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RELEASE NOTES FOR DESCENT 3 INTERACTIVE DEMO v1.0 ___________________________________ THIS DEMO IS FREELY DISTRIBUTABLE FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES see section 16 for full details ___________________________________ ______________________ TABLE of CONTENTS ______________________ 1. Introduction 2. Your Mission 3. The First Five Minutes 4. System Requirements 5. Installation 6. Purchasing The Full Product 7. 3D Video Card Drivers 8. Controls 9. Multiplayer Games 10. Menus 11. Maximizing Performance 12. Troubleshooting 13. Customer Service 14. Reporting Bugs 15. Special Thanks 16. Legal Stuff ______________________ 1. INTRODUCTION ______________________ Thanks for playing the Descent 3 Demo! This demo represents almost two years of work, during which time we've done everything we can to make what we hope will be a fun game and worthy successor to Descent and Descent II. If you're new to Descent, welcome! This demo will give you a taste of what Descent is all about. If you're already a Descent fan, we hope this small offering will tide you over until the full version is ready. We've been able to do things in Descent 3 that we only dreamed about four years ago when we started work on the first Descent. For this latest installment, we've worked hard to update the game with cutting-edge technology and to push the gameplay to new heights as well. It's thus with great pleasure that we offer this demo of Descent 3, The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. ______________________ 2. YOUR MISSION ______________________ Shrouded in the steamy jungles of planet Tiris lies a major fossil fuel mining facility operated by the Post Terran Mining Corporation. Logged as MN1999, the facility known as Piccu Station is one of several such PTMC mining operations in the Beta Ceti system, including a massive new Special Research and Acquisitions Division laboratory complex, also on Tiris. Though Piccu was partially destroyed during the last outbreak of the alien Virus, the repairs to the station are nearly completed, and it has been fully operational for some time. That is, until approximately 56 hours ago. Your callsign is Concord 6, and you are a promising young mercenary pilot on the company payroll for part-time Material Defender duties. Recruited by PTMC to clean up a series of mines during the Beta Ceti Virus Incident, you are no longer technically a "rookie" pilot, but that hasn't quite earned you the respect of other merc pilots yet. Rookie or not, the Director of Crisis Contingency Management, S. Dravis, is requesting you specifically, for an extended mission contract. Just over two days ago, PTMC lost contact with Piccu Station, and Dravis suspects a new outbreak of the Virus. Since it is believed that the Virus outbreak in Beta Ceti was eradicated on your last mission, Dravis suspects that you may not have done such an impressive job after all. That, or a new strain of the Virus has emerged to threaten PTMC holdings on Tiris. During this operation, you will be offloaded by military transport at a rear entrance to the facility, and are expected to disinfect the station by eliminating all robots encountered inside. If indeed another Virus outbreak is the cause, then it's probable that the personnel have evacuated -- or worse. It is of great value to Dravis and the PTMC if you can recover any evidence of a new outbreak, and if so, its source. In addition, once the station is secure, you are to establish a data link with the head of Scientific Research at the nearby SRAD laboratory who will dispatch forces to quarantine the area. Once under SRAD control, the Virus can be fully researched and a means to prevent further outbreaks can hopefully be found. You will pilot the Pyro-SE, a medium-armament vessel suitable for combat missions ranging from microgravity to Class XB heavy planetary gravity. Standard primary armament is two lasers; secondary armament consists of twin concussion missile launchers. The Pyro-SE will automatically pick up any PTMC-standard weapons and ammunition you find within the mine, and auto-config all weapon functionality with your Head-Up Display ("HUD") and control systems. Shield orbs, encapsulated energy units, and other PTMC-standard military accessories will be incorporated by the Pyro-SE to patch ship systems as needed. Dravis has made it quite clear that the mission to Piccu Station is of the utmost importance to the PTMC, and that it is to be executed surgically and covertly, to avoid any unpleasant media attention which could further erode public confidence in the Corporation. Completion of this mission, Dravis assures, will likely earn you the insignia patch of Material Defender First Class, which of course comes with a modest pay increase, an offer that should appeal to a "rookie" like yourself. _____________________________ 3. THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES _____________________________ Here is a brief tutorial for your first five minutes with the Descent 3 Demo. Install and set up the game. (See section 4, below, for details.) When the game comes up, it will ask for your pilot name. Type in a name and press Enter. Then a screen will let you set a difficulty -- leave it on Trainee, unless you are an experienced Descent player -- and let you customize your controls. Leave all this for now; you can customize it later in the "Options" screen. Just click "Done" at the bottom of this window. The Main Menu will appear; click on "New Game" to start. The TelCom system in your Pyro-SE will activate, briefing you on the Piccu Station mission. Press Space to page through the briefing; after the third page you'll have