Blood II: The Chosen Version 2.0 Readme Copyright 1998 Monolith Productions, Inc. ****************************************************************** This document contains valuable information about running Blood II on your PC hardware. For more information about gameplay and general Blood II information, please refer to the Blood II Manual that came with this CD, or you can check out the Blood II Online Manual. To access the Online Manual, click the Help button on the Blood II Launcher, or click Start...Programs... Monolith Games...Blood II...Blood II Online Manual. ****************************************************************** !!!PATCH VER 2.0 UPDATE!!! This text has been updated to include the latest Patch ver 2.0 information. See Section 13. IMPORTANT: ALL SAVE GAME FILES FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS WILL BE INCOMPATIBLE WITH PATCH VERSION 2.0. KNOWN BUG: When jumping across the bridge in 18_Temple level, it is possible for the player to get stuck in the building wall. This is due to a physics bug that, if fixed, may cause other (t)issues. If you get stuck, save your game, then reload from that point. There is a high likelihood that you will no longer be stuck. ****************************************************************** 1. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 2. INSTALLATION 3. DIRECTX6 4. DIRECT3D 5. BLOOD II LAUNCHER 6. CONTROLS INFORMATION **INCLUDING JOYSTICK CONTROLS** 7. 3D VIDEO HARDWARE 8. SOUND CARDS AND IMA **INCLUDING NEW 3D SOUND AND EAX SUPPORT** 9. DISPLAY DETAIL SETTINGS 10. PERFORMANCE TUNING 11. TROUBLESHOOTING 12. PATCH VER 1.01 13. PATCH VER 2.0 14. ADDING YOUR OWN TAUNTS FOR MULTIPLAY 15. TEAM/CTF OPTIONS IN MULTIPLAY ****************************************************************** 1. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS - Pentium 166 or equivalent (Pentium II Recommended) - Pentium2 233 or equivalent for software rendering - 4MB (or greater) D3D compatible video card recommended - 32MB RAM - Windows95/98 - DIRECTX6 ****************************************************************** 2. INSTALLATION If you have autoplay enabled, just place the Blood II CD into your CD-ROM drive and wait for the onscreen prompts. If you do not have autoplay enabled, run setup.exe from the root directory of the Blood II CD. The Blood II CD must be in your CD-ROM drive in order to play Blood II. ****************************************************************** 3. DIRECTX6 DirectX6 is required and will be installed automatically during a Normal or Minimum install of Blood II. You can also choose to install DirectX6 through the Custom install option. In most cases DX6 will install new video and audio drivers for your system. If you have not updated your drivers for your video or hardware recently, we strongly suggest that you update your drivers, regardless of the DX6 recommendations during installation. Although you may not be prompted for a restart after installing DX6, we HIGHLY recommend that you restart your computer anyway. ****************************************************************** 4. DIRECT3D Blood II supports Microsoft's Direct3D 3D Hardware API. Direct3D provides excellent performance and hardware support for most 3D video cards. However, you may need to install the most recent video drivers for your 2D/3D hardware to get the best performance from Blood II. For links to the most recent video/audio drivers, please check the Blood II Online Manual, or visit the Monolith drivers page at drivers.lith.com For information on a specific video card, see the 3D HARDWARE section in this readme. For information on sound cards, see SOUND CARDS & IMA. ****************************************************************** 5. Blood II LAUNCHER 5.1 Launch Button Click Launch to start Blood II. The first time you run Blood II, you will be prompted to select a detail level. This detail setting will scale the content in Blood II to increase performance or increase visual quality. You can change this detail setting at any time during the game by selecting Options...Display from the in-game menus. Medium detail is the default setting, and is also a good choice for most systems. The detail settings are explained in depth in the section on DISPLAY DETAIL SETTTINGS in this readme. 5.2 Display Button The first time you run Blood II, we strongly suggest that you click the Display button in the Blood II launch box. This will test your video drivers to ensure DirectX6 compatibility. Because Blood II checks the DirectX status of your video card(s) when you click Display, if you do not have DX6 compatible video drivers, you may encounter problems. Blood II uses the same routine to initialize your video card when you click launch, but by clicking Display you can see the results. If you encounter problems after clicking Display (this is rare) please refer to the TROUBLE SHOOTING section of this readme. 5.2.1 Choose your video card Display allows you to choose your display device (e.g., the video card) that you want to use to play Blood II. Only DirectX6 compatible devices will be displayed in the display window. You can also switch your display device at any time during the game by choosing Options...Display...Change Mode. 5.2.2 LithTech Direct3D Renderer To use 3D hardware acceleration (if you have a D3D compatible 3D video card installed in your computer), choose LithTech Direct3D Renderer in the Renderers window, and then choose your display driver (your video card) in the Displays window. If you are running a 2D/3D video card such as a Riva 128, your card will show up as "Primary Display Driver". If you are running a pass-through card such as a 3DFX-based card, it will be listed below Primary Display Driver as something similar to "3DFX Interactive Voodoo". Not all video cards support 3D hardware acceleration. If you are uncertain about whether your video card has 3D hardware acceleration features, please refer to your card's documentation. For more information about a specific 3D video card, see the 3D VIDEO HARDWARE section of this readme. 5.2.3 LithTech Software Renderer To run Blood II without 3D hardware acceleration, choose LithTech Software Renderer in the Renderers window. Then choose your video card in the Displays window. If you are running the LithTech software renderer on a system with multiple video cards, we strongly suggest choosing your Primary Display Driver (your 2D card) in the Displays window. 5.2.4 Resolution You can also set your resolution screen size in the Blood II Display Settings. The default resolution for Blood II is 640x480 16bit. Selecting lower resolutions (512x384) may increase performance at the expense of detail. Selecting higher resolutions (800x600, 1024x768) may decrease performance, but may look better. If you are running the LithTech Software Renderer, we suggest running a low resolution (320x200) first to test the performance on your computer. You can also change the resolution at any time during the game by choosing Options...Display...Change Mode. 5.3 Customize Button Use Customize to add in additional resources and levels for mods, patches and multiplayer. Please visit the Blood II website www.the-chosen.com for the most up to date information. 