Streets of SimCityÔ ReadMe Last Minute Info : October 21, 1997 This file includes all of the last minute information that we weren't able to include in the formal User's Manual or felt that a further explanation would help. Here you will find helpful tidbits of useful information and salvation for those frustrating ambiguities. Please read this entire document to avoid those nasty headaches we've already suffered for you. As a convention for the rest of this document, Streets of SimCity is affectionately referred to as simply Streets. I. Technical Issues A. Performance B. Command Line Parameters C. Multiplayer Network D. DirectX E. Microsoft Game Device Profiler F. Important Warnings & Known Pitfalls II. Gameplay Issues A. Cost of Goods B. Garage & Repairs C. SCURKisms D. Car Skins E. Radio Stations ============================================================================================ I. Technical Issues A. Performance or Can't This Thing Go Any Faster? City Density Since performance is in direct proportion to the number of polygons being drawn, the more buildings in any one area there are, the slower the frame rate. Many of the cities included in Streets were carefully authored to optimize the frame rate. Importing a very dense city from SimCity 2000 or SCURK may result in a slow down, especially when the graphics settings are set to their highest level. If you want to keep the frame rate high, we recommend keeping the building density low. Graphics Settings The graphics setting panel within the game can help with adjustments to improve the frame rate. Remember that this will be a quality to performance trade off. To increase the frame rate you may want to try changing these settings in this order until you get a good balance between graphics quality and performance. 1.) Turn off the Dashboard. (F4) 2.) Turn off the Rear-view Mirror (M) 3.) Pull the fog in closer. Moving the slider bar ¼ of the way from the left is usually an acceptable level. (Ctrl-K) 4.) Set the quality to High/Low resolution. This will automatically change the resolution to keep the frame rate up. (Ctrl-Q) 5.) Turn off the sky texture. (Ctrl-S) 6.) Turn off the ground texture. (Ctrl-O) 7.) Turn off the object textures. (Ctrl-G) 3Dfx support Streets comes with native support for 3D hardware accelerators using the 3Dfx chip set. This will almost certainly improve your frame rate as well as image quality. In accelerated mode, Streets only works correctly in high resolution only. We change graphics modes when going from the game play to the garage interface or the game menu. For instance, when you hit ESC from within the game to bring up the menu, Streets will switch back to its software renderer to display the menu. This may look kind of strange, but it is normal. When you return back to the game, 3D enhanced mode will be active again. Though we've tried to foresee every contingency, there may be some extremely rare cases where 3Dfx mode may appear to be frozen or locked up. One feature of the GLide libraries is a hot key combination that will essentially turn off 3Dfx mode. If you encounter an apparent lock up while in 3Dfx mode, try pressing Ctrl-F9 and see if you can recover from the lock up. You should be able to safely restart Streets without having to reboot at that point. Because 3Dfx support only works in high resolution only mode, we're still pushing four times as many pixels to the screen. If you have a particularly dense city, your performance may still be a little choppy. In these cases, using the tips in the Graphics Setting section above would still apply. The only settings listed above that are not supported under 3Dfx mode are 4, 6 & 7. B. Command line parameters Because the Streets 3D engine is a derivative of the SimCopter engine, many of the command line parameters have carried over. These include: -w : Run Streets in windowed mode. You can only run in windowed mode if you are in at least 800x600 resolution and are running in exactly 256 colors. If so, you can also switch between windowed and full screen mode using Alt-Enter, but is switchable in this way only within 3D gameplay screens. We also do not recommend that you use windowed mode while running in 3Dfx enhanced mode, as background Windows processes will hinder performance. 3Dfx mode is a full screen only mode, so switching to windowed mode will have no effect. -f : Run Streets in full-screen mode. This is the default mode and it is 640x480x256. -o0: Force software renderer. Streets auto-detects a 3Dfx enhanced card and will switch to that mode. Use this option to override 3Dfx support and fall back to the software rendering system. -b : Allow the game to run while it is in the background. Normally, Streets pauses while another window is covering it or it is otherwise operating in the background. -l : Run Streets in a different language. If your Streets CD have multiple language versions installed on it, then you will be able to use this command-line parameter to set the game to run in one of these languages. Note that once you set this parameter, the game will remember it for the next play and the only way to return the game to another language is to use -l again to reset it. To run Streets in German, you would run it like this: Streets.exe -lGerman C. Multi-player network Because we are using Microsoft DirectPlay for networking, some problems related to DirectPlay will adversely affect Streets. Though we have tried to minimize the failures that can occur, some are unavoidable and we have listed anomalies here that are known to us. IPX If you run into connection problems with the host machine, one item to check is to use a common "Frame Type" in the IPX Properties/Advanced section of your Windows 95 network setup. This can be found under Start > Settings > Control Panel > Network > IPX/SPX-compatible Protocol > Properties > Advanced > Frame Type. TCP/IP When a joining player crashes, all other machines in the game, including the server, will experience a severe frame rate reduction. This is due to the fact that DirectPlay does not notify Streets that a client has suffered a failure and kick them out. Hence, the server will continue to try and poll the crashed system, waiting for a response that will never come. The only work around is to restart the game, though this