to wait a bit for the game to load. After the game starts, adjust the brightness of your monitor, if necessary -- you want to make sure you're seeing everything that's out to get you. Now try getting the feel of your ship in the first room. Take your time; there are no enemies until you open the door on the far end of the room. Hold down the A key to fly forward. Use your joystick, mouse, or arrow keys to turn the ship. You can do this while sitting still, or while holding down the A key. Hold down the CTRL key to fire. You don't have to tap it over and over -- just hold CTRL down to fire repeatedly. You can also use your joystick trigger to fire in the same way. Aim at the stack of crates, and fire at it with your lasers until the whole stack blows up. See the things that spew out of the crates? Fly through them. The blue orbs are shield powerups which will increase your shields. (This is the blue number displayed on your on-screen HUD which starts at 100.) The yellow things are energy powerups which charge up your ship's energy. You gradually use up energy by firing your lasers; these energy powerups recharge your ship. Whenever you see any of these powerups, fly through them. The energy of your ship is the yellow number displayed on your HUD. You'll find other powerups as you complete the level, like a napalm cannon, a frag missile, and if you look hard enough, a Gunboy countermeasure. If you bump up against a wall in this first room, hold down the Z key to back up. This will usually give you a better perspective on the room and the situation. This is our #1 tip for new Descent 3 players! Aim at a wall and press the space bar, or the thumb button on your joystick. A concussion missile will be launched. Missiles are called your 'secondary weapons', and there are several different types of them you will pick up later. Back up, aim at a wall, and press F. This will fire a flare that will light up the area. (For flares to work, you must have Dynamic Lighting turned on. If you don't, press F2, choose Detail Level Settings, turn on Dynamic Lighting, click OK, and then click Done.) If you are in a dark room, this flare will help. You can shoot as many of these as you want -- they don't consume your ship's energy. You can also press H to turn your ship's headlights on and off -- again, Dynamic Lighting must be turned on to see this. Practice using the up-arrow and the down-arrow while holding down A. Flying up and down is an important skill in Descent 3 -- at many points in the level you may think you're at a dead-end, but if you pitch the ship so you can look upward or downward, a vertical pipe will lead you out of the room. Also you may hear horrible crunching sounds of metal as your ship gets pounded by homing missiles, but you can't see who's shooting you! Don't forget to look up and down. If you'd like to practice a more advanced combat skill, hold down the ALT key while pressing the left and right arrow keys. Sliding side to side is a great way to dodge the lasers and missiles that robots fire at you. Time to go exploring. Aim toward the door at the far end of this first room, and fly toward it by holding down the A key. Fire at the door with the CTRL key before you come to it. That's the cool way to open a door in a PTMC mine infested with virally infected robots. Or you can just nudge up against the door. The first robot you encounter in the next room is called the Orbot. He will start moving around and shooting at you. You can choose to blow him up, or just ignore the annoying robot and keep flying. If you blow him up, congratulations! You're on your way to sweeping the virus infection out of the mine. Pick up any powerups that he leaves behind. In this hallway you may wish to blow up the debris in the hallway to see if any useful powerups appear. The next robots you meet are a security robot that will pound at you with his "fists", and another modified maintenance robot that will fire at you with a particle disruptor. You might be able to fly around these robots, but probably not -- most likely, they will pursue you and try to smash your ship to pieces. Or they may dodge your shots while just shooting at you once in a while. Safest course is to blow them up. Be sure to pick up all the powerups that are left behind after you blow them up. If you find yourself back in a room that looks a lot like the first one, don't worry -- you just got turned around. Just turn back around, fly out of this room, and keep following the tunnel. You've got a job to do. After following the curving tunnel, you'll find a large room with steam coming out of some vents and a large column in the middle of the room. If you fly around the column and point your ship upward, you'll see a tunnel leading out of the room. Follow it, and open the door at the far end of the tunnel by shooting at it. You'll probably have to blow up a few robots along the way. The room beyond this door contains a tunnel going vertically upward. Fly to the top of this tunnel, blowing up any robots you find along the way. It's pretty dark up here -- turn on your headlight with the H key. At the top of the tunnel, there is a blue sign that says "Level 2", and next to it is a passage leading out. Fly through that passage and open the door at the end. When you open this door, you'll face three green monitors on the far wall. If you shoot a few flares in front of you with the F key, you'll see there is a bridge in front of you. Of course, you don't really have much use for bridges while your ship has an antigravity mechanism. Blow up the security robot in the room and look around. There are a couple of Vauss cannon turrets situated under the bridge. These turrets will automatically track your