Diamon Stealth 2 S220 Game Sampler

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SODA Off-Road Racing Demo (BETA 1.03) README 09/16/97 _______________________________________________________________________ [ To read this file, select Edit/Word Wrap from the menu above ] TO ORDER: Please call Sierra On-line sales support at 1-800-757-7707 _______________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS I] MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS II] HOW TO START SODA III] HOW TO PLAY SODA IV] KNOWN PROBLEMS I] MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS ======================================================================= MINIMUM CONFIGURATION - Operating System: Windows 95 - Pentium 90 Mhz processor (P-90) or faster - 16 MB RAM - Double speed CD-ROM drive (MPC 2 Compliant) - 16-bit Sound Card (Windows 95 and DirectX3 Compatible) - VLB/PCI SVGA DirectX3 Compatible Graphics Adapter - Hard Disk (50MB) plus space for DirectX Drivers - Keyboard (not recommended for driving... get a joystick!) RECOMMENDED CONFIGURATION - Pentium 133 Mhz processor (P-133) or faster - Rendition based 3D-accelerator board with 4 MB video RAM - 24 MB System RAM - Steering Wheel/Pedals (or at least a joystick) II] HOW TO START SODA ======================================================================= DEMO Notes ---------- This is a DEMO version of SODA Off-Road Racing. The DEMO version differs from the full version as follows: - The DEMO is a BETA version (an unfinished version), and will be put on CD-ROM several weeks before the final shipping version of the game is scheduled to be completed. - Championship Series Mode is disabled. - All Multi-player modes are disabled (IPX, TCP/IP, MODEM, SERIAL) . - Records (such as best lap times) are disabled. - The 2x4 and 4x4 trucks are disabled. - 11 of the 12 tracks are disabled. - 2 of the 3 racing environments are disabled. - Damage is disabled. - The replay system is disabled. - The World Wide Ranking System is omitted. - The ability to generate a track is disabled in the Track Designer, but you can still create a track and save its source. INSTALLATION ------------ Insert the CD-ROM containing SODA Off-Road Racing into your computer's CD-ROM drive. Start the installation process as follows: 1. Click the "Start" button on the Windows 95 task bar. 2. Choose "Run..." from the displayed menu. 3. Type the letter of your CD-ROM drive, followed by ":\demos\soda\setup". For example, if your CD-ROM is drive D, type "D:\demos\soda\setup". 4. Click the "OK" button to start the installation program. Follow the instructions provided by the installation program. RENDITION SUPPORT ----------------- This version of SODA Off-Road Racing has direct support for Rendition 3D-Accelerator boards. The Stealth II S220 drivers from Diamond Multimedia Systems will work with SODA Off-Road Racing. SODA will auto-detect the accelerator board once the correct drivers are installed. When the Stealth II S220 driver is detected "Rendition Ready" logo appears on the title screen, to let you know the game is running using 3D acceleration. To disable 3D-Accelerator support in SODA, run OFFROAD.EXE with the /S command line option. If the "Rendition Ready" logo does not appear on the title screen, SODA is not using any 3D acceleration support. III] HOW TO PLAY SODA ======================================================================= STARTING THE GAME ----------------- First, close all other applications running on your system. Windows 95 is a multi-tasking environment, and running other applications while playing SODA Off-Road Racing will definitely reduce performance. Two icons are installed for launching SODA Off-Road Racing, one for Full-Screen Mode and the other for Windowed Mode. Full-Screen Mode is recommended because it supports 3D-Acceleration, it exhibits a better frame-rate on many systems, and it is more immersive. The Windowed Mode (/W on the command line) is mainly provided to allow the game to run on some systems where Full-Screen Mode cannot work due to incompatibilities with the video card. If a compatible 3D-accelerator board is detected, SODA will display the Rendition Ready logo while starting to let you know it will use the accelerator board. If a compatible board is not detected, the logo will not be displayed. If problems are encountered when using a certain 3D-Accelerator board, the use of the acceleration features can be disabled by launching offroad.exe with the /S option on the command line. SCREEN NAVIGATION ----------------- Most menu, options, and record screens can be controlled by keyboard, mouse, joystick, or even steering wheel/pedals. Only a few name entry controls require the use of a keyboard. The following table describes the control options: Action Keyboard Joystick Mouse -----------------------------------------------------------------------| |Selecting | Tab key advances Button #2 Point | |Controls | to the next advances to and | | | control. the next control. click. | | | | |Selecting | Up/Down arrow keys. up/down | |Menu Items | Enter to select. Button #1 to select. Point | | | and | | | click | | | | |Buttons | Use the Spacebar Button #1 to Point | | | to activate the activate the and | | | selected button. selected button. click. | | | | |Lists | Up/Down Arrow keys up/down or left/right Point | | | for vertical lists. and | | | Left/Right Arrow click. | | | keys for horizontal | | | lists. | -----------------------------------------------------------------------| The mouse is recommended. Also, on many screens, two shortcuts are available - the Esc key will go to the previous screen (cancelling changes), and Enter key will advance to the next screen (applying changes). JOYSTICK, STEERING WHEEL, AND PEDALS SETUP ----------------------------------------- NOTE: You must first configure your controller in the joystick portion of the Windows 95 control panel before it will be available in the game. But, the joystick calibration available from within the Windows 95 Control-Panel is not recognized by SODA Off-Road Racing. You need to use the calibration procedure described below once the joystick has been properly configured. Before proceeding, and certainly before racing, you want to calibrate your controls. All analog input devices such as joysticks, steering wheels, and pedals need to be calibrated in order to work correctly with computer games. An incorrectly calibrated joystick may make it difficult or impossible to control your vehicle. This calibration procedure should be repeated regularly (at least once a week), especially if any control difficulties arise. At start-up, if the game detects that the joystick is too far from center, it will automatically bring you to the calibration screen, so you can perform the necessary recalibration. To calibrate your joystick, steering wheel, and/or pedals from the Main Menu Screen: 1. Select Options from the Main Menu Screen. 