Shareware Compilation 11/SharewareCD_11.zip/dos/harry/helpme.txt

Text File | 1994-03-14 | 18KB | 349 lines

        ░░▒▒▓▓██  "HALLOWEEN HARRY" ON-DISK TECHNICAL SUPPORT  ██▓▓▒▒░░

                                 Copyright 1993
                SubZero Software / Interactive Binary Illusions
                         Distributed by Apogee Software
       P.O. Box 496389 ■ Garland, TX 75049 ■ Tech Support: [phone]


                                ===============
                                ABOUT THIS FILE
                                ===============

This document will provide you with some basic Technical Support.  The
information is not intended to replace the Technical Support Department.  If
you attempt these solutions and are still having problems, then feel free to
call our Technical Support Department; they will be able to provide you with
further assistance.  They can be reached from the hours of 8AM-6PM CST Monday
through Friday.  If possible, please be in front of your computer when calling
for Technical Support; it may be difficult or impossible to assist you
otherwise.


                            ========================
                            BEFORE RUNNING THIS GAME
                            ========================

■ This game is not designed to be run under MicroSoft Windows.  Windows takes
  up far too many system resources that our programs require for efficient and
  proper operation.  When running this program, DO NOT LAUNCH FROM WINDOWS.
  Run it directly from DOS.  If you are in the Windows environment, quit
  Windows and then run the program.  (NOTE: Using the MS/DOS Icon does not exit
  you from Windows.  That is a shell from Windows.)

■ Any kind of menu program such as Dosshell will most likely cause problems.
  We recommend running our programs completely from the DOS prompt.

■ All of our products require at least MS/DOS 3.3 or greater.  We recommend,
  however, using at least DOS 5, but preferably DOS 6, because these versions
  have far better memory management than any previous versions of DOS.


                         =============================
                         HALLOWEEN HARRY SPECIFIC HELP
                         =============================

■ Halloween Harry requires a minimum of 560k free conventional memory in order
  to run with SoundBlaster music and sound effects.  If you have less than
  560k available, the sounds will not work, but the game will play.  If you
  have less than 517k conventional free, the game will not run at all.  You
  must have a minimum of 517k conventional memory free to play the game, and
  560k conventional memory free to receive SoundBlaster music and sounds.

■ There is only one known incompatibility with this game, and that is concerning
  the Gravis UltraSound card.  During the testing of this game, the entire
  Apogee Technical Department in addition to all of our Beta Testers who had
  GUS cards were unable to get this game working properly with the GUS card.
  This game was tested with the 2.08 version of the SBOS software, and with two
  beta drivers available on the Gravis Support BBS as of October 4th, 1993.
  Game players who have the Gravis UltraSound card will be unable to play the
  game with music or digitized sound.  (PC Speaker sounds will work, however.)
  In Halloween Harry, all game sounds are digital.  Gravis UltraSound users
  will need to turn off the music, and select "PC Speaker" for the game sounds.
  This game works without any problem on a genuine Sound Blaster (any version)
  card, and Apogee has concluded that the problem lies with the SBOS emulation
  software for the GUS card.  If you have any further questions on this issue,
  please direct them to Gravis.

■ If you are using a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card, the game will run
  without the problems the the Gravis card has.  However, it is very important
  to correctly install Media Vision's driver (MVSOUND.SYS) before setting
  Halloween Harry to run with this sound card.  Please refer to their
  documentation for instructions.  If the driver is not installed correctly,
  the system will crash.  If you get poor sound support from the PAS16 card,
  you may need to disable DMA sharing with your card.  Please refer to the
  documentation that came with the card for instructions.

■ Halloween Harry requires that the DMA channel of your SoundBlaster card be on
  1.  If your DMA Channel is on any other channel, then you must change it to 1
  in order to get the Halloween Harry sounds working properly.  Furthermore,
  the IRQ channel must be 7 or less.  An IRQ higher than 7 will also cause the
  game to malfunction.  More detailed information on how to address this
  information to the can be found in General Problem 2, Solution 3.

■ If the game appears to be running slowly, turn on the "Turbo Mode" in the
  game's configuration.  If it's still running too slow, shut off the music.
  Shutting off the music will speed up game play.

■ There are a few command line parameters you can try to use to help other
  things that might turn up when playing the game.  A command line parameter
  is something that you type on the command line after the name of the program
  you're running.  The /C switch will be used as an example.  To use that
  parameter, you would need to start the game like this...

  HARRY /C (for the registered version), or HH1 /C (for the shareware version)

  The command line parameters for Halloween Harry are stackable, which means
  that you can use more than one at a time, if you need to.  An example of a
  stacked set of command line parameters would look like this...

  HARRY /C SLOWPAL

  The full list of command line parameters is as follows:

  /C       -> This forces the game to go to the configuration menu. By default,
              if you have already configured your game, the configuration
              screen will not be brought up.  This parameter will force the
              configuration menu to be brought up when you start the game.