ship position and fire Vauss rounds at you once in a while. Fly under the bridge and blow them up. Now that you've disposed of everything in this room, fly down the passage to the left (that is, the passage that's to your left while watching the three green monitors.) You'll see that a force field prevents you from continuing down the corridor. But don't worry -- you can disable it! Fly back to the room with the three green monitors, and fly under the bridge to the location that one of the Vauss cannons formerly occupied, before you blasted it. If you look toward the green monitors, you'll see that under the bridge, there is a large switch with yellow stripes on it. Shoot this switch. Your HUD will say "Forcefield Deactivated!" Fly back to the passage that formerly had the force field, and into the room below. You'll be attacked by several robots, but you'll find many crates and containers you can blow up to get lots of powerups. That's all the details we're going to give you now ... we *will* mention that in the next few rooms, you'll find another force field that blocks the way to the fresh air of the outside terrain of Piccu Station. You can deactivate this force field with another switch that you can find in a room near it. If you ever find a locked door or a force field, there is probably a way to open the door, located somewhere on the level. Sometimes it will be as simple as shooting a switch, sometimes you have to blow up a guardian robot, and occasionally you have to do something more complex. We won't tell how to recover the virus sample at the end of the level; you're on your own, Material Defender. Have fun! __________________________ 4. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS __________________________ Minimum: A 200MHz Pentium. 32MB RAM. (Possibly more depending on your 3D video card.) 130MB hard disk space. (The demo takes about 51MB, but needs more space during installation.) A sound card. A supported 3D video card *with the latest drivers*. (Very important. See below.) If you have Windows 95 or Windows 98: DirectX 6 software. If you have Windows NT 4.0: DirectX 3 software. The latest Glide runtime drivers, if you have a 3Dfx card. Otherwise, the latest OpenGL drivers for your 3D video card. Recommended: 64MB RAM. With certain 3D cards, amazingly, 128MB RAM is recommended. A 300MHz Pentium II with a good 3D video card, or A 266MHz Pentium II with a great 3D video card. At least 4MB texture RAM on your great 3D video card. Of course, the faster CPU and the more RAM your computer has, the better. ______________________ 5. INSTALLATION ______________________ INSTALLATION: 1. INSTALL DIRECTX 6 IF YOU HAVE WINDOWS 95 OR WINDOWS 98. You can get DirectX 6 at http://www.microsoft.com/directx/download.asp or, not there, visit http://www.microsoft.com then click "Search" then search for "DirectX 6 download". 2. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE LATEST 3D VIDEO CARD DRIVERS. This is very important for maximum performance. See 3D VIDEO CARD DRIVERS, below. 3. INSTALL THE GAME. First make sure you have about 120MB free space on your hard disk. Then double-click the "Descent 3 Demo Installer" icon and follow the on-screen instructions. 4. SET UP THE GAME. Double-click "Descent 3 Demo.exe". The Descent 3 Demo Launcher will give you several options. If you have an Internet connection, click "Auto-Update" to connect over the Internet to make sure you have the latest version of the demo. After this is done, click the "Setup" button. Click each of the tabs at the top of the Setup window to configure all your options. There will be a pop-up menu or buttons letting you select what devices you want to use for video, audio, joystick, and network, and to set the detail settings the Descent 3 demo will use on your system. (See below for notes on 3D video cards.) Click OK at the bottom of the Setup window when you're all set up. 5. PLAY THE GAME. Click the "Play" button to begin. __________________________________ 6. PURCHASING THE FULL PRODUCT __________________________________ This demo contains merely one single-player level and two multi-player levels. Imagine what you can do with the full game! Have a blast shattering robots by yourself and humiliating your friends over the Net with this demo, and then go buy the full game! Immediately! Now! See your favorite retailer, or go direct at 1-800-INTERPLAY or http://www.interplaystore.com. To contact us, visit: Interplay Productions: http://www.interplay.com/ Outrage Entertainment: http://www.outrage.com/ ____________________________ 7. 3D VIDEO CARD DRIVERS ____________________________ It is very, very important that you have the very latest drivers for your 3D video card! All 3D video card companies are updating their drivers very, VERY frequently at this time. The driver that came in the box with your 3D video card is probably outdated by now, and by updating its driver software, you will fix bugs and achieve performance gains. Depending on your card, this may mean a LARGE increase in rendering speed. See the web page of your card company for the most recent drivers. Here is what we hope is just the right amount of detail about 3D video cards and the Descent 3 Demo. You can play Descent 3 with any one of these three 3D APIs: 3Dfx Glide: The best choice for 3Dfx cards. OpenGL: One choice for non-3Dfx cards. Direct3D: Another choice for non-3Dfx cards. After you enter the Descent 3 Demo Launcher, click "Setup", and click the "Video" tab, a popup menu will appear that lets you choose the "Currently Selected Rendering Device". You'll want to choose the best item on this popup menu for your 3D video card and driver. 