American McGee's Alice(TM) Read Me File November 12, 2000 Here are a few last minute notes that didn't make it into the Alice manual. Windows Operating Systems ========================= The game has been optimized for several Windows operating systems. Windows 95, 98, and ME are thoroughly supported by our customer support unit. The game also runs on Windows NT 4.0 and 2000. It has been extensively tested on both systems and very few problems have come to light. Nevertheless these operating systems are NOT currently supported by customer support. Installation Choices ==================== There are two installation options you can choose when setting up Alice. Typical: ------- This installs all the game files to your hard drive, and is intended for computers with 128MB of RAM. This option requires 650 MB of space on your drive not including save games. Low Memory: ---------- This installs all the game files to your hard drive, and is intended for computers with 64 MB of RAM. This install uses lower resolution textures and other changes to reduce the memory requirements of the game. This option requires 525 MB of space on your drive not including save games. If you have an amount of memory somewhere between 64 and 128 MB, you can try the typical installation and see how it runs on your machine. If your machine runs slowly and seems to be accessing the drive a lot, you can adjust the "Texture Detail" slider down one notch. This slider is found on the "Graphics Options" settings page. Installation Problems ===================== If you're installing the game on Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000, you need to have administrator privileges on your machine. Otherwise, the installer will not run. The DirectX installer is only needed on Windows 95 or 98. Windows 2000 and Windows Me already have this version (or newer) of DirectX installed. Windows NT is not compatible with DirectX 7; you should, however, install the most recent Service Pack. General Problems ================ If you've made a settings change to Alice, that keep you from playing the game, you can usually fix this by deleting the "config.cfg" file located in the BASE subdirectory where you installed Alice. The default directory where you would find this file is: C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\American McGee’s Alice\Base If you delete this file, you will need to reset your key bindings next time you run the Game. Alice will automatically regenerate the config.cfg file for you. If you've changed your video resolution to something your computer cannot support, you can run Alice from the command prompt, manually setting the resolution. Open a command prompt window and change the directory to where you installed Alice. Then type: alice +set r_mode 3 And press the enter key. This will launch Alice in 640x480 resolution mode You can then try to change your resolution again. Before you change the display resolution in Alice, make sure that your computer supports that size. Some screen savers can cause problems if you leave Alice running idle long enough for your screen saver to turn on. If you have issues with this, try disabling your screensaver. Player cannot assign any command to the wheel mouse (up or down) until the game has been run and restarted. Wheel mouse commands may be issued the second time the game is started. If you have difficulty removing the game from your system using Add/Remove Programs from the Windows Control Panel, you may successfully Uninstall the game from the Start Menu (Default placement is Start/Programs/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice/Uninstall Alice) or from the Autorun Menu on Disk 1. Speed Problems ============== If you're having framerate problems, there are a few tweaks you can do to speed up the game on your machine. These settings will free up more memory, thus placing less of a load on your hardware. In Video options (Settings Menu): - Uncheck Detail Textures. - Set both Color Depth and Texture Bits to 16 bit. - Run in 640x480 resolution. In Audio options (Settings Menu): - Make sure that "8-Bit Sound" is checked. - Set the Sound Quality to "22khz". There should not be a big difference in the visual and audio quality when using 16-bit textures and 8-bit sounds, but it can help to make the game run faster. Memory Problems =============== If your computer is constantly accessing the hard drive as you play Alice, you may need to make a few changes. It's recommended that your machine have 128MB of RAM, but the game can run on 64MB machines with a few small tweaks. If you chose the "Low Memory" option in the Alice installer, those options should already be set for you. If you chose "Typical", as your installation option: - Move the Texture Detail slider in the Video options (Settings Menu), one or two notches to the left. - Make sure that "8-Bit Sound" is checked in Audio options (Settings Menu). If you still can't get it to speed up, try uninstalling the game and reinstalling using the "Low Memory" option. Stability Problems ================== If your machine locks up frequently or crashes a lot, there are a few general tips to help stabilize it. If you have other programs running at the same time as Alice, consider turning them off. Make sure you have the latest drivers. Manufacturers are always improving their drivers to fix bugs and improve performance. Check the web sites for your Video Card, Sound Card, and Motherboard, and try out the latest drivers. Make sure your machine has the latest BIOS installed. Many hardware components get improved BIOS/Firmware after they're shipped, so make sure you're up to date. The stability of video cards and motherboards can vastly improve with updated BIOS. Once again, check your equipment manufacturer’s website for newer BIOS versions. Be sure to read and understand any instructions and warnings before you try to update BIOS on any hardware component. It usually updates without a problem, but you can render your machine unusable if you don't do it right, or if something goes wrong and the proper action isn't taken to fix it. If you purchased a pre-assembled PC, check with your PC manufacturer for updates. If you've had your operating system installed and running for a long time, it may be time to reinstall. This usually is only a problem for real power users who change system settings and hardware often and work with their machines a lot. Video Problems ============== Some video cards have problems with the fog effects that we're using in Alice. We've noticed that some objects don't seem fogged enough. This seems to occur most often on Voodoo 3 cards. In some scenes, distant objects may appear to have black lines moving across them. This seems to happen on a variety of video cards, and is a direct result of the distance from the player to the object. The current drivers for the Voodoo5 seem to have some trouble when changing resolutions, switching from full-screen to windowed mode. This usually means your computer will lock up or crash. There are also some visual problems when you run in windowed mode. The problems seem to be more pronounced in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. We expect 3dfx to address these problems in future driver releases. As always, make sure you have the latest video drivers for your card. Useful Web Sites ================ http://www.glsetup.com - Updated video/OpenGL drivers in one handy location. http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com - Keep your Windows installation up to date. http://www.alice.ea.com - The Alice site To read American’s list of personal special thanks refer to the file "ThankYou.txt" in the root directory of CD Disc 1. (C) 2000 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. Archived by OldGamesDownload.com on 12th September, 2019