  SLOWPAL  -> This forces a "slow" palette update.  This is needed for very
              fast VGA/SVGA video cards (this includes local bus video cards).
              On some video cards, the palette may be off and will look
              incorrect.  This parameter should fix that problem as well, but
              may cause palette "snow" on the screen.

  INFO     -> Displays miscellaneous program information.  This information
              includes copyright information, the game version number, and the
              current configuration of the game.  If you ever call for
              technical support on Halloween Harry, and are unable to be at
              your computer, please have this information with you.

  NOPAGE   -> This disables SVGA page-flipping code.  On some video cards, the
              game may flicker, or will not work at all.  This parameter will
              force the game into "standard mode", and should solve the
              problems listed above.


                               ==================
                               GENERAL PROBLEM #1
                               ==================

■ All of the problems in this section are generic.  They will also work with
  the majority of Apogee's products.  Most will work for Halloween Harry, but
  the help in this section is not specific to Halloween Harry.  If you try the
  generic help solutions, and you are still having problems, then try the ideas
  in the Halloween Harry specific section.

■ Problem

The program returns a message that says you do not have enough memory to run
the game, or the program behaves erratically when it is executed.

■ Explanation

There is not enough conventional memory available to execute the game you are
attempting to run.  When MicroSoft first made DOS 1.0, 640 kilobytes (KB) was
set aside as the highest amount of memory that a computer could have.  The
640KB of memory is what is called "conventional memory".  To maintain
compatibility with older versions, this was never changed.  Advances in memory
management have made access to memory beyond 640KB, but this memory can only
hold data; the program actually has to run in the first 640KB.  It is this
memory that you are running out of.

Conventional memory is used by DOS as well as device drivers and TSRs
(Terminate and Stay Resident Programs).  A TSR is a program that is loaded into
your computer's memory (usually from the CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT files) and
stays there.  Most programs remove themselves from memory after execution, a
TSR does not.  Device drivers and TSRs are programs that enable the computer to
use additional hardware such as a mouse, scanner, CD-ROM, expanded or extended
memory, etc.  When you first start up your computer, there are two files that
your computer looks at: CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT.  These two files contain
lists of device drivers and TSRs that are loaded into memory.

NOTE: It is possible that Apogee games may run with a figure of available
conventional memory that is less than the recommended amount.  It is very
likely, however that the program will behave erratically under these
conditions.  Even if the game appears to run with less than the recommended
amount of conventional memory, we recommend that you raise your amount of
conventional memory to ensure proper program execution.

■ Solution 1

Try removing some of your TSRs.

■ Solution 2

If you have some high memory available, and are running at least DOS 5.0, add
the following line to your CONFIG.SYS file.. "DOS=HIGH" (without the quotes).
This will load your DOS into high memory, and will make more room available in
the first 640k of memory mentioned in the explanation above.

■ Solution 3

If you are running MS/DOS 6, skip directly to Solution 4.

a) If you are running a version of Stacker before v3.1, or some similar disk
   compression program that loads after your CONFIG.SYS file, copy our product
   to a section of your hard drive that is not compressed.  Stacker v3.1+, or
   similar compression programs that load before CONFIG.SYS do not need their
   files moved.
b) Place a diskette in drive A:.  (If A: is a High Density Drive, you'll need
   a high density diskette).
c) Switch to the C: prompt.
d) Type FORMAT A: /S
e) If necessary, press enter for the question about Volume Label.
f) Enter N to "Format another?"
g) LEAVE THIS DISKETTE IN YOUR A: DRIVE, and reboot your computer.
h) The computer should ask you for the date and the time.  Just press enter to
   these questions.  At this point, you will be at the A: prompt.  Now, switch
   to the C: drive, then change to the directory in which the game is installed
   and start the game.  You should no longer have this problem.  Please note
   that if this solution solves the problem, you will need to do this every
   time you wish to play the game.

■ Solution 4

This Solution is for MS/DOS 6.0 users only.

a) If you are running a version of Stacker before v3.1, or some similar disk
   compression program that loads after your CONFIG.SYS file, copy our product
   to a section of your hard drive that is not compressed.  Stacker v3.1+, or
   similar compression programs that load before CONFIG.SYS do not need their
   files moved.
b) Reboot your computer.
c) When the message "Starting MS/DOS" appears, hold down the F5 key.  This
   does the same thing as steps 2 through 7 in Solution 3.  If your system
   boots normally, you waited too long to hit the F5 key. Reboot and try again.
d) You should see a message that says "MS/DOS is bypassing your CONFIG.SYS and
   AUTOEXEC.BAT files".
e) Switch to the C: drive, then change to the directory in which the game is
   installed and start the game.  Please note that if this solution solves the
   problem, then you will need to do this every time you wish to play the game.

