MacAddict: Utilities/MacAddict S Utilities.iso/Utilities/Software Updates/Nascar 1.0.1 Updater/Nascar Troubleshooting □Guide

Text File | 1996-12-16 | 18KB | 499 lines

Sierra Technical Support
PO Box 85006
Bellevue, WA  98015-8506
Phone:  [phone]
Fax:  [phone]

America Online:  Keyword SIERRA
Compuserve:  Go SIERRA
Email:  [e-mail]
WWW:  http://www.sierra.com

NASCAR  Macintosh Troubleshooting Guide
Revised 12/13//96

Sierra Technical Support provides this documentation as a reference to
Sierra customers using Sierra software products.  Sierra Technical
Support makes reasonable efforts to ensure that the information
contained in this documentation is accurate.  However, Sierra makes no
warranty, either express or implied, as to the accuracy, effectiveness, or
completeness of the information contained in this documentation.

SIERRA ON-LINE, INC. DOES NOT WARRANTY OR PROMISE
THAT THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL WORK WITH ANY OR
ALL COMPUTER SYSTEMS.  SIERRA DOES NOT ASSUME ANY
LIABILITY, EITHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL, FOR
THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN, INCLUDING ANY
AND ALL DAMAGE TO OR LOST USE OF COMPUTER
HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, LOSS OF
WARRANTIES, OR LOST DATA BY THE CUSTOMER OR ANY
THIRD PARTY.  NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR
ADVICE GIVEN BY SIERRA, ITS EMPLOYEES, DISTRIBUTORS,
DEALER OR AGENTS SHALL CHANGE THE RESTRICTION OF
LIABILITY OR CREATE ANY NEW WARRANTIES.  IN NO CASE
SHALL SIERRA'S LIABILITY EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE
OF THE SIERRA SOFTWARE PRODUCT.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION 1 - HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
SECTION 2 - INSTALLING THE GAME
SECTION 3 - COMMON STARTUP PROBLEMS
SECTION 4 - MEMORY TROUBLESHOOTING
SECTION 5 - COMMON PROBLEMS
SECTION 6 - OBTAINING A PATCH FROM SIERRA
SECTION 7 - IF YOU STILL HAVE PROBLEMS...


SECTION 1 - HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

REQUIRED
Power Macintosh 6100 60mhz (minimum)
16 MB RAM
Double Speed CD ROM
16 MB hard drive space
System 7.1.2 or higher
13" monitor (640x 480 resolution with 256 colors)

RECOMMENDED FOR BEST PERFORMANCE
Joystick or steering device
Plain Talk 1.51 (required for speech recognition)


SECTION 2 - INSTALLING THE GAME

Insert the NASCAR CD into the appropriate drive. Once the CD is
mounted tour desktop, double-click on the "NASCAR" icon, to open the
CD.  You will see a folder titled "NASCAR Racing Full Install"  and
another folder titled "NASCAR Racing Minimal Install."  Copy the
game to your hard drive by dragging either of the folders to your Hard
Drive icon.

NOTE:  The Full Install will copy 40 MB of data to your hard drive and
the Minimal Install will copy 13 MB of data to your hard drive.

To Start NACAR Racing, open you hard drive, open the NASCAR
folder you copied over previously, and then double- click on the
NASCAR Racing icon.


SECTION 3 - COMMON STARTUP PROBLEMS

Problem:  When starting the game you get the message "Unable to load
1996 Car Sets ".
Solution: Drag the NASCAR Racing Preference file (located in System
Folder | Preferences) in the Trash can.  Now drag the 1996 Car Set file
(located in the NASCAR | Data | Car Sets folder on your Hard Drive)
into the Trash can.  Hold down the OPTION key and empty the trash.
Finally, manually copy the 1996 Car Set file from the NASCAR Full
Install | Data | Car Sets folder on the NASCAR CDROM into the
NASCAR | Data | Car Set folder on your hard drive.

This issue is also addressed in the update, NASMAC.SEA.  Check
Section 6 for information on obtaining the patch.

