A R E Y O U A F R A I D O F T H E D A R K
v1.0
I. HARDWARE PROBLEMS
A. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
B. NOT ENOUGH MEMORY
C. VIDEO BOARD PROBLEMS
D. SOUND CARD PROBLEMS
E. VIDEO/SOUND COMBINATION PROBLEMS
F. CD-ROM DRIVES
G. MOUSE PROBLEMS
II. OTHER PROBLEMS
A. DISK READ ERRORS
B. SPEEDING UP THE GAME
C. WINDOWS
III. TECH SUPPORT
I. HARDWARE PROBLEMS
A. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
Are You Afraid of the Dark requires the following:
- MS-DOS 5.0 or higher
- 3000k (3072000 bytes) of extended memory
- 500k (512000 bytes) of conventional memory
- a VESA compliant video board
- a 100% Sound Blaster compatible sound card, a Pro Audio series
sound card, a Microsoft Sound System sound card, or an Adlib Gold
series sound card.
- a 100% Microsoft compatible mouse using Microsoft Mouse driver
8.20a or higher.
- a CD-ROM drive that is at least single speed (150 Kb/sec transfer
rate).
B. NOT ENOUGH MEMORY
If Are You Afraid of the Dark gives you the error message "Not enough
memory to run Are You Afraid of the Dark. Need another xxxx bytes,"
then you have insufficient XMS memory or insufficient conventional
memory.
To view how much extended (XMS) memory you have, type
MEM
at the DOS prompt. Look at the "Extended (XMS)" line under "Free."
This will show you your available XMS.
If you are using DOS 5.0, look at the line which says "Available
XMS."
To view how much conventional memory you have, look at your "Largest
Executable Program Size."
1) CREATING A BOOT DISK
If you are having memory problems and need to change your system
configuration files, we recommend that you create a boot disk.
This way, you can keep your computer's original configuration and
simply use the boot disk whenever you wish to play Are You Afraid
of the Dark.
To create a boot disk, you must have a floppy diskette. After
putting the floppy in your A: drive (make sure the write-protect
notch is off), you must type the following from your DOS prompt:
FORMAT /S /U A:
This will format your floppy and put system files so you can boot
off of it. Now copy your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files found
in your root directory to your boot floppy.
COPY C:\CONFIG.SYS A:
COPY C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT A:
Now follow the procedures outlined below for modifying your
system files to run Are You Afraid of the Dark, WITH THE IMPORTANT
EXCEPTION THAT YOU WILL CHANGE THE CONFIG.SYS AND AUTOEXEC.BAT ON
YOUR BOOT FLOPPY, not your hard drive. After you have finished
altering the files on your boot disk, place the floppy in your A:
drive and restart your computer. Your computer will boot using
the configuration on your floppy disks rather than your hard
drive.
2) MODIFYING YOUR SYSTEM FILES TO GET MORE MEMORY
Follow these steps to change your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT
files (either on you hard drive or on your boot disk) to run
Are You Afraid of the Dark.
NOTICE: VIACOM NEW MEDIA WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY
DAMAGE OR OTHER UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF ANY NATURE WHATSOEVER
RESULTING FROM CHANGES MADE TO YOUR SYSTEM CONFIGURATION FILES.
a) Backup your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files by typing the
following in your root directory.
COPY CONFIG.SYS CONFIG.BAK
COPY AUTOEXEC.BAT AUTOEXEC.BAK
If you are creating a boot disk, switch drives to your A
drive by typing
A:
b) Now edit your CONFIG.SYS file by typing the following
EDIT CONFIG.SYS
Make sure you are at your root directory ( C:\ ).
You should now see the contents of your CONFIG.SYS file.
c) HIMEM.SYS must be loaded. Make sure the following line is in
your CONFIG.SYS. If it is not, write it in as the very first
line.
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
d) IF YOU HAVE ONLY 4 MEGS OF TOTAL MEMORY ON YOUR COMPUTER,
make sure the EMM386.EXE is NOT loaded. Because you need
ALL your extended memory, you cannot load EMM386.EXE. If
the following line is your CONFIG.SYS,
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS (or RAM)
Please disable or "rem" it out by adding "REM" to that line
so it looks like
REM DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS (or RAM)
If you have 8 megs or more, than you can leave EMM386.EXE in
you CONFIG.SYS.
e) Make sure your FILES is at least 20, and your BUFFERS is at
least 8.
f) Make sure that DOS is loaded HIGH
g) IF YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH CONVENTIONAL MEMORY, you need to
disable any non-essential devices in your CONFIG.SYS. Do not
disable your SCSI devices nor your CD-ROM devices. Some
sound cards also require devices in your CONFIG.SYS, do not
"rem" these out.