5.4 More Games Button Click the More Games button to access demos and movies of other Monolith titles. All titles are available at your local software retailer. 5.5 Help Button Click the Help button to access the Blood II Online Manual. 5.6 Multiplayer Button Click the Multiplayer button to start the Blood II multiplayer wizard. For details on setting up multiplayer games, refer to the Online Manual. 5.7 Advanced Button The Advanced Options are designed for advanced users and trouble- shooting only. Some of the advanced options may not be compatible with all hardware. Mixing and matching some advanced options may cause unpredictable results. For the most up to date Advanced Options details, check out the Blood II website www.the-chosen.com. Disable Sound This will disable all sound fx in Blood II. Disable music This will disable Blood II's Interactive Music Architecture, or IMA. Some sound cards may have incompatibilities with IMA. Used for troubleshooting only. Disable movies Disables the Monolith Logo, GT Interactive Logo and Blood II Intro from playing every time. Disable light mapping Turns off light mapping (a shadow-lighting effect) in all display detail settings. This option is also available through the in-game menus. Disable fog Disables all atmospheric (not clipping plane) fog. No performance increase or decrease. Strictly subjective, although may be useful on cards that "almost" support table fog. Disable line systems Disables all line systems in Blood II. Line systems are used for tracer fire on many enemy weapons. Unlikely to provide any performance increase, but useful as a troubleshooting item. Disable model full brights Some textures/models in Blood II use a palette technique that makes certain colors always bright, regardless of the surrounding light conditions (e.g., making them "fully bright"). This option is also available through the in-game menus, and is disabled in medium detail mode. Disable DirectX6 commands Use only for troubleshooting. Probably doesn't do what you think it does. Enable optimized surfaces Optimizes the way 2D surfaces (e.g., ammo, health, armor, crosshair) are drawn. Checking this on AGP cards may provide a performance increase, especially on Intel i740- based cards. This option may cause problems on some 3DFX cards, depending on which drivers are installed. Enable poly gap fixing Fixes noticeable gapping between polygons on some 3D video cards. A MUST for Riva 128 video cards. May slow performance on low-end/older 3D video cards. Not a significant performance decrease on fast 3D cards. Makes everything look "nicer". Enable triple buffering Enables a feature on some video cards that can improve performance. Most AGP video cards benefit from this feature being enabled. However, this may cause lock-ups on some PCI video cards. Enable mipmap sharpening Sharpens the mipmaps (textures) for some ATI cards. Not really useful for anything other than making the textures look strange on most cards. Enable pixel doubling--LithTech Software Renderer ONLY Check this option only when using the LithTech Software Renderer. Useful for simulating low resolutions (320x200, 320x240) on 2D video cards that don't support low resolutions in 16-bit color. If you check this option and have 640x480 16bit selected as your resolution, Blood II will simulate 320x240. Can provide noticeable performance increases at the expense of visual quality. Enable Single Pass Multi-Texturing May provide a performance increase on some 3D cards when rendering light-mapped or multi-textured areas. Single-pass multi-texturing is currently supported by 3DFX Voodoo2, and nVidia Riva TNT cards. Future video cards may also support this feature, but checking this option may also produce unpredictable results on some 3D cards. Restore factory default settings This restores all configuration settings to the original factory defaults. Resets key configuration, detail level and sound. Useful if you're mucking around with detail settings and you just want things back the way they were. Command-Line Advanced users only. For more information on this feature, visit the Blood II website at www.the-chosen.com. ****************************************************************** 6. CONTROLS INFORMATION Customize your keyboard and game device controls through the game Options Menu. This section lists only those options omitted from the manual. Shift/I change cursor - scroll through several options and select Use your 'use' key to restart a level after player death in single play, and to respawn in multiplay. 6.1 JOYSTICK CONTROLS USE JOYSTICK - Must be turned on for joystick functionality. TURN LEFT/RIGHT AXIS * AXIS Allows you to select the joystick axis that you wish to use for left/right movement in the game. All analog axis that are available on the currently configured joystick should be available for selection here. * INVERT AXIS Allows you to invert the axis. If you want moving left and right to be swapped then turn this ON. * DEAD ZONE This is the region in the center of the joystick where the axis input is ignored. If the slider bar is set all the way to the left then no dead zone is used. If it is all the way to the right then input from the joystick will be ignored until it is moved 90% of the way to the left or the right. * ANALOG If turned ON, then all analog information returned by the joystick for this axis is used. If this option is turned ON it allows you to vary the speed that you are turning based on how far you move the joystick. If it is turned OFF, then moving the joystick past the dead zone will cause it to activate and how far you move the joystick will not affect the rate that you turn. * SENSITIVITY Controls how sensitive the movement is. If the slider is turned all the way to the right turning will be very sensitive. If it is all the way to the left then it will turn much more slowly. This option is only available if ANALOG is turned ON. * CENTER CORRECTION This option should usually be turned OFF. It is necessary for some input devices, such as track balls, that have their center position offset. If you are using a device such as a track ball that seems to drift when you are not moving try turning this ON to correct the problem. LOOK UP/DOWN AXIS * AXIS Allows you to select the joystick axis that you wish to use for looking up/down in the game. All analog axis that are available on the currently configured joystick should be available for selection here. * INVERT AXIS Allows you to invert the axis. If