Problem:  When starting the game, you get "System Error Type 1".
Solution:  This message indicates that the Macintosh needs more
memory to run the application.  On some Macintosh computers,
NASCAR may need more than 8000K of memory.  Open the NASCAR
folder on your hard drive and select the NASCAR Racing icon.  Now
choose GET INFO from the EDIT pull down menu.  In the Memory
Requirements box,  increase the values for Minimum size and Preferred
size to 9000K.  The Macintosh will now use more memory to run
NASCAR.  If the error continues, increase the values for Minimum and
Preferred size by 100K increments until the problem is eliminated.

Problem: You get "System Error Type 11" immediately after launching
NASCAR (no splash screen).
Solution:  This error message usually happens when the
ObjectSupportLib extension is not in your extensions folder.  To add this
extension, open the ObjectSupportLib folder on the NASCAR Racing
CD and drag the ObjectSupportLib extension to the System Folder |
Extensions folder on you hard drive.   Now open up Extension Manager
(located in the System Folder), load the extension set you use to play
NASCAR if it's not already loaded, and place a check next to
ObjectSupportLib.  You will need to restart your Macintosh for this
change to take effect.

Problem: When trying to start a game, the error "Needs Thread
Manager to run" or "Cannot find Thread Manager" occurs.
Solution:  This error usually occurs on systems using System 7.5 or
lower when the Thread Manager extension is not loaded.  To add this
extension, open up Extension Manager (located in the System Folder),
load the extension set you use to play NASCAR if it's not already
loaded, and place a check next to Thread Manager.  You will need to
restart your Macintosh for this change to take effect.  If you are using a
system version greater than System 7.5 then you may need to reinstall
your System software.

Problem: (Power Mac's Only) When trying to start the game you get a
message stating, "Error type -192".
Solution:  The game requires 16MB of RAM.  If you do have 16MB
then you probably need to free up more memory for the game.  See
Section 4 - Memory Troubleshooting for help freeing up memory.





SECTION 4 - MEMORY TROUBLESHOOTING

NASCAR requires 8,000 KB of free memory.  In order to have 8,000 KB
of free memory, you must have 16 MB of RAM installed on your Mac.
Utilities such as RAM Doubler or virtual memory will not serve as a
substitute for having 16 MB of physical RAM installed.

To determine the amount of RAM and the free memory on your Mac, do
the following:  From the Apple pull-down menu, choose "About this
Macintosh...".  The amount of available RAM on your computer will be
listed next to "Largest Unused Block".  If this value is not at least
8,000K, try the following steps below.

Change your memory settings:
From the Apple pull-down menu, choose "Control Panels".  From here,
select the "Memory" module.  In the memory module, lower your disk
cache to 32K and turn off your RAM disk and virtual memory.  Also,
turn your 32-bit addressing on.  Once you have done this, you must
restart your Mac for the changes to take effect.

Turn off your extensions and control panel devices:
Extensions and control panel devices (cdev's) load utilities on your
system and use memory that NASCAR needs.  The unnecessary ones
should be disabled when the game is running.  This can be done in two
ways.  Using Extensions Manager is preferable; otherwise you will need
to manually disable them.

If you have Extensions Manager installed on your computer, double-
click on its icon in the Control Panels section.  To begin, click on the
"All Off" button.  Now scroll through the list of items and select the
ones that you will need to play NASCAR.  Choose QuickTime, Sound
Manager 3.1 (or later), Apple guide, Apple CD ROM, ObjectSupportLib
and Tread Manager (if available).  NOTE: In order for Speech
Recognition to function, PlainTalk 1.51 from Apple must be added to
extensions. Once you have done this, click on the "Sets" pull-down
menu.  Choose "Save Set..." and enter a name for this NASCAR
extension set.  With only the set for the game selected, restart your
PowerMac.  Check your memory and try to play the game.  (For more
information on using Extensions Manager, please see the documentation
for your system software or the readme file with Extensions Manager.)

If you do not have Extensions Manager, you will have to manually
disable extensions and cdev's.  To do this, open the System Folder and
create a new folder called Backup.  Go in to your Extensions folder and
move all of the items in it-except for Sound Manager-to the newly
created Backup folder.  Now, go into your Control Panels folder and
move all of the items from it-except for Sound, Monitors and Memory-
to the Backup folder.  After doing this, restart your Mac and play the
game.  CAUTION: The items moved into the Backup folder will not be
active until they are returned to the Extensions folder and the computer
is restarted.  When you are done playing the game, move all of the
extensions and cdev's in the Backup folder back to the System Folder.
When the system asks to "put them where they belong", choose OK and
your system will be restored to its normal state.