occurrence should be rare. Modem & Serial Since DirectPlay doesn't care what kind of a network you are using (LAN, WAN, modem or serial connection) as far an application is concerned, Streets also can not make a distinction. This can get somewhat confusing, as all messages will tend to be the same for any kind of connection. For instance, if you do not have a modem and you try the modem connection option in Streets, you will get a "Network initialization Failure" error message. No detection of hardware takes place, hence the generic message. Streets does not support serial connections above 57,600 BPS. We recommend that you do not set serial connection speeds above this. General Streets can only show 7 host games at any one time when using either IPX or TCP/IP protocols. This can become a problem if there are more than 7 games running and you want to get into the 8th one. The game selection screen will only show you the first seven. One workaround for this would be to use the TCP/IP protocol, if it is available to you, and input the specific IP address of the host machine at the prompt. When prompted to download a city file when starting a network game, be aware that you may already have a city with the same name, but is not actually the same city. Streets performs a check for the city and if it is not an exact match of the city being played over the network, will ask you if you want to download it. The pitfall that may occur here is that you may overwrite a city you want to keep. If in doubt about downloading a city, cancel the dialog and move or rename your city file to prevent it from being overwritten. D. DirectX Streets is designed to work with and ships with DirectX 3.0a. Although we have not performed exhaustive testing, we have encountered no ill effects when running Streets on machines installed with DirectX 5.0. If you already have DirectX 5.0 installed on your system, you should have no problems running Streets as well. In fact, proceeding with the DirectX 3.0a installation on a DirectX 5.0 system will merely verify that your current drivers are more up to date and will not overwrite them. Should you encounter any compatibility problems with DirectX 3.0a and your hardware, you can manually install DirectX 5.0. This has been known to solve a few compatibility problems and we have included the setup files for you. To install DirectX 5.0, simply run the program called Dxsetup.exe under the DX5\Directx subdirectory of the Streets CD-ROM. If a dialog appears asking about a conflict, accept the default (recommended) answers. E. Microsoft Game Device Profiler If you use Microsoft's Game Device Profiler (GDP) to assign custom commands to game devices, such as Microsoft's Sidewinder Game pad, you'll need to make sure of some things in order for your profile to work correctly with Streets. Make sure you leave any buttons unassigned in the Streets Control Configuration Panel, before you attempt to use the GDP button overrides. Otherwise, control will be unpredictable. One exception to this rule is to leave the Throttle and Steering commands at their default settings; to the joystick itself. All button assignments within the Control Configuration Panel will be grey when they are unassigned to any command. F. Important Warnings and Known Pitfalls Do not perform any file management tasks within any of the Windows load/save dialogs while in Streets. Although, in general, Windows 95 allows this, it can cause Streets to freeze up under certain conditions. We recommend that you do all file management outside of the Streets application. When in full screen mode we advise that you not use the '?' (Help) button in any of the MFC dialogs. These include the load game and load city dialogs. This includes pressing the F1 key within these dialogs. Doing so calls the Windows help system which expects the application to be in a normal desktop window. Activating the help button switches back to the desktop in order to display the help message. Unfortunately, this automatic switching over effectively locks you out of the Streets application, making it impossible to return. This problem does not occur when Streets is run in windowed mode. Taking the CD out of the CDROM drive while Streets is minimized can cause a fatal error necessitating a reboot. Avoid at all costs. ============================================================================================ II. Gameplay Issues A. Cost of goods Though the Garage is pretty informative about how much weapons cost, it is somewhat lacking with the ammo catalog. Here's a list of ammunition costs for Streets: Bullets = $1/each Come in packs of 50 rounds Missiles = $300/each Come in packs of 4 Mines = $50/each Come in packs of 5 Smoke canisters = $1/each Come in packs of 12 Oil canisters = $2/each Come in packs of 12 B. Garage & Repairs Sometimes repairs on your car are so small that the SimCity mechanics will fix it for nothing. Occasionally when you enter a garage with minimal damage, as shown by a yellow section on your damage indicator, you won't appear to have any damage to repair. When you exit the garage, you will notice that the nice mechanics at Ocean's Gas have fixed you right up gratis. C. SCURKisms We have included SCURK (SimCity Urban Renewal Kit) to give you the ultimate control for creating those cool deathmatch cities. Although SCURK is a wonderful level designer for Streets, there exists some neat, undocumented side effects that were never intended for SimCity 2000, but are perfect for Streets. These side effects can help you create cool obstacle courses with elements such as ramps. A few words about highways As far as translation from SimCity 2000/SCURK to Streets goes, remember WYSIWYG. (What You See Is What You Get). Okay, for the most part anyway. It's a fact that the raised highways of SimCity 2000 are not so in Streets. Highways are at the same level as all other roads. Also, whereas SimCity 2000 would simply not allow you to build a highway on a steep hill, SCURK does. The result is a bizarre stair step affect when seen in both SCURK and Streets. If you want to avoid this and build a proper inclined highway you'll need to make sure that the hill has a level tile at least every other tile. You will then get a smooth incline with your highways in both SCURK and