you want looking up and down to be swapped then turn this ON. * DEAD ZONE This is the region in the center of the joystick where the axis input is ignored. If the slider bar is set all the way to the left then no dead zone is used. If it is all the way to the right then input from the joystick will be ignored until it is moved 90% of the way to its maximum or minimum. * ANALOG If turned ON, then all analog information returned by the joystick for this axis is used. If this option is turned ON, it allows you to vary the speed that you are moving your view based on how far you move the joystick. If it is turned OFF, then moving the joystick past the dead zone will cause it to activate and how far you move the joystick will not affect the rate that your view changes. * SENSITIVITY Controls how sensitive the movement is. If the slider is turned all the way to the right the view change will be very sensitive. If it is all the way to the left then it will change much more slowly. This option is only available if ANALOG is turned ON. * CENTER CORRECTION This option should usually be turned OFF. It is necessary for some input devices, such as track balls, that have their center position offset. If you are using a device such as a track ball that seems to drift when you are not moving try turning this on to correct the problem. * FIXED BY POSITION If this option is enabled then the view angle will be determined by the absolute position of the joystick. If you move the joystick all the way in one direction then your view will be looking straight up. If it is moved in the other direction your view will be all the way down. If the axis is centered your viewing angle should be straight ahead. This option should not be used for devices like track balls that do not have an absolute position. MOVE FORWARD/BACKWARD AXIS * AXIS Allows you to select the joystick axis that you wish to use for forward and backward movement in the game. All analog axis that are available on the currently configured joystick should be available for selection here. * INVERT AXIS Allows you to invert the axis. If you want moving forward and backward to be swapped then turn this ON. * DEAD ZONE This is the region in the center of the joystick where the axis input is ignored. If the slider bar is set all the way to the left then no dead zone is used. If it is all the way to the right then input from the joystick will be ignored until it is moved 90% of the way to its maximum or minimum. * ANALOG If turned ON, then all analog information returned by the joystick for this axis is used. If this option is turned ON it allows you to vary the speed that you are moving based on how far you move the joystick. If it is turned OFF, then moving the joystick past the dead zone will cause it to activate and how far you move the joystick will not affect the rate that you move. * SENSITIVITY Controls how sensitive the movement is. If the slider is turned all the way to the right the movement will be very sensitive. If it is all the way to the left then it will be less sensitive. This option is only available if ANALOG is turned ON. * CENTER CORRECTION This option should usually be turned OFF. It is necessary for some input devices, such as track balls, that have their center position offset. If you are using a device such as a track ball that seems to drift when you are not moving try turning this on to correct the problem. STRAFE LEFT/RIGHT AXIS * AXIS Allows you to select the joystick axis that you wish to use for left and right strafe movement in the game. All analog axis that are available on the currently configured joystick should be available for selection here. * INVERT AXIS Allows you to invert the axis. If you want moving left and right to be swapped then turn this ON. * DEAD ZONE This is the region in the center of the joystick where the axis input is ignored. If the slider bar is set all the way to the left then no dead zone is used. If it is all the way to the right then input from the joystick will be ignored until it is moved 90% of the way to its maximum or minimum. * ANALOG If turned on then all analog information returned by the joystick for this axis is used. If this option is turned ON it allows you to vary the speed that you are moving based on how far you move the joystick. If it is turned OFF then moving the joystick past the dead zone will cause it to activate and how far you move the joystick will not affect the rate that you move. * SENSITIVITY Controls how sensitive the movement is. If the slider is turned all the way to the right the movement will be very sensitive. If it is all the way to the left then it will be less sensitive. This option is only available if ANALOG is turned ON. * CENTER CORRECTION This option should usually be turned OFF. It is necessary for some input devices, such as track balls, that have their center position offset. If you are using a device such as a track ball that seems to drift when you are not moving try turning this on to correct the problem. POV HAT LOOK/WEAPON If this option is turned ON then the POV Hat will be assigned to the functions listed below. If it is turned OFF then the POV Hat will not be used. * Up - Look Up * Right - Next Weapon * Down - Look Down * Left - Previous Weapon ****************************************************************** 7. 3D VIDEO HARDWARE This section contains specifics on 3D video cards, recommended Blood II settings, and driver information. For the most up to date information on "Blood II Certified" drivers, please visit our driver website at: drivers.lith.com 7.1 3DLabs www.3dlabs.com/drivers - Permedia2 Works well, although no lightmapping. Recommended Display Settings: -LOW or MEDIUM (lightmapping will automatically be turned off on this card) -Turning on Shadows or Model FullBrights may cause texture corruption/flickering. Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE 7.2 Rendition www.rendition.com - Rendition V1000 An older card. Recommended Display Settings: -LOW. 512x384 Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE - Rendition V2100/V2200 Works well, supports all features in Blood II. Recommended Display Settings: -LOW, or MEDIUM with Light Mapping set to off for best performance Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE 7.3 3DFX Interactive www.3dfx.com In order to get the best performance from any 3DFX-based card, we STRONGLY recommend that you upgrade to the latest 3DFX reference drivers. We have found that the 3DFX reference drivers work very well under DX6. As of our ship date, the latest 3DFX Voodoo-1 and Voodoo2 Reference Drivers are contained in a \3DFX directory on the Blood II CD. You can update your drivers from the CD or, for the most recent 3DFX reference drivers, please check: drivers.lith.com www.3dfx.com. - 3DFX Voodoo1 The standard. Recommended Display Settings: -MEDIUM, 8-bit textures Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE - 3DFX VooDoo2 Recommended Display Settings: -HIGH Recommended Advanced Settings: -Check "Enable poly gap fixing" in Advanced Launcher for increased visual quality with minimal decrease in performance 7.4 nVidia www.nVidia.com - Riva 128/128ZX As of our ship date, we have been testing all Riva 128-based cards with a soon-to-be released nVidia reference driver. This driver makes it possible to play Blood II with all features enabled. Please check the nVidia webpage or drivers.lith.com for the most up to date info on this chipset. Recommended Display Settings: -With drivers released after 9-15-98, MEDIUM -With drivers released before 9-15-98, LOW -Running in HIGH or MEDIUM or enabling LightMapping with the currently drivers released before 9-15-98 will result in gray-shaded world polygons. Disabling lightmapping fixes this problem. Recommended Advanced Settings: -Check "Enable poly gap fixing" in Advanced Launcher options for all versions of drivers. THIS IS A MUST FOR THIS CARD to remove all polygon seaming issues. -Check "Enable optimized surfaces" for a slight performance increase - Riva TNT As of our ship date, we have been testing all Riva TNT cards with beta drivers. We do not anticipate any problems with this card. Please check the nVidia webpage or drivers.lith.com for the most up to date info on this chipset. Recommended Display Settings: -HIGH, 16-bit textures Recommended Advanced Settings: -Check "Enable poly gap fixing" in Advanced Launcher for increased visual quality with minimal decrease in performance 7.5 Matrox www.matrox.com/mgaweb/drivers Please check the Matrox website for drivers.lith.com for the most recently released drivers for all Matrox products. D3D driver support is generally good. - G200 Millenium and Mystique Recommended Display Settings: -MEDIUM Recommended Advanced Settings: -Check "Enable Triple Buffer" for a decent performance increase -Check "Enable Optimized Surfaces" for a slight performance increase - Matrox MGA-1064 (Millenium II and Mystique) Recommended Display Settings: -LOW, 8-bit textures Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE - Matrox M3D - You may need to update your drivers through device manager instead of the setup program that comes with the driver set - Blood II detects that this card can't do LightMapping or "light add poly" and disables both - May experience texture mipmapping glitches - Chromed models are REALLY slow, so enabling Environment Mapping through the menus is not recommended - Some textures with alpha (4444) draw with alpha blending even if the alphablendenable state is off Recommended Display Settings: -LOW, 8-bit textures Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE--Blood II detects this card automatically. 7.6 Intel i740 drivers.lith.com - ENABLE OPTIMIZED SURFACES. We have experienced instability on this card when Enable Optimized Surfaces is unchecked. We have also experienced some problems with drivers from various board manufacturers who use the i740 chipset. The Intel Reference Drivers appear to be the most stable of the bunch. However, Intel does not recommend end-users install these drivers. Check with your card manufacturer for the most recent certified drivers. Recommended Display Settings: -LOW or MEDIUM, 8-bit textures Recommended Advanced Settings: -You must check "Enable Optimized Surfaces" on this card to avoid potential lockups -Check "Enable Triple Buffer" for a decent performance increase -LightMapping slows down this card big time. Disable it for a nice performance boost. 7.7 S3 www.s3.com - S3 Savage Recommended Display Settings: -HIGH Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE - Virge (Diamond Stealth 3D Pro 2000, IMagic 3D) - Get the most recent drivers from the S3 site. This board was an OEM video card in many, many PC's. The 3D hardware performance is questionable, but D3D will recognize this card as a 3D hardware accelerator. - runs decent in 320x240 - Lightmapping and screen flash not supported Recommended Display Settings: -LOW, 320x240 Recommended Advanced Settings: -NONE 7.8 ATI support.atitech.ca/drivers - Rage Pro AGP 2X As of our ship date, ATI was in the process of testing beta drivers that improve the performance on this card dramatically. please check the ATI website for the most up to date drivers available. Doesn't bilinear filter the alpha channel so stuff with alpha looks all pixelated even though the RGB is all pixelated. Recommended Display Settings: -LOW Recommended Advanced Settings: -Check "Enable mipmap sharpening" to cure the blurriness of textures - Rage 128 Please check the ATI website for the most up to date drivers available. http:\\support.atitech.ca\drivers Recommended Display Settings: - HIGH Recommended Advanced Settings: - Enable Optimized Surfaces - Enable Triple Buffering - Enable Poly Gap Fixing ****************************************************************** 8. SOUND CARDS & IMA Blood II uses a new Interactive Music Architecture for music playback. You may experience problems with certain sound cards and music playback. Upgrading to the most recent drivers for your sound card usually solves the problem. For specific information about problems you might be having with your sound card, check the TROUBLE SHOOTING section of this readme. For the most up to date information on sound card driver combinations and settings, please visit drivers.lith.com. 8.1 3D Sound Support & EAX Support Blood II ver 2.0 now supports a variety of 3D Sound hardware. To access the 3D Sound options in Blood II, click Advanced... in the Blood II launcher, then click 3DSound... The options listed depend on the audio hardware you have installed on your PC. Blood II will always default to 'No 3D sound' unless you specify a different 3D sound provider. We recommend that you download or obtain the latest drivers from your sound card manufacturer for the best audio performance in Blood II. If you are using any Voodoo2 type card, we recommend you download the lasted Voodoo2 reference drivers from the 3Dfx web site. Providers The list of providers that you can use in Blood II is dependent on what kind of sound card you have. Blood II autodetects your hardware, so you will only receive those providers that are supported on your system. Here's the current list of providers (note that as newer providers become available in future patches, this list may grow): - No 3D sound This option keeps everything the way it was under the old Blood II sound system. Provides panning 3d, volume fades. Maximum performance w/greatest compatibility. - Miles 2D stereo positional audio Uses the Miles Sound System to create some 3D-type sound effects including panning 3d, volume fades and dopplering. Provides enhanced audio w/minor performance hit. - Microsoft DirectSound3D software emulation This option will attempt