----------------------------------------------------- Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing Final Release version. ----------------------------------------------------- Contents: 1. System Requirements 2. Installing 2.1 Enabling Autorun 2.2 Installing Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing without Autorun 2.3 DirectX 2.4 Uninstalling Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing 3. Playing the Game 3.1 Quick Start 3.1.1 Menus 3.1.2 In Game 4. Troubleshooting 4.1 Known Video Issues 4.2 Known Sound Issues 4.3 Known Controller Issues 4.4 Optimizing Game Speed. 5. Appendix 1: DirectX Installation & Certification 6. Appendix 2 : Recommended Video Chipsets. 7. Appendix 3 : Driver update locations. 8. Appendix 4 : Contacting Tech Support. ----------------------------------------------------- 1. System Requirements for Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing. Minimum: -Intel Pentium 233Mhz -32Mb main system RAM -10Mb Free on Hard Drive -4x CD-Rom Drive -DirectSound compatible Sound Card -4Mb Direct3D compatible Video Card (We can only offer support on those chipsets shown in Appendix 2) -Windows 95/Windows 98 Recommended: As minimum but: -Intel Pentium II 266Mhz -64Mb main system RAM -310Mb Free on Hard Drive -TCP/IP internet connection for GameLoft multiplayer mode ----------------------------------------------------- 2. Installing Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing. Before beginning an installation, we recommended that you ensure all other programs are closed as the computer may need to be restarted at the end of installation. If any other programs are open at this time data may be lost. Installing Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing is a simple affair, just insert the CD into your primary CD drive (if you have multiple CD/DVD drives the primary drive will be displayed first, if sorted alphabetically). The game will then Autorun and you can just follow onscreen prompts. If the game does not autorun you can either enable Autorun (2.1) or install the game manually (2.2). 2.1 Enabling Autorun. To enable Autorun simply right click the My Computer icon on your desktop, select properties from the menu and then select the Device Manager tab. Expand the CD-Drives listing, select your primary CD drive and then click the Properties button. Bring up the Settings tab and make sure that the Auto insert notification box is ticked. 2.2 Installing the Game without Autorun. To install the game without using the Autorun feature, simply insert the game CD into your primary CD drive, double click the My Computer icon on your desktop, double click on your primary CD drive icon, and then in the window that appears double click on the file SETUP.EXE 2.3 DirectX. (also see Appendix 1: DirectX Installation & Certification) For Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing to run correctly it is imperative that your system be fully DirectX compliant. During the Installation process the Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing Setup program will prompt you if DirectX is not installed or not up to date on your system. If your system requires DirectX to be installed/updated you will be asked whether or not you wish to proceed. If you do proceed DirectX 7 will be installed to your system. We strongly recommend that you follow any advice given by the DirectX setup program, as failing to do so may cause problems with your system. If you have any doubts at all about your systems DirectX compatibility we recommend you contact your hardware vendor. 2.4 Uninstalling Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing. To uninstall Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing simply bring up the Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing Program Group on the Start Menu and select Uninstall Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing. Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing will be automatically removed, however your save game files and the folders will not be removed. You must remove these manually. ----------------------------------------------------- 3. Playing the Game. Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing is one of those games that is easy to pick up and play but hard to master. For a full breakdown of how to play the game please consult the manual. 