2. The Options Screen has a list of 4 pages along the bottom. Select the Control Options page. 3. On the Control Options Screen, push the Calibrate button. 4. Slowly move all of the connected joysticks, steering wheels, and pedals to their maximum extents, then center them (for pedals this means release the brake and accelerator). If you move the controls too quickly while calibrating it may result in a bad calibration, requiring the entire process to be repeated, so just be gentle. 5. If you are sure the calibration worked, push the OK button. However, we recommend that you instead push the Test button, and manually inspect the calibration, just to be sure. On the Test Screen you can actually see if your joystick is working and calibrated correctly. If you are satisfied with the calibration you can choose the OK button. If you wish to repeat the calibration, simply choose to Restart the calibration procedure. The Test Screen will also reveal any joystick malfunctions, such as the inability to return to center reliably or jumpy performance caused by wear and use. Both of these conditions can make it harder to drive. We recommend using high quality joysticks such as those listed in the installation instructions. CONTROL SETUP ------------- From the Control Options Screen you may configure the controls you want to use to drive and to change the camera view. Simply press the button for the desired action, and then provide an example input. For example, to use the joystick as the accelerator pedal, push the Accelerate button, and then push forward on the joystick. The words Joystick #1 Up should appear next to the Accelerate button, confirming your selection. If a control is already selected for another action, it cannot be reselected. Also, some keys cannot be used for driving actions because they are already assigned for other (non-driving) commands, or because they are not standard keys available on all keyboards. QUICK START ----------- Before your first race, at least make sure you have calibrated your joystick, steering wheel, and/or pedals, as described in the previous sections. Then, proceed as follows: 1. Select the Single Races command from the Main Menu. This mode is for racing one race at a time, and is good for practicing racing before trying to win a championship series. 2. Selecting Single Races will bring up the Vehicle Select screen. The Vehicle Select screen is where you choose which type of vehicle you want to race. Select the two-wheel drive buggy. 3. After clicking on the buggy, click the right arrow button on the lower left of the screen. This is called the Next Button, and advances you one screen closer to racing. This takes you to the Track Select Screen. This is where you select the racing environment and then the race track. Along the bottom of the screen, select the Tropics environment. Then, along the top left of the screen, select the track "Tropic Treat" . 4. After selecting the track, enter the Garage to make sure your vehicle is setup for the race. Enter the garage by pressing the Wrench Button on the bottom left of the Track Select Screen. Once in the garage, set the tires to "Deep Tread" or maybe "Normal Tread" because Tropic Treat has a lot of mud. Then set the transmission as you desire (Automatic or Manual), but at first we suggest using an automatic transmission because it is simpler to control. Don't bother adjusting the suspension or gearing for now... you might want to experiment with these settings after you master driving. 5. Choose the OK Button (the button with a green check), to return to the Track Select screen. Then choose the Next button to actually start the race. DRIVING CONTROLS ---------------- The controls for driving the vehicle are configured in the Control Options screen. The defaults are as follows: Up Shift - Joytick Button 1 Down Shift - Joystick Button 2 Accelerate - Joystick forward Brake - Joystick backward Turn Left - Joystick Left Turn Right - Joystick Right Change View - Spacebar When the race first starts, your vehicle is in neutral gear. Even when driving an automatic transmission, you still need to up-shift (once) in order to get into drive. Once in drive, the transmission will automatically change gears for you. If you get stuck and need to go into reverse, you need to down-shift twice. The first down-shift will put you back in neutral, the second will get you into reverse. COCKPIT CONTROLS ---------------- To PAUSE the game while racing, press either the "P" KEY or the "Esc" KEY. This will bring up the paused menu. From the paused menu you can do the following: Continue the race. Enter the garage to make changes to your vehicles setup. Terminate the race and return to the track select screen. Other commands that are available while racing are as follows: "1" Key - Change the ground graphics detail. "2" Key - Change the road graphics detail. "3" Key - Change the vehicle graphics detail. "4" Key - Change the trackside object graphics detail. "5" Key - Change the sky graphics detail. "6" Key - Turn on/off all telemetry "7" Key - Turn on/off the map. "8" Key - Change the shadow graphics detail. "9" Key - Turn on/off the rear-view mirror. "0" Key - Turn on/off replay controls in the replay