PC Player 1997 October/PCPL1097B.iso/README.ENG

Text File | 1994-02-10 | 14.8 KB | 304 lines

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                Late Notes
          LANDS OF LORE: The Throne of Chaos

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Platform:    PC CD-ROM
Date:        January 10, 1994

1.  NEW to the CD version:

      1.1  "Lore of the Lands," read by Patrick Stewart
      1.2  OPTIONS (variable volume control for music and voice)
      1.3  Mixing sound effects and voice
      1.4  Dual sound card support
      1.5  Demos of other Westwood products

2.  Technical Support:

      2.1  How do I change the VOICE, MUSIC or SOUND EFFECT volumes?
      2.2  What is "extended memory" and how do I get more?
      2.3  Why does the CD drive sometimes take a LONG time to access?
      2.4  Why are some weird problems occurring when I have TSRs running?
      2.5  What if I have a sound card not listed in the "Setup?"
      and what is "Sound Blaster emulation" if I have some
      other sound card?
      2.6  How come no VOICE is playing?
      2.7  Why do I have strange problems with HIGHSCAN in my config.sys?
      2.8  Why should I turn WRITE CACHE off?
      2.9  What do I do if I spill coffee on my keyboard?
      2.10  How do I get more HELP?

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LATE BREAKING CREDITS!!!

Craig Warmsely at Virgin Interactive Entertainmant, Assistant Producer
Rebecca A. Heidt at Westwood Studios, QA department

Thanks, kids!
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NEW to the CD version **************************************************

 1.1  "Lore of the Lands," read by Patrick Stewart
      We've included a brief (about 3 minutes) exploration through
      the history of the Lands from the Golden Age of the Ancients
      through the War of the Heretics up to the present situation at
      Gladstone Keep.  Patrick Stewart (King Richard) reads the text
      and graphics accompany the dialog.  Access this through the Main
      Menu (you must have selected a character and saved a game in
      the first level before the Main Menu is accessible) by selecting
      "Lore of the Lands."  This is not necessary to complete the game,
      but it may give you additional insights to the "Lands of Lore."

 1.2  OPTIONS (variable volume control for music and voice)
      Slider controls have been implemented to allow you to adjust the
      music, sound effects, and voice volumes to a comfortable level.
      Turn any type of audio off by sliding the volumes to the far left.
      Turning the voice audio off automatically turns text (subtitles) on.
      Access this option through the AUDIO CONTROLS button on the OPTIONS
      menu (available by clicking on the "disk" icon in the left bottom
      corner of the game screen.)

      To select a new language to appear as a subtitle to the English
      audio, select GAME CONTROLS from the main OPTIONS screen.  Select
      the language you wish and select TEXT IS ON.  Turn TEXT to OFF
      when you want the subtitles to disappear.  The default if you
      install in a foreign language is TEXT IS ON.


 1.3  Mixing sound effects and voice
      "Lands of Lore PC-CD-ROM" includes code that mixes sound effects
      and digitized voice.  Now you can hear the sword swing as the
      monsters scream and you'll hear footsteps down the corridor as your
      characters speak.  This is automatically implemented if you
      install under DOS.  The WINDOWS version does not incorporate
      this code.

 1.4  Dual sound card support
      You can select multiple sound cards for "Lands of Lore PC-CD-ROM."
      You can play the music through your General Midi card (or other
      sound card), hear sound effects through another card and get
      digitized voice out of yet another card.  The benefit is for you
      players with the high quality midi cards which don't contain a DSP
      chip.  Now you can still hear the musical scores from your midi card
      while you listen to the digitized voice.  Access this feature
      through the "Setup" program.

 1.5  Demos of other Westwood products
      We have included demos of other Westwood products in a DEMOS
      directory.  "Fables and Fiends: The Legend of Kyrandia," and
      "Fables and Fiends II: The Hand of Fate" are available now on
      disk and on CD (HOF will be available on CD in Spring 1994).
      "DUNE II: The Building of a Dynasty" is available now on floppy
      disks and will be available on SEGA Genesis in Spring 1994.


