Africa Trail(R)
Copyright(c) 1995, MECC(R) and its licensors
All Rights Reserved
Version 1.0.3
This README file is provided as a reference document to help you setup
your Windows environment or fix problems that you are having
with Africa Trail.
Included in this document:
- WINDOWS 95 SETUP
- WINDOWS 3.1x, WFW 3.11 & WINDOWS NT SETUP
- VIDEO DISPLAY
- SOUND AND MUSIC
- TROUBLE SHOOTING
- VIDEOS
- SOUNDTRACK
- MECC DEMOS
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WINDOWS 95
1. To setup Africa Trail, insert the CD in the drive and select the
INSTALL button.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions.
3. Africa Trail installation places three icons in the Start Up menu
under the MECC program group:
Africa Trail Icon
Africa Trail Readme Icon
Africa Trail Multimedia Resource Tool
4. Installation is now complete; double-click on the "Africa Trail"
icon to start the program.
WINDOWS 95 Notes:
- Setup for Video for Windows is not required since VFW is included in
Windows 95.
- If you choose to reinstall Africa Trail, use the Windows 95 Control Panel
to uninstall Africa Trail before reinstalling.
- The AFRICA.INI file is now located in the program directory, not the
Windows directory.
- If installing across a network, the install will NOT put the correct
UNC path in the AFRICA.INI file. Edit the line "rsrcpath=E:\Data\"
in the AFRICA.INI file.
Example: rsrcpath=\\School Server\CD ROM\Data\
where "School Server" is the Computer Name and "CD ROM" is the share
name for the CD ROM.
- When the Africa Trail CD is inserted, an Africa Trail logo screen
will appear with "Setup," "Run," "Exit" and "Media Viewer" buttons at the
bottom.
If the logo appears without buttons, try resizing the Window until the
buttons appear. If the buttons are still not visable, change your
screen font to "small fonts" (in Control Panel/Display settings).
If problems still exist, start Windows 95 Explorer, open the AFRICA
CD folder, open the WIN32 folder and double-click on the SETUP32.EXE file.
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WINDOWS 3.1x, WFW 3.11 & WINDOWS NT
1. To set up Africa Trail, run the SETUP.EXE program from the CD.
2. Africa Trail installation places three icons in the MECC
program group:
Africa Trail Icon
Africa Trail Readme Icon
Africa Trail Multimedia Resource Tool
3. Africa Trail REQUIRES Video for Windows (VFW) to be installed in
Windows. After the Africa Trail installation has completed, you will
be asked if you would like to install Video for Windows Version 1.1e.
(If you already have Video for Windows Version 1.1 installed, you
do not need to install it again.)
4. Installation is now complete; double-click on the "Africa Trail"
icon to start the program.
There are product demos for other MECC products on this CD. Please see the
section of this document that describes them.
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Requirements
- 486 or higher
- 4 MB RAM, 8MB RAM highly recommended
- DOS 5.0 or later
- Windows 3.1 or later
- Double-speed CD-ROM
- 256 colors, 640 x 480
- Windows-compatible sound card
- Video for Windows 1.1e (supplied on the CD)
Warning: If you are using Windows 95 or Windows for Workgroups, 8MB of RAM
is highly recommended.
========= MEMORY - RAM ===============================
Africa Trail requires a minimum of 4 megabytes of
random access memory (RAM) to operate. Check that available
memory is adequate. Although Windows allows you to run more
than one application simultaneously, it is highly
recommended that you close everything else to release all
available memory when you run Africa Trail.
If you do not have a permanent swap file setup it is recommended
that you create one.
========== AFRICA.INI ================================
The AFRICA.INI file is written to the Africa Trail program
directory. The following is an example of the AFRICA.INI file:
[CDROM]
RsrcPath=D:\
[sound]
music=on
sfx=on
vfw=on
[game]
alwaysstop=on
metricunits=on
localcurrency=on
roadsize=1
[scores]
========== VIDEO DISPLAY ================================
Africa Trail prefers 256 colors in a screen resolution of at
least 640 x 480. Africa Trail can be run in 65k color mode,
but performance will be diminished. (In 256 colors, graphics
can be written directly to the screen. With 65K colors or more,
the graphics must be built off-screen and then displayed. If
the display is painted in large sections, then a 256 color
driver is not in use.)