Here is a sample CONFIG.SYS with a SCSI CD-ROM drive:
DEVICE=C:\SCSI\ASPI4DOS.SYS /D --> SCSI card driver
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH
DOS=UMB
FILES=20
BUFFERS=8
DEVICE=C:\SCSI\ASPICD.SYS /D:MSCD001 --> SCSI CD-ROM driver
h) Once you have finished editing your CONFIG.SYS, make sure to
save it. You can do this by clicking on FILE and the SAVE
or SAVE AS.
i) Now you should edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT. Click on FILE and then
OPEN at the menu bar at the top of the screen to open a new
file. Or, if you are at your DOS prompt, type
EDIT AUTOEXEC.BAT
j) IF YOU HAVE ONLY 4 MEGS OF TOTAL MEMORY ON YOUR COMPUTER, You
must also disable any TSR programs that use extended memory,
such as SMARTDRV.EXE. If the following line is found in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT,
C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE
you must disable it by adding REM to the beginning so it now
says
REM C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE
If you have 8 megs or more, than you may leave Smartdrive
enabled, as long as you have at least 3000k of XMS available.
k) You may need to disable any other TSR programs in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT that uses XMS or EMS. Sometimes, an anti-virus
program will use XMS or EMS, you may wish to "rem" this out.
Be sure not to disable any lines required for your sound card
or CD-ROM drive! Here is a sample, "clean" AUTOEXEC.BAT,
PROMPT $p$g
PATH=C:\DOS
C:\MOUSE\MOUSE.EXE
C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 --> CD-ROM Extension
SET BLASTER=A220 D1 I5 T4 --> Required for Sound Card
l) Save your new AUTOEXEC.BAT.
m) Now you should be finished modifying your system files.
Restart your computer (and make sure the floppy is in drive
A if you are using a boot disk) and your computer should have
enough memory to run Are You Afraid of the Dark.
C. VIDEO BOARD PROBLEMS
1) VESA Problems
If Are You Afraid of the Dark goes into its opening VGA intro, but
fails to go into the actual game itself (which is in SVGA), then
you may have a problem with your video board. Are You Afraid of
the Dark uses the VESA video standard. Most video boards are VESA
compliant out of the box, but some may require a VESA TSR program.
If Are You Afraid of the Dark detects no VESA on your video board,
it will run UNIVBE, a universal VESA TSR program.
To tell whether or not your card has VESA onboard (and
consequently whether or not you may need to find those floppies
that came with your card) type "MSD" at your DOS prompt if you
have DOS 6.0 or higher. When the menu comes, up type "V" for
Video information. MSD will tell you whether or not VESA is
detected.
Sometimes, even if you have VESA onboard your video card, it
will not be able to run Are You Afraid of the Dark. If you have a
video board with VESA already on it that fails to get past the
intro, go to your CD-ROM drive and run UNIVBE.
D: (or whichever letter is your CD-ROM drive)
UNIVBE
In a few cases, even the UNIVBE TSR may not work. For these
unusual cases you will need to find a VESA TSR for your video
card. Usually, the manufacturer will put this TSR on floppy
disk and include it with the card, if the card does not have
VESA onboard. Locate this floppy, and copy the appropriate file
to your hard drive and run the VESA TSR before you run Are You
Afraid of the Dark. For example, if the VESA TSR is called
VESA.COM and you copied it to a directory called C:\VIDEO, then to
run Are You Afraid of the Dark you would type
C:
CD \VIDEO
VESA.COM
D: (if your CD-ROM drive is D:)
AFRAID
You may wish to add a line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT that
automatically runs the VESA TSR every time you boot the
computer. Using the same example as above, you would add the
following line to the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT,
C:\VIDEO\VESA.COM
2) Known Video Board Problems
Because of the sheer number of video cards and different versions
of even the same model card, it is impossible to guarantee that
Are You Afraid of the Dark will work with every video product out
on the market. However, we have tested the most common video
boards available at the time of production, and Are You Afraid of
the Dark may have problems with the following video boards:
Diamond Viper (Viper-Weitek 9000 only)
ATI Graphics Pro Turbo
Matrox MGA
Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 (S3 911 chipset ONLY)
Are You Afraid of the Dark will not be able run at all with the
Viper or Pro Turbo. The Matrox and Orchid Fahrenheit 911 cards
will run Are You Afraid of the Dark, but they may be so slow that
they will cause halting in the video scenes and other unexpected
problems. The Matrox cards will not run Are You Afraid of the Dark
at all unless the Matrox VESA driver included with the cards is
loaded.
