Microsoft KB Archive/231650

Under A Killing Moon: Contents of the Readme.txt File

PSS ID Number: Q231650 Article last modified on 05-17-1999

WINDOWS:

WINDOWS

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The information in this article applies to:

 == Tex Murphy: Under A Killing Moon == 

= SUMMARY =

This article contains the complete text of the Readme.txt file located on Disc 1 of Tex Murphy: Under A Killing Moon.

= MORE INFORMATION =

README.TXT Under A Killing Moon

Read the following sections for information which may not be included in the manual.

ALTERNATE INSTALLATION METHOD

If the normal installation system does not operate properly, there is an alternate method which can be used to install the game. To use the alternate method, do the following:

Switch to the CD-ROM drive letter and type: INSTALL2 [enter]

RUNNING UNDER WINDOWS (NOT)

Under a Killing Moon should not be played with Windows running. Be sure to exit Windows completely before starting the game.

NEW OPTION: BRIGHTNESS ADJUSTMENT

We’ve added an option to allow people with dark screens (usually on older monitors) to increase the brightness of the display.

To increase the brightness, press the HOME key. To decrease the brightness, press the END key. There are 5 brightness levels, level 0 thru level 4. Default is level 0.

NEW OPTION: DO LETTERBOX SCENES IN LO-RES

This option is available on the CONFIG screen and is provided for people with slow machines and/or video cards. When the option box is checked, the larger (Letterbox) Movie Scenes will display in VGA graphics mode (320x200 resolution). This mode is faster than the normal 640x480 Super VGA mode. You should try this option if your sound is breaking up or if your movie scenes are choppy. It should reduce or eliminate the problem.

NOTE: In VGA mode the text (captioning) will not appear.

POTENTIAL PROBLEM: GRAVIS SOUND CARDS (MIDI)

In order for MIDI Music to work with the Gravis Ultrasound or the Gravis Ultrasound Max, you must run the program called LOADPATS.EXE before running Under a Killing Moon. We’ve created a batch file that will run the LOADPATS program and then start the game.

To use the batch file, type: MOONGRAV [enter].

POTENTIAL PROBLEM: SOUND BLASTER CD-ROM DRIVER

Sound Blaster w/CD-ROM or Omni CD-ROM use the SBCD.SYS device driver. Older versions of the SBCD.SYS driver have a bug that makes the CD-ROM run slow. The problem has been fixed in SBCD.SYS version 4.15. If you are having problems with your CD-ROM (i.e. slow movie scenes and/or sound that breaks up) and it interfaces to a Sound Blaster or OMNI card, the SBCD.SYS driver may be the problem. Check your CONFIG.SYS file to see if SBCD.SYS is the device driver for your CD-ROM. If it is, go to the directory where SBCD.SYS is located and do a directory listing. Note the size, date and time of the SBCD.SYS file. Ver 4.15 has Size=13872, Date=11-05-93, and Time=4.15a. (Note that time=version)

If your SBCD.SYS is dated before 11-05-93, it may be defective. You can observe the version by watching the screen during the boot process. SBCD.SYS prints its version number as it executes. You can call Creative Labs or our technical support department for help in getting a new version of SBCD.SYS.

POTENTIAL PROBLEM: DIAMOND STEALTH 64 VIDEO CARDS

There is a known problem with some Diamond Stealth 64 video cards. A portion of the screen will suddenly appear in another area of the display.

This happens only occasionally and has no detrimental effect other than being a visual annoyance. As soon as the scene changes the correct picture is restored. We’re not sure whether the problem exists on other cards.

POTENTIAL PROBLEM: ACUMOS VIDEO CHIPS

Older versions of the ACUMOS video chips have VESA drivers which will not run properly when called from protected mode (where Under a Killing Moon runs). The symptoms include strange graphic patterns appearing randomly anywhere on the screen. We’ve added a command line switch which will force the program to make VESA calls from real mode. To use this feature, start the game using the /J switch. (i.e. MOON /J [enter])

POTENTIAL PROBLEM: BAD CD-ROM READS

We’ve found that some CD-ROM configurations occasionally produce bad reads (or transfers) of data that is not reported as an error by DOS. This can be caused by defective drives or device drivers, loose or poor quality cabling, improper SCSI termination, and other problems. We’ve tried to design a very comprehensive error trapping scheme into the game that will allow the program to keep running even if it gets some ‘bad data’. If you occasionally see or hear garbage during the movie scenes or if you are getting ‘read error’ messages, something is wrong with the data stream. Check your cabling first. Always use high quality, well shielded cabling especially for a SCSI bus. Also, if you have multiple CD-ROM drives and other devices on a SCSI bus, try removing some of them to see if the problem improves. On way to test a SCSI system’s integrity is to do a high speed file compare between two devices on the bus. The file may need to be quite large (10 to 40 MB) to get the error to show up. If you have two or more CD-ROM drives, you can use the TVL_FLC.AP file which exists on all four disks. For example, the following would compare the same file on disks in the E: and F: drives using the DOS file compare (FC) utility.

FC E:_FLC.AP F:_FLC.AP

Additional query words: uakm tm access doc rtf

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========================================================= Keywords : kbimu Version : WINDOWS: Platform : WINDOWS Issue type : kbinfo ============================================================================= Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1999.