Alone In The Dark Notes - 23 May 2001 ------------------------------------- OVERVIEW -------- This README provides technical information and troubleshooting tips for Alone In The Dark 4. If you have any difficulties running the game, please check this file for help before calling Technical Support. IMPORTANT NOTE -------------- Please do not remove the game CD from the CDROM drive while playing Alone In The Dark 4 unless prompted to do so. If you remove the CD unprompted while the game is running, you risk losing any unsaved progress you have made. You have to desactivate the screensaver before playing. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ------------------- Before playing Alone In The Dark 4, please check that your system meets the following requirements: Pentium II 300 MHz (or better), 64Mb RAM 400Mb free hard disk space for installation, and 100Mb additional space free whilst playing the game DVD or 4x CDROM drive Keyboard and mouse OpenGL-compliant graphics-card with at least 8Mb (see 'Graphics Cards' notes) DirectX 8 compatible sound card Microsoft Windows 95, 98, ME or 2000 GRAPHICS CARDS -------------- Graphics-cards based on the following chipsets are supported by Alone In The Dark 4. nVidia TNT/TNT2, GeForce 256, GeForce 2, GeForce 3 3DFX Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo 2/3/4/5 ATI Rage Pro, Rage 128, Rage 128 Pro, Radeon S3 Savage3D, Savage2000 Matrox G200, G400, G400 MAX, G450 Intel i740 PowerVR Kyro / KyroII (Please ensure that your video-card is supported in the operating-system you use with compliant OpenGL and display drivers) If you aren't sure what graphics card you have, you can find out as follows: 1) Right-click on an empty area of your desktop and select 'Properties' from the drop-down menu 2) Select the 'Settings' tab on the window that appears 3) Click the 'Advanced' button 4) Select the 'Adapter' tab Inside the 'Adapter Type' and 'Adapter Information' boxes will be displayed the manufacturer and name of your video-card. DRIVERS ------- Before running Alone In The Dark 4, it is strongly recommended that you install up- to-date drivers for your graphics-card. If you are running Windows 95, 98 or ME then the setup program will offer to run GLSetup, which will attempt to do this for you. If you are running Windows 2000 or Window XP, you may need to download newer drivers from the manufacturer's websites. Here is a list of some of these websites: nVidia: http://www.nvidia.com/products.nsf/htmlmedia/detonator3.html 3DFX: http://www.3dfx.com/downloads.htm ATI: http://support.ati.com/products/pc/graphics/index.html Matrox: http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/latest/home.cfm Intel: http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/ PowerVR: http://www.powervr.com/downloads/Drivers.htm VIDEO OPTIONS ------------- The Alone In The Dark launcher has a 'Video Options' button that lets you enable higher-quality shadow rendering. However, not all graphics cards are capable of running in this high-quality shadow mode. If you choose this option and you receive an error message, your machine probably cannot run in this mode. Please note that the following cards require you to alter your display settings for high-quality shadow mode to work correctly: Matrox G400 / G400-MAX / G450 1) Right-clock on a blank area of your desktop, and select 'Properties' 2) Select the 'Settings' tab 3) Click the 'Advanced' button 4) Select the 'Options' tab 5) Locate the option 'Use 32bit Zbuffering', and make sure it's enabled TROUBLESHOOTING --------------- PROBLEM: Movies are choppy/jerky, or the sound cuts in and out Ensure you have installed up-to-date drivers for your graphics-card; see the 'Drivers' section for further details. If you have a DVD drive, check if DMA is enabled. On Windows 95, 98 and ME, you can do this as follows: 1) Open the 'My Computer' icon on your desktop 2) Open the 'Control Panel' within this 3) Double-click on 'System' 4) Select the 'Device Manager' tab 5) Double-click on the 'CD-ROM' icon (may also be labelled 'DVD-ROM') 6) Double-click on the icon representing your DVD-ROM drive that appears below it. 7) Select the 'Settings' tab 8) If the 'DMA' checkbox is ticked, then DMA is enabled. Otherwise, you can try enabling it Note enabling DMA may or may not be supported by your DVD-drive. If enabling it doesn't improve the quality of movie playback or causes problems, you should disable it again. PROBLEM: The game runs slowly or jerkily Please check each of the following: - Does your system meet the minimum required specification (listed at the top of this file)? - Have you installed up-to-date drivers for your graphics-card? It is very important that you do so; see the 'Drivers' section for further details. - Are you playing in high-quality shadow mode? This will cause a noticable drop in performance, and you may wish to disable it - Do you have a virus-checker enabled? Virus-checkers can seriously affect gameplay performance, and you may get better performance if you disable it while you play. - If you're running Windows95, Windows98 or WindowsME, try pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up a list of running tasks. If there is an entry named 'ati2evae', end this task, since it will seriously affect the performance of Alone In The Dark 4. PROBLEM: The game won't run at all, or quits unexpectedly Please check each of the following: - Does your system meet the minimum required specification (listed at the top of this file)? - Have you installed up-to-date drivers for your graphics-card? It is very important that you do so; see the 'Drivers' section for further details. - Do you have a working soundcard correctly installed in your system? - Have you chosen the high-quality shadow option? If so, switching this off may fix your problem. - Do you have OpenGL drivers for your version of Windows? Note that some vendors do not supply certified drivers for all Windows versions (eg S3 Savage 3D with Windows2000 or WindowsME) - Are you running Windows NT? Alone In The Dark 4 will only run on Windows 95, 98, ME or 2000. It is untested on Windows XP. SPECIFIC CONFIGURATION PROBLEMS ------------------------------- ATI Rage Pro Turbo If you experience problems with this video card, please try downloading the display driver (beta version 4.11.2628) from the ATI website (see above for a link to the ATI site) and installing it at your own risk. Windows95 If you are running the original version of Windows95, you may need to install a system-upgrade to run Alone In The Dark 4. Please check the Microsoft website (http://www.microsoft.com) to download the latest Win95 update. Voodoo3 3500 + Windows2000: If you encounter problems with this combination, you may need to install the Voodoo3 3000 drivers. You can then reinstall the Voodoo3 3500 drivers to regain the full functionality of your card. Savage 2000: If you enable high-quality shadows on this card, it will run, but at an unplayably slow rate. The Savage2000 does not properly support the high-quality shadow mode, so please avoid selecting it if you have this card. TECHNICAL SUPPORT ----------------- If you experience a problem that none of the above helps you with, you can contact Infogrames Technical Support. The contact number is listed at the back of your game manual. ADDITIONNAL CREDITS ------------------- Audio Production, audio design & music , casting, dialogs direction & localizations KBP Dimitri Bodiansky Bruno Gueraçague Severine Dageville Véronique Nègre Keneth B. Portmann Nick Varley Voice talents - US version: Sharon Mann; David Gasman; Christian Ericksson; Dana Westberg; Doug Rand; Gay Marshall; Jerry Di Giacomo; Jimmy Shuman; Joe Sheridan; Thomas Pollard. Voice talents - French version: Virgine Mery; Cedric Dumond; Marc Moro; Stéphane Godin; Jean-Louis Faure, Enrico di Giovanni; Danielle Hazan; Michel Barbey; Christian Fisher; Hubert Drac; Bruno Dubernat.