SECTION 5 - COMMON GAME PROBLEMS

Problem: Unable to connect via AppleTalk or LocalTalk network.
Solution:  First you must have a working network connection
established- see you owners manual for information on setting up a
network.  From the NASCAR Communications menu choose "Connect
Via" Network.  Now go to the Multiplayer menu and have one player
choose sponsor.  The other player will see the sponsors name in the
window of the Multiplayer menu.  Now click on the name and hit OK.

Problem: Failure to disconnect after a two player modem connection.
Solution:  If this happens you can simply turn off your external modem,
or if you have an internal modem you can restart your computer.

Problem:  Unable to find an initialization string for your modem.
Solution:   Due to a wide variety of modems on the market it is
impossible to include initialization strings for every modem type. If you
need to develop an initialization string for an unsupported modem you
should consult you modem manual. You want the initialization string to
shut off error correction and data compression. You also need to set the
modem to run at the correct speed. The specific commands for these
functions will be included in your modem manual.

Problem:  Your joystick is not recognized in NASCAR Racing.
Solution:   In order to use your joystick in NASCAR Racing, you'll
need to make sure that it's Control Panel Device an/or Extensions are
installed and loaded on your system. Most joystick control panels have a
way to add or select a game to a list of games in your joystick control
panel. NASCAR Racing directly supports all CH Products, Gravis, and
Thrustmaster joysticks. If you have another type of joystick you should
use the joystick's control panel to configure it for NASCAR Racing.
You may need to consult the documentation that came with your joystick
or contact your joystick's manufacturer if you need further assistance on
this process. Once you've completed this step, restart your computer and
launch NASCAR Racing. If your joystick is recognized by NASCAR
Racing, you will be prompted to calibrate it. Follow the commands on
the Calibration screen and then hit OK to complete the process.

Problem:  The car does not respond to the joystick when in a race.
Solution:   The Macintosh version of NASCAR Racing defaults to
mouse steering, these settings will be active the first time you launch
NASCAR Racing.  From the main menu, go to the Options menu, then
select Set Controls. This will bring up the dialog box where you can
specify which controls you wish to drive with. Click on the Modify
button corresponding to each control and then follow the commands on
the screen.
Note to Thrustmaster FCS users: Due to limitations of the Thrustmaster
driver, NASCAR will not see the forward/backward motion of your
joystick. Also, in order to get your joystick buttons to work you need to
set them to keyboard characters in the Thrustware program and use the
Extend feature to simulate continuously holding down a key. See the
instructions for Thrustware and FCS for more information.

Problem:  The game is very slow or choppy.
Solution:   This is a frame rate issue(the number of full screens "frames"
you computer can draw per second). This typically means that you own a
slower PowerPC. Fortunately, NASCAR Racing makes it possible for
you to adjust your Graphic and Sound options to a level your machine
can handle. Make sure that your Monitor's color depth is set to 256
colors. Shutting off some of the graphic options will also help improve
the frame rate. Decreasing the number of cars drawn ahead and behind in
the Graphics Dialog and reducing the number of engine sounds heard in
the Sound Dialog will also help increase the frame rate.

Problem: Championship season points are being tallied incorrectly.
Solution: This issue is addressed in the update, NASMAC.SEA.  Check
Section 6 for information on obtaining the patch.

Problem: Some driver have wrong chassis and / or wrong paint jobs.
Solution: This issue is addressed in the update, NASMAC.SEA.  Check
Section 6 for information on obtaining the patch.


SECTION 6 - OBTAINING A PATCH FROM SIERRA

There is one patch for the Macintosh version of NASCAR Racing,
named NASMAC.SEA.  Please check the README file on the patch for
more information about what it fixes and how to apply it.