D. SOUND CARD PROBLEMS
1) Are You Afraid of the Dark REQUIRES a sound card to run, it is NOT
optional. Are You Afraid of the Dark supports Sound Blaster and
100% compatibles, the Mediavision line of Pro Audio cards, the
Microsoft Windows Sound System, and the Adlib Gold sound cards.
When you run Are You Afraid of the Dark, the AFRAID.EXE program will
auto-detect your sound card and its settings automatically. There
is no install program to configure your sound card settings.
2) A problem which may occur for ANY sound board is a conflict with
your computer's IRQ, ADDRESS, or DMA. Essentially, there are
different ADDRESS, IRQ, and DMA settings in your computer and
each device in your computer uses up one or more of these, and
they cannot be shared. So if you have a SCSI card at IRQ 10,
and a sound card set to IRQ 10, they are conflicting and will
cause a variety problems, and at least will crash Are You Afraid of
the Dark. If you are having problems with Are You Afraid of the
Dark, please make sure that your sound card is working properly.
The easiest way to do this is by trying another game or some other
program that uses your sound board.
3) SOUND BLASTER & COMPATIBLES
If you have a Sound Blaster card or compatible, the most common
problem you may run into is having an incorrect BLASTER setting.
You should have a line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT which says
SET BLASTER=A220 D1 I5 T3
or something similar. This BLASTER variable tells Are You Afraid
of the Dark what the IRQ, Address, and DMA your sound card is set
to. If it is set incorrectly Are You Afraid of the Dark will most
likely fail to even start. Because of the large number of Sound
Blaster compatible cards, it is impossible to outline how to
correctly change your BLASTER setting for every sound device. Some
cards may have software which will do it for you, others may
require you to look at the card's jumper setting. The manual for
your sound card will tell you how to do this.
Make sure that all the proper drivers for your sound card are
loaded in your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Most Sound Blaster
cards only require a SET BLASTER in your AUTOEXEC.BAT. But, many
versions of the SB16 (including the AWE32) require drivers to be
loaded in your CONFIG.SYS as well.
4) PRO AUDIO CARDS
Pro Audio Spectrum cards require a driver called MVSOUND.SYS.
The Pro Audio 3D card uses a similar driver called PA3D.SYS.
Make sure that the proper driver is correctly set in your
CONFIG.SYS.
Are You Afraid of the Dark will run with the Pro Audio Spectrum
cards in only the Pro Audio Spectrum mode. The Sound Blaster
emulation part of your Pro Audio Spectrum will not work.
The Pro Audio 3D card will ONLY work with Are You Afraid of the
Dark in Sound Blaster emulation. To run the 3D in emulation, use
the install software and make sure that the SET BLASTER is set
correctly (which the 3D will take care of for you, if you let the
install write changes to your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS).
5) ADLIB GOLD CARDS
The only Adlib sound cards that are supported in Are You Afraid of
the Dark's Adlib mode are the Adlib Gold cards. Adlib has new
cards out which are supported by Are You Afraid of the Dark in
Sound Blaster emulation.
6) SOUND GALAXY CARDS
The Sound Galaxy cards work with Are You Afraid of the Dark in
Sound Blaster emulation. However, Are You Afraid of the Dark's
auto-detect may fail to recognize your Sound Galaxy card as a
Sound Blaster compatible. To get Are You Afraid of the Dark
running, manually load the Sound Blaster sound drivers.
Go to your CD-ROM drive.
D: (or whichever letter your CD-ROM is)
CD \DRIVERS
Run the Sound Blaster drivers.
SBWAVE
SBOPL2
SBVOL
Go back to the CD root directory.
CD D:\
Now run Are You Afraid of the Dark.
AFRAID
7) MICROSOFT SOUND CARDS
Microsoft Sound Cards may have problems using the master volume
setting at the options screen. You can use your manual volume
to get the same result.