1. If you have any 3D video card that uses a 3Dfx chipset, you will get the best performance by selecting "3Dfx Glide - Voodoo Family". 2. If you have another type of 3D card, you should choose the "Direct3D" option that mentions your 3D video card by name, or "Direct 3D - Primary Display Driver". Or you can choose the "OpenGL" option that mentions your 3D video card by name, or "OpenGL - Primary Display Driver". Each 3D card has different drivers available. Some cards have only an OpenGL driver; some have only a Direct3D driver; some have both. Choose the driver that's best for your video card. If you are unsure, just choose one, and if performance is horrible, then quit the demo, set the game to user a different driver, and run it again. Note that to use Direct3D, you must have Windows 95 or Windows 98, and you must have DirectX 6. If you are running Windows NT, you'll need to use Glide or OpenGL. Visit your 3D video card manufacturer's web site to obtain the latest drivers. They should be available somewhere in the "Support" section, in most cases. If you are an adventurous, technical person, you may want to experiment with the "reference drivers" that were written by the company that manufactured the 3D chipset that is on your video card. Visit the web site of the manufacturer of the *chipset* of your 3D video card if you'd like to play. _______________ 8. CONTROLS _______________ While playing the game, press F2 then click on "Customize Keyboard" to customize your keyboard and joystick controls. To change a particular key, click the blue box next to a command, then type the key you want to use for that command. You can assign up to two keys to each function. Default Key Action Key Action ------- ------ --- ------ A Accelerate F1 Help screen Z Reverse F2 Game Options S Afterburner F3 Show/hide cockpit Left Turn left F4 Guide-Bot menu (full game only) Right Turn right F6 Multiplayer: Show/hide menu Up Pitch down F7 Multiplayer: Show/hide stats Down Pitch up F8 Multiplayer: Send message to all F9 Show/hide message log Ctrl Fire primary weapon Spc Fire secondary weapon 1 Select laser F Flare 1 (2nd press) Select super laser H Headlight 2 Select Vauss Cannon 3 Select Napalm Cannon Tab Automap 6 Select Concussion missile Q Bank left 6 (2nd pressn) Select Frag Rocket E Bank right 7 Select Homing Missile Pad7 Slide left Enter Drop Gunboy countermeasure (main Pad9 Slide right keyboard Enter key, not numpad) Pad- Slide up - Shrink screen (speeds up game) Pad+ Slide down + Enlarge screen Alt Slide sideways while using arrow keys Print Take a screenshot Scrn (saved in .TGA format) Pressing Shift-F1 or Shift-F2 will display a rear-view in the HUD. ________________________ 9. MULTIPLAYER GAMES ________________________ For information on multiplayer games, see the file "Multiplayer Readme.txt", which contains all the information you will need to play multiplayer games over the Internet, on a LAN, or using a modem or a serial cable. _____________ 10. MENUS _____________ There are many menus in the Descent 3 Demo. This section will list every single menu, every single menu option, and what each one does. MAIN MENU --------- New Game: Start a new single-player game. Load Game: Once you buy the full version of Descent 3, you'll be able to load games-in-progress you previously saved. Options: Configure your controls, HUD, graphics, and game options. Pilots: Add, delete, or change pilots so different players on your machine can keep their custom controls and settings intact and available. Multiplayer: Join or start, a multiplayer game over a modem connection, a serial connection, a LAN, or over the Internet. Quit: Quit the demo so you can run to the store and buy Descent 3. OPTIONS MENU (after you choose 'Options' from the main menu) ------------------------------------------------------------ Keyboard Customization: Configure your keyboard. Joystick And Mouse Customization: Configure your joystick and mouse. Weapon Selection Precedence: Choose how weapons will be automatically selected when you pick up a new weapon. Graphics Settings: Adjust brightness, resolution, and other graphics-related options. Sound Settings: Adjust sound volume and quality. (In the final version, you'll also be able to play with Aureal 3D or DirectSound 3D sound.) General Settings: Adjust auto-leveling, mouse sensitivity, and other settings. Detail Level Settings: Adjust graphics quality, detail level, and speed. HUD Customization: Customize what is displayed on your Heads-Up Display, and how. KEYBOARD CUSTOMIZATION MENU and JOYSTICK AND MOUSE CUSTOMIZATION MENU --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Keyboard Customization menu and the Joystick And Mouse Customization menu are virtually identical. You use these menus to change your keys, joystick buttons, and mouse buttons. To customize these, go to the appropriate menu, click one of the blue boxes to the right of the option you want to customize, then press the key or button you'd like. If you would like two different keys to do the same thing, set the two boxes to the two keys you'd like. For instance, if you want both W and E to engage the afterburner, set the two boxes next to "Afterburner" to W and E. To clear the keys for an action, move the mouse to the blue box next to the action and press Ctrl-C. To reset all keys to their defaults, click the text "Reset To Default Settings". The keyboard, joystick, and weapon icons in the upper left of this screen jump directly to the keyboard, joystick, and weapon auto-select configuration menus. Here's what all the actions on the Keyboard Configuration menu are: Fire Primary: Fire your primary weapon. (You start with lasers.) Fire Secondary: Fire your secondary weapon. (You start with concussion missiles.) Fire Flare: Fire a flare