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H Y P E R 3 D P I N B A L L
V I R G I N I N T E R A C T I V E E N T E R T A I N M E N T
Contents of README.TXT:
* Minimum / Recommended Requirements
* Windows 95 Compatibility
* Memory Requirements
* Video Card Compatibility
* Sound Card Setup and Compatibility
* CD-ROM Drives and Drivers Notes
* In-game Music
* Miscellaneous Notes and Hints
* How to Make a Boot Disk
* Technical Support
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Thank you for purchasing Hyper 3D Pinball from Virgin Interactive
Entertainment.
While we have tried to maintain complete cross compatibility across
all PC systems that fall within the basic requirements of Hyper 3D
Pinball there may be some configurations that the game will not run
correctly on.
Following you'll find a few things to try and help you get the most
from your game.
MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
--------------------
486-DX33, 8MB RAM (16MB required to run from a Windows 95 DOS box),
2X CD-ROM drive, MSCDEX 2.2 or higher, a sound card with FM and PCM
sound and DOS drivers, hard drive with 2MB free, SVGA video card with
1MB RAM, DOS 5.0 or higher.
RECOMMENDED
-----------
486-DX266 or higher, 16MB RAM, VLB SVGA video card
WINDOWS 95 COMPATIBILITY
-------------------------
While we have tried to maintain compatibility with Windows 95 there
may be some instances where Hyper 3D Pinball may not run correctly
when launched from Windows 95. There are two things to try to get
Hyper 3D Pinball running correctly:
1. Once you've installed Hyper 3D Pinball you can add a PIF to the
main 3DPINBAL.BAT file. Look under HELP in the Windows '95 START menu
for "Optimizing an MSDOS Program (Editing PIF Files)" if you're not
familiar with this process.
2. From the START/Shut Down menu, select Restart your PC in MS-DOS
mode. Make sure it is set up for using a CD-ROM drive. To return to
Windows either reset your PC or type EXIT from the prompt.
3. Please note that most machines will need at least 16MB RAM to run
Hyper 3D Pinball straight from Windows 95.
4. Some newer machines ship with Windows 95 drivers only. Because
Hyper 3D Pinball is a DOS game it may not function properly on these
machines. Contact the computer manufacturer regarding DOS drivers.
MEMORY REQUIREMENTS
-------------------
Hyper 3D Pinball has a basic requirement of a PC with 8mb RAM.
However, players with 16mb or more will benefit greatly as the game
will see your extended memory and utilize it as best as possible. The
game does require quite a large amount of extended memory to operate
and we highly recommend you generate a boot disk. General directions
of how to do this follow further down the document or see the HELP!
booklet included in the box.
- 320 x 200 mode
This screen mode only allows the 3D Scrolling view. While this is not
as graphically appealing as the 640 X 480 or 800 X 600 views it makes
for full screen, fast, frenetic and fun pinball- try it out! This mode
will work on all 8mb PCs.
- 640 X 480 mode
If your PC is only fitted with 8mb you will not be able to load all
three 640x480 views (2D Scrolling, 3D Scrolling and 3D Full Screen)
into memory at one time. You will be limited to either 3D Scrolling
only or 2D Scrolling with 3D Full Screen. Players with 16mb or more
will be able to load all three views into memory and switch
dynamically between them during play.
- 800 X 600 mode
Or "Super Detail" mode as we like to call it! Only the 3D Full Screen
view is available in this mode, this is an extra mode that became
available to us with a combination of the logic and physics engine
from 2D and 3D scrolling mode and as we had very high resolution
graphics available to us from the Silicon Graphics workstations we
thought we'd throw it in. This mode will work on all 8mb PCs.