8) MANUALLY LOADING SOUND DRIVERS
If Are You Afraid of the Dark fails to run, you may have a sound card
problem.
Try manually loading the sound drivers (and thereby skipping
Are You Afraid of the Dark's auto-detect) and manually telling the
driver what yoursettings are.
a) Go to your CD-ROM drive
D: (or whichever letter your CD-ROM is)
b) Change directories to D:\DRIVERS
CD \DRIVERS
c) If you have a Sound Blaster compatible, run
SBWAVE
and then run
SBOPL2
and then run
SBVOL
Go back to the installed directory by typing
D:
CD \VNM\AFRAID
and then run Are You Afraid of the Dark
AFRAID
If you still have problems, unload the drivers by typing
SBWAVE /U
SBOPL2 /U
SBVOL /U
Then try specifying your particular sound card settings by
typing
SBWAVE /A:xxx /I:yy /D:zz
"xxx" is your sound card's port address setting.
"yy" is your sound card's IRQ setting.
"zz" is your sound card's DMA setting.
then run
SBOPL2
then run
SBVOL
Go back to the installed directory by typing
D:
CD \VNM\AFRAID
and then run Are You Afraid of the Dark
AFRAID
d) You can also manually run the other sound drivers.
PASWAVE & PASVOL are the Pro Audio Spectrum drivers.
ADLWAVE & ADLVOL are the Adlib Gold drivers.
MSWAVE is the Microsoft Sound System driver.
Manually running a driver will skip Are You Afraid of the
Dark's auto-detect.
E. VIDEO/SOUND CARD COMBINATION PROBLEMS
You may experience unusual cases where a particular video card,
sound card, and computer combination causes a problem even though
each individual component normally works smoothly. In particular, if
you have a Sound Blaster Pro 2.0, a Pentium 90, and one of a number
of video cards you may experience extremely garbled sounds. These
problems are hardware problems which will occur with any game
similar to Are You Afraid of the Dark, and cannot be handled from the
software side. You may wish to contact your hardware component's
manufacturers to try to solve the problem.
F. CD-ROM DRIVES
Are You Afraid of the Dark should run fine on almost all CD-ROM drives
as long as they meet at least single speed requirements (150 kB/sec
transfer rate minimum). Certain, very old CD-ROM drives do not meet
these requirements and may encounter problems running Are You Afraid of
the Dark.
The NEC Intersect 25 CD-ROM may encounter problems running Are You
Afraid of the Dark if you have background music on. This is due to the
slow access time (800+ ms, as opposed to 200-300 ms access times for
new CD-ROM drives). Turning background music off should solve
the problem.
G. MOUSE PROBLEMS
If Are You Afraid of the Dark gives the error message "Could not detect
a mouse. Are You Afraid of the Dark requires a mouse" then either your
mouse or mouse driver is not loaded, or Are You Afraid of the Dark is
not detecting your particular mouse or mouse driver.
Please make sure that you are using a mouse and mouse driver that is
100% compatible with Microsoft Mouse and Mouse Driver 8.20a or above.
II. OTHER PROBLEMS
A. DISK READ ERRORS
If you get a dialog box saying that there has been a disk read
error any time during the game, hit <ENTER> for retry and <ESC> to
quit. It may take several retries before the CD-ROM finds the right
track to resume the game.
If you are getting continual disk read errors throughout the game,
you may have a dirty CD. CD-ROM games must be properly maintained
just like music CDs. Clean the Are You Afraid of the Dark CD just as
you would a normal music CD and see if the read errors still continue.
If the read errors persist, and especially if they seem to be
reoccurring at the same location in the game, you may have a
defective disk. In this case you will want to return the game to
your retailer or call technical support.
C. WINDOWS
This product will not work under Windows or a Windows DOS box.
Trying to run Are You Afraid of the Dark under Windows may cause
your Windows to crash, lockup, or experience other unexpected
problems.
III. TECH SUPPORT
If all else fails, you can contact tech support at
VNM Technical Support
for IBM & Mac Products
Technical Support Voice Phone: #303-339-7114
Technical Support FAX Phone: #303-339-7702
Technical Support hours: 7am to 6pm MST Monday thru Friday
or use or E-Mail addresses:
America Online -
Keyword: VIACOM
Address: VNMSUPPORT
Compuserve -
Go CDROM
Address: 76702, 1604