Streets. However, if you're so inclined (no pun intended) you're welcome to create this funky highway staircase. But beware of strange behavior when driving across them! How to build ramps Using a little known side effect in SCURK, you can create ramps within Streets to make those death defying stunt courses. First click on the water tool (It's the water drop icon) and lay down 3 tiles of water in an L pattern. Then click on the road tool and add a road tile on top of the elbow tile of the water L you just made. You should now be prompted to add a causeway. Click on the Causeway button. What you should get is a bridge of two ramps. You can either leave them that way, or you can demolish one of the ramps, leaving the other, to make a longer jump. Keep doing this until you get the ramps you want. You can also build ramps using highway tiles rather easily. Using the water tool again, lay down a 3 tile wide strip of water. This can be as small as 1 tile long. Then use the highway tool and drag across the strip. You should then be asked if you want a highway bridge. Click on the highway bridge button. You should now have a highway bridge. Though it looks like a regular piece of highway that you would normally lay, this one still thinks it's a bridge. Drag the highway tool aligned with the bridge and up to its end. If done correctly, the highway tool inserted a ramp up to the bridge. You can do this on the other side for the landing ramp. When the ramps are in, you can demolish the center piece and add other tiles. Running SCURK and Streets at the same time If you run both SCURK and Streets at the same time, you may get a weird palette shifting in Streets. This usually occurs when the SCURK window is maximized and the Cycle Colors option in SCURK is enabled. The main culprit here is SCURK cycling the palette colors, but a couple of solutions are available. 1.) Restore the SCURK window so that it is not maximized. This works okay, but you may still see the cycling depending upon how you switch between windows. 2.) The best solution is to simply disable the Cycle Colors option in SCURK. Easy. The Evil That SCURK Is Because of the vast number of combinations of terrain and building tiles in SimCity 2000 and the different operations that can be performed on them, a lot of bizarre behavior can make its way into Streets, thus confusing our rendering system. Below are cases known to us that causes weird effects within Streets and should be avoided. Of course, if you're at all curious, you're welcome to try these for yourself at your own risk. Though we haven't seen any of these bizarre artifacts crash Streets, they do exhibit unpredictable behavior when trying to drive through them, thus making them not very useful. Not to mention they're ugly, too! Bad Tunnels Creating a tunnel and then lowering the terrain such that it is below the original tunnel level, will stretch the tunnel below the surface in SCURK. However, there is no equivalent in Streets and the renderer will simply try to make a straight through tunnel since the endpoints are still on the same level. What results is a tunnel in Streets that looks inside out. Adding water to sections of land that are immediately above a tunnel is also not a good idea. You'll likely get sections of the water geometry bleeding into the tunnels. The Infamous Missing Tile We don't know how many people realize this, but SimCity 2000 has a missing tile. It comes up rarely under certain conditions. It isn't noticeable in SimCity 2000 or SCURK because the hole reveals the background color which matches the dirt color. However, when translating this to 3D in Streets, the result is a missing piece of geometry that reveals the empty sky behind it. This is fairly rare, but you just might come across it and wonder what's going on. It usually occurs when a building is placed in the tile next to an inclined road tile. When A Road Isn't A Road Sometimes when placing roads on hilly terrain that is one level up, an angled road piece can occupy the same space as a terrain tile within Streets. Depending on your approach, the tile will appear as either a road tile or a terrain tile. Driving on this tile can cause all kinds of mild havoc with the car physics. D. Car Skins Creating Skins Streets comes with the ability to customize the paint job of your car. We've included template bitmaps in the correct color palette so that you can add those cool flames, pinstripes or whatever. The templates are located in the Games\Skins directory. Each car has its own directory where its template resides. All finished skins should reside in that directory for that car. You can see the results in the Car Factory using the Paint button to cycle through all of the skins in that directory. Here's how the directory name maps to the car name: Compact = StreetRat Race = North Town Garage J57 Sedan = AirHawk Sport = Azzaroni Van = HMX Utility Van Sharing Skins You can share skins with other players for network deathmatches. However, you must make sure each player already has a copy of the skin file, in the proper directory, prior to playing in order for them to see it. Otherwise, the default skin is used instead. Our network play only supports the downloading of city files, NOT skins. Problems We tried to make using custom skins as easy as possible, but strange things can appear to happen. For instance, if the skin doesn't look right make sure of the following: You're using the correct palette. You're not saving to RGB. (16 million colors) The size is exactly the same. (256 x 256 pixels) Everything is aligned according to the template. You've put the bitmap in the proper directory for the car you want. E. Radio Stations Creating Radio Stations If you decide to take the plunge and create your own radio station, you need to be aware that Streets will only pick one location for your Radio files. Streets will not look at BOTH your hard drive and the CD-ROM for Radio files. Streets checks your hard drive first for the Radio directory and if it is not found, will look on the CD-ROM. If you want to add your music along with the other station's music included with Streets, you will need to copy the files over from the CD-ROM to your hard drive. Warning! We're talking about over 300MB of files here! Make sure you have enough hard drive space!