Diamon Stealth 2 S220 Game Sampler

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Diamon Stealth 2 S220 Game Sampler / Diamon Stealth 2 S220 Game Sampler.iso / Terademo / TERACIDE / README.TXT < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1997-07-24 | 18.0 KB | 444 lines

Terracide - Internet Demo Version (c) 1997 Eidos Interactive. Produced by Simis Developments. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [INTRODUCTION] Welcome to this special downloadable demo of Terracide. This demo contains a complete single-player level taken from the Carrier ship. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [INSTALLATION] This Terracide demo will only run under Windows 95. To properly install and run this demo, you must run the 'setup.exe' program in the 'Terademo' folder. Once you have run setup, you can delete the Terademo folder from your hard drive. If you have problems running the demo, after completing the setup program, make sure you have the very latest drivers for your 3D card, and the latest version of Direct X (v3.0a). See the Technical Help section of this file for additional information. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [BACKGROUND] After the mass exodus from Earth to form the galaxy-wide Terran Colonies of the New Age, the little bluish-green planet which was the source of all human life, began to be ignored. The colonists, seeking out new homes in planets undreamed of by those left behind, made their bases in strange, beautiful, but unforgiving worlds. The harsh winds and extreme temperatures of these planets altered and mutated them. They were forced to use machines to enhance their senses, purely to survive. Now these colonists are returning home, to reclaim their birthright. But they have changed. Speeding through the solar system towards Earth is a flotilla of spaceships, harboring deadly crews of robots, mutated humans and semi-alien lifeforms. Their brute force is too much for the massed Terran forces; only a single, one-man ship could hope to slip through their scanners and infiltrate their craft to destroy them from within. That craft is yours. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [KEY CONTROLS] Up Arrow dive Down Arrow climb Left Arrow turn left Right Arrow turn right (a mouse or joystick can be used to control the ship as well) A accelerate Z reverse/decelerate D roll Q fire main weapon (centrally mounted) C fire 2nd weapon (right mounted) X fire 3rd weapon (left mounted) F flare (unlimited, but uses lots of energy) E detonate (guided missiles only) Space strafe (hold down and press Left, Right, Up or Down) Delete strafe left Page Down strafe right Home strafe up End strafe down (or POV hat on joystick to strafe) Alt pause/bring up window menu 1-7 weapon select (press same key to cycle through all weapons in group) Shift + 1-7 select 2nd weapon (right mounted) Ctrl + 1-7 select 3rd weapon (left mounted) 0 remove weapon TAB + Space/POV look around G zoom in V external camera view W waypoint I score info / on keypad life panel on/off (shield/munitions/charge) * on keypad weapons panel on/off - on keypad auto leveling on/off + on keypad auto pitching on/off You can reconfigure these keys within the game. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [HUD INFORMATION] On the HUD you can find the following: Munitions Indicator - Munitions are the actual amount of ammo you have; all of the weapons use a shared munitions store. More powerful guns use more munitions, and need to be kept stocked up by picking up munitions crates. You start with no munitions and a maximum of one bar on the HUD. If you manage to get the pickup to increase maximum munitions, you can get up to 3 bars worth of maximum munitions. Shield indicator - The state of your ship's hull, which is decreased by enemy fire, radiation and electricity, and restored with armor pickups. The shield indicator starts off green (full strength), and the skull's head slowly turns red, then black. Once entirely black, you're toast. Your maximum shields can be increased by finding the right pickup. This pickup will display plus signs on either side of the skull's head and slow down the color change on the skull. Charge indicator - The amount of power left in your firing mechanism. This is drained each time you fire a weapon or flare, and gradually recharges to full power again. Firing large amounts of rapid fire projectiles will stop you from firing repeatedly, as the charge struggles to regenerate. On the HUD, the charge indicator starts with one full bar of charge. The photon weapons use charge alone, all other weapons use munitions to fire. Weapon type indicators - Displays which of the 21 weapons you have acquired (only a small taste of the full variety of weapons are included in this demo). Each of the icons for weapon types has 3 lights above it, corresponding to the normal, rapid-fire, and scatter-fire