to emulate DirectSound3D hardware acceleration in software. Potentially a large performance hit. May not be compatible with all sound cards. Fun to play around with this, but not recommended. - Microsoft DirectSound3D hardware support A generic DirectSound3D provider. If this option is displayed, your sound card supports Directsound3D hardware acceleration. - Microsoft DirectSound3D with Creative Labs EAX(TM) Choose this option if you have a SoundBlaster Live! or PCI 128 from Creative Labs. We recommend that you get the newest Creative drivers when using EAX. This option kicks major ass. - Aureal A3D Interactive(TM) This option will be displayed if you have an A3D compliant sound card (Diamond MX200 or MX300, Turtle Beach Montego or Montego2 to name a few). We recommend that you get the newest drivers for your sound card when using A3D. - RSX 3D Audio from RAD Game Tools This is a software sound system that provides some additional 3D sound enhancements. Samples The hardware and software samples tell Blood II how many different sounds you want to mix during gameplay. Some sound cards may support more than 16 Hardware Samples (for example, the Creative Labs SBLive! card supports 32 samples in hardware mixing). Changing the number of samples may affect performance on your system. Reverb This controls the amount of "echo" that you will hear when using some DirectSound3D providers (EAX, for example, provides hardware accelerated reverb). Very High will provide the most echo, Very Low provides the least amount. As always, please check the Blood II website at www.the-chosen.com for the most recent updates, patches and information on Blood II. ****************************************************************** 9. DISPLAY DETAIL SETTINGS Blood II contains several detail settings that will affect performance. You can change these detail settings through the in-game menus by choosing Options...Display. You can also choose Advanced through the in-game menus and tweak each detail setting individually. Once you choose Advanced and change a setting, your detail setting will be displayed as "Advanced". Changing your Detail Setting back to LOW, MEDIUM or HIGH will reset any advanced options. Switching detail settings while in the game will result in a restart of Blood II's renderer, which may take several seconds. LOW A good choice for systems near or at the minimum system requirements. Uses the least amount of texture memory. Turns off just about every detail option available in Blood II. Also the best choice when using the LithTech Software Renderer. MEDIUM A good choice for most systems. Uses less texture memory than high, but keeps most other special effects in place. HIGH Turns up everything in terms of visual look. Recommended only for high-end systems with fast 3D video cards. Uses the most texture memory, but looks the best. ****************************************************************** 10. PERFORMANCE TUNING Game speed and performance are dependent on several different hardware factors. The 3 major factors that affect performance in Blood II: CPU, 3D Video Card, and memory. Make sure you are using the most current drivers for your sound and display card. You can usually download current drivers from your card manufacturer's web site. If you are using a Voodoo2 type display card, we suggest you download the most current reference drivers from 3Dfx. If you are experiencing slow performance on your system, first try setting the Detail Setting under Options...Display to LOW. This setting will have the biggest single impact on performance. If after trying all our recommendations here for sound and speed issues using a secondary sound or display (3D) card, and you still experience lag or sound problems, we suggest you select Primary Display Drivers from the Blood II Launcher Advanced settings for 3D Card. Blood II will default to using 8-bit (LOW) quality sounds unless you chose HIGH the first time you ran Blood II. Changing the Sound Quality to LOW under Options...Sound will save memory and can increase performance. Turning Music to OFF under Options...Sound may also increase performance slightly on slower CPU's. If you've turned everything else off and you're still looking for a couple of extra frames-per-second, set Music to Off. Model FullBrights and Environment Mapping can have a large impact on slower systems. These options are both set to ON when HIGH is selected, but are set to OFF in MEDIUM and LOW. Lightmapping can also slow some systems down. The Intel i740, for example, will see a large performance increase just by setting Lightmapping to OFF. For systems with low memory, it may improve performance and decrease level load times by entering the following in the command field under Advanced from the Launcher. +cachefiles 0 For the most recent updates on performance tuning, go to the Blood II website at www.the-chosen.com ****************************************************************** 11. TROUBLESHOOTING Q: Many of the sounds in Blood II seem to be garbled. What's wrong? A: If you are running Blood II on a 3DFX card, your driver may be stealing some cycles from the bus. Install the latest 3DFX reference drivers located on the Blood II CD. This should cure the problem. Q: I installed DirectX6 during the Blood II installation, but now I can't use my 3D video card to run Blood II. A: This is likely the result of non-DirectX6 compliant video drivers. Please visit drivers.lith.com for the most recent information on drivers for your card. Or, try reinstalling DirectX6 and updating your video drivers when prompted. Q: When I click the Display button in the Blood II launcher, it pauses for a long time, and then nothing happens. What gives? A: Make sure that you have installed DirectX6. If you installed DirectX6, you may not have updated your video drivers. Reinstall DirectX6 and update your video drivers when prompted. Q: I have a joystick plugged into my computer, but Blood II won't recognize it. A: Check the joystick configuration in Windows. Go to Settings... Control Panel...Game Controllers and check to make sure that your joystick is configured correctly. Q: I can't switch to some video resolutions that are displayed under Display in the launcher and in the Change Mode option under the in-game Display menu. A: Blood II uses DirectX to query your card about display resolutions. Your driver may be reporting to DirectX that it can display at a certain resolution, even though the hardware does not support it. This is common on many 2D cards when running in software. Q: I can't get my 3D card to work with Blood II no matter what I try. A: There is a DirectX diagnostic tool that is installed when you install DX6 during a Blood II installation. You can access this diagnostic tool in Program Files...directx...setup....dxdiag.exe. Please refer to the help file that accompanies dxdiag.exe