3.1 Quick Start 3.1.1 Menus You can navigate the menus using the keyboard, mouse, or any connected joystick/gamepad. If this is your first time playing Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing you are advised to select a desired screen resolution, found via the Options/Video menu. If you wish to use your joystick/gamepad in-game then you will need to configure this within the Options/Controls menu. Reassign the various functions that you wish your joystick/gamepad to use by selecting the function (thus highlighting it) and then press the appropriate button or axis on your joystick/gamepad. To get racing straight away, choose the Single Race option on the Main Menu, and then select OK. 3.1.2 In Game You can race using either the keyboard or any connected joystick that has been setup via the Options/Control menu. The default keys are as follows: Player 1 Player 2 -------- -------- Turn left CURSOR LEFT K Turn right CURSOR RIGHT L Accelerate CURSOR UP S Brake CURSOR DOWN X Turbo RIGHT CTRL SPACE Gear up PAGE UP D Gear down PAGE DOWN C Race on! Weave through the other riders to attain first place after three laps... ----------------------------------------------------- 4. Trouble Shooting. General Issues: -When running Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing, it is recommended that you check the following factors regarding the configuration of Windows -Color Mode When running the game, you will need to have windows set to a color mode of 256 colors or higher. -Low Spec Video Cards Video cards with 8Mb of memory or below may experience problems running SAER if the Windows desktop is set to a high resolution and colour mode. If this occurs, some screen resolutions for the game may not be available, or the game may start in a resolution below 640x480. If encountered this problem can be solved by reducing the colour mode and resolution that your desktop is currently running in. -Close Other Programs Before starting Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing, you are advised to close down all other programs that may be running. Doing this will ensure that the game is able to use the maximum system resources available. To check which other programs are open, press the CONTROL, ALT and DELETE keys at the same time. This will bring up a Dialog box entitled 'Close Program'. This box lists all programs currently running, a completely clean system should only have Explorer and Systray listed on this screen. N.B. If you are unsure what the programs currently running are, do not close them unless you are having problems running the game (with either game stability or speed). -Windows Virtual Memory Virtual Memory is basically when Windows uses hard drive space as extra memory. It does this by creating a swap file on the hard drive and writing data to it. The result is software that may need more memory than the machine it is being run on, will still run. Games software typically needs a fairly large amount of space for a swap file, with around 100Mb typically recommended. -Minimizing Game Users are advised not to minimize Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing whilst a game is in progress. If access to the desktop is required we recommend that the game be exited first. -2 Player Games When playing a 2 player game, we recommend that at least one of the players use a joystick/gamepad rather than the keyboard. Due to keyboard limitations, it was found that some controls may cease to function when 2 players are racing via the keyboard. The problem can be reduced by ensuring that no functions are assigned to the cursor keys, but typically the only way to play without any problems is for one of the players to use a separate input device. -Minimum install If a minimum install has been performed and data cannot be read off the CD during loading then the program will drop back to the Windows desktop. If you encounter this problem, it is suggested that you perform a full install. 4.1 Video Specific Issues: DXTC To get optimum performance, we recommend obtaining the latest drivers from the video card manufacturer. Specifically, graphical corruption has been seen when using S3 reference drivers, on Savage 4 based cards, which do not occur when using the manufacturers drivers. If any problems with graphical corruption appearing in the distance are encountered when running the DXTC version of the game, these can typically be fixed by setting the Texture Filter to either 'Smooth' or 'None'. If any other problems are encountered with the texture detail set to DXTC mode, they can be resolved by selecting one of the other texture detail modes. Game and Windows Resolutions On some cards it is possible that video problems may arise as a result of having windows running in one resolution while the game runs in another. If you experience any video problems we recommend you try the game at the same settings as your Windows desktop. Card specific issues: -3dfx Voodoo 1 and 3dfx Voodoo Rush The game may only be playable when the texture detail level was set to "LOW" in the Video Options menu. Using a Voodoo 1 you may also encounter some sound corruption on menu screens. -ATI Rage Pro Serious mipmapping problems may occur when using an ATI Rage Pro, which result in objects suddenly changing from blurred to highly detailed as you