system. "R" Key - Ride with the next opponent. "T" Key - Return to your vehicle. "Z" Key - Move the camera forward (in some camera views). "X" Key - Move the camera backward (in some camera views). "C" Key - Move the camera upward (in some camera views). "V" Key - Move the camera downward (in some camera views). "B" Key - Move the camera left (in some camera views). "N" Key - Move the camera right (in some camera views). "A" Key - roll the camera (in some camera views). "S" Key - roll the camera (in some camera views). "D" Key - yaw the camera (in some camera views). "F" Key - yaw the camera (in some camera views). "G" Key - pitch the camera (in some camera views). "H" Key - pitch the camera (in some camera views). "K" Key - restore camera attitude (in some camera views). SETUP TIPS ---------- g-Force Analyzer: The g-Force analyzer shows you how much traction your vehicle is getting. Before you suspect that SODA's handling is too slippery, check out the values on this tool. A late model Corvette on pavement can corner at 0.84 g's, a very respectable figure. A Trans-Am race car reportedly produced 1.15 g's in skid-pad testing. The vehicles in SODA are cornering at or above these values, and they are racing on dirt and mud, not pavement. So if the corners still seem too slippery, you are probably driving too fast around the turns, and applying too much horse power, causing the backend to lose all lateral traction. When turning, letting off the brake and gas will allow all four tires to attain their maximum lateral traction. The g-Force analyzer is a tool for making setup changes to your vehicle. The analyzer shows the overall instananeous acceleration affecting the vehicle's body in the forward/backward and left/right directions. The number in the middle is how many g's (or earth gravitys) that the vehicle is feeling. The goal of setting up your vehicle is to maximize that value when accelerating, braking, and turning. To use the g-Force analyzer, turn it on in the garage. Then race a few laps normally, without really paying any attention to it at all. After racing a few laps, enter the replay system, and notice the average values obtained while going around various turns (possibly you want to write these values down), and on various racing surfaces. For choosing tires, it may be enough just to lock up the brakes on a straight away and note the value. Be aware however, that different road surfaces on the same track will produce different tractions and drags for different tires. Next, enter the garage and tweak a setting, such as your tire type. For best results just try adjusting one setting at a time. Repeat the above procedure of racing a few laps, then entering the replay system to check the g-force analyzer results. By comparing the results of the various trials, it should be possible for you to determine if the setup changes improved, degraded, or had no impact on the vehicle's handling. Also, you should record your lap times for each trial, as the lap time is actually more important to you than how many g's you can get in the corners. Also, be aware that the best setup in terms of g-Force, may not be best for damage control. When setting up your vehicle you need to compromise between handling and preventing damage. For instance, setting your springs soft may lower the vehicle's center-of-gravity, and provide better traction, but it may also cause the suspension to bottom out on bumps and jumps, bending or breaking suspension components. The g-Force analyzer can also help you analyze your driving technique. When entering and exiting turns, the arrow indicating the direction of force should smoothly rotate around the circle. If it jerks from the forward to the side, or from the side to the back of the circle, then your turning technique may not be optimal. Also, the value in the circle should stay as large as possible all of the time. To get best lap times, your vehicle should always be under large accelerations, either accelerating towards the next turn, braking before turning, or cornering during a turn. To win races the vehicle should never just be coasting near zero g's except when flying through the air. The primary way to tell if setup changes are helping or hurting is to race several laps until your lap times stabilize at your best ability. Then change one setup item, and repeat the procedure. Changing multiple items at once is not recommended because they may cancel each other out, or make it impossible to determine what really made the difference to the handling. Also, in the garage you can load/save your setups to disk. This is handy for creating optimal setups for each track which can then be loaded during series racing or multi-player races. Horsepower: The horsepower setting allows you to adjust your vehicle's power. It would seem that setting this value to the maximum would be the best thing to do, but this is definitely not the case. In some of the actual SODA racing classes there are rules about how much the vehicle must weigh per cubic inch of engine (such as 10 lbs/cubic inch). Many racers use less horsepower than the maximum because they feel that the reduced vehicle weight gives them more of an advantage than some extra horsepower. In SODA Off-Road Racing, increasing the horsepower also increases the weight of the vehicle. The extra weight may mean that you cannot take some corners as quickly, and it may also slightly reduce the acceleration and braking of the vehicle - you will not be able to get as many g's of traction. Weight reduction is not the only reason to reduce the horsepower. If you set your power too high it may be excessively difficult to keep control of the vehicle. When you have more power than traction, the effect is that the drive wheels easily "break loose" and spin, actually providing less acceleration then if they were gripping the road. This wheel spin can be used to help slide the backend around turns (called throttle steer), but can also cause lots of spin-outs. On twisty tracks, it is almost certainly better to reduce the horsepower from the maximum in