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Text File | 2001-10-22 | 28.5 KB | 726 lines

Aliens Versus Predator 2 Multiplayer Demo Readme File 10/8/01 ******************************************************************* TABLE OF CONTENTS I. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS II. INSTALLATION III. CUSTOM PERFORMANCE OPTIONS IV. GENERAL TECHNICAL ISSUES V. SIERRA WARRANTY & LEGAL INFORMATION I. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS ----------------------- P3 450 or equivalent processor 128 MB RAM 16 MB DirectX 8-compatible D3D video card 16-bit DirectX 8-compatible sound card 110 MB free hard drive space (175 needed during installation) English Windows compatible keyboard and mouse English Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000 DirectX 8a or higher 56k DirectPlay-compatible TCP-IP Internet connection for Internet play, or a NIC (Network Interface Card) and intranet connection for LAN play - DirectX can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/directx - DirectX installation on Windows 95 machines requires DCOM, which can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/com/dcom/dcom95/eula.asp II. INSTALLATION ---------------- To install the demo, double-click the avp2mpdemo.exe file and follow the prompts. Once the installation has finished, run the demo using the Start Menu shortcut, optional desktop shortcut, or by double-clicking the AVP2Demo.exe file in the install directory. III. PLAYING THE DEMO --------------------- The demo has two modes of play, Multiplayer Internet or Multiplayer LAN. LAN is used for finding games on a local area network, such as in an office or a school. The Internet mode will find games hosted anywhere on the Internet. FINDING A GAME To find a game in either mode, click the "Find Games" menu item in that mode's submenu. After a brief pause to scan for games you'll be shown a list of available servers. You may modify which servers are shown in this list by using the filter options at the bottom of the list. To get more information on a server's settings, click on the server's name and then click the "Server Info" tab. Set up your desired name and character on the "Player" tab screen. There are four characters to choose from in the demo, each representing a different team: Marines, Aliens, Predators and Corporates. Marines (Human): With knives, pistols, shotguns, pulse rifles and smartguns, marines come heavily armed for any fight. Their armor protects them from harm, though it can be damaged. They can use health kits to heal themselves. Marines have night vision goggles and flashlights to help them see in the dark. Aliens: Fast and deadly in hand-to-hand combat, aliens can go just about anywhere with their wall-walking and pouncing abilities. They can eat the bodies of fallen players to regain health. Their special vision can pick out enemies by their unique aura, or alternately can see in unlit areas to help them navigate dark hive tunnels. Predators: Strong invisible hunters, predators stalk their prey mercilessly. With the ability to cloak, recharge and heal, predators are largely self-sufficient in battle. Their deadly shoulder cannon locks on to targets automatically in conjunction with the special vision modes supplied by their masks. Their wristblades, spear and netgun make them formidable at close range. Corporates (Human): Opposed to the marines, corporates are their match in weaponry and tools. Once you find a server and set up your character, click the "JOIN" button in the lower right to join the game and start battle. HOSTING A GAME In addition to finding other games on the Internet or LAN, you can host your own. The Host menus offer many options for configuring the game to your liking. If you will be using multiple configurations frequently, you can save individual control sets by going to the "Configurations..." screen from the Host-->Game menu. If you want to make your game private, check the "Password" box and choose a unique password--only those who enter the password correctly will be able to join your game. On the "Game" tab you can choose between two game Types: Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. These are described on the "Setup" tab screen, where you can also set your own character and time/score limits. The controls in the "Advanced" tab screen allow you to alter how quickly characters take damage, how many points are awarded for a killing a specific class, whether head shots ("Location Based Damage") and friendly-fire (for team games) are active, as well as other advanced settings. The "Player" tab screen allows you to set up your character just as in the Find Games menus. Once the game is set up to your liking, click the "LAUNCH" button in the lower left-hand corner to host the game. OPTIONS The Options menus allow you to change various aspects of the game to your liking. You can access the Options screens from the Main Menu or by hitting the ESC key during gameplay. Controls: Bind the game's controls to keyboard, mouse or input-device functions. If you ever want to return to the default configuration, click the "Restore Defaults" button in the lower right-hand corner. All characters have certain Shared controls in common as well as special controls which are