To install the preferred 256-color video driver, use the
"Windows Setup" icon (setup.exe) and take the following
steps (note: setup.exe can also be accessed from DOS when in
the windows directory) :
1. Locate your video card manufacturer's display drivers disk.
2. Find your Windows disks.
3. Find the Windows Setup Icon (setup.exe) in the Main Group.
4. Select Change System Settings from the Options menu.
5. In the pop-up menu, locate the Other Drivers selection.
6. Specify the drive and/or directory of the video display
drivers disk.
7. Select the driver which supports 640 x 480 in 256 colors
and click OK.
8. You may need to insert some of the Windows disks for fonts,
etc.
9. To change to any other video mode, simply follow steps 1
through 8 for whatever mode required.
10. Once the above steps are completed, restart Windows.
Note that current drivers may be obtained directly from the
video card manufacturer or from bulletin boards that are
often setup by the video board manufacturers. Bulletin
boards are databases that are accessible via a modem.
Problems with specific video cards are described in the
Trouble Shooting section at the end of this file.
====== SOUND and MUSIC =================================
There are a great number of manufacturers of MPC sound cards of
varying qualities.
1. Africa Trail will have a small amount of "white noise" or
background hiss when playing digitized sound effects and
speech. It should not "crackle," "pop" or "motorboat."
2. If sound or music fails to play at all or the quality is still
not as expected, then try reinstalling your sound card drivers
as follows:
Locate your manufacturer's driver disk for the sound card. Also
check your manual for any information regarding installation.
Usually there is a set procedure for installation and most of the
steps are done for you. Follow the manufacturer's procedures for
installation which usually works.
However if the manufacturer's installation doesn't work
or is incomplete, the following describes a more "manual"
installation process:
1. Keep your Windows 3.1 disks handy. They're often
needed for hardware installations.
2. Find the Windows "Control Panel."
3. Find the Drivers Icon.
4. Find the Add button and click on it.
5. Find and select "Other."
6. Insert your sound card manufacturer's driver disk.
7. Click on OK and follow the prompts.
8. If necessary, delete older drivers.
Once the above steps are completed, restart Windows.
9. Try installing Africa Trail again or try the
Sound Test to see if there is any improvement.
===== TROUBLE SHOOTING ===============================
Description: Africa Trail won't complete its installation.
Solution #1: Check the surface of the CD-ROM (the shiny side) for
any smudges, scratches, fingerprints, peanut butter
or other foreign substances. Anything that can bend
or obstruct light can cause incorrect data to be read.
Description: The following error message occurs when starting Africa
Trail: File Error. Cannot find MSVIDEO.DLL
Solution #2: Video for Windows is not installed, installed incorrectly
or has been corrupted. From File Manager launch the
"Setup.exe" icon located in the VFW11e folder on the
Africa Trail CD.
Description: Problems with movies in Africa Trail.
Solution #3: Video for Windows (VFW) is used to play all movies in Africa
Trail. To check VFW, try playing the movies by
themselves. To do this, open File Manager, click on the
icon for your CD-ROM drive, locate the AVI folder on the
Africa Trail CD-ROM and double-click on any of the files
that have a "AVI" extension. This loads and plays the
selected movie. 101.AVI is a demo movie.
If the movie fails to play, try reinstalling VFW as
described in Solution #2.
If you absolutely, positively, cannot get Video for Windows
to work on your computer, the movies can be disabled by changing
the "VFW=on" option in your Africa.ini file to "VFW=off".
Microsoft Technical Support for Video for Windows is
available at 1-206-635-7040.
Description: Cannot hear any sound or music.