order to achieve the best control and cornering power. On the other hand, for tracks with long straight-aways, the extra power can really help the vehicle reach top speed quickly, greatly improving lap times. When first learning to drive, especially with the trucks, it is a good idea to drastically reduce the horsepower. This will help you keep control of the vehicle while learning the controls and the tracks. Transmission: SODA Off-Road Racing allows you to select between an automatic or manual transmission. The automatic transmission is easier to use because you only have to manually shift between reverse, neutral, and first gears. Once you get into first gear, the transmission will automatically shift between all of the drive gears to keep the engine's RPM within the desired range. When using a manual transmission you must manually shift between first, second, third, and fourth gears. The manual transmission has an advantage over the automatic transmission because it allows you to choose when to shift gears. The automatic transmission, while easier to drive, does not have the intelligence required to always shift at the optimum shift points, reducing the vehicle's acceleration from the maximum that might otherwise be obtained. Tire Selection: The following information may help you choose tires for each track and racing environment. The numbers below are relative, and are not in any specific units. The road surfaces in the country are dirt and mud. In the desert, they are gravel and packed dirt, and in the tropics are mud and packed dirt. Typically, in each enviroment, there is a trade-off between two tread types depending on the amount of each of the two road surfaces on the track. As a general rule, in the country normal is good unless there is a lot of mud. In the desert, shallow is good, unless the track is nearly all gravel. In the tropics, shallow is good, unless there is a lot of mud. Also the wear on the surfaces off the road (not shown) are a lot higher than the road itself - spinning your tires on grass will quickly slice open your tires on an invisible sharp rock and cause a flat. Also the drags off the road (not shown) are quite high to help prevent racers from taking too many "short-cuts". DEEP TREAD NORMAL TREAD SHALLOW TREAD SURFACE Traction Drag Wear Traction Drag Wear Traction Drag Wear ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIRT 73 8 13 82 6 11 77 2 9 MUD 80 25 11 74 50 7 70 65 5 GRAVEL 75 20 11 79 15 7 73 10 19 PACKED DIRT 72 8 15 73 04 7 80 2 11 To reduce tire wear: 1. Avoid spinning your wheels too much. 2. Don't run with excessive wheel camber. 3. Don't push it too hard in the corners. 4. Don't hit bumps and jumps at top speed. Camber: A wheel's camber is the angle that the wheel is tilted. If the wheel is tilted in at the top, then the wheel has negative camber. If the wheel is titled out at the top, then the wheel has positive camber. A wheel's camber has two main effects, tire wear and camber thrust. If a tire is not perpendicular to the ground it will not wear evenly, so large camber angles will cause a tire to wear out more quickly. Camber thrust is the lateral force produced when a tire is run with a non-zero camber, and is in the direction of the tilt. A negative camber can therefore help a vehicle corner at higher speed, because the camber thrust will be larger in the direction that the car is turning due to weight transfer while cornering. For wide street radials, the camber forces tend to fall off at about 5 degrees. For rounded motorcycle tires, the force can be useful up to 50 degrees. For off-road racing trucks, the best angle is probably somewhere between these two, but closer to the street radials. A vehicle's camber should be set to maximize cornering force as reported by the g-force analyzer, but should be reduced if necessary to lessen wheel and tire damage caused by jumps, bumps, and normal tread wear. Also be aware that the camber angle on the outside tires increases slightly in the positive direction when cornering, because the vehicle's body (and wheels) roll to the outside of the turn during cornering. Springs: The springs are used to keep the tires in contact with a bumpy road as much as possible. If the springs are set too soft the suspension will "bottom out" when landing from jumps and when hitting bumps, causing damage to the suspension and wheels. If the springs are set too stiff, the vehicle's traction will suffer, and in this game the vehicle's center of gravity will be raised, causing less traction in turns, and making the vehicle easier to roll. Generally, the springs should be set as soft as possible for the best handling and traction. SODA Off-Road Racing, like many Off-Road racing teams, relies on variable rate springs, which means that the spring rate increases as the spring is compressed. This allows the vehicle to ride near the middle of the suspension travel at normal loads, while still being able to handle very large loads without bottoming out under extreme conditions. Setting the rear shocks/springs stiffer or softer than the front shocks/springs can adjust the vehicle's oversteer/understeer to a limited extent, but it cannot overcome the oversteer cause by too much accelerator pedal. If suffering from severe oversteer, try reducing the vehicle's horse power before trying to fix it by adjusting the springs. Shocks: The shocks are used to dampen the springs. Without shocks, off-road vehicles would bounce around on their springs like crazy, and be nearly impossible to drive. In off-road races, shocks also help absorb the force from landing from large jumps or from hitting large bumps. If the shocks are set too soft, the springs will bottom-out too easily causing suspension and wheel damage. If the shocks are set too stiff, the shocks themselves will absorb too much impact and take damage. Try to balance the settings of the shocks and springs so that the shocks and suspension take about equal damage when landing from large jumps, and set both the shocks and springs only as stiff as absolutely necessary to make it through