to light up the area. (Dynamic lighting must be turned on in the "Detail Level Settings" menu for flares to do anything.) Cycle Primary: Choose a different primary weapon. Each time you hit this key, you'll cycle along the list of weapons that you set on the "Weapon Selection Precedence" screen. Cycle Secondary: Choose a different secondary weapon, cycling along the list of secondary weapons. Accelerate: Move your ship forward. Reverse: Move your ship backward. Afterburner: Turn on afterburners for faster speed. Once you use up your afterburner fuel and let go of the Afterburner key, the Pyro-SE will rapidly replenish your afterburner fuel by using energy. Headlight: Turn on a headlight to light up the area ahead of you. There are two headlights you can configure; one will slow down your frame rate but project a wider headlight that doesn't travel as far. You can turn the fast headlight on and off in the "Detail Level Settings" menu. Pitch Up: Pitch the ship upward. Pitch Down: Pitch the ship downward. Turn Left: Turn the ship left. Turn Right: Turn the ship right. Toggle Bank: As long as you hold this key down, the Turn keys will instead cause you to bank left and right. Slide Left: Slide the ship to the left. Slide Right: Slide the ship to the right. Slide Up: Slide the ship up. Slide Down: Slide the ship down. The Joystick And Mouse Customization menu includes all these options plus several commands that can be defined by an axis. To define an axis for an action, click the blue box next to the action, then just move the axis. For instance, if you want the throttle to be controlled by moving the mouse's Y axis, click the blue box next to "Throttle", then move the mouse vertically. There is an "Inv" checkbox next to each axis control that lets you invert the direction in which the axis controls your movement. Throttle: The axis for moving forward and backward. Pitch: The axis for pitching up and down. Heading: The axis for turning left and right. Bank: The axis for banking (the yaw of the ship). Slide Vertical: The axis for sliding up and down. Slide Horiz: The axis for sliding left and right. WEAPON SELECTION PRECEDENCE MENU -------------------------------- This menu lets you configure how your Pyro-SE ship switches between weapons when (a) you hit the "Cycle Primary" or "Cycle Secondary" keys to cycle through your weapons; (b) when you run out of ammo with one weapon and the ship switches to another; and (c) when you pick up a new weapon. To configure the weapons' priority, click on one weapon and then another weapon in the same column to have them switch places. Items at the top of the column have the lowest priority. For instance, if you want Homing Missiles to have priority over Frag Missiles, click "Homing" and then click "Frag", so that "Frag" is listed higher in the column than "Homing". This sets Frag to have lower priority. Now, if you have Frag missiles armed and you run across your first Homing missile, you will auto-switch to the Homing missile. If you had set Homing missiles to be lower priority, then running across your first Homing missile would not trigger an auto-switch. GRAPHICS MENU ------------- Gamma: Sets the brightness of the level using your 3D video card's gamma controls. Resolution: Lets you switch between 512x384 and 640x480 resolution. (The full version of Descent 3 allows more resolutions.) Bilinear Filtering: Turns on a graphics smoothing option supported by your 3D video card. Turning this option off may result in a faster frame rate, but less smooth textures. MIP Mapping: Turn this off unless you have a fast computer and a video card with lots of texture RAM. Turning this option on will improve the look of textures in the distance and remove any swimming or sparkling effects you might see otherwise. However, MIP mapping will take up extra memory in your system RAM as well as your 3D video card's texture RAM, and this may cause a slower frame rate. VSync Enabled: If turned off, draws frames as fast as possible, which may cause monitor "tearing" or flickering. Leave this off for maximum performance. If you get tearing or flickering effects on the screen, try turning it on and see if you prefer the look. SOUND MENU ---------- Sound Volume: Sets the volume of all sound in the game. Sound Quality: If set to "Normal", uses 8-bit sounds which are faster for your computer to deal with. If set to "High", uses 16-bit sounds which may sound better, but take the computer longer to deal with. When in doubt, set this to "Normal". GENERAL SETTINGS MENU --------------------- Terrain Auto-leveling: Sets how much your ship tries to level itself while you fly around outdoors. Mine Auto-leveling: Sets you much your ship tries to level itself while you fly inside the mines. Mouse Enabled: If on, the mouse is enabled as a control device. If off, mouse movement and buttons will do nothing. Controller Enabled: If on, the joystick (or other game controller) is enabled. If off, the joystick and joystick buttons will do nothing. Missile View: When you fire a missile that has a camera view, this option sets the location of the view on the HUD. Mouse Sensitivity: Controls the sensitivity of your mouse. The higher this setting, the more your ship will move when you move the mouse around. DETAIL LEVEL SETTINGS --------------------- This menu lets you configure various graphical effects. If the Descent 3 Demo plays too slowly on your system, you should turn off some of these graphical effects to help your system play the demo faster. Preset Details: This is the first thing to try. Click "Low", "Medium", "High", or "Very High" to automatically set all the other items on this menu. To get a higher frame rate in the game, just click the next-lowest