only used while playing that species. The "Mouse," "Keyboard" and "Joystick" tab menus allow you to tweak the control for those devices. Game: Set certain game-wide options here. Graphics: Configure the look of the game to your preferences. Choosing lower Resolution and Performance settings will improve the game's speed and smoothness, at the cost of graphical detail. Advanced users may tweak individual rendering options to their liking in the "CUSTOM PERFORMANCE" menus. Sound: Configure various sound options. Credits: View the credits for the game. GAMEPLAY When you first find yourself in a game, you'll be invulnerable for a few seconds as you get your bearings. If you move or switch or fire weapons during this time, you will become vulnerable. Deathmatch tends to be a fast-paced affair. You'll find that movement and evasion important for survival, though you'll need to become adept at your character's weapons if you want to win the round. When your character is killed, press the spacebar or fire button to restart on the map with a new life. The player with the most kills or highest score (depending on the server's settings) at the end of the round is the winner. Team Deathmatch rewards cooperation as you score points only for killing members of the opposing teams--killing someone on your own team will lower your score, so be careful who you attack. The team with the most kills or highest score (depending on the server's settings) at the end of the round is the winner. III. CUSTOM PERFORMANCE OPTIONS ------------------------------ The "Options-->Graphics-->Custom Performance" menus contain advanced user options you can use to tweak the appearance and speed of the game. GENERAL: Texture Depth: Toggle between 16 and 32-bit textures. 32-bit textures are much smoother and more detailed than 16-bit textures, but increase load times, require more video and system RAM and may slow down the framerate on some video cards. If you have an older video card, particularly one with only 16 MB of RAM, it is recommended that you keep this setting on "16-bit." Lightmap Resolution: Toggle between 16 and 32-bit world shadows. As with textures, 32-bit shadows are smoother in appearance but require more RAM, loading and processing time. Shadows: Toggle character shadows on/off. Turning them off give a slight performance boost on slower systems. Detail Textures: Toggle detail textures on/off. Detail textures provide the tiny details you see on the world when you look at objects at close range. Turning them off will yield a slight increase in framerate. Some older cards may not support detail textures: if everything in the game looks flat white, try turning detail textures off. Environment Chrome: Toggle environment chrome mapping on/off. Environment maps provide the shiny surface effects you see on some metallic surfaces in the game. Turning this off will improve performance, particularly on older video cards. Model Chrome: Toggle model chrome on/off. Model chrome is the shiny surface effects you see on some glass and metal models, such as certain of the predator's weapons. Turning this off will improve performance, particularly on older video cards. Trilinear Filtering: Toggle trilinear filtering on/off. Trilinear filtering makes textures look smoother when viewed at an angle. It is not supported by all video cards, and may also decrease performance. Triple Buffering: Toggle triple buffering on/off. Triple buffering can provide smoother framerates by causing the video card to store an extra rendered frame before sending it to the monitor. Triple buffering requires additional video RAM; 16 MB card users may want to keep this setting off if they are running the game in a high screen resolution. Draw Sky: Toggles sky rendering on/off. When off, the sky will just be a flat color but rendering performance will be slightly higher. EFFECTS: Draw Weapons: Toggles player-view models such as your hands and gun on/off. When turned off you won't be able to see your hands, however since the game no longer has to draw these models the framerate will improve slightly. Muzzle Flash Light: Toggle muzzle flash dynamic lighting on/off. Turning this off may improve performance in intense gunfights. You may also wish to turn this setting off if you find the flashing irritating. Shell Casings: Toggle shell casing models on/off. Turning them off will improve performance on slower systems. Weapon Impacts: Toggle Weapon impact detail between Low, Medium and High. Higher settings create more effects (sparks, smoke, debris) where weapons hit solid surfaces. Turning this setting down may improve performance on slower systems when weapons are firing. Debris: Toggle Debris detail between Low, Medium and High. Higher settings create more pieces when objects break. Turning this setting down may improve performance on slower systems when objects break. TEXTURES: Overall: Toggles overall game texture detail between Extra-low, Low, Medium, High and Extra-high. Higher settings provide more surface detail. Lower settings decrease load times and may improve performance, particularly on systems with low RAM. World/Sky/Characters/Weapons/Props/Effects: You can set texture detail for specific types of objects using the arrow sliders. Experiment with different settings