the race with acceptable damage to the suspension. Weight Distribution: The Weight Distribution setting allows you to slightly move the vehicle's Center of Gravity (C.G.) forward (positive values) or backward (negative values). Moving the C.G. can slightly affect the vehicle's handling. Moving the C.G. towards the rear of the vehicle may improve acceleration because the rear wheels will have more traction due to the increased load, helping deliver the power to the road. At the same time, it will reduce the load on the front wheels, reducing their traction, which may lessen the cornering forces at the front of the vehicle. Moving the C.G. can also slightly affect how the vehicle takes jumps, but probably not as much as adjusting the shocks and springs. Configuring for an equal load (or as close as allowed by the vehicle's design) between the front and rear of the vehicle will provide optimal cornering power, but not necessarily optimal handling. If the front or the rear has a higher share of the load, the cornering forces will be reduced due to an effect called "tire load sensitivity". The tires of a vehicle produce the most total traction when they all share an equal portion of the total load. Whenever the load is transferred disproportionately to the various tires, the maximum traction of the vehicle is reduced. Gearing: The gearing can make a huge impact on lap times. When gears are set too tall the vehicle has too large of a top speed, and its acceleration suffers. Conversely, if set too small, the acceleration may be too large, causing the wheels to break lose too easily, and the engine will redline in 4th gear. Generally, set the 4th gear over the top speed you expect to use on the track. For twisty tracks you probably want more acceleration and less top speed, so you would set 4th gear lower. For tracks with lots of long straight-aways, you probably want a higher top speed. If you are redlining the engine in fourth gear without wheel spin, you should probably set 4th gear higher. After setting fourth gear, run some laps and determine how 3rd gear should be set to maximize lap times. 1st and 2nd gears are much less important than 3rd and 4th gears, and are rarely used while racing. When adjusting gears you must insure enough overlap in the speed ranges of each gear so that the automatic transmission can shift. For instance, if the automatic transmission is not shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear (even when redlined), then 3rd gear is probably too large. Overlapping the gears is important for the manual transmission too, but will not prevent shifting even if setup incorrectly. Steering Lock: The steering lock setting allows you to adjust how many degrees your front wheels turn when you turn the steering wheel as far as it will go to the right or the left. Reducing the steering lock will give you more precise steering control but will also reduce how far you can turn the wheels. In off-road racing, a large steering lock is necessary to help you recover from slides and spins. However, on some tracks (or with some joysticks) it may be desirable to slightly reduce the steering lock for better control on the straight-aways. For most types of tires, the maximum cornering forces are achieved with less than twelve degrees of steering angle. Also, because tires produce cornering forces at right angles to the direction the wheel is pointing, turning the wheels very sharply will cause a large rearward drag force, drastically slowing the vehicle. Turning the wheels past the optimum steering angle actually gives you less cornering force and increases drag - a double whammy. Remember, turning the vehicle with the minimum required steering angle will help you maintain momentum through turns and will also help you keep better control of your vehicle. DRIVING TIPS ------------ As in the real thing, many of the vehicles in SODA Off-Road Racing are over-powered. If you experience difficulty driving, try the following: - Reduce your vehicles horse-power in the garage to the minimum. - Turn into the slide. If your backend slides to the right, turn right. - Be very gentle with the accelerator. You only need to push the accelerator very lightly to match the power from a "floored" accelerator of a normal car. - Test your calibration from the calibration screen and make sure your input device is calibrated and working. A bad calibration can make it impossible to control the amount of torque delivered to the rear wheels. - At first just try to drive 30 or 40 MPH until you master the track and vehicle. driving with 800 HP is much more challenging than driving a normal passenger vehicle. - Always down-shift to first gear when starting from a stop. If you try to get going in third or fourth gear it is difficult not to spin out again. - Try not to accelerate or brake much while turning. Acceleration and braking reduce the available traction for cornering. - Make sure you have the appropriate tires for the track. Using mud tires on gravel, or gravel tires on mud will cause the vehicle to have less cornering ability, and may make the road seem excessively slippery. Also, choosing the wrong tire in mud can dramatically increase drag. - Try not to lock the brakes up when slowing down. Be gentle with the joystick. When the wheels are locked up, all ability to steer the vehicle is lost. Sometimes, if you brake too hard, quickly tapping the accelerator can get the tires back up to speed, and help you to regain control. - If the vehicle starts to get too sideways, immediately stop accelerating, and try down-shifting or lightly tapping the brakes. This sometimes helps get the vehicle back under control. Acclerating when starting to slide will usually cause the backend to "break loose" even more, insuring you completely spin-out! - Reduce graphics detail to get the best frame-rate that your system can provide. When the graphics performance is slow or "jumpy" it makes it harder to drive. You want the animation to be as smooth as possible. Series Races: Compete in the 12-race off-road Championship Series. In Series