for more information on using it. ****************************************************************** 12. PATCH VERSION 1.01 This patch has been focused primarily on Single Play bugs and issues we felt important to resolve immediately. Here's what was addressed: New engine stuff: · fix to USB keyboard issues · some rezfile bugs fixed New game stuff: · Fixed view weapon jittering · Removed Shift-I and Shift-O for toggling 3rd person. Added a cheat to do it instead: MPFOLLOWME. · Fixed RandomSoundFX sounds continuing to play after the level ends. · MPHEALTHY cheat now restores your weapons correctly when you use it after you die. · Fixed muzzle flash sprites continuing to show in external camera mode (cutscenes) · DamageObjectsInRadius takes the object dims into account for better accuracy (Large objects like the Ancient One were hard to hit with area of effect weapons since they impact too far from the center point). · Fixed weapon hand model visibility problems on client · Many gibs tweaks, added blood streams to kicked heads, bounce sounds, increased vertical velocity of blood spurts. · Fixed rotating doors being pushed off of their hinges when they are blocked by the player being pushed into a wall. · You can now climb ladders out of the water. · Menu localization stuff · Added additional code to hopefully prevent AI dropped weapons from sticking in walls. It may still happen occassionly, but not as much. · MPCLIP fixed so that you don't suddenly move halfway across the world when the framerate chunks. · Added a sound for when the "Press a key to continue. . ." message comes up. · AI: fixed FindObjectsInRadius function so that it searches for players correctly. This fixes the Bone Leech, Hand, and Thief staying idle problem. (they weren't seeing the player) · Made some changes to fix potential IMA issues. Weapons and boss stuff: · Adjusted prox bomb timing for arming and exploding · Removed the Alt-fire from the singularity generator · Fixed death-ray beams hanging in the air · Fixed it so you can't select bombs without ammo for them · Added a game state so we can have the 'Press a key to continue...' message in the loading screens (only does this for screens that use the description text - automatically skips it for multiplayer loading and other custom levels) · Fixed the bombs sticking in the air · Didn't put in the remote bombs exploding upon death... cause it seems to have been voted out · Fixed the black light on the death ray muzzle flash · Tweaked some weapon values. · Fixed some particle trail effects that were getting cut off when they weren't supposed to · Made new special effects for the Naga (much nicer now in my opinion... ) · Tweaked the Naga AI a little so he'll do the ceiling drop more (at all)... · Tweaked some damage values for the Naga. · Added detail levels for Naga FX · Removed the smoke trails on the Naga spike fragments. ************************************************************************** 13. PATCH VERSION 2.0 While the goals of this patch were to enhance the multiplayer functions, this patch does address several single player issues too. It is not necessary to install Patch Version 1.01 prior to installing Patch Version 2.0. This patch includes all changes from Patch 1.01. This patch includes: Engine Stuff: · Smacker movies use miles sound. This was needed to allow smacker movies when a hw sound provider was initialized. · Added 3D Sound Support, including EAX - see section 8 for more information · Fixed some timing issues with sounds. · Improved sound instance prioritizing. · Increased sound radius so 3d hw sounds can die off better. · Fixed crash when switching from 3d sound hardware provider back to no 3d hardware provider. · Added 3d sound provider id SOUND3DPROVIDERID_UNKNOWN for forward compatibility. · Fixed incompatibility with IMA and 3D sound on non-Creative cards. · Fixed some missing resources messages getting sent to console regardless of debuglevel. · Fixed server-side sounds not getting unloaded properly between levels. · Fixed server from creating too many id numbers. This caused the invisible player bug in multiplayer. · More input additions for correct analog joystick operation. · Fixed several bugs with Single Pass MultiTexturing. This should may improve performance on TNT and Voodoo2 cards (a nice little speed improvement). Also added 'Enable Single Pass Multi-texturing' to the Advanced options in the launcher. Check this option to enable the feature. NOTE: 'Enable Single Pass Multi-texturing' may not work properly on all cards. We have verified that it performs properly on Voodoo2 and TNT cards. However, other newer cards may or may not work properly. If you experience problems while using this feature, UNCHECK THE OPTION. · 3DNow Suport for AMD. If you are running an AMD, please check our website for the 3DNow renderer. Single Play Game Stuff: · Fixed inverted mouse y axis in sniper zoom mode. · Flashlight is using GetPointShade() again so that it won't cast a light darker than the room's light. · Reverb enable on 3D sounds · Turning LookSpring off keeps view from recentering when using PageUp/PageDown keys (requested feature) · Added "NextLevel" console command to allow the host to force the next level to load. · Fixed armor incorrectly reported as "100" when starting, when it should be 0. · Fixed AI disappearing after killing them. · Fixed a crash that was happening when exiting a level. · Player now takes falling damage. · Fixed gibs, bloodsplats, sparks, and splashes not appearing when killing AI. · Removed wizard server options that were from Shogo but did not apply to Blood2. · Removed wizard server options that were from Shogo but not implemented in Blood2. · Fixed bug with falling out of the world on start. · Tab key can no longer be bound to commands. · Screen shrink/enlarge keys removed. · Fixed it so blindness gets turned off when you die. · Fixed the 'no damage' bug when a player leaves the game and his weapon should do damage after he leaves. · Enabled 3d sound providers (new launcher options coming soon). · Enabled using reverb for EAX provider (new launcher options coming soon). · Fixed disappearing water in love canal. (actually for Add-on) · Fixed the overload of special FX by the Tesla cannon causing some weirdness with other special FX. There's also some new console variables that control the new 3D sound stuff (if the 3D sound hardware is available). The new launcher will make this stuff easy for the user to tweak. The following console variables are available: "initsound" will reinitialize the sounds. "reverblevel " where n is 0.0 to 1.0. Sets the amount of reverb. "max3dvoices " where n is the maximum number of voices to play through 3d sound provider. "initsound" must be run to take settings. "maxswvoices " where n is the maximum number of voices to play that don't go through 3d sound provider. "initsound" must be run to take settings. "3dsoundprovider " where n is the id of the 3d sound provider to use. "initsound" must be run to take settings. The provider id's are: NONE 0 DS3D_HARDWARE 1 DS3D_HARDWARE_EAX 2 DS3D_SOFTWARE 3 A3D 4 INTEL_RSX 5 MILES3D 6 Again, users will not really need to know any of these once the new launcher is available. · Fixed bug where you couldn't push objects. · Launcher now has "3D Sound Options" dialog available from the Advanced dialog. · When in water, if your head is above water and you are standing on something, your movement is not restricted. · New console variable: "3dsoundprovidername " where s is the string for the 3d sound provider. Needed for forward compatibility. · An error dialog is posted if sounds aren't initialized properly. · Fixed prophet carrying wrong weapon on 09_abandoned_buildings. · Fixed bug where if the external camera was in water and the player wasn't, the player would still lose air. · Sounds only get reinitialized when leaving the audio menu if the sound quality setting has changed. · Changed "playerpos 1" to guarantee position, rotation and animation messages (as opposed to only position). · Face huggers can be removed by hitting the use key 5 times fast or after 25 times (which makes it easier for people with low framerates). · Fixed a zoom bug when switching levels. · Fixed a crash bug in the CommLink code that would crash/hang the game when it was minimized during Voice or CommLink transmissions. · Using the (unsupported) "world" console command to load a level now properly sets the player's starting position. · Fixed seeing eye causing player it was stuck to to move slower. · Fixed seeing eye not knowing when player it was stuck to died, which caused it to hang in the air. · Increased the forward/backward acceleration when moving with the mouse. · Changed the life leech alt-fire damage from 100 - 125 (was 150 - 200). · Fixed The Eye causing crash when it was destroyed with splash damage. · Fixed trip-lasers not working in museum. · Fixed some AI sighting bugs. · Fixed the current item icon carrying over into the next level. · Fixed sounds not getting freed. · Enhanced joystick menu and controls are in there and working, but not 100% perfect. Load/Save: · Fixed a bunch of load/save lockups, not being able to open doors, problems changing worlds. · Fixed "Action" key not working after a reload.(opening doors, talking to civilians) · Handles the alt ammo status bar tab now (still has a bug that needs fixing though) · Fixed bug where binocs didn't work after loading a save game if you saved with binocs zoomed in. · Fixed phone-ring in Laundromat. This fix may also fix other save/load related sound bugs. Weapons: · Fixed client-side weapon accuracy problems · Fixed client-side akimbo weapons. · Fixed various weapon switching lockups/problems. · Fixed shotgun shell ejecting 4 shells with alt fire. · Secondary ammo type status bar tab added · Some missing weapon sounds work again. · Fixed bug with weapons disappearing when dropped. · Fixed bug with being able double your weapons by picking one up and dropping it very fast. · Gideon's laser will no longer strike himself. · Fixed it so you can't fire while zoomed in with binocs. · Fixed the shotgun so it reloads again on the second shot. · Changed an objectives message which stated that all weapons have alt fire modes (they don't). · Fixed the weapon looping sound problem where the sound hangs around if you switch weapons while shooting. · Fixed the shotgun that was only using one ammo in alt fire (should use 2). · Fixed the picture of the current weapon staying over the ammo counter when you switch to bombs. · Added throwing sounds to the bombs. · Fixed the problem where the last bomb alt-fire was causing it to be thrown in a weird direction instead of down. · Fixed the floating weapon problem. · Fixed the akimbo hand model problem where the second hand hangs on to the old weapon when you switch from akimbo to single handed weapons. · Fixed the looping weapon firing problem when you die and respawn. · Made it so that it automatically switches to weapon #1 when you die and respawn. This also fixes the problem where you'd still be holding a bomb if that was your last weapon held (even though you wouldn't have any). · Fixed it so you can't use 3 shells with the shotgun by firing once in primary than once in alt-fire. · Fixed a rotation problem in the projectile code which may have fixed the orb shooting in odd directions. · Proximity bombs should no longer blow up near dead bodies of people who haven't respawned. · Flames from the flare gun should now go out when a character is gibbed. · Fixed the shotgun shooting too many shells. · Fixed the missing sounds in the bombs alt-fire animation. · Fixed the camera on the orb alt-fire. · Made the orb get updated outside of the vis-list on alt-fire. · Made the orb explode during alt-fire if the player who shot it is killed while flying it. · Made it so that if there is no weapon in the #1 slot, it'll switch to your knife automatically instead of when you die. · Fixed the looping gun animation when you respawn while holding down the fire key. · Made the remote bombs not explode when you hold onto them for too long (you can hold them as long as you like now). · Changed the remote bombs so they don't explode upon impact of characters and players (instead they just stop and fall to the ground). · Fixed the orb viewing problems. · Fixed a problem with the orb cam getting updated even after it gets attached to someone. · Fixed the lifeleech being off center on the alt-fire. · Added a couple more checks for possible situations with the orb camera. · Weapon icon properly appears on status bar (instead of only after the first weapon switch). · Fixed the bomb blowing up after the game ends. · Fixed the weapon looping after respawn. Multiplay Game Stuff: · Startpoints will now look for spawn points for the team the player is on in team-based games. · Added DrawSingleColumnTeams() which will draw one team column at a time when the screen width is less than 500. · Updated frag screen · Multiplayer flag display functions · Fixed bug with respawn in the place where you last died. · Only display levels for the selected gametype (bb, ctf, or teams) · Added support for drawing a team icon in addition to a flag icon for multiplayer games. · Stand-alone server fix so that the proper game type is set. · Team score in team-based games determine if the level should be switch based on frag counts. · In CTF play, your team's flag must be in it's base for you to be able to score by capturing the other team's flag. · Ping times for all clients displayed on each client, updated every 5 seconds. · Fixed focus not regenerating on 2nd multiplayer level. · Fixed wonkyvision persisting after respawning. · Fixed taunts so that they will play after a level