to find your own preferred balance between visual detail and game performance. IV. GENERAL TECHNICAL ISSUES ----------------------------- - To increase the rendering speed of the game, go to the Options--> Graphics menu and lower the "Resolution" and/or the "Performance" settings. - Users with 128 MB system RAM and/or 16 MB video cards, particularly cards which do not support S3TC compression, may improve game performance by setting "Texture depth" to "16-bit" in the "Options-->Graphics-->Custom Performance-->General" menu. Lowering "Overall" texture detail in the "Options-->Graphics--> Custom Performance--> Textures" menu may also boost performance. - If you are experiencing periodic hitches in performance, try setting sound detail to "Low" in the Options-->Sound menu. - Shut down all non-essential programs before you run the game. - If you haven't done so in several weeks of use, you may find that defragging your hard drive will yield improved performance. Window's disk defragmentation tool is generally found in the Start Menu at "Programs\Accessories\System Tools\Disk Defragmenter." - Task-switching with ALT-TAB back to the desktop while running the game is not recommended. - Make sure your sound, video and motherboard drivers are up to date. We recommend using the latest reference drivers available from your chip manufacturer. Major vendor sites include: http://www.soundblaster.com - Drivers for Soundblaster sound cards. http://www.nvidia.com - Reference drivers for TNT and GeForce video cards. http://www.3dfx.com - Reference drivers for 3dfx Voodoo video cards. http://www.ati.com - Reference drivers for ATI video cards, including the Radeon. http://www.matrox.com - Reference drivers for Matrox Graphics video cards, including the G400 and G450. http://www.viatech.com - Reference drivers for VIA-based motherboards. http://www.amd.com - Reference drivers for AMD motherboards. Operating Systems: Windows 95: DirectX installation on Windows 95 machines requires DCOM, which can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/com/dcom/dcom95/eula.asp Windows XP: While not officially Windows XP certified, preliminary testing has not uncovered any WinXP-specific compatibility issues. Hardware-specific Notes: Sound: Diamond MX400: - May hear static when sounds play while running under Windows 95 or 98. TBS Daytona: - "Illegal Operation" error may occur during game installation under Win98SE or WinMe, and the system loses sound until rebooted. Yamaha YMF719: - This sound card is unsupported by AVP2. ESS Maestro1-ES1948F: - May not get sound using the current drivers under Windows XP. Video: General: - On a multimonitor system, changing your screen resolution in- game may change your display back to the first monitor. To correct this, run avp2.exe, click the Display button and re- select the correct display. - The demo defaults to a screen resolution of 640x480, 32-bit. If your video card cannot run in 32-bit and you find that the demo won't launch correctly, use the following procedure to force it to start in 16-bit: 1) Open the "autoexec.cfg" file in the root directory with Notepad or some other text editor. 2) Go down to the line that says "BitDepth" "32" 3) Change "32" to "16" on this line. 4) Go down to the line that says "GameBitDepth" "32" 5) Change "32" to "16" on this line. 6) Save the file. 7) Run the demo. It will now start in 640x480, 16-bit. 3dfx Voodoo Cards: - The mouse pointer may flicker on the menu screens. 3dfx Banshee and Voodoo 3: - The Options-->Display menu on the avp2.exe game launcher and the Options-->Graphics menu in the game will allow you to select 32-bit color resolutions but these resolutions are not supported by the video card, and the resolution will reset to the previous 16-bit depth. - Detail Textures and Environment Maps will not display. 3dfx Voodoo 4: - The game may crash when run on a Voodoo 4 in Windows 95. 3dfx Voodoo 5: - The user may encounter rare crashes when running in High or Best detail. It is recommended that you use Medium or Low detail for the "Performance" setting on the "Options-->Graphics" menu screen when running the game on this video card. ATI Radeon: - There may be some artifacting around lettering on the menus. - Fog does not render with the Radeon's default driver settings. - The smartgun's crosshair may look like a green square. Matrox G200: - May experience low framerates during gameplay. - The smartgun's crosshair may look like a green square. - Does not run the game under Windows XP. Matrox G400, G450: - May experience low framerate in vision modes. - The smartgun's crosshair may look like a green square. - May experience some odd lighting artifacts. Nvidia GeForce 2: - User may find areas in the game where sections of the screen lose textures. This bug appears to have been introduced with the Nvidia 21.81 drivers. It may be resolved with a future driver release. It can be avoided in most cases by setting "Detail Textures" and "Environment Chrome" to "Off" in the "Options--> Graphics-->Custom Performance" menu. Power VR Kyro and Kyro 2: - Menu options do not display at 32-bit screen depths. They show up at 16-bit screen depths. If using a Kyro card, it is suggested that you use the "Display" button on the game Launcher to select a 16-bit mode