Races you start out in Class 1, racing against novice drivers. When you finish the season in first place, you have earned the right to upgrade your vehicle and advance to the next racing class. The vehicle upgrades include: frame, tires, suspension, engine, and wheels. There are six racing classes to master -- and you will be an off-road racing master when you are the season champion in Class 6. Series Tracks: After selecting the career from Active Careers on the Championship Series screen, the next track in the series is displayed. In series racing the order of the tracks is already determined. Perfect your setup in Practice before each race. No Turning Back After the Checkered Flag: As in real off-road racing, once the checkered flag is waving there is no turning back! Be sure to take a few warm-up laps in Practice Mode. There is no restart feature in Series Races. When you cancel a series race it is considered to be a DNF (Did Not Finish) condition, and the results of that race are generated in accelerated time. Multi-Player Racing: SODA Off-Road Racing provides multi-player support for several different communication methods, including LAN, modem, and direct serial connections. In all modes, one player first creates a new multi-player session. Other players can then join the existing session. The player that creates the session is called the "host" and has special privileges for controlling the session, such as choosing tracks, and starting and ending races. Multi-Player Requirements ╖ Network: IPX or TCP/IP compatible network for 2-6 players. ╖ Modem: Windows 95 compatible modem, 14,400 bps or faster, for 2 players. ╖ Serial: Serial cable with a null modem, for 2 players. Creating a Session: One player creates a session (the host), other players may then join. Typically, the player with the best performing PC should be the host because the host system has special responsibilities and performs extra tasks during the session. Using a poorly performing PC as the host can degrade game play for all of the players in the session. To create a new multi-player session, click on "Multi-Player" from the Main Menu. The Select Medium screen appears. Usually, only communication mediums that are actually available on your PC will appear. For instance, if you do not have IPX installed, the IPX LAN mode may not appear as a selection. Choose the desired communication medium, then click on the "Create Session" button. The Create Session screen appears. On the Create Session screen, select the desired vehicle type for the session, provide a name for the session (that the other players see when joining), and provide a player name. After completing these entries, click on the Checkmark button to finish the creation process. For the LAN based modes the session is now created, and the host is placed into the Multi-Player Chat screen. For modem and serial connections, a connection must first be accepted before proceeding to the Multi-Player Chat screen. Accepting a Modem Connection 1. The Select Modem dialog box appears. Select the desired modem (14,400 bps or faster required). 2. Click on the "Config" button, which brings up the Windows 95 properties sheet for your selected modem. 3. The properties sheet may vary for different modems, but the options you should set relate to error control and flow control. For some modems these check boxes can be accessed by switching to the "Connection" tab of the Properties sheet, and then clicking on the "Advanced..." button. Turn off error control and flow control. 4. Keep clicking on the "OK" buttons until the modem's Property sheet goes away, and you return to the Select Modem dialog box. 5. Click on the Checkmark button and a message box appears with the message "waiting for call...". When the remote player calls your modem, it should automatically answer and take you to the Multi-Player Chat screen. Accepting a Serial Connection 1. The Select Port dialog box appears. Select the desired communication port that is connected to the remote system (requires a serial cable with a null modem). 2. Click on the Checkmark button. This should immediately take you to the Multi-Player Chat screen, where you can wait for the other player to join. Joining a Session: After a session has been created by the host of the session, other players may join the session. To join an existing multi-player session, click on "Multi-Player" from the Main Menu. The Select Medium screen appears. Usually, only communication mediums that are actually available on your PC will appear. For instance, if you do not have IPX installed, the IPX LAN mode may not appear as a selection. Choose the desired communication medium, then click on the "Join Session" button. Joining a TCP/IP Session After pressing the "Join Session" button, a Windows 95 dialog box appears asking you to supply the computer name or IP address of the host that created the session. Over a LAN, the game will sometimes be able to find the host even if you leave the name blank. But if this does not work, or if playing over a Wide Area Network (WAN) with sub-nets and routers, it will be necessary to enter the computer's hostname or IP address. Click on the "OK" button. Once any sessions are located, the Select Session screen will appear, allowing you to choose the multi-player session you wish to join from a list of the available sessions on your LAN. Select the desired session and enter your player name. Click on the Checkmark button to join the session. This takes you to the Multi-Player Chat screen. Joining an IPX Session When you press the "Join Session" button, your computer will search the local network for any sessions. It will not search across routers, so if you are really playing over a Wide Area Network with routers and sub-nets, you will need to use TCP/IP instead of IPX. If any available sessions are located on your LAN, the Select Sessions screen appears. Select the desired session and enter your player name. Click on the Checkmark button to join the session. This takes you to the Multi-Player Chat screen. Joining a Modem Session 1. When joining a Modem Session, the Dial Modem Session dialog box appears. Select the desired modem from the list of available modems (14,400 bps or faster is required). 