Final Reality 1.01 - Readme.txt 28/01/1997 Official Download sites are: http://www.finalreality.com and http://www.remedy-ent.com/fr/ Please read this file carefully as it contains valuable information which could save you a lot of time. At the end of this file is a common Q&A, which is a list of the problems and solutions we are aware of. Please also check the Official FR web sites for more troubleshooting. WEB MASTERS: Please feel free to link to either web site! We hope you enjoy Final Reality. Regards, The Final Reality Development Team. UPDATED ISSUES IN FINAL REALITY 1.01 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Because Final Reality 1.01 uses a newer version of the 3D engine, actual results might differ slightly from version 1.0 results. The update should not affect the ranking of 3D accelerators. - Fixed problems of FR crashing after Robots test with new 3Dfx drivers (should work now with all Voodoo & Voodoo Rush based cards) - Fixed problem with bilinear filtering not working on nVidia Riva128 based cards. - Added on-the-fly reductions for additive and multiplicative transparency to alpha blending or stippled alpha and color keying. - Fixed problems with bilinear filtering in second mipmap level on all cards. - Adjusted gamma in textures for better brightness/contrast levels. (3Dfx owners, set your gamma to 1.00 from Display Properties). - Compressed some more textures to JPEG format for even smaller distribution size. - Should have fixed problems with "Z-Buffer hardware not found" error message. - Final Reality does not crash anymore if it does not find any Direct3D hardware accelerators. - Final Reality now handles the DDERR_INVALIDPIXELFORMAT error message. - Help (F1 key) during benchmark is now disabled. - The user gets a warning screen if the AGP test is started with a higher setting than what the available texture memory is, and the 3D accelerator can not swap textures during a scene. - Results now have a version check and results & database from Final Reality version 1.0 can not be used with the 1.01 version. TROUBLESHOOTING Q&A'S ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An up-to-date list of known problems and solutions is available at http://www.remedy-ent.com/fr, please check there for more information. Furthermore, if you find an undocumented problem, please submit it via the "Report bugs" facility on http://www.remedy-ent.com/fr/ and we will do our best to find a solution for you. Display Adapter problems: Q: Miscellaneous A: Get the newest drivers from your display card manufacturer. Q: Final Reality reports a GENERIC ERROR message or "No Direct3D hardware rendering platforms found" on my Hercules Stingray 128/3D. My Windows 95 desktop is in 32-bit color mode. A: Reduce your desktop color depth to 16-bit and Final Reality should work fine. Q: On PowerVR based cards Final Reality reports DDERR_OUTOFVIDEOMEMORY when trying to run the 3D tests. A: Your primary display adapter does not have sufficient amount of memory for frame buffers. Lower your desktop resolution and color depth to get Final Reality working. Q: Some polygons flicker on my 3D accelerator. A: This is very probably a driver problem, and might already have been corrected in newer drivers. Please download the newest drivers from your display card manufacturer. Q: I have an AGP computer and AGP display adapter but I don't get the "AGP detected" sign at the startup-screen. A: "AGP detected" appears only if your 3D accelerator can support using textures from the computer's system memory. Not all AGP-accelerators can do this. Also, for AGP to work, Windows 95 OSR 2.1 (version 1212) or newer is required. The version number can be found by right-clicking on "My Computer" on your desktop. OEM Service Release 2 (OSR2 version 1111 or 950B) can be updated to support AGP by applying the USB SUPPORT patch (available from your computer manufacturer). Q: I get very small results in the AGP test on my AGP 3D accelerator A: Your 3D accelerator probably does not support using textures from the computer's system memory. These accelerators have to swap textures to the video card memory during rendering, which is slow. General problems: Q: Whenever I try to display results, Final Reality crashes with an error: "An unsupported operation was attempted". A: Your Comctl32.dll version is too old. Download the new DLL and copy it to your Windows\System directory. You need to restart the computer in MS-DOS mode in order to copy the file. The alternate option is to install e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 or 4 which also install this DLL. Q: Miscellaneous problems, Final Reality does not start! A: Re-installing DirectX 5.0 may help. For example an older game might have installed an older version of DirectX on your computer. Q: Final Reality can't find my Direct3D hardware accelerator even though it did before. A: Direct3D hasn't been properly de-initialized or some program has installed an older version of DirectX. Restart your computer and try again. If necessary, re-install DirectX 5.0 or your display driver. Q: Some parts in Final Reality are too dark/bright on my computer! A: Try adjusting the gamma correction of your 3D card in the Display Properties. Or turn off the lights. Sound problems: Q: I am able to run FR without sound but it crashes with sound. A: Install the latest drivers for your sound card and try different kHz and 8-bit or 16-bit modes. Q: Sounds slow down in the end of the material show on my Pentium II. A: This is a driver problem that occurs only in those computers that have a 3Dfx-based accelerator installed. Wait for new drivers from your display card manufacturer. Q: There is too much bass in the music. A: Check your sound card and speaker treble / bass settings. Our music has enough attititude without extra accentuations.