NOTE: If you have a PS/1, and these steps do not work for you, please contact
IBM's Technical Support Department in order to find out how to boot from a
System Disk, since the procedure is extremely different and much more
complicated than what is described above.


                               ==================
                               GENERAL PROBLEM #2
                               ==================

■ Problem

The game locks up either during game play, or during the loading process.

■ Explanation 1

This can be any number of things, but is usually a conflict with a memory
manager, or a TSR(s) in your system.  It can also be a DMA conflict if you have
a Sound Blaster Sound card.  Apogee only directly supports the Sound Blaster
and AdLib family of cards, and any other card has to have 100% compatibility in
order to function properly.  Many other sound cards out claim to be 100%
compatible with the Sound Blaster standard, but in reality they are not.
(Please note that for Halloween Harry, the Gravis UltraSound card will not
function at all.)

■ Solution 1

Try the solutions under General Problem #1 first.

■ Solution 2

Turn off the digitized sounds completely.  If the game plays normally, a DMA
conflict most likely exists between your sound card and some other piece of
hardware in your computer.  You will need to change the DMA channel in order to
solve the DMA conflict.  Consult your sound card manual for instructions on how
to do this.  If you do indeed change the DMA channel, you must reflect said
change in the SET BLASTER line mentioned in the next solution.  Please note
that Halloween Harry must have a DMA of 1 in order to function properly.  If
you do have it set for 1, and you determine you have a conflict, you will need
to change the DMA channel of some other piece of hardware in your system that
is also using DMA 1.  Please consult your appropriate manual for information on
how to do this.

■ Solution 3

Check your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to see if the SET BLASTER line is present.  If it
is not, this could be the source of the problem.  Even if you don't have a
Sound Blaster card, this line needs to be there.  The reason for this is that
the game expects your sound card to be at a certain default setting.  If it
isn't, the game looks for the environment variable BLASTER, and redirects the
sound output to those settings.  If you are not on the default settings, and
you don't have the proper SET BLASTER line, or it isn't there at all, a system
lockup may occur.

  SET BLASTER=Aw Ix D1 Tz

  Where w is the Address Number. (99% of the time it's 220)
  Where x is the Interrupt Number
  Where z is the type of card.

  z should be either 1 or 3 if it's a Sound Blaster
  z should be either 2 or 4 if it's a Sound Blaster Pro
  z should be 6 if it's a Sound Blaster 16
  z is most likely 1 if you have a sound card other than a
    legitimate Sound Blaster.

  If you have a Sound Blaster 16, the D refers to the 8-bit DMA channel, not
  the 16 Bit DMA channel.  That's stored under a different variable, and is
  not used in any Apogee game.

Please note that Halloween Harry's DMA channel *MUST* be set to 1.  If your DMA
is set to any other channel besides 1, then you must change it to 1 in order to
get Halloween Harry's sounds working properly.

Please note that at this time, no Apogee game supports an interrupt higher than
7.  If you do have the SET BLASTER line present, and the interrupt is higher
than 7, you MUST change it to 7 or lower, or you will continue to experience
problems.   Once you have made this change to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, you'll
need to reboot your computer for these changes to take effect.  After
rebooting, go to the directory the game is installed in, and delete the config
file for that game.  The config file stores the configuration information for
your system, and if you delete this file, it will force the game to rescan your
computer, and get the new information.  The new information will then be placed
in a newly created config file.  Any settings such as keyboard reassignments,
or control device selections will be lost when the configuration file is
deleted.


                          ============================
                          CONTACTING TECHNICAL SUPPORT
                          ============================

Apogee thanks you very much for playing our games.  Customer satisfaction is a
high priority of Apogee's, and we strive to please everyone.  Our Technical
Support staff is available to assist all of our customers in solving any
technical problems that may be experienced.  Our Technical Support Department
is available to answer your questions Monday through Friday during the hours of
8:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. Central Standard Time.  The phone number for the Tech
Support Department is [phone].  Two other options are to contact us via
fax at [phone] 24 hours a day or write to us at POB 496389, Garland TX
75049.

Apogee Technical Support can also be contacted via a variety of electronic
medium.  Several major online services are monitored, and Apogee's E-Mail
addresses are listed below.   Also, a variety of Bulletin Board networks are
monitored as well, and those are also listed.

■ Major Online Services

Internet    -> [e-mail]           America Online -> APOGEE
Compuserve  -> 74200,553                   Delphi         -> APOGEE
Genie       -> APOGEE                      Prodigy        -> CXVP94A

■ Bulletin Board Networks

There are several BBS networks that are monitored for Apogee messages.  Our
Online Support Representative monitors all of the following BBS networks.

Fidonet, Relaynet (Rime), Intelec, Ilink, U'NI-Net, Smartnet, & City2City.

All of these BBS networks have Games and Shareware conferences.  In addition to
those, all but Fidonet also have an Apogee Vendor Support Conference.

And of course, we can be reached on Software Creations, the Apogee BBS!

[ END OF FILE ]