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Technical Support ******************************************************

 2.1  How do I change the VOICE, MUSIC or SOUND EFFECT volumes?
      Slider controls allow you to adjust the volumes of music, sound
      effects, and voice volumes to a comfortable level.  Access this
      option through the AUDIO CONTROLS button on the OPTIONS menu
      (available by clicking on the "disk" icon in the left bottom
      corner of the game screen.)

      German and French subtitles to the English audio are available
      through the GAME CONTROLS selection on the OPTIONS screen.  Select
      the language you wish and select TEXT IS ON.  Turn TEXT to OFF
      when you want the subtitles to disappear.  If you install in a
      foriegn language the text is automatically set ON.

 2.2  What is "extended memory" and how do I get more?
      "Lands of Lore PC-CD-ROM" requires 2 MBytes XMS (up to 16 M Bytes
      will be used by the program if you have it available.)

      "XMS" is additional memory above 1 M Byte.  A 4 M Byte machine
      can have up to 3 M Bytes XMS.

      Typically this memory uses a "memory manager" to control it and to
      tell your computer where the memory is, what is in it, and how
      to access it.  These memory managers (like EMM386, which ships
      with WINDOWS and DOS, QEMM, or 386MAX) allocate your memory into
      2 or more distinct parts.

      These memory managers may decrease the amount of XMS available to
      you.  To configure your system for more XMS, refer to your
      DOS or memory manager documentation for more information.

      As an example, this is the method to reconfigure a system
      with EMM386 and 2 M Bytes configured for EMS to a system
      with 2 M Bytes XMS.
   1. On your BOOT Drive (usually drive C:), backup the file
        "CONFIG.SYS" to a "CONFIG.WWS" by typing the following
        at the command line:
       copy CONFIG.SYS CONFIG.WWS
   2. Edit the file using EDIT:
       edit config.sys
   3. Locate in the file the line which contains:
       DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE 2048
      (There may be additional numbers in this same line)
   4. Change the value 2048 (or whatever the value is) to a
      lower value (multiples of 128 like 128, 256, 364, 1024 etc.)
      You can remove all EMS by replacing the value 2048 with NOEMS.
       DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS

      This modification has reallocated your memory (EMS) to the value
      you typed in.  If you changed the value to 128, you allocated 128 kbytes
      of this extended memory to EMS.  The remainder of your memory (whatever
      your system has) is allocated to XMS.  If you have a total of 8 MBytes
      on your system, you've left more than 6 MBytes to XMS.

      You must reboot your system for this change to take effect.

      Recopy the file you saved as CONFIG.WWS if you want to restore your
      system to its original configuration.

 2.3  Why does the CD drive sometimes take a LONG time to access?
      CD drives are not as fast as most hard drives.  There are (as of
      January 1994) single, double, and (new!) triple speed drives
      available on the market.  But this "speed" refers to the access
      speed of the CD:  150 kBytes per second (kps) for the single
      speed, 300 kps for the double speed, 450 kps for the triple
      speed.  The average hard drive speed at this date is more than
      10 times faster than the double speed drives.

      Occasionally, the CD drive will take a long time to locate and load
      a file.  This problem is due to the software drivers provided with
      the CD player, which sometimes take longer than their average seek
      time to locate a particular file.  The problem will usually not
      repeat.  If you notice that the CD access in the game feels unusually
      slow, contact the location where you bought the player to see what
      diagnostics you can run to isolate problems.

      Single speed drives can also "forget" a file location if they sit
      idle for too long.  This will result in our program prompting you
      to reinsert the CD.  Before you remove and reinsert the CD from
      your system, try clicking with your mouse.  That will usually
      reinitialize everything properly.  If the problem persists, try
      restarting the game, and finally rebooting the machine.  If the
      problem still continues, we may need to replace your CD.  Contact
      our technical support line below.