Actual memory requirements vary from table to table. Below is a list
of the tables in each resolution and the actual amount of memory they
require. If you are wondering why certain combinations of a view
won't work on your configuration it's <omit very> probably because
you don't have enough free Extended or Expanded memory. See "Making a
boot disk" further on in this document should memory become a
problem. Here are the requirements for each resolution and view:
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
3DLORES| MB640 | 2D | MB+2D | 3DSCR | 3D+MB | 3D+2D|3D,MB+2D| MB800 | SFX
| | | | | (640) | (640) | | |
+------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|------+
R-KING | | | | | | | | |
------ | | | | | | | | |
2860577|1086624|1685254|2069221|4883778|5267745|5866375|6250342|1249264|0460088
| | | | | | | | |
F-FAIR | | | | | | | | |
------ | | | | | | | | |
2877340|1027488|1767843|2155599|5459179|5846935|6587290|6975046|1200017|0341700
| | | | | | | | |
HORROR | | | | | | | | |
------ | | | | | | | | |
3308498|1130688|1729873|2130334|5920256|6320717|6919902|7320363|1298636|0742086
| | | | | | | | |
GANG | | | | | | | | |
---- | | | | | | | | |
3115517|1096662|1979797|2373122|5610567|6003892|6887027|7280352|1263404|0522889
| | | | | | | | |
S-QUEST| | | | | | | | |
-------| | | | | | | | |
3056218|1126092|1949413|2348107|5559173|5957867|6781188|7179882|1293222|0565886
| | | | | | | | |
MYST | | | | | | | | |
---- | | | | | | | | |
2951691|1042436|1635581|2028212|5321327|5713958|6307103|6699734|1209175|0676870
| | | | | | | | |
===============================================================================
VIDEO CARD COMPATIBILITY
------------------------
While we have endeavoured to provide support for all video cards there
is always potential for some incompatibility among the thousands
available and soon to be released cards. To ensure blanket
compatibility we have included the UNIVESA library in Hyper 3D
Pinball. This helps to ensure VESA compatibility on all of the most
popular cards available.
Hyper 3D Pinball uses a video card trick to get ultra smooth, ultra
fast action on its scrolling modes but this can cause some conflicts.
Should you ever have any kind of screen corruption or problems with
the dotmation in any scrolling mode please make sure the large
Safe/Fast Mode button in the bottom left of the main options page is
set to SAFE MODE.
Cards that are known to occasionally cause problems in Fast Mode are:
ATI Mach 64 PCI
Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM
If you have either of these cards and experience problems please make
sure to play in SAFE MODE.
SOUND CARD SETUP AND COMPATIBILITY
----------------------------------
Hyper 3D Pinball has been programmed to play its sound effects
through all popular digital sound cards that are fitted with DOS
drivers. Some Windows 95 only machines might not have come with
DOS drivers, but you can play with no sound by running the manual
sound setup (see below). When installing Hyper 3D Pinball the game
checks the "SET BLASTER" statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If it
can't find it you will need to manually set up the card settings by
typing SETSOUND from the directory that you installed the game to.
If the install program fails to find your SET BLASTER statement you
will be asked to select your sound card and its settings. If you
select the incorrect card or settings the program may crash. Should
this happen please reset your PC and re-run the SETSOUND utility in
the directory where you installed the game and choose the correct
settings for your sound card. If you don't know your settings please
contact the sound card manufacturer for assistance.
CD-ROM DRIVES AND DRIVERS
-------------------------
Hyper 3D Pinball has been programmed to work on most all CD ROM drives
that are 2X speed or better. Improved performance will be achieved
if your CD ROM is 3x speed or higher.
If you experience reduced performance during animated sequences there
are a couple of things to try.
Ensure you have buffers set up on your MSCDEX line in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT. This is <omit a> typically included as a /m:## where the
## is the number of buffers. This should be set to a minimum of /m:16.
Ensure you are using the most up to date version of MSCDEX. There are
documented problems in versions of MSCDEX supplied with the original
release of Windows 3.1. Please make sure you are using the MSCDEX that
either came with DOS or with your CD ROM drive.
IN-GAME MUSIC
-------------
In-game music in Hyper 3D Pinball is played directly from the CD
itself as CD Audio tracks. This gives crisp and full sound. If you are
getting sound effects but no CD music please check these things:
1. Make sure the settings on your sound card's mixer program are
correctly set. Sometimes the CD audio volume control can either be set
to 0 or can have the "mute" button clicked on. Both of these things
will stop your CD audio from playing.
2. Make sure the internal audio cable is connected between your sound
card and CD ROM drive. This is quite easy to check by playing an audio
CD via either a DOS or Windows based CD player package. Windows comes
with MEDIA PLAYER. You can also check that the music is playing by
connecting headphones to the headphone socket on the front of your
CD-ROM drive.
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND HINTS
-----------------------------
* If you don't install the animations to your hard drive they won't
play as fast on slower machines, but you'll save a lot of hard
drive space. Please note that you will still get all animations
in the game- you won't miss anything (we promise).
* For 800x600 mode you may have to adjust your monitor to move the
display to the center of your screen.
* The Star Quest 2049 table has a "no choice" plunger, meaning that
it only has one launch position. For a nice bonus, time your
launch to hit the space ship that is speeding along in the dot
matrix display!
* Some ramps are very steep! This may be hard to see from some views.
If you shoot a ball up a ramp and it comes back around, you'll need
to hit the ball harder to make it around. Give it more umph!
* To view the high scores, select a table from the main menu and
press the H key.