2. Click on the "Config" button, which brings up the Windows 95 properties sheet for your selected modem. 3. The Properties sheet may vary for different modems, but the options you should set relate to error control and flow control. For some modems these check boxes can be accessed by switching to the "Connection" tab of the Properties sheet, and then clicking on the "Advanced..." button. Turn off error control and flow control. 4. Keep clicking on the "OK" buttons until the modem's Property sheet goes away and the Select Modem dialog box appears. 5. Enter the phone number to dial into the "Opponent's Phone Number." If the opponent is already listed in your phone book, or if you wish to add the opponent to the phone book, click on the "Phone book" button at this time. Add the opponent to the available choices or select from one already present. Click on the Checkmark button to select the desired opponent from the Phone Book dialog box. 6. Fill in your player name on the Dial Modem Session dialog box. 7. Click on the Checkmark button to dial the host's system. After the modems successfully connect, both players will be taken to the Multi-Player Chat screen. NOTE: When entering phone numbers the following special characters can be used to control how the number is dialed: ╖ "!" Indicates that a hookflash (one-half second onhook, followed by one-half second offhook before continuing) is to be inserted in the dial string. ╖ "P" Indicates that pulse dialing is to be used for the digits following it. ╖ "T" Indicates that tone (DTMF) dialing is to be used for the digits following it. ╖ "," Indicates that dialing is to be paused. Multiple commas can be used to provide longer pauses. ╖ "W" Indicates that dialing should proceed only after a dial tone has been detected. ╖ "@" Indicates that dialing is to "wait for quiet answer" before dialing the remainder of the dialable address. This means to wait for at least one ringback tone followed by several seconds of silence. ╖ "$" Indicates that dialing the billing information is to wait for a "billing signal" (such as a credit card prompt tone). Joining a Serial Session 1. When joining a Serial Session, the Connect Over Communication Port dialog box appears. Select the communication port that is connected to the remote system (requires a serial cable with a null modem). 2. Enter your player name. 3. Click on the Checkmark button to join the session. The Multi-Player Chat screen appears. The Multi-Player Chat Screen The Multi-Player Chat screen is the first screen you see after creating or joining a multi-player session. Players can send messages to the other joined players by typing a message into the send box and then pressing enter. At the top of the screen is a list of all players that are currently joined in the session. Once a race has ended, the position column displays the finishing positions for each player that participated in the race. When new players join, this field may sometimes be set to a dash until they have participated in a race. When the host (or master) of the multi-player session is satisfied with the list of joined players, the host can start the next race by clicking on the Checkmark button. Players that have joined the race must wait until the master decides to start the next race. When the next race is started all players go to the Multi-Player Select Track screen simultaneously. When the race is over for a player, the player returns to the Multi-Player Chat screen to wait for the next race to begin. If a race is still in progress, a TV Camera view of the current race will appear in the upper-right corner of the screen. Clicking on the Vehicle button makes the TV Camera switch to a different vehicle that is still racing. Multi-Player Races When the host decides to start the next race all players switch to the Multi-Player Select Track screen. For all joined players the screen is in a read-only mode, only the host may select the track. As the host switches to various tracks, the track screen also updates on all of the remote player's systems. When the host clicks on the Checkmark button, all player's systems load the selected track and then display the Race Start Menu. The Race Start Menu gives each player an opportunity to enter the garage and make changes to their vehicle's setup before entering the race. A countdown timer appears showing how much time remains before the race starts. Click on the "Garage" menu pane to enter the garage to make setup changes to your vehicle. One strategy for this screen is to already have your setups ready to go and saved to disk, then you can simply (and quickly) load the desired setup for the current track. Once your vehicle is correctly set up for the race, exit the garage and click on the "Enter Race" menu pane. This causes your vehicle to be registered and present in the race. Once all players have entered the race, or if the countdown timer reaches zero, the race will begin. Players who have not yet entered the race when the countdown timer reaches zero will be left behind at the starting line, but they can still enter he race. When the host finishes the race and returns to the Multi-Player Chat screen, the host can click on the "End Race" button to prematurely end the race. This button starts a count-down timer to end the race, visible to all players that are still racing. The race ends and all players are returned to the chat screen when this count-down timer reaches zero, or whenever the race ends for all of the participating players. If a player joins a session while a race is already in progress, the new player will remain at the Multi-Player Chat screen until the current race ends and the next race begins. Solving Modem Problems To use a modem for a multi-player connection, you need to make sure that error control and flow control are disabled. These settings can usually be found in the modem properties. Go to the Control