setting here in Preset Details, continue play, and see how you like it. If you are an adventurous, technical person, you can configure the options individually as listed below. Terrain Detail: Controls the terrain level of detail "popping" while displaying outdoor terrain. Lower detail settings may increase your frame rate, and will increase the amount of terrain "popping" that you see. Render Depth: Controls how far you can see while displaying outdoor terrain. The higher the render depth, the farther you can see, but this will probably lower your frame rate. Object Complexity: Controls the detail level of powerup and robot models. If you set this lower, powerups and robots will appear with less detail at a distance, and your frame rate may increase. Specular Mapping: Turns on or off the specular lighting effect. This affects the shininess of walls and objects when light reflects from them. Turning this effect off may improve your frame rate. Mirrored Surfaces: Turns on or off the few mirrored surfaces in the game. If on, and if your 3D video card supports it, you can see the mirrored surfaces (such as on the top level of The Core multiplayer level), but you may take a frame rate hit. Enable Fog: Turns fog on and off. Turning fog off may increase performance on some 3D video cards. Use Procedural Textures: Lets you see animated procedural textures. (For example, the "bubbling" effect of the blue and red magnetic polarity switches of the Polaris multiplayer level.) If off, these surfaces will not animate, and you may get a better frame rate. Fast Headlight: When you hit H for Headlight, the "Fast Headlight" takes much less CPU time but gives you a less physically accurate headlight. Turning this option off gives you a wider headlight that doesn't travel as far, and computationally is slower. Dynamic Lighting: Turns on and off dynamic lighting, such as that created by your headlight and your flares. Turning this option off has a good chance of increasing your frame rate, but keep in mind the flares and headlight won't do anything. Enable Light Coronas: Turns on and off the coronas you see around lights. If you don't like the look of these, you can turn them off with this option. Powerup Halos: Turns on and off the light halos around powerups. If you don't like the look of these, you can turn them off with this option. HUD CUSTOMIZATION MENU ---------------------- This menu lets you customize the things that are shown on your HUD ("Heads Up Display"). You can set each option to "Graphical" (the default), "Text", or "None" to not display that item. If you find there's too much stuff on the HUD, try setting all these items to "Text". PILOTS MENU ----------- You can define several different pilots in the Descent 3 Demo. This lets several people play the same copy of the game while maintaining their unique difficulty level as well as each player's unique keyboard, joystick, and mouse custom keys. After clicking PILOTS from the main menu, the Choose Pilots screen appears, listing all pilots and giving you four options: Select: Click a pilot in the list then click Select to make that pilot active when you play a new game. Add: Add a new pilot to the list. Delete: Click a pilot in the list then click Delete to remove that pilot. Edit: Click a pilot in the list then click Edit to customize the keyboard, joystick, and mouse controls for that pilot, and to customize that pilot's logo displayed on the Pyro-SE's wing. (You can import your own .PCX or .TGA files as logos from the following screens.) From the Edit screen, you can also set the difficulty level to Trainee or Hotshot for each pilot. The trainee level features easier robot enemies. (The final game will include all five difficulty levels.) MULTIPLAYER MENU ---------------- See the file "Multiplayer Readme.txt" for all information on the multiplayer menu options, and on how to play a game in general. CREDITS MENU ------------ Shows you who made this great game. QUIT ---- Lets you quit the Descent 3 Demo so you can run out and buy the full game! ______________________________ 11. MAXIMIZING PERFORMANCE ______________________________ The Descent 3 Demo will play great on some systems, and more slowly on others. The speed you achieve depends on your CPU speed, your 3D video card, and the amount of RAM in your computer. In general, of course, you'll get better performance with a faster CPU, more RAM, and a better 3D video card. Assuming you can't run to the store and buy a maxed-out system, here are some ways you can improve the game's speed. 1. If you have a card that supports the Glide API, be sure Glide is selected instead of OpenGL or Direct3D, from the "Video" tab of the Setup window. 2. Make absolutely sure you have the very latest drivers from your 3D video card's manufacturer. It is impossible to over-emphasize how important this is! The Descent 3 Demo will probably run faster if you have more recent drivers for your video card. It's as simple as that. Visit your 3D video card's web site and download the latest software drivers available. 3. Turn your detail level to "Low" or "Medium". To do this: a. Press F2. b. Click "Detail Level Settings". c. Click the "Low" or "Medium" button. d. Click "OK". Then click "Done". 4. If the game is slow in the outside terrain, go to the Detail Level Settings menu (see #3 above) and reduce the Render Depth distance. 