Solution #4: Try using the MEDIA PLAYER that comes with Windows 3.1
This will allow you to try MIDI or WAVE sounds (there
are some .mid and .wav files in the Windows directory
for you to try). From Program Manager select RUN and type
MPLAYER CANYON.MID
Hit the play button and you should hear music.
If you still don't hear anything, this means that
the problem is not just Africa Trail but may be the
connection between your sound card and your speakers.
Check all your connections with speakers, headphones and
volume controls.
Solution #5: "No. I'm still not hearing any sounds." - Take a look at
the software mixer in Windows that came with your sound card
Are the sliders for MIDI and WAVE turned up? Is the
master volume control turned up?
If you still are not hearing sound/music, contact your
computer and/or hardware manufacturer.
Description: Africa Trail was working before, but now it isn't!
Solution #6: Check the surface of the Africa Trail CD-ROM (the shiny
side) for any smudges, scratches, fingerprints, peanut
butter or other foreign substances. Anything that can
bend or obstruct light can cause incorrect data to be read
and can cause some very bizarre errors to occur.
Description : A "System Error Cannot read from drive D" error message
appears, followed by an "Africa Trail cannot locate
"Africa.Dat" message.
Solution #7: This error will occur if the Africa Trail CD is NOT
in the drive or the line "rsrcpath=" statement in the
AFRICA.INI does not point to the correct drive.
Description: "Inadequate video mode" error at program startup
Solution #8: This error occurs on systems using ATI Mach 64 video
drivers. User's current video mode indicates 256
colors, however Africa Trail/Windows does not detect
the video mode as a 256-color video mode.
Unfortunately, at the time of this release a solution is
not available. MECC is continuing to investigate what
appears to be a video driver problem. As soon as a
solution is available, MECC will add it to the 24-hour
Automated Technical Support System and also post the
solution on America-On-Line BBS (keyword MECC).
Description: Program or movies freeze in Windows 95.
Solution #9: The problem could occur on systems using Avance Logic's
2302 chip-based video driver in Windows 95. Check your
Windows 95 display information.
At the time of this release the current video drivers or
generic Windows video drivers do not solve the problem.
Please contact your video manufacturer for information on
the latest video driver available for your video card.
MECC will add new information as it develops to the
24-hour Automated Technical Support System and also post this
information on America-On-Line BBS (keyword MECC).
Description: "Video too old" error at program startup.
Solution #10: Video for Windows is not installed, installed incorrectly
or has been corrupted. From File Manager launch the
"Setup.exe" icon located in the VFW11e folder on the
Africa Trail CD.
Description: "AVI file too big to play in selected VGA mode." error at
program startup.
Solution #11: 1. Double-click Control Panels icon.
2. Double-click Drivers icon.
3. From the list of drivers that then appears highlight the
item named "Microsoft Video for Windows".
4. Click on the setup button to the right of the drivers list.
5. A config windows comes up.
6. Change check box from Full Screen to Window.
7. Click on Set Default button.
Description: Can't find Africa.dat file when running Novell DOS 7.
Solution #12: You must add the following command to your autoexec.bat file:
"Append D:\;D:\Data;D:\Data\AVI" where "D:" is the drive letter
of your CD-ROM drive. If the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive
is different, substitute that letter in place of "D:".
Description: Screen colors seem incorrect.
Solution #13: This error occurs on systems using ATI Mach 32 video
drivers. This caused by the Crystal Font setting. To
correct the problem, disable Crystal Fonts in the ATI
FlexDesk Control Panel and make sure a 256-color driver
is selected.
Description: "MCI Error: The specified device is not open or is not
recognized by MCI" error at program startup.
Solution #14: Video for Windows is not installed, installed incorrectly
or has been corrupted. From File Manager launch the
"Setup.exe" icon located in the VFW11e folder on the
Africa Trail CD.
Description: "MCI Error: MMSYSTEM" error at program startup.
Solution #15: Video for Windows is may not be installed in Windows 95,
installed incorrectly or has been corrupted. From Explorer
launch the "Setup.exe" icon located in the VFW11e folder
on the Africa Trail CD.
Description: "GPF in module unknown" while running program.