MAKING A BOOT DISK
------------------
If you have an 8mb PC it may be wise for you to generate a "boot
disk". This is a disk that contains the minimum system startup
information to run your computer, thus squeezing out as much free
memory as possible. While we cannot be specific to your PC we have
included some general instructions on how to generate a boot disk.
(again, some spacing was changed for clarity)
1, Format a blank floppy disk. To do this insert a blank or erasable
disk into your floppy drive (normally A:) and from DOS type:
FORMAT A: /S (followed by the RETURN key)
From Windows 3.X, open the File Manager and select DISK then FORMAT,
making sure to select the "Make System Disk" and ensuring the floppy
disk drive is selected in the "Disk In:" box before clicking OK. In
Windows '95 double click the "My Computer" icon to show your active
devices. Select the floppy drive you inserted the disk into and click
on FILE followed by FORMAT. Be sure to click on "Copy system files"
before clicking "START". For other operating systems please check in
your user manual on how to format floppy disks.
2, Once your disk is formatted you will need to copy over your
AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. These can <omit normally> be found
in the root directory of your C:\ drive.
3, Once they are copied over you will need to edit the files to
reduce the number of "memory hogging" startup programs you have
running. Do this by either typing EDIT A:\AUTOEXEC.BAT and EDIT
A:\CONFIG.SYS from DOS or you can load the files into NOTEPAD for
Windows 3.x and '95. MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU ARE EDITING THE FILES
ON THE FLOPPY DISK, NOT THE ONES ON YOUR HARD DISK.
<space>
4, When you have one of the files on screen you need to either remove
or comment out lines (see below how to do this) that are not needed
for Hyper 3D Pinball. Lines such as these below can be found in your
CONFIG.SYS file:
1. DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CSP.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220
2. DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTSB16.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220 I:7 D:1 H:5
3. DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\CTMMSYS.SYS
4. FILES=40
5. DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
6. DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
7. DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:MSCD000 /P:170,15
8. DOS=HIGH,UMB
9. DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\SETVER.EXE
10. SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /P /E:1024
11. device=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1)
12. Country=044,850,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys
13. DEVICE=C:\SCSI\ASPI2DOS.SYS /D
14. DEVICE=C:\SCSI\DRIVER.SYS
While a number of these are essential for day to day work on your PC
not all of them are needed to run Hyper 3D Pinball. In this example
CONFIG.SYS file, the essential lines are likely to be 1, 2, 3, 7 (the
CD Rom Driver) and 13 (should you want to keep your external SCSI
devices operational.
Lines like this can be found in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
1. SET SOUND=C:\SB16
2. SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6
3. SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0
4. C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S
5. C:\SB16\AWEUTIL /S
6. C:\SB16\SB16SET /P /Q
7. @ECHO OFF
8. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD000 /M:8 /L:E
9. C:\DOS\MOUSE
10. PROMPT $p$g
11. PATH C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\DOS;C:\
12. LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DOSKEY
13. C:\WINDOWS\WINST
14. mode con codepage prepare=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)
15. mode con codepage select=850
16. keyb uk,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keyboard.sys
While a number of these are essential for day to day work on your PC
not all of them are needed to run Hyper 3D Pinball. In this example
AUTOEXEC.BAT file, the essential lines are likely to be numbers 2
(ESSENTIAL if you want sound effects), 4, 5, 6 and 8 (the other half
of the CD ROM driver).
To comment out a line, add the word REM (and a space) to the beginning of
the line. This turns the line from a command to a REMark. For example, LH
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DOSKEY becomes REM LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DOSKEY.
If editing out the unnecessary lines from your AUTOEXEC.BAT and
CONFIG.SYS files still leaves you without enough memory, make sure none
of the lines start with DEVICEHIGH, LH or LOADHIGH. Replace DEVICEHIGH
with DEVICE and remove any reference to LH or LOADHIGH.
Once you have edited your files save them off to the floppy disk,
replacing the ones you originally copied there. Leave your boot
disk in drive A: and reset your PC to allow it to boot from the
floppy disk.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
-----------------
You may contact Virgin Interactive Entertainment's technical support
department at:
- 714-833-1999 24hr automated support
- 714-833-1999 Live technical support (Mon-Fri 8-5 PST)
- 714-833-2001 FAX
- 714-833-3305 BBS
- www.vie.com World Wide Web
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Copyright (c) 1995 NMS Software, Ltd. Licensed exclusively to Virgin
Interactive Entertainment (Europe) Ltd. Hyper 3D Pinball is a trademark
of Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Inc. Virgin is a registered trademark
of Virgin Enterprises, Ltd. All rights reserved.
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