5. Reduce your screen resolution to 512x384. You can do this in the "Graphics Settings" menu (accessible from "Options" on the main menu). This may help in particular with cards using the 3Dfx Voodoo 1 chipset, and we have also seen improvement with several older cards that use the Direct3D API. 6. If the game is still too slow or jerky, try turning on the "low memory" or "super low memory" options. To do this: a. Double-click "Descent 3 Demo.exe". b. Click "Setup". c. Click "Misc". d. In the text field "Optional D3 Command Line Switches", type "-lowmem" or "-superlowmem" (without the quotes, and don't forget the dash) and click OK. e. Click OK, click Play, and play the demo again. The -lowmem option will reduce the size of textures in the game, and the -superlowmem option will force all textures to an even smaller size. This will improve the ability of lower-end 3D cards to render, and the lower memory usage in main memory will improve general game speed on machines that are cramped for memory, regardless of the 3D card you use. 7. While playing the game, press the - key several times to reduce the area the game will take up on your screen. This may help with certain video cards. _______________________ 12. TROUBLESHOOTING _______________________ Q: All I do is bump into the wall! I'm frustrated! A: Relax. Hold down Z to back up a bit. This is our #1 tip for novice Descent pilots. You'll get a better perspective on the room and your situation. You can adjust the ship's auto-leveling if you press F2 and click "General Settings". Q: The robots keep killing me! They are too hard! A: In the pilot configuration menu, you can change your difficulty level to "Trainee" for an easier Descent 3 Demo experience. The full version will include five difficulty levels: Trainee, Rookie, Hotshot, Ace, and Insane. Q: My game is too slow! A: See "Maximizing Performance", above. Q: No, really! My game is still too slow! A: There are several factors that can make the game too slow. Possibly your computer simply doesn't have enough RAM, considering the 3D video board you are using. In particular, many 3D video boards' current Direct3D drivers are fairly early in their development cycle, and they choke if you have less than 64MB RAM. Some cards' Direct3D drivers actually seem to perform optimally with an amazing 128MB RAM. To work around this problem, try the Glide or OpenGL driver, if your card has one that works. Q: Help! I can't see! The game is too dark! A: First, adjust the brightness control on your monitor. You may also want to adjust the "Gamma" control in the Graphics Settings menu. Note that the gamma control doesn't work with certain video cards using certain OpenGL or Direct3D drivers. Also, if you have a card with a 3Dfx Voodoo Family chipset, you may need to use the Display control panel to change your card's gamma setting -- this control panel will probably override any changes you attempt to make in Descent 3's Graphics Settings menu. Q: I get a horrible sound problem where it plays part of one sound over and over and over! A: From Setup, click the "Audio" tab and choose DirectSound. Machines that have lots of memory should use the Software mixer for better performance, but if you don't have a ton of RAM, use DirectSound. Q: The sound effects play too late! A: This is a known problem under Windows NT with DirectX 3. It's not something we can fix. Sorry. Q: My ship spins around and around when I'm not touching the controls! A: Adjust the trim controls on your joystick. Also calibrate your joystick in the Descent 3 Demo Launcher. If these steps don't work and you have a Thrustmaster joystick, there is a "centering utility" available that can fix this problem. Visit the Thrustmaster web page at http://www.thrustmaster.com. Q: When I am in piggyback observer mode in multiplayer, the display is very jerky! A: Piggyback mode only displays a frame each time you receive a position update packet from the player you are piggybacking. The frequency of update packets determines the speed of the observer piggyback display. Q: Network play is jerky and slow! A: Set packets per second to 5. Try a different type of game: change to peer-peer, or change to client-server. Make sure the server is a fast machine that experiences a good frame rate while playing, or try using a dedicated server. If some clients don't have lots of RAM, try playing "The Core" multiplayer level, which is fairly small. (See the Multiplayer Readme.txt file for more information.) Q: The game crashes on my machine! A: If you've found a serious bug, chances are someone else has also found it and we've already fixed it. Use the Auto-Update feature or visit our web site (http://www.outrage.com) to get the latest version. If that doesn't fix it, see the Customer Service and Reporting Bugs sections below. __________________________________ 13. INTERPLAY CUSTOMER SERVICE __________________________________ Telephone: (949) 553-6678 Fax: (949) 252-2820 Attn: Customer Service Internet E-mail: support@interplay.com World Wide Web: http://www.interplay.com BBS Telnet: bbs.interplay.com BBS Modem: (949) 252-2822 America Online: E-mail IPTECH CompuServe: GO GAMBPUB or E-mail 76702,1342 FTP: ftp.interplay.com Mail: Interplay Customer Service 16815 Von Karman Irvine, CA 92606 FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE WITHIN THE UK AND EUROPE: Write to: Customer Support Interplay Productions, Ltd. Harleyford Manor Harleyford Henley Road Marlow Buckinghamshire SL7 2DX ENGLAND tel: +44 (0) 1628 423723 Fax: +44 (0) 1628 487752 Email: Europe@interplay.com ______________________ 14. REPORTING BUGS ______________________ If you can't get Descent 3 working on your system, double-check all the wonderfully helpful information in the "Troubleshooting" section, above. If every piece of software works on your computer except for Descent 3, then try Interplay customer service, above. Before reporting a bug, you should make sure you have the latest version of the game, because the bug you've found may already be fixed. Use Descent 3's Auto-Update feature or visit our web site (http://www.outrage.com) to get an update patch if one is available. If you would like to report a bug, send e-mail to d3bugs@outrage.com. In your e-mail, please report the following: 1. What product and version (in this case, "Descent 3 Demo Version 1.0") The version number is shown in the lower-right corner of the main menu screen. 