before running the game. This issue may be resolved by a future driver release. - Polygon distortion may be visible in the skies when using vision modes. - Certain trim textures may appear unusually bright. - Blocks may appear around certain objects. S3 Savage 2000: - User may encounter some odd lighting artifacts. S3 Savage 3: - AVP2 does not run on the Savage 3. This card no longer has active driver support. S3 Savage 4: - Significant graphical corruption. This card no longer has active driver support. Input Device: Logitech Mice: - When the scroll wheel is set to a special function in Mouseware, activating the scroll wheel during gameplay may have undesired results. Setting the scroll wheel's function to "Middle Mouse Button" in Mouseware should resolve the issue. Mad Catz Panther DX: - Binding a control to "Z rotation" will cause the view to spin in circles. All joysticks: - Joystick hats are not supported by the control binding system. Your joystick software may be able to bind the hat to equivalent keyboard keys. - If your analog joystick doesn't seem to be working after you've set up the control bindings, try setting "Analog" to On for the non-working axes. Note that this won't actually provide true analog control. CONTROLS: To delete a control binding in the Options-->Controls menu, highlight the control, but don't click on it, and press the [DELETE] key on your keyboard. MULTIPLAYER Multiplayer performance will depend on the quality and speed of your Internet connection. If you are experiencing poor performance in multiplayer, try the following: - Make sure you choose the connection speed most appropriate to your Internet connection. "Join Connection Speed" is found on the "Multiplayer Internet" and "Multiplayer LAN" menus. If you are playing on a 56k modem, make sure you set Connection Speed to "56K." - Play on servers whose "ping" (round-trip signal time, in milliseconds) is lowest for you, as shown in the server list. Ping times under 200ms will offer the best performance. - Play on servers with fewer players. The more players there are in a server, the more data your computer will have to download. - Avoid playing during peak Internet traffic hours. Internet traffic is generally heaviest between 5 and 10 pm Monday through Friday. Depending on your ISP (Internet Service Provider) you may experience decreased performance during these times. - Contact your ISP to make sure that your Internet connection software is configured correctly. - Players behind a firewall may encounter difficulty finding and joining Internet games. Consult your network administrator for help in resolving these issues. - We recommend that systems running a dedicated Internet server have at least a 128K Internet connection. If your server seems to have performance issues, try limiting the total number of players allowed in the game. Use the bandwidth setting in the Host options to prevent bandwidth overload. Switching Characters Pressing F1 during play brings up the character info screen, showing all the available characters. To change to a different character, click on the desired character and press F1 again to close the character info screen. Spectator Mode Controls Before you respawn in multiplayer, you can press F1 to switch to Spectator mode. Spectator mode has two variations: Observe Point mode and Free- Fly mode. In Observe Point mode you watch the action through fixed cameras placed throughout the level, while in Free-Fly mode you may fly throughout the level, even going through walls. Observe Point mode has on-screen controls you can operate with the mouse, or via keyboard keys as follows: Right Arrow: takes you to the next observe point Left Arrow: takes you to the previous observe point Spacebar: takes you to a random observe point F2: switches to Free-Fly mode F1: opens the character info screen, allowing you to switch characters The "> Respawn <" button, if available, will start you back in the game. Free-Fly mode offers the following functions: Fire: takes you to the next observe point Alt-Fire: takes you to the previous observe point Next Vision Mode: takes you to a random observe point F2: switches to Observe Point mode F1: opens the character info screen but will not allow you to switch characters Mouse: controls your direction Forward: moves you in the direction in which you are facing Backward: moves you away from the direction in which you are facing Strafe-Left: moves you left Strafe-Right: moves you right Crouch: moves you down Jump: moves you up Turn Left: turns left Turn Right: turns right Look Up: looks up Look Down: looks down Advanced Server Commands Users can control certain advanced aspects of the multiplayer game through command-line parameters. Private messages To send a chat message to one player only, start the message with the player's name in pointy brackets. For instance if you entered the chat message <mandiller> Hey, how's it going? then only the player named "mandiller" would get the message. Server controller commands The player who has been on a server for the longest time has a star to the left of their name indicating that they are the server controller. In addition to controlling the start times of team-based games, the server controller can input the following commands in the