The Best of Select: Games 9/CD_1.iso/dosgames/roypoker/docs.txt

Text File | 1994-10-06 | 19KB | 406 lines

ROYAL VIDEO POKER DOC'S AND SETUP  Version 3.1

Note: This is version 3.1 of ROYAL VIDEO POKER, and corrects errors in
running and installation of the previous version. Specifically:

All error messages now have clean exits to the user's system, and will
not leave one in graphics mode.

A mouse driver does not have to be installed for the program to run.
The program will run from a "clean" boot-up, as from a system disk, to
avoid any TSR problems.

The program may be run from any directory the user desires, including a
temporary download directory, not only from the royal directory. It will
also run from a floppy disk, though this is not recommended.


The program should run from any system that has a popular, or VESA
compatible, 512K SVGA graphics card or better. Note, however, that not
all systems will support the text screens in the game: the File Menu and
the Statistics Screen, even if they can support the graphics screens.
The only potential solution, if the user encounters this problem, is to
run the game from a clean boot-up. They can, in any case, be readily exited
by typing 4 at the File Menu, or hitting either mouse button at the
Statistics Screen. They are not essential to running the game in any case,
as they are extra features only, that may not be important to the user.
See the discussion below on SVGA compatibility.

If any user has problems with the mouse, this is due to hardware or system
speed problems. The game is completely playable from the keyboard.


THE GAME

This game plays draw three versions of  draw poker:  Jacks or Better,
Joker Poker (Kings and Aces High), and Deuces Wild, with two selectable card
decks.  One deck is a modified standard card deck, and the other features a
baroque 17th century card deck, which is available when you send in the
registration fee of $20.

It also offers a Triple Draw and Double Up Option with all the games.
Both mouse and keyboard are supported. Sound effects are through the
PC Speaker, and you can hear speech and music if you have a Sound Blaster
compatible sound card. Sound quality is dependent upon the quality of your
sound card and speakers, and may not be equally good on all systems.
All sound may be turned off if you desire.
Game statistics are provided giving a complete record of your play. You may
save as many games as you want and also delete them.


The game runs in SVGA with 512 minimum video ram, 640x480x256 color mode, and
should be run from a hard disk drive. The game is on a High Density 3.5" disk,
and will take about 850k of hard drive space.  The registered version will
take about 1 megabyte of hard drive space. It makes no direct use
of any expanded/extended memory, but you will find it helpful to use a disk
cache, such as SMARTDRV.SYS. See your DOS manual for information.


To install the game on your hard disk drive:

1) Type at the dos prompt while in the C: drive:  md royal
2) Type at the dos prompt: copy B:*.* C:\royal
   Substitute A: if you are using that floppy drive.
   To run the game:
   Type at the dos prompt: cd royal
   Type at the dos prompt: royal

If you are installing from a temporary download directory, do the above
except substitute copy C:\directory\*.* C:\royal.  Use whatever directory
name you used for a download directory in the last sentence. Example:
copy C:\temp\*.* c:\royal.

Copying files in the above manner can be best done from DOSSHELL. See your
DOS manual for information.

Note: As mention above, you may run the game from any directory you choose,
as from a temporary directory. The above is suggested for convenience. In
any case, type royal to run the game from its directory.

If you received this game on a floppy disk, it will also run from there. But
this is not recommended, as it will be extremely slow.


SVGA GRAPHICS COMPATIBILITY
This game will run with svga cards that have VESA compatibility, or that
use the most common cards, such as Trident and Paradise. If you have a SVGA
card with at least 512k, and the game does not run, there are two things that
could be the problem: You do not have a compatible SVGA card, or, more likely
you have a TSR program that interferes with the SVGA graphics.  The best pro-
cedure, if you have DOS 6.X, is to hit F5 to bypass the system files when you
boot-up, and then run the game. If you have a lower version of DOS, your best
option is to make a system boot disk. See your DOS manual for information.
If the game still does not run, then you have a hardware compatibility
problem, and the game will not work on your system. Unfortunately, there
are a wide variety of SVGA cards on the market that do not correspond to
a given standard, as VGA does, and the game will not run, or will only run
the graphics screens only using these cards. Note that the text screens are
not essential to playing the game. If your card will not display them: hit
any mouse button if you are in the Statistics Screen or the 4 key,  if you
are in the File Menu, to exit back to the graphics screens if your screen
is blank. You should try to boot from a boot disk or the F5 key from DOS 6.x,
as above, to try if you can use them doing so.

General Game Instructions:

The game graphics can vary quite a bit in appearance, depending on how you
have set your brightness and contrast controls on your monitor. I suggest
that your experiment with these controls for the best results.

A note about the interface: This interface varies somewhat from other poker
games you may have played. But once you read the following, you will find
that they are very easy to use, and that the game will play quite fast on
any machine with a 386 processor or better. On either deck, if the hold
lights are black, the cards are NOT held, and the default is triple draw.

The game is playable with either the mouse or the keyboard. Click on the
screen buttons with the mouse cursor and left button or hit the necessary
keys from the keyboard. Exception: The File Menu uses the keyboard only.

TITLE SCREEN:
Hit any key to exit. You will hear music if you have a
Sound Blaster compatible sound card installed.

MAIN MENU SCREEN:
The game begins with the default options of Jacks or Better, Sound on, and
standard deck selected. If you are satisfied with these options, hit the
space bar (or click on it with the mouse) to proceed to the Game Screen.

Click on the bar to the left of the button to activate it.
An option button is red if selected, and white if not. Exception: the clear
stats button will temporarily turn yellow if you clear the statistics. Unless
indicated otherwise below, type only lower case letters on the keyboard.

The game options you may select are:

JACKS OR BETTER (default on, click or type f to use)

JOKER POKER (click, or type j to use)

DEUCES WILD (click, or type d to use)

HIGH-LOW/DOUBLE UP (click, or type h to use, to disable: click
                    with the right mouse button, or type SHIFT H)

SOUND ON/OFF (default on, click with right mouse button or SHIFT M
              to disable; to re-enable, click with left mouse button
              or type m key)

FILE MENU  (f key )

TRIPLE DRAW  (F2, default on)

STANDARD DRAW (F1)

VIEW STATISTICS  (s key, this screen also displays the payoffs for a game)

CLEAR STATISTICS (c key)

SPACE BAR (proceed to game screen with currently selected options)

ESC KEY (exits game, you must hit the KEY)

In the shareware version, an advertisement screen for the registered version
will appear, hit any key to exit to DOS.

The registered version has additional menu options to switch between two
playing decks.

You may freely enter the main menu from the game screen while the game is
playing to change options, view stats, etc, as long as the Menu option is
displayed on the Menu icon.

Note: If you select other options than the defaults, reselect the defaults,
and then decide to select other options again, while you are still at the
Main Menu, the defaults will become temporarily  "locked". Press or click
the space bar