switch in multiplayer. · In CTF, the flag's position is set to the player's position when it is dropped. · Killing The Eye in multiplayer now causes the owner to go blind. · Quick Load/Save hotkeys are disabled in multiplayer now. · Many new server options for Teams and CTF games (see below). · Fixed minefield volumebrush. It thought the player wasn't on the ground and so it didn't kill him. · Stand-alone server now correctly brings up the "Items" dialog for all game types. · Loading screen is properly displayed for the host of a multiplayer game during startup. · Player model remains visible after a humiliation death on the local client. · Humiliation invulnerable time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds · Added humiliation "stay" timer (currently set at 5 seconds) so you can't immediately get out of Wonky-Vision. · Reduced maximum Wonky-Vision time from 20 seconds to only 15. · When entering Wonky-Vision from a humiliation, the phrase "You are on the edge of death." is now displayed. · Wizard dialogs now use "Team Blue/Red" instead of "Team 1/2". · Fixed the 'excess ammo' bug in multiplay (where you keep your ammo after you die). · Fixed it so the MESSAGE key doesn't cause the game to pause while in the menus. · Fixed health getting set to zero when other players join the multiplay game. · Fixed dead players turning into ghosts a new player joins the game. · Player "ass-up" bodies now gib when they respawn from a humiliation death. · Fixed problem with players getting assigned to the wrong team under certain conditions. · A message is displayed when the end of level has been signaled in multiplayer games. · A sound is played when the end of level has been signaled in multiplayer games. · Team icon does not disappear if a level switch happens while the game is minimized. · Stand-alone server displays a message in its console when the "Next Level" button is pressed. · Fixed potential crash bug when displaying the player's name when they join the level. · Fixed player's name sometimes being displayed as garbage when they join the level. · All players should now see the frag info before the level changes in multiplayer games. · Fixed player going fullbright after leaving bb_cabana. · Minefields now blow up if player touches them. · Fixed going in and out of main menu during end of level frag display giving the player movement control. · Fixed slow movement after respawn in multiplay. · Fixed it so that the hand model disappears when you die (so you don't see it floating around in multiplay until the player respawns). · Fixed no-friendly-fire in team games due to not checking the "owner" of projectiles. · Fixed end-of-level frag display "jitter" in multiplayer. · The cross-hair is no longer displayed while the frag info is on the screen in multiplayer games. · Possible internet optimization to reduce number of player update packets constantly sent to the server. Modem performance *may* be significantly improved. · Player "respawn" voice comments have a 50% chance of playing each time you respawn in multiplayer. · Jump sounds now play in single and multiplayer games. · Increased the default UpdateRate values for 28.8 and ISDN by 1. · Chat messages now play a sound. · Clients now get a message and a sound if/when they get disconnected from the server (or the server shuts down). · Wonky vision is not allowed to start if the player is already dead. · Fixed crash related to seeing eye stuck to a player that gets removed. CTF/Team options: "Allow Friendly Fire" -- Allows players to damage and kill their teammates. "Score negative frags for friendly fire" -- Players that kill their teammates receive a negative frag. "Only flag capturing scores points" -- Only capturing the flag scores points. Players can still kill others, but no frag points are awarded. "Use enemy team size as flag score multiplier" -- The size of the enemy team is used as a multiplier when computing the points for capturing the flag. "Flag value" -- The base value for points awarded when a flag is captured. Regarding the multiplier value...if this is on and the enemy team as 4 players, and the flag value is 5, capturing the flag is worth 20 points (since 4 * 5 = 20). This was an idea of Jay's to help balance situations where one team has more players (since you get more points if the other team has more players). ************************************************************************** 14. ADDING YOUR OWN TAUNTS FOR MULTIPLAY During Multiplay, it is possible to play user created .wav files for taunts. 1) In the directory where you installed Blood 2, create a folder called Custom. If you've already created mod levels, you probably already have this folder. 2) In your Custom folder, create folders for each of the characters for which you want to play your own taunt .wav files. For example, if you have some really snide jabs from Caleb, create a folder called Caleb. 3) Now, within each character folder, create folders for the type of taunt. (i.e. idle, biggib, pain, kill, death, burning, powerup, spawn, suicide, weapon, taunt, jump) 4) Place as many .wav files in these folders as you want. They will be played in random order. These taunts will only play on your computer, unless your opponent also has these files copied on his/her computer. Have fun! And, keep it clean. ************************************************************************** 15. TEAM/CTF OPTIONS IN MULTIPLAY Below is a brief description of each new server option for Teams and/or CTF. "Allow Friendly Fire" - allows players to kill their teammates "Score Negative Frags" for Friendly Fire - players that kill their teammates receive a negative frag "Only Flag Capturing Scores Points" - only capturing the flag scores points. Players can still kill others, but no frag points are awarded. "Use Enemy Team Size As Score Multiplier" - the size of the enemy team is used as a multiplier(*) when computing the points for capturing the flag. "Flag Value" - the base value for points awarded when a flag is captured. (*) Regarding the multiplier value...if this is on, the enemy team has 4 players, and the flag value is 5, capturing the flag is worth 20 points (i.e. 4*5=20). This helps to balance the situation where one team has more players. ************************************************************************** Monolith is dedicated to supporting its products! For the most up to date information on patches, updates, drivers, multiplayer and add-ons, please visit the Blood II Website at www.the-chosen.com We hope you have as much fun playing Blood II as we had making it. Blood II: The Chosen Developed and Published by Monolith Productions, Inc. www.lith.com www.the-chosen.com www.lithtech.com www.shogo-mad.com www.captainclaw.com www.rageofmages.com www.getmedieval.com www.blood.com ******************************************************************