The fastest way to obtain an update is to download it from one of the
following on-line services: Sierra On-Line's Web site
(http://www.sierra.com), CompuServe (GO SIERRA) or America
OnLine (KEYWORD SIERRA).  You can also request a patch disk be
mailed to you by calling Sierra Technical Support at 206-644-4343,
faxing to 206-644-7697 or writing to Sierra Technical Support, PO Box
85006, Belleuve, WA 98015-8506.


SECTION 7 - IF YOU STILL HAVE PROBLEMS...

Sierra On-Line has a full library of help documents available
electronically.  You can download them from the following sources:

  America On-Line: Use keyword SIERRA and choose "Software
Libraries", then "Troubleshooting Guides & FAQ's"
  CompuServe: Use go SIERRA, choose "The Sierra On-Line Forum",
then search the "Help Documents" library.
  Go to our home page on the World Wide Web  at
http://www.sierra.com and follow the on-screen information.

Additionally, you can get your document via our automated faxback
service.  Call [phone], choose to use the automated technical
support system and follow the voice instructions provided.  You will be
faxed a catalog of all of the documents that we have to offer and you will
then be able to get the documents you need.  If you prefer, you can also
fax us at [phone] with your document request.

If you prefer to get assistance from a technician, Sierra Technical
Support will be happy to assist you.  All of the online services listed
above are staffed by Sierra technicians.  Additionally, you can send e-
mail to [e-mail].

Additionally, a Sierra Technical Support request form has been enclosed
in case you wish to contact us via fax or U.S. mail.  Simply fill it out and
return it to us.  Our fax number is [phone] and our mailing
address is:

Sierra On-Line Technical Support
PO Box 85006
Bellevue, WA  98015-8506

For phone assistance, you can reach Sierra Technical Support at (206)
644-4343 between 8:00 am and 4:45 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Please try to be at your system or have a copy of a Microsoft Diagnostics
(MSD) report from it when you call.

If you are in Europe, please contact our office in England. The Customer
Support number is [phone], between
9:00 am and 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday.   The fax number is
[phone].  Customer Service can also be reached at the following
address:

Sierra On-Line Limited
2 BEACONTREE PLAZA
GILLETTE WAY
READING
RG2 OBS
UNITED KINGDOM

Thanks for choosing Sierra!


SIERRA ON-LINE TECHNICAL SUPPORT REQUEST FORM (for
Macintosh Computers)

Please provide as much of the information requested below as possible.
Attach additional pages if necessary. Please Print clearly.)

Name :

Full Mailing Address :

FAX Number:

Phone Number:

Email Address:


Name/Description of Program:


Description of Problem  (Please be as specific an detailed as possible.
Again, feel free to attach additional sheets if necessary.)







Model of Macintosh :


Operating System (circle)
6.07 or Below
 7.0
7.1
7.5.1
7.5.2
7.5.3
Other:


CPU Type (circle):
68020
68030
68040
PPC 601
PPC 603
PPC 604
Other:

CPU Speed (circle):
25
33
40
50
66
75
100
120
133
150
166
Other:


Total RAM installed in the system in MB (circle)
1 MB
2 MB
4 MB
8 MB
16 MB
32 MB
Other:

Total Hard Drive Space in MB:

Free hard drive space after installing the program (in MB):


CD ROM Brand (circle):
Apple
Toshiba
NEC
Sony
Other:

CD ROM Model:

 CD ROM Speed (circle)
1x
2x
3x
4x
6x
8x

Video Memory (circle):
512k or less
1 MB
2 MB
4 MB+
Video Card Brand
Apple
Radiius
Other:

Screen/Monitor  resolution you are using currently (circle)
640x480
832x624*
Other:*

Number of colors you are currently using (circle):
16
256
Thousands (High Color)*
Millions (True Color)*

*NOTE: If you are using a resolution greater than 640 by 480, and/or a
color depth higher than 256 colors, we generally recommend using 640 by
480 display with 256 colors for most games.

Do you use any disk compression?
YES
NO
If YES, what disk compression program?


Please use the space below to list/describe any other components or
information about your system (Modems, Printers, special disk drives,
etc.) not covered in this form:






Please check any steps below which you have tried:


Booting with minimal or no extensions

Disk or CD replacement

Deleting & Re-installing Program

Patch Disk (If applicable) Name of patch:

Re-building the Desktop

Other:

Allocating more memory to the application

Other: