Microsoft KB Archive/118407

Dangerous Creatures: README.TXT Contents

PSS ID Number: Q118407 Article last modified on 12-14-1995

1.00

WINDOWS

= SUMMARY =

The following is the contents of the README.TXT file located in the root directory of the Dangerous Creatures CD. The text remains as released in the README.TXT file, and has not been edited by PSS.

=
======================================================== README.TXT =====================================================================

Microsoft Dangerous Creatures README file Microsoft Corporation June 24, 1994

This file contains additional information about Dangerous Creatures not included in the User’s Guide.

To read this file on-screen, use the Page Down and Page Up keys. You can also print the file by choosing the Print command from the File menu in any Windows word processing program. If you open this file in Windows Write, Microsoft Word, or another word processor, it will be easier to read if you select the entire document and format the text in 10-point Courier.

This README file contains important information on the following topics:

Section Description
1 RUNNING IN LOW MEMORY OR RUNNING SLOWLY How to make Dangerous Creatures run on low-memory machines.

2 CD-ROM PROBLEMS Hints on solving problems accessing CD-ROM drives.

3 PRINTING AND COPYING How to print and copy Dangerous Creatures screens.

4 DEMONSTRATION AND MUSEUM MODE How to make Dangerous Creatures automatically and randomly demonstrate all of its Creatures

5 VIDEO DISPLAY PROBLEMS Images don’t display properly or video driver errors.

6 AUDIO PROBLEMS Some common sound problems and how to fix them.

7 RUNNING UNDER MICROSOFT WINDOWS NT Getting the movies to work; video support.

8 DANGEROUS CREATURES MOVIES How to run movies in a window or full-screen.

= 1. RUNNING IN LOW MEMORY OR RUNNING SLOWLY =

Microsoft Dangerous Creatures uses your computer’s system memory to display pictures. If you find that Dangerous Creatures runs slowly or if you encounter out-of-memory errors, the program probably doesn’t have enough memory. Consider doing the following to improve your computer’s performance:


 * Close all unnecessary applications.
 * Determine how much total memory your computer has available. At the system prompt, type “mem” and press ENTER. You need a minimum of 4MB (4,000,000 bytes) of total memory to use Dangerous Creatures. If you do not have at least 4MB of memory, you will not be able to run Dangerous Creatures until you add more memory.
 * Dangerous Creatures needs a minimum of 5,000K free in Windows for best movie performance. To check the amount of free memory Windows has available, start Windows, and from Program Manager pull down the “Help” menu then choose “About Program Manager.”
 * If you are running Windows in Enhanced mode, set up a permanent Windows swap file on your hard disk. A swap file of greater than 4MB (4,000K) is recommended. See your Windows documentation for more information.
 * Defragment (“clean up”) your hard disk by running a defragmentation program such as DEFRAG, which comes with MS-DOS version 6 or higher.
 * If you are running Dangerous Creatures on a 256 color display try switching to the Windows VGA driver. For instructions on how to change your Windows display consult your Windows documentation.

= 2. CD-ROM PROBLEMS =

NOTE - Do not remove the Dangerous Creatures compact disc from your CD-ROM drive while Dangerous Creatures is in the process of playing a sound or movie, or is displaying a new picture, or is running in Slide Show mode.

If the Dangerous Creatures program cannot find the data files that it needs from the Dangerous Creatures compact disc, you’ll see a message that asks you to select the drive containing the files. To find the source of the problem, do the following:


 * Make sure the Dangerous Creatures compact disc is correctly inserted into the CD-ROM drive.
 * Make sure that the Dangerous Creatures program is looking for the compact disc on the correct drive. Check to see if the drive letter for your CD-ROM drive has changed. You can use the Windows File Manager to determine which drive letter is assigned to the CD-ROM drive. The Select Drive command in the Disk menu will say “CD-ROM” next to the CD-ROM drive letter.
 * If you have an external CD-ROM drive, make sure that the drive is connected to your computer, plugged in, and turned on. If you still see the error message after checking the points above, check the documentation that came with your CD-ROM drive or contact the company that supplied the drive.
 * Make sure that your CD-ROM drive is MPC-compatible. MPC-compatible drives meet the following criteria:
 * An average seek time of less than one second;
 * A transfer rate of 150KB per second while using less than 40% of the CPU bandwidth.

Check the documentation that came with your CD-ROM drive to make sure it meets these requirements. A CD-ROM drive that does not meet the MPC specifications will exhibit slow performance and/or “Audio blips/Interruptions” when sound is played.

= 3. PRINTING AND COPYING =

The screens in Dangerous Creatures are large color pictures. Depending on the type of printer you have, printing a picture of the screen may take several minutes. Also, screen resolution and printer resolution are often not the same, so the resulting printout may not match the quality you see on the screen.

You should be able to print grayscale images from Dangerous Creatures. If you have a black and white laser printer you might need to upgrade your printer driver. Call the dealer from whom you bought the printer or the printer manufacturer. It is also possible to print Dangerous Creatures screens in color on a color printer.

Some Dot-matrix printers may not print pictures properly with the “Low / Faster” quality setting in the Print Dialog. On these printers change the quality setting in the Print Dialog to “High / Slower”.

Because the pictures can be quite large, you may have difficulty copying or printing in low-memory conditions. In this case, close all other unnecessary running applications and try again.

= 4. DEMONSTRATION AND MUSEUM MODE =

Dangerous Creatures has both a demonstration mode, for use in stores, and a museum mode. Both begin an automatic random “slide show” of the Dangerous Creatures pages if you haven’t used the program for a specified number of minutes. Museum mode has special features for standalone operation.

You can select either of these modes by pressing Ctrl+Alt+D after starting Dangerous Creatures.

= 5. VIDEO DISPLAY PROBLEMS =

Dangerous Creatures will run in 16-color or 256-color screen mode. The program will automatically detect which mode you are running and display pictures accordingly. If your computer is running in 16-color mode, and the video card will support 256 colors, you can run the Windows Setup program to change the video driver. This will enhance the image quality of Microsoft Dangerous Creatures. For more information on changing video drivers, check your Windows documentation.

= DANGEROUS CREATURES IMAGES APPEAR BLACK AND WHITE =

Some color video cards display Dangerous Creatures images in black and white. This problem can be solved by updating your color video driver. Contact your video card manufacturer for these updated Windows video drivers.

= ATI PROBLEMS =

Microsoft Dangerous Creatures is incompatible with some advanced features used by some video cards such as the Mach32 chip set running the ATI drivers. For Dangerous Creatures to run on the ATI driver, the “256 color palette” control in the “Advanced features” of the “ATI Control Panel” needs to be set to ON. For more information, see the documentation for your video card.

= PROBLEMS WITH THE DISPLAY IN DANGEROUS CREATURES =

If you encounter problems displaying images or videos when running Microsoft Dangerous Creatures, check the currently installed video driver:


 * 1) Run the Windows Setup application.
 * 2) Locate the Display driver item in the application window.

If the Display driver item is VGA: Try running Windows in Standard Mode by typing “WIN /S” from the system prompt. If standard mode Windows works, try starting Windows in enhanced mode with the following command:

WIN /D:XV If this solves the problem, make the following modifications to your SYSTEM.INI file in the [386Enh] section:

EMMEXCLUDE=A000-EFFF VIRTUALHDIRQ=OFF

If the Display driver item is NOT VGA:


 * 1) Run the Windows Setup application.
 * 2) Choose Change System Settings from the Options menu.
 * 3) Change the Display setting to VGA.
 * 4) Choose OK and restart Windows.
 * 5) Run Microsoft Dangerous Creatures and determine if the display problems still occur. If the problem still exists, follow the suggestions described for VGA drivers, above.

If the problem is solved, this indicates that your original video driver selection was experiencing problems rendering images in Dangerous Creatures. You might want to consider choosing another video driver (if available) provided by your video card manufacturer. To do so, run the Windows Setup application. If the problem persists, contact your video card manufacturer for updated video drivers.

= 6. AUDIO PROBLEMS =

Audio problems can have many causes. Other applications that play sounds may interrupt sounds in Dangerous Creatures, because your computer cannot play two sounds simultaneously. This is generally a temporary clash that will resolve itself. However, a few applications that play sounds, such as some screen savers, may remove audio capability from all other Windows applications. If you suspect you have such an application, deactivate it or do not run it while running Dangerous Creatures.

= SOUNDS PLAY, BUT NOT VERY WELL =

Sounds that are distorted or “fuzzy” have several possible causes. The most likely one is simply that your speakers are not of high quality. Low frequency sounds may not reproduce well on some equipment.

It is also possible that the software settings on your sound board are causing distortion. For example, if the sound card volume or “WAVE file input” is set to near its maximum, it will produce amplification distortion, just as it would on a stereo system. To find out how to change your sound board settings, check the documentation that came with your sound board.

Your CD-ROM drive should be MPC-compatible. MPC-compatible drives meet the following criteria:


 * 1) An average seek time of less than one second;
 * 2) A transfer rate of 150KB per second while using less than 40% of the CPU bandwidth.

Check the documentation that came with your CD-ROM drive to make sure it meets these requirements. An incompatible CD-ROM drive may work; however, it may produce low-quality audio or cause the sound to be interrupted while playing.

= SOUND DOESN’T PLAY AT ALL =

If you don’t hear any sounds, make sure that the volume is set to an audible level.

If the volume is set to an audible level and you still hear no sounds at all, something may be wrong with your sound board setup. Check to see that the drivers are installed correctly and, if necessary, reinstall them. To determine if the sound drivers are installed, check the Drivers section of the Windows Control Panel. For more information on installing your sound drivers, refer to the documentation that came with your sound card. If you have any problems, contact your sound board manufacturer for assistance.

Please note that Dangerous Creatures requires an MPC-compatible sound board and is not intended to run with drivers which use the PC speaker, such as the unsupported “PC Speaker” driver. Such a driver will in most cases not play any sounds, and if the driver setup option “Enable Interrupts” is not checked, the system may lock up. Check the “Drivers” configuration in your Windows Control Panel. If you have both a sound board and the PC Speaker driver installed, it is recommended that you remove the PC Speaker driver.

= MEDIA VISION CARDS =

A small number of Media Vision sound card drivers (Pro Audio - Spectrum cards) may have problems with sound in Dangerous Creatures. If you have a Media Vision card and do not hear sounds or are having other sound problems, you might require updated drivers. Contact Media Vision for current driver information.

If you are running Microsoft Dangerous Creatures on an EISA machine and experience “scratchy” audio, try changing the DMA channel on the sound card to DMA 7.

= 7. RUNNING UNDER MICROSOFT WINDOWS NT =

There is one potential problem with Dangerous Creatures running under Windows NT version 3.1. Because there is no VGA support for Dangerous Creatures under Windows NT version 3.1, you need to be using a 256- color VGA or better display to use Dangerous Creatures.

= 8. DANGEROUS CREATURES VIDEOS =

The Dangerous Creatures video clips play automatically when opening a video popup. To play the video again after it has finished, click the video frame on the screen.

If your system has a 256-color VGA display or better, the Dangerous Creatures videos play in a small frame. However, due to the limited resolution of 16-color VGA displays, videos play in full screen mode on those displays. To play videos in a small frame on a 16-color VGA display change the following line in the MSDANGER.INI file found in your Windows directory.

VideoInWindow=0

to: VideoInWindow=1

KBCategory: kbreadme kbmm KBSubcategory:

= Additional reference words: kbhowto 1994multi media multimedia multi-media =

Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1995.