Message window: <serv> kick [playername] Boots a player from the server. Replace "[playername]" with the name of the player you wish to remove. <serv> prevlevel Ends the current match and switches to the previous map. <serv> nextlevel Ends the current match and switches to the next map. <serv> restart Restarts the server at the first map in the rotation. Server operator commands The operator of a dedicated server can chat with players on the server by entering a message in the command-line at the bottom of the dedicated server window. Dedicated server: The dedicated server allows you to host a server for other players without actually participating in the game yourself. The dedicated server runs in a window on the desktop, allowing you to access other Windows functions while the server is running. Dedicated servers will tend to have better network performance than regular hosted games since the computer does not have to process graphics and physics while the server is running and does not have to hold game resources in memory. A dedicated server machine should meet the minimum specification for the game itself in CPU speed and RAM (450 mHz, 128 MB). For best performance it is recommended that the server have a T1 or faster network connection. Many cable modem and DSL services have very fast download speeds but relatively slow upload speeds; since a dedicated server has to upload information to all clients, servers on an upload-limited cable or DSL connection will not be able to support as many players simultaneously as will servers running on a connection whose upload speed equals its download speed, such as a T1 or T3 connection. Dedicated servers on even the fastest connections may find it advantageous to limit the number of players allowed in the server at once. The server may also limit the total amount of data uploaded at one time by using the "Server Bandwidth" setting in the Advanced panel of the Host menu--this can help prevent lag caused by high-bandwidth players taking all the available upload bandwidth. To run a dedicated server, go to the Multiplayer Internet or Multiplayer LAN screen from the main menu, select the "Host" item and set "Dedicated" to "Yes" in the "Game" panel, then set up the game settings to your own preference. Now when you click "Launch," AVP2 will close and the stand alone server application will run in a window on the desktop. Once you have configured the dedicated server the first time, you can run the server directly by double-clicking the avp2serv.exe file in your AVP2 folder. If you have multiple server configurations stored a window will appear allowing you to select the desired configuration. The dedicated server window contains the following items: Server Name: The name you gave your server in the Host menu. Game Type: The type of game being hosted (DM or Team DM). Running Time: The total time the server has been running. Peak Players: The maximum number of players that have been in the server at any one time. Total Players: The total number of players that have joined the server during the current Running Time. Stop Server: Pressing this button shuts down the server. Pressing the [X] button in the upper right corner performs the same function. Players: Lists the players current using the server. Name: The player's name. Ping: The round trip time between player and server, in milliseconds. Kills: The number of kills the player has made in the current round. Score: The player's total point score for the round. Lives: The number of lives the player has remaining (applies to certain retail team modes such as Evac which are not found in the demo version). Time: The total amount of time the player has been on the server. Current Players: Total current players / max players allowed. Average Ping: The average round trip time between the server and each connected player, in milliseconds. Boot Player: Ejects the selected player from the server. To select a player, click on their name. Levels: Shows the levels in the server's map rotation. The demo has only one level. Time in Level: Time the server has been in the current level. Next Level: Skips ahead to the next level in the map rotation, automatically ending the current round. Select Level: Switches to the selected level. To select a level, click the level name in the list window. Console: Shows server activity as well as player chat messages. The server operator can enter messages in the command line below (see "Server operator commands" above). Clear: Clears the console window. Note: to run the server on a machine which cannot run the demo (a machine without a D3D-compatible video card, for instance), install the demo on that machine, then configure the settings as desired on a machine that can access the game menus. Copy this machine's "ServerData" folder into the AVP2 folder on the server machine, then launch the server by double-clicking avp2serv.exe. V. SIERRA WARRANTY & LEGAL INFORMATION -------------------------------------- Sierra's end user license agreement, limited warranty and return policy is set forth in the EULA.txt installed in the demo directory and is also available during the install of the product. (c) 2001 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation Copyright (2001 Sierra On-Line, Inc.)