Panel, then Modems. Select your modem and choose Properties. Select the "Connection" tab and click on the "Advanced" button. Turn off the check-boxes for flow control and error correction. The game will only work properly with a 14.4 Kbps or better connection, 9600 baud is not supported. If you have problems connecting or playing, you may be able to solve the problem by checking "record a log file" option on the same modem properties dialog where you turn off error correction and flow control. The log file is written into your windows directory into a file named "modemlog.txt". In this log you can see all of the modem initialization strings and any responses from the modem, including the connection speed. One common problem is that some high-speed modems can end up connecting at a low speed due to incompatibilities with each other. For instance, two 28.8 kbps modems sometimes negotiate a connection of only 9600 bps. This type of problem can be detected by turning on the modem log file option and then looking at the modemlog.txt file. The actual connect speed is usually reported in this file. FRAME RATE TIPS --------------- Any or all of following suggestions can help improve the game's frame rate on many PCs: - Turn off the rear-view mirror. The track map overlay may be more useful anyway, and has a negligable impact on frame rate. - Turn off translucency in the graphics detail settings (for shadows, etc.) - Lower graphics detail settings. Just turning off the texture mapped sky can make a large difference on some PCs. - Race with fewer opponent vehicles. Each car consists of over 500 polygons. - Do not race in cockpit view. Bumper-Cam has the best performance because most of your car does not appear in the view, reducing the number if polygons that need to be rendered each frame. - Race in the lower resolution 320x200 mode instead of the maximum 640x480 mode. SCREEN SHOTS and <Alt> Key -------------------------- Hitting the <Alt> key will cause the game to freeze (during game-play and screen-play). To unfreeze the game, hit <Alt> again. This is standard Windows95 behavior for an application and allows for several <Alt> sequences: <Alt-F4> Terminate the application <Alt-Tab> Switch between running applications <Alt-PrtScr> Copy a screen-shot to the Windows95 clipboard. Hitting <Alt> or <Alt-Tab> while racing pauses the simulation so that play may resume when the application is reactivated. Windows 95 also allows you to capture the contents of the current window by hitting <Alt+PrtScr> keys. This copies the window to the clipboard. You can then open Paint (from the Windows95 accessories folder) and paste the picture you captured. Then you can save the picture as a bitmap. Normally, you need to have your display settings set to 256 color for this to work correctly. However, when using a Rendition board, you need to have your display settings set to 16-bit color (High Color) for this to capture the colors correctly (it also produces a larger bitmap file - but it looks better than the 256 color version). PAGE FAULTS ----------- On systems with less than 32 MB of RAM, the system may sometimes page fault. The main symptom of this is the disk drive running while racing, or short pauses while racing, where the system locks up for a fraction of a second. This is due to the options you have selected requiring too much memory. The following tips can help solve the problem: - Make sure no other applications are running. - Reduce the replay system capacity to 2 minutes, or turn it off in the options. (Saves up to 1MB of RAM). - Turn off the radio voice (Saves 2MB of RAM) in the options. This especially improves multi-player races on 16MB systems and track load time. - Turn off damage in the options. This keeps the body panels from having to load into memory. - Race with fewer opponents. Fewer car textures and car body objects need to be loaded into memory. - Reduce the graphics detail. The textures will swap out of system memory and the page faults (if any) will quickly subside. IV] KNOWN PROBLEMS ======================================================================= Low-Res mode (320x240) does not work correctly on some video cards. The symptom is the game running in the upper-left corner of the screen, instead of the display actually switching to the proper resolution. This problem has mainly been reported on some Matrox Mystique and some Matrox Millennium video cards. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SIERRA ON-LINE, INC. DOES NOT WARRANTY OR PROMISE THAT THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL WORK WITH ANY OR ALL COMPUTER SYSTEMS. SIERRA DOES NOT ASSUME ANY LIABILITY, EITHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL, FOR THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN, INCLUDING ANY AND ALL DAMAGE TO OR LOST USE OF COMPUTER HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, LOSS OF WARRANTIES, OR LOST DATA BY THE CUSTOMER OR ANY THIRD PARTY. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY SIERRA, ITS EMPLOYEES, DISTRIBUTORS, DEALER OR AGENTS SHALL CHANGE THE RESTRICTION OF LIABILITY OR CREATE ANY NEW WARRANTIES. IN NO CASE SHALL SIERRA'S LIABILITY EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE OF THE SIERRA SOFTWARE PRODUCT. SOFTWARE ALLIES, INC. DOES NOT WARRANTY OR PROMISE THAT THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL WORK WITH ANY OR ALL COMPUTER SYSTEMS. SOFTWARE ALLIES DOES NOT ASSUME ANY LIABILITY, EITHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL, FOR THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN, INCLUDING ANY AND ALL DAMAGE TO OR LOST USE OF COMPUTER HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, LOSS OF WARRANTIES, OR LOST DATA BY THE CUSTOMER OR ANY THIRD PARTY. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY SOFTWARE ALLIES, ITS EMPLOYEES, DISTRIBUTORS, DEALER OR AGENTS SHALL CHANGE THE RESTRICTION OF LIABILITY OR CREATE ANY NEW WARRANTIES. IN NO CASE SHALL SOFTWARE ALLIES'S LIABILITY EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE OF THE SIERRA SOFTWARE PRODUCT.