ANSWER: The most likely cause is that your video card doesn't support DirectDraw. In preferences, turn off full-screen mode, and try again. QUESTION: I want the cockpit of the A-10 to fill up the whole screen, but DirectDraw doesn't work on my machine. What can I do? ANSWER: Change your Windows screen resolution to 640x480. The sim will then run as a full-screen window. QUESTION: I notice a delay between an action (like firing the Avenger) and the sound that is related to it. What is the problem? ANSWER: DirectSound is quicker under Windows than using the normal sound card drivers. You may be able to minimize this problem by using the SOUND DELAY (see section V) settings in preferences in the sim. QUESTION: I am having problems with views using the "hat" for my joystick; views are behaving erratically, or sticking. ANSWER: Some joystick "hats" do not respond well under WIN 95. To correct the problem, go to the joystick setup in the Joystick Configuration menu in the Control Panel and create a custom setup that does not have support for the "hat." You may wish to contact your joystick manufacturer to see if they have an updated driver or a solution that will allow the "hat" to function properly. QUESTION: I'm running in Hi Color (16 bit) and the game runs slowly. ANSWER: HiColor mode takes up enough system resources that some machines may run Silent Thunder slowly. The easiest solution is to switch to 256 colors. QUESTION: The game is all in German (or French). What did I do? ANSWER: Our install checks for the regional settings on your computer. If it is set to German or French, it will install the German or French manual. Change to ENGLISH (USA) before installing. QUESTION: I'm playing off of a removable drive and get unusual lockups or sound effects and voices sound funny. What is the problem? ANSWER: Silent Thunder "streams" a lot of data off of the HD when it is playing. Removable drives often run significantly more slowly than fixed HDs, and it may be taking too long for data to load. We do not recommend installing on these drives. VII. GAMEPLAY TIPS: Fly The Training Mission -- In training no one shoots at you, and you get the opportunity to attack a variety of targets. It's a good chance to hone your weapons skills. You can also create a custom loadout and test the effectiveness of different weapons in a safe environment. Learn Your Weapons -- Different weapons have different advantages. If all you ever use are Mavericks and Sidewinders, you'll be missing half of the fun. Stay Low -- SAM radar can't pick you up through hills or mountains. The lower you fly, the closer they must be to detect you and the shorter time they have to fire. Get Ready -- When making an attack on a target, select your ordnance in advance; you may not have time when the fur is flying. Use your Avenger for those quick shots in order to avoid having to change selected weapons. Sometimes, Slow Is Good -- Slowing down over a target may seem like asking for trouble, but sometimes going a bit slower may let you hit all of your targets in one pass and avoid the need to fly back over the target, actually lowering the time you spend in the enemy's sights. Don't Be Ashamed To Run -- Helicopters are more maneuverable than you, but slower. Dashing away can sometimes allow you to reposition and bring Sidewinders to bear without getting blown out of the sky. Most of all, have fun -- That's what Silent Thunder is all about. Copyright 1996 Dynamix, Inc.