 2.4  Why are some weird problems occurring when I have TSRs running?
      TSRs are programs which run while you run other programs.  Examples of
      these are Stacker (which compresses your hard drive), Anti virus checkers
      (which watch for viruses on your system), etc.

      Some TSRs will interfere with our memory management and cause some
      unexplainable bugs.  We recommend that if you experience any crash
      bugs, and you have TSRs running in the background, you remove the
      TSRs from memory when you play the games, and reinstate them after
      you are done.

 2.5  What if I have a sound card not listed in the "Setup" and what is
      "Sound Blaster emulation" if I have some other sound card?
      We support the Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro families,
      AdLib Gold and Gold Standard, and Roland MT-32/LAPC-1 and General
      Midi (music only).  Most cards on the market "emulate" one of
      these cards, usually the Sound Blaster family.  In "Setup", select
      the card that your sound card recommends.  Sometimes you may have
      to check the IRQ and DMA channels for proper emulation.

      If you have the card properly selected in "Setup," but are not
      getting voice or music playback, see the next section.

 2.6  How come no VOICE is playing?
      Your sound card probably came with some software that allows you
      to configure the IRQ (interrupts) and DMA channels for music
      and digitized sound effect play back.  This software is usually
      automatically installed when you installed the card, and is
      usually called "test-sbp" or "pastest" or something similar.
      Run the software and note what the card ADDRESS is, what the
      IRQ is, and what the DMA CHANNEL is.  Refer to your sound card's
      manual to find the proper settings for digitized effect playback
      or emulating other sound cards.  This may require you to reset
      some jumpers on certain sound cards -- contact the sound card
      representative for your card for specific instructions.

      The following example (describing a Sound Blaster Pro) explains
      some parameters that are used to describe your sound card to
      software.

      Check your "autoexec.bat" file in the root of your hard drive.  There
      should be a line which reads "set blaster=A220 D3 I5 T4".  This line
      can be broken down as follows:
        "set blaster" (or some other sound card family) tells the system
                       which sound card you have.
        "A220" is the address of the card (generally 220 or 240)
        "D3" is the DMA channel for the card's digital playback
             (can be 1 - 9, usually)
        "I5" is the IRQ for the card (usually 1, 3, 5, 7, 10)
        "T4" is a Sound Blaster notation describing what version of the
             hardware is installed (in this case, a Sound Blaster Pro)

      The numbers in this line should reflect what you found running the
      test software.  If it doesn't, follow the instructions provided with
      your sound card for updating this file.

 2.7  Why do I have strange problems with HIGHSCAN in my config.sys?
      HIGHSCAN is a DOS 6.0 or higher command that determines the availability
      of upper memory (see "What is extended memory" above) for use as
      UMBs or EMS windows.  HIGHSCAN can cause system problems on some
      machines.  If you experience a crash bug and have HIGHSCAN set
      in your config.sys file, remove it for the time of operating the game.
      change
          DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE 2048 HIGHSCAN
      to
         rem DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE 2048 HIGHSCAN
         DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE 2048


 2.8 Why should I turn hard disk WRITE CACHING off?
     Write caching is a function that intercepts any writes to the hard drive
     and buffers it temporarily.  This can cause our mixing code to
     "stutter," or repeat words in a phrase.  If you experience this problem,
     turn the write caching off.  A common example of write caching is in
     Smart Drive.

     At the command line ("c:\"), type "SMARTDRV /?".  This will describe
     the method for turning write caching on and off.  Type "SMARTDRV" to
     see a summary of your system setup.


 2.9 What do I do if I spill coffee on my keyboard?
     Turn the machine off and unplug the keyboard.  Wipe as much excess
     coffee off the board as possible, trying not to get more in between
     the keys (you might want to turn the keyboard over and try wiping it
     upside down.)  Turn the keyboard upside-down and prop it up to drain.
     Hope that nothing got ruined.


 2.10 How do I get more HELP?
      How do you get more HELP?! Call our Technical Support line!
       1-(714)-833-1999
      Technical Support Only!  No hints!

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