Solution #16: The problem occurs on systems using Avance Logic's
2228/2301 chip-based 16bit video driver in Windows 3.1.
(e.g. Hercules Stingray)
At the time of this release the current Hercules video drivers
(v2.00) or generic Avance Logic Windows video drivers
(2301 v2.20) do not solve the problem.
Please contact your video manufacturer for information on
the latest video driver available for your video card.
MECC will add new information as it develops to the
24-hour Automated Technical Support System and also post this
information on America-On-Line BBS (keyword MECC).
The current Windows 95 drivers have been tested and
are compatible with the program.
GENERAL TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS!
Rule #1 is to eliminate as may variables as possible!
- In Africa Trail, try turning off Sound, Music and Speech - does
the error still occur?
- Are any other programs running in the background? Hold down the
Ctrl & Esc keys to bring up Windows task list. Close all applications
except Program Manager. Then start Africa Trail.
- DOS 6.0 and above allow users to step through the Config.sys and
Autoexec.bat files, answering Yes or No for each line. When your
computer is starting up, a "Loading MS-DOS" message appears. Hold
down the F8 key to step through these system files. Do not attempt
this if you do not know what each line is doing.
NOTE: Check to make sure you have the latest Windows video & sound drivers
for the video and sound cards installed in your computer. Check the
documentation that came with your video card or sound card for
information on obtaining updated drivers.
MECC Technical Support is available through the following:
1. 24-Hour Automated Technical Support System. 1-612-569-1678
2. E-Mail. When sending a technical support request via E-Mail,
please be sure to include detailed information about the problem
you are having and include the following:
(examples for MAC & Windows systems)
Platform: Windows Macintosh
Computer Type/Model: Gateway 2000 Performa 6115CD
Operating System: Windows 3.1 System 7.5
RAM: 8 Meg 8 Meg
Video Driver: CL GD5426/28
Sound Card: Ensoniq
Contact MECC Technical Support online at:
America Online. keyword MECC
Internet. http://www.mecc.com/
E-Mail. [email protected]
===== Accessing the Africa Trail video files ======================
To view the movies from Africa Trail outside of the program:
1. Open File Manager
2. Open the Africa Trail CD
3. Open the AVI folder
4. Double-click on any of the avi files to launch them.
5. If they do not launch, make sure you have Video for Windows
installed on your computer.
===== Africa Trail Soundtrack ======================
This Africa Trail CD contains a number of audio tracks that can be played with
your CD-ROM drive or a standard audio CD player. On an audio-only CD player,
start playing at Track 2.
(Warning: Track 1 is where the computer data resides; your CD player will either
make no sound_or_ play continuous noise!) Enjoy.
Track 2:
OPENING/THEME
Sowah Mensah: Keyboards, Axatse (Ghana)
Kenneth Komtanghi: Guitars (Cameroon)
Brain Boma: Bass (Cameroon)
Marc Anderson: Percussion (Minnesota)
Track 3:
LAGOS, NIGERIA
Dean MaGraw: Guitars (Minnesota)
Jim Anton: Bass (Minnesota)
Marc Anderson: Percussion
Sowah Mensah: Percussion
Track 4:
BIKING THEME 2 (Nigeria to Kenya)
Sowah Mensah: Sogo, Obonum, Clave,
Akasha
Marc Anderson: Djembe, Tamalin
Track 5:
MOZAMBIQUE
Sowah Mensah: Dzil 2
Marc Anderson: Dzil 1&3
Track 6:
ZAMBIA
Kenneth Komtanghi: Guitars
Brain Boma: Bass
Marc Anderson: Percussion, Drum machine
(programmed)
All music was written and Produced by Sowah Mensah
Engineered and mixed by Marc Anderson
Copyright 1995, MECC.
===== Mecc Demos on CD ======================
To run the MECC Demos from File Manager:
1. Open File Manager
2. Open the Africa Trail CD
3. Open the WINDEMO folder
4. Open any of the product folders and double-click the executable file
===== End ========================================================