approach them. If you experience this problem, change the Texture Filter mode to "SMOOTH" or "NONE" in the Video Options menu. Also when higher resolution screen modes are selected (eg. 1024*768 and above) the background on the main menu may turn completely white. It has also been reported that some ingame graphics may turn white as well. If this occurs you should select a lower resolution video mode. -ATI Rage Pro Turbo When using the ATI Rage Pro Turbo drivers provided with Windows 98, corruption may occur on the bikes headlights or trials in snow. Upgrading to the latest ATI drivers solves this problem. -ATI Rage Fury MAXX If any problems are encountered with the game dropping back to the Windows desktop on machines with an ATI Rage Fury MAXX video card, we recommend updating your video drivers. Drivers with a version number of 4.12.01.7935 or above are needed in order to run the game (please see the section 'Checking DirectX Drivers' below for details on how to check your driver version). At the time of writing the only drivers that will run the game are Beta drivers from ATI's website (http://www.atitech.ca/na/pages/spdrivers/drivers.html)." -Nvidia GeForce When running the game with Nvidia GeForce based video cards, users may experience some minor graphical problems with some of the on-screen text during races. If this occurs we recommend updating to the latest Nvidia drivers, although the problem is merely cosmetic and should not affect your enjoyment of the game. -Creative Labs 3D Blaster Exxtreme When using the Graphics Blaster Exxtreme drivers, the colour fades between logo screens at game start up may look strange. This is a very minor problem, but can be solved by using generic Permedia 2 drivers, rather than Creative Labs drivers. When using a high Windows desktop resolution or colour depth, the game may fail to start due to lack of available video memory. To solve this, and to get maximum performance, we recommend setting your windows desktop resolution to 640x480 before running the game. -Diamond Fire GL1000 Pro When using older Diamond drivers, the game has been found to crash back to the Windows desktop after displaying the title screen. If this occurs, we recommend upgrading to the latest generic 3Dlabs Permedia2 drivers. -Diamond Stealth IIS220 Using the Diamond Stealth IIS220 drivers, the game has been found to crash back to Windows immediately after the title screen. This problem can be fixed by using the latest Rendition drivers. -Diamond Viper II Z200 When using high detail textures, and with gloss mapping enabled, some minor flickering may occur on the bikes. This can be eliminated by disabling gloss mapping, or possibly by changing display drivers. -NVIDIA Riva 128 based cards There are no known problems when using the Windows 98 default drivers. Windows 98 users are advised to use these drivers. When using the latest NVIDIA reference drivers, the Texture Detail Level must be set to Low, else graphical problems may occur or the game might crash to the Windows desktop. With the Texture Detail level set to Low, the game will run with only a few minor graphical problems on some of the levels. When using the latest STB Velocity 128 drivers (version 4.10.01.0182), graphics with an element of transparency - eg. cacti, trees, fences, etc. may not be visible at all. If this occurs we recommend you use the latest NVIDIA reference drivers (with the Texture Detail level set to Low). When using the latest Diamond Viper V330 drivers (version 4.10.01.0279) there are several issues to be aware of a) The game may crash when the Texture Detail setting is set to anything other than Low b) Bilinear filtering may not work (the "Smooth" Texture Filter setting will look no different to "None") c) Lights on courses may appear as corrupt square blocks of coloured pixels. If you experience any of these problems, you should upgrade to the latest NVIDIA reference drivers. -NVIDIA Riva TNT based cards Some NVIDIA Riva TNT based graphics cards, particularly the STB Velocity 4400 (PCI) (16Mb), experience flickering when using the NVIDIA "Detonator 3.53" reference drivers or above. If you experience this, we recommend you change your drivers, either to ones provided by your graphics card manufacturer, or to older NVIDIA reference drivers (eg. Detonator 2.08). Users with Nvidia Riva TNT cards are advised not to minimise the game, if access to the desktop is needed we recommend exiting the game first. Should users experience problems minimising or closing the game whilst using Detonator drivers we recommend that the desktop is not set to the same resolution as the game or the desktop colour depth is changed to something other than 16 bit -Power VR Neon 250 With the texture filter mode set to Trilinear you may experience lighting problems on one of the tracks (Devils Gate Drive). If this occurs, it can be resolved by changing the texture filter mode to Mipmapped. It is also advised that you do not run the game in a screen resolution of 1280*1024 on this card, as there will be a horizontal flickering line of corruption present along the bottom of the screen during races. Also on some Neon 250 based cards, the draw distance in 2 player mode is reduced. This could possibly be fixed in future versions of the video card drivers, but its only a very minor problem anyway. -Power VR PCX2 If you have a Power VR PCX2 card, you should turn off Power VR hardware acceleration from its control panel in the display properties menu. This card is not powerful enough to run the game, and it has been found to cause the game to crash after the title screen, regardless of the primary video card's capabilities. -S3 Savage 3D based cards When using older S3 reference drivers on some S3 Savage 3D based cards (particularly Hercules Terminator Beast) constant flickering may occur during menus and in game. If this occurs you should upgrade to either the latest drivers provided by your video card's manufacturer or the latest S3 reference drivers. -Verite V2200 Using various drivers it has been found that the track graphics in the game sometimes flash on and off. If you experience this, the problem can be solved by changing the texture filtering mode to "NONE" in the Video Options menu. When running at a desktop resolution of 1024*768 32 bit, the game will not start, due to lack of video memory. On these cards we recommend reducing your desktop resolution for maximum game performance. 4.2 Sound Specific Issues: -CD Audio The music contained within the game is played from the CD. In order to hear music during play you will need to ensure that you have a CD audio cable connecting your CD/DVD drive to your sound card. To check this, try connecting a pair of headphones/ speakers to the front of your CD/DVD drive during a game and check whether music is being played from the CD. If you hear music with this method then either your CD volume settings within Windows are incorrect or your CD/DVD is not connected to your sound card by an audio cable (you may need to consult your hardware manufacturer if this is the case). -CD ROM/DVD DRIVES Systems with multiple CD drives If you are running the game on a system that has more than one CD or DVD drive (due to either multiple drives or having one drive with multiple trays) please ensure that the game CD is always placed in the first drive (i.e.. on a system with E:, F: and G: drives, place the CD in E:). Failure to do this may result in the CD music failing to play. 4.3 Known Controller Issues -Thrustmaster Fusion The "ThrustMapper" program has been seen to incorrectly identify the game and set the joypad to mappings for other games. This results in strange behaviour when trying to configure the controller in game, or navigating the games menus. If this occurs, there are two ways to deal with it: 1] Disable ThrustMapper - double click on the TM icon in the system tray (at the end of the task bar, next to the windows clock) to open "ThrustMaster Device Monitor", then click Exit, and confirm that you wish to remove TMDevMon from memory. 2] Set up a default "ThustMapper" configuration for the game, without mapping the joypad buttons to any keys. You must ensure you select the correct executable for the game. You may then also have to delete the default configuration for "The Fifth Element". 4.4 Optimizing Game Speed Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing features state of the art graphics that require a lot of computational power to display. If you have a recent powerful 3D card, you should be able to experience the graphics in their full glory, but otherwise you might have to strike a compromise between graphics quality and game speed. In the Video Options menu (available from the main menu by selecting Options and then Video) there are 4 important options: -Resolution Setting this to 640x480 will give the best performance, though the game will not look as crisp as it does in higher resolutions. -Texture Detail Reducing the texture detail will make the game run faster, though the graphics will look less detailed. -Texture Filter This has four options: NONE, SMOOTH, MIPMAPPED, and TRILINEAR. NONE is the fastest but worst looking, TRILINEAR is the slowest but best looking. Note that on many graphics cards, the speed difference between SMOOTH and NONE is not worth the sacrifice in graphics quality. Also, whether you prefer MIMAPPED over SMOOTH or TRILINEAR over MIPMAPPED is really a matter of opinion - this setting should be experimented with. -Gloss Mapping This can be set to either ON or OFF and adds a graphical sheen to the bikes. Setting this to OFF will increase game performance. As well as changing the graphics detail, there are a number of other general ways in which a machines can be optimized to improve the speed of games: -Ensure No Other Software is Running Press the Ctrl, Alt and Delete keys together, you will be presented with a windows Dialogue box titled 'Close Program'. The only programs that are essential to running windows are Systray and Explorer, however we don't recommend removing unknown programs from this list. -Virtual Memory Ensure that there is enough free hard drive space for Virtual Memory. The performance of a machine can also be improved by manually setting up a permanent swap file on a separate physical drive (this should only be attempted by advanced users). -Screen Savers/Desktop Themes Disabling any third party Screen Savers or Desktop Themes may have an effect on improving system performance. ---------------------------------------------------- Appendix 1: DirectX Installation & Certification Manual Installation DirectX To manually install Direct X, (1) Double click on the 'My Computer' icon and then right click on your CD ROM drive icon from the window that subsequently opens. (2) From the menu that appears, select 'Open'. A Window showing the contents of the CD will appear, from here double click on the folder titled 'DirectX' to display the files contained in it. (3) Amongst the files displayed within this folder will be one named 'DXSETUP', double click this icon. The installation of DirectX 7 will now begin, please follow the onscreen instructions. Effects of installing DirectX. Installing DirectX may result in some of your manufacturers video card utilities being disabled (e.g.. Matrox Powerdesk, Diamond InControl etc.). These utilities will no longer be accessible, and any options to change video settings etc. will revert back to the control of Windows. Checking DirectX Drivers In order to ensure that Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing works correctly on your machine, you should ideally be using the latest drivers for your video and sound cards. If you encounter any problems running the game, the first thing to check is your video and sound cards drivers, this can be done as follows (1) Open the Start menu by clicking on the START icon at the bottom left of the screen, from here click on the 'Run' option. (2) A window titled 'Run' will open, in the box labeled 'Open:' type in the following DXDIAG.EXE (3) A window titled 'DirectX Diagnostic Tool' should now be open. If this window does not open, you may not have DirectX7 installed, see above for details on how to install it from the CD. If the window does appear there are a number of things that can be checked. Video Driver Certification Click on the 'Display' or 'Display 1' tab at the top of the 'DirectX Diagnostic Tool' window. From the screen that appears, you can find out the name of your video card, the amount of memory it has and you can also test its 2D (DirectDraw) and 3D (Direct3D) features. The driver version is listed under the 'Drivers' section. Also, under the 'Notes' heading the first line should say 'No driver problems found'. If this is not the case on your system, then you may need to obtain new video card drivers from your manufacturer. Sound Driver Certification Click on the 'Sound' tab at the top of the 'DirectX Diagnostic Tool' window. On the screen that appears, under the heading 'Driver' it will will list the driver version whilst under the heading 'Notes' the first line should read 'No driver problems found'. If this is not the case on your system then you may need to obtain new sound card drivers from your manufacturer. ----------------------------------------------------- Appendix 2 : Recommended Video Chipsets The minimum video specification states that a 4Mb Direct 3D compatible video card is required to run Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing. Although this is strictly true and the game will run on any D3D card with at least 4Mb of memory, not all of these cards will run the game at an acceptable quality. So below is a list of the chipsets which we have tested on, and feel happy for you to experience Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing on: 3DFX Voodoo 3DFX Voodoo Rush 3DFX Voodoo 2 3DFX Voodoo Banshee 3DFX Voodoo 3 3DFX Velocity 3D Labs Permedia 2 3D Labs Permedia 3 ATI Rage Pro Turbo ATI Rage LT Pro ATI Rage 128 ATI Rage Fury Maxx Intel i740 Matrox G200 Matrox G400 Nvidia Riva 128 Nvidia Riva TNT Nvidia Riva TNT2 Nvidia Riva Vanta Nvidia GeForce Nvidia Quadro Rendition Verite v2x00 S3 Savage 3D S3 Savage4 S3 Savage2000 Videologic Neon 250 ----------------------------------------------------- Appendix 3: Driver Updates. Hardware manufacturers are constantly improving the drivers for their hardware, although it is not always vital to keep right up to date with these driver revisions they do often solve problems and can increase performance of your hardware. Below you will find links to many of the major hardware manufacturers websites from where you can download driver updates. (Please note that we do not recommend updating your drivers if you are not experiencing any problems, also we cannot be held accountable if any problems arise as a result of updating your drivers).: 3dfx: http://www.3dfx.com 3Dlabs: http://www.3dlabs.com ATI: http://www.atitech.com S3: http://www.s3.com Matrox: http://www.matrox.com Nvidia: http://www.nvidia.com Guillemot: http://www.guillemot.com Hercules: http://www.hercules.com Diamond: http://www.diamondmm.com Elsa: http://www.elsa.com STB: http://www.stb.com If your hardware manufacturer is not included in this list please refer to the documentation that came with your card. Please find below a list of our recommended minimum drivers (correct at time of testing). If you experience any graphical problems please check that your video driver version is at least one of the following (or newer), see above for details on 'Checking DirectX Drivers'. 3DFX Voodoo - Voodoo Graphics 3D Accelerator (5-7-1999) (4.10.01.0017) 3DFX Voodoo Rush - AT25 + Voodoo Rush (5-7-1999) (4.10.01.2073) 3DFX Voodoo 2 - Voodoo2 DX7 Driver (1-27-2000) (4.11.01.1151) 3DFX Voodoo Banshee - 3dfx Voodoo Banshee (2-9-2000) (4.12.01.1222) 3DFX Voodoo 3 - 3dfx Voodoo 3 (1-25-2000) (4.12.01.1222) 3DFX Velocity - 3dfx Velocity 100 (7-12-1999) (4.11.01.1146) 3D Labs Permedia 2 - Generic Permedia2 Accelerator (5-4-1999) (4.10.01.2105) 3D Labs Permedia 3 - 3Dlabs Permedia3 Create (7-19-1999) (4.10.01.2106) ATI Rage Pro Turbo - Rage Pro Turbo (5-21-1999) (4.11.01.2560) ATI Rage LT Pro - Rage LT pro AGP 2X (4.11.01.2456) ATI Rage 128 - ATI Rage 128 (10-6-1999) (4.11.01.6713) ATI Rage Fury Maxx - Rage Fury Maxx (2-16-2000) (4.12.01.7935) Intel i740 - Intel740 Win9x PV4.0 (6-15-1999) (4.11.01.2719) Matrox G200 - Matrox Millennium G200 (9-7-1999) (4.11.01.2250) Matrox G400 - Matrox Millennium G400 (11-26-1999) (4.11.01.1410) Nvidia Riva 128 - Nvidia Riva 128/128ZX (3-22-1999) (4.11.01.0377) Nvidia Riva TNT - Nvidia Riva TNT (7-1-1999) (4.11.01.0208) Nvidia Riva TNT2 - Nvidia Riva TNT2 (12-30-1999) (4.12.01.0368) Nvidia Riva Vanta - Nvidia Vanta (12-30-1999) (4.12.01.0368) Nvidia GeForce - Nvidia GeForce 256 (12-30-1999) (4.12.01.0368) Nvidia Quadro - Nvidia Quadro (12-30-1999) (4.12.01.0368) Rendition Verite v2x00 - Rendition Verite 2x00 (4-14-1999) (4.11.01.5176) S3 Savage 3D - S3 Inc Savage 3D (9-3-1999) (4.11.01.4005) S3 Savage4 - Diamond Stealth III S540 (1-10-2000) (4.11.01.0208) S3 Savage2000 - Diamond Viper II Z200 (12-20-1999) (4.11.01.9001) Videologic Neon 250 - Neon 250 - AGP 32Mb (9-19-1999) (4.11.01.10079) ----------------------------------------------------- Appendix 4: Contacting Technical Support. If you are experiencing problems that are not covered in this readme then your first point of call should be the Ubi Soft Website at: http://www.ubisoft.com If you still have no joy or do not have access to the internet, please gather the following information before contacting Ubisoft: -Make and model of PC. -Type and Speed of Processor -System memory. -Make and model of video card(s) -Make and model of sound card. -Make and model of monitor. -Any other peripherals attached -DirectX certification information (see Appendix 1) -Driver Information. -Hard Disk Space available -Operating System To find the make and model of your PC, the type and speed of the processor consult the documentation that it came with. To find out how much system memory you have, the makes and models of the various components, Your operating system and the driver information follow the instructions below: (1)Right Click on the My Computer Icon from your windows desktop. (2)Select properties from the pull down list. (3)From the window that appears not down the operations system (under the system heading). The type of processor and how much memory your machine has (under the Computer heading). (4)Select the Device Manager tab. (5)Expand the display adapters tree and note down the name of your video card. (6)Highlight the video card then click on properties. (7)Select the driver tab. (8)Click Driver File Details and note down the provider and file version. (9) Repeat the process from (5) for the following categories: Monitors Modems Mouse Network Adapters SCSI Controllers Sound Video and game controllers (Note these may not all be available on your system) Copyright Information --------------------------------- (C) 1999 Criterion Software Ltd. Published under by Ubi Soft Entertainment license from Criterion Software Limited. All other trademarks belong to their respective holders. (R) Alstare 9.21.98. (R) 1999 Ubi Soft Entertainment. Ubi Soft Entertainment is a trademark of Ubi Soft, Inc. The Ubi Soft logo is a registered trademark of Ubi Soft, Inc.