2. What speed and type of CPU you have (example: "Pentium II at 300MHz") 3. What operating system you have (example: "Windows 98") 4. How much RAM you have (example: 128MB) 5. What 3D video card vendor, brand, and type you have (example: "Diamond Stealth II G460") 6. What version number of video card drivers you have (example: Diamond Stealth II G460 (Diamond Multimedia Systems, inc.) [6-23-1998]"). You can get this information usually from the "Display" Control Panel. Click the "Settings" tab, then "Advanced Properties", then "Change" to view the driver that's currently selected. 7. If this is a multiplayer bug, mention your network configuration and whether you are behind a firewall. 8. List the bug with any information you think is relevant. _____________________ 15. SPECIAL THANKS _____________________ Thanks to everyone who helped, including: Volition, Inc. Leaping Lizard Software Sonic Foundry Chris Hecker Brian Hook Michael Gold, Doug Rogers, & Sim Dietrich Howard Jacob & Eddie Banks Nora Belavic Zod For sending us test hardware: 3Dfx AMD ATI Canopus Creative Labs Intel MadCatz Matrox Microsoft NEC nVidia S3 Wicked3D ___________________ 16. LEGAL STUFF ___________________ SOFTWARE USE LIMITATIONS AND LIMITED LICENSE This special preview version, the Descent 3 Demo (the "Software"), is intended solely for your personal noncommercial home entertainment use. You may not decompile, reverse engineer, or disassemble the Software, except as permitted by law. Interplay Productions and Outrage Entertainment, Inc. retain all rights and title in the Software including all intellectual property rights embodied therein and derivatives thereof. You are granted a revocable, nonassignable limited license to create derivative works of this Software solely for your own personal noncommercial home entertainment use and may publicly display such derivative works to the extent specifically authorized by Interplay in writing. A copy of this authorization, if any, will be provided on Interplay's World Wide Web site, located at http://www.interplay.com, or by contacting the legal department of Interplay Productions in the US at (949) 553-6655. The Software, including, without limitation, all code, data structures, characters, images, sounds, text, screens, game play, derivative works and all other elements of the Software may not be copied (except as provided below), resold, rented, leased, distributed (electronically or otherwise), used on pay-per-play, coin-op or other for-charge basis, or for any commercial purpose. You may make copies of the Software for your personal noncommercial home entertainment use and to give to friends and acquaintances on a no cost noncommercial basis. This limited right to copy the Software expressly excludes any copying or distribution of the Software on a commercial basis, including, without limitation, bundling the product with any other product or service and any give away of the Software in connection with another product or service. Any permissions granted herein are provided on a temporary basis and can be withdrawn by Interplay Productions at any time. All rights not expressly granted are reserved. Modem and Network Play. If the Software contains modem or network play, you may play the Software via modem transmission with another person or persons directly without transmission through a third party service or indirectly through a third party service only if such service is an authorized licensee of Interplay. For the purposes of this license, a third party service refers to any third party service which provides a connection between two or more users of the Software, manages, organizes, or facilitates game play, translates protocols, or otherwise provides a service which commercially exploits the Software, but does not include a third party service which merely provides a telephonic connection (and nothing more) for modem or network play. Authorized licensee services are listed on the Interplay Productions World Wide Web Site located at http://www.interplay.com. This limited right to transmit the Software expressly excludes any transmission of the Software or any data streams thereof on a commercial basis, including, without limitation, transmitting the Software by way of a commercial service (excepting those specific commercial services licensed by Interplay) which translates the protocols or manages or organizes game play sessions. If you would like information about obtaining a pay-for-play or commercial license to the Software, please contact Interplay Productions in the US at +(949) 553-6655. Nothing in this paragraph is intended to prevent you from downloading the Software from InterplayÆs Web site or from commercial service providers authorized by Interplay to provide the Software to you. Acceptance of License Terms. By downloading or acquiring and then retaining this Software, you assent to the terms and restrictions of this limited license. If you acquired the Software and do not accept the terms of this limited license, you must return the Software together with all packaging, manuals and other material contained therein to the store where you acquired the Software for a full refund and if you downloaded the Software, you must delete it. Trademark and copyright (c) 1998 Interplay Productions and Outrage Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.