versions of the guns. If the light is off, you do not have the corresponding gun. If the light is red, you have the gun but it is not currently mounted. If the light is green, the gun is mounted on the central gun mounting. Conversely, if the light is shaped like a left or right arrow, the gun is mounted on the left or right gun mount. Pickup indicator - Appears when your ship is close to a pickup. The indicator is made up of two sets of concentric circles, which display the relative location of the pickup. When your ship is close enough, the pickup will begin beaming aboard your ship. The left-hand bar shows the time left until the pickup is successfully grabbed, and the right-hand bar shows the time until the pickup explodes. External force indicator - Appears on screen when your ship is being affected by wind or gravity. Compass - This is a 3-dimensional heading cube, which indicates the direction you're facing. (N)orth, (S)outh, (E)ast, (W)est, (U)p and (D)own. Waypoints - If you find yourself unsure of where you're going, you can drop a waypoint. This is a small object which will stay in place no matter where you go, so you can tell if you've previously been in an area when you return there. The waypoint emits a sound to alert you when you are close to one. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [PICKUPS] Pickups are spinning objects which appear after destroying enemies and can also be found around the levels. They may be weapons, munitions, armor, extra mounts or powerups to increase your maximum capabilities. When your ship is close to a pickup, the proximity radar will show you its exact location. Hover close to it and the pickup will be teleported inside your ship. Pickups explode a few seconds after being released by enemies, so get to them quickly, or you'll miss out. The following pickups are available in the game: Weapons Additional weapons. Armor Repairs damage caused to your ship. Munitions Munitions are required to fire non-photon guns. Weapon Mounts Enables 2nd and 3rd weapons to be mounted to the ship. You start the game with a single, central gun mount. Two more can be added to the left and right, allowing you to fire 3 weapons at once. You can select a specific weapon for each mount. Plus-ups These will increase the maximum values for one of the following: Charge, Munitions, Shield. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [NEWS] For the latest news about upcoming product releases, game hints, free demos and more, be sure to check out the Eidos Interactive web site: www.eidosinteractive.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [ENDPIECE] Thanks for checking out this demo. The full retail version includes: 20 levels spread across seven ships including a huge space station 21 different weapons Graphics that push your 3D card to the limit Scorching CD Soundtrack Full network play with up to 16 players And much much more... Yours, The "Terracide" Team. (c)1997 Eidos Interactive ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Terracide Technical Help ------------------------ While Terracide is designed to run as simply and easily as possible, the wealth of new options afforded by new 3D accelerators and MMX chips means configuring the game to run best on your system can be a little complex. DirectX Installation ------------------------ When you first install Terracide, it gives you the option to install DirectX. This is Microsoft's system which ensures Terracide will run on all machines, whether unaccelerated, MMX accelerated, or 3D accelerated, and you should install this version of DirectX (V3.0a) over any earlier versions you have on your machine. If you install another game or application, and Terracide then fails to load correctly or becomes unstable, this could be because an earlier version of DirectX has been installed, either with or without your permission. Please reinstall the version of DirectX and try again. For the MMX version of Terracide, it is important to remember to install the MMX option when installing DirectX. NB - due to an unfortunate bug in DirectX, it appears that you can install the MMX option on DirectX3.0a by _not_ ticking the MMX option when it becomes available to you. DirectX Troubleshooting ------------------------------- If, when you first try to run Terracide, you find an error message saying "unable to initialise DirectX", or you find that your graphics card is running incorrectly (glitching, excessive slowdown..), then it's strongly suggested that you contact your hardware manufacturer or use the Internet to download the latest drivers for your graphics card. You should find the latest links to working drivers via the Terracide website at: http://www.eidosinteractive.com/terracide/terracide.html First-time graphics settings ---------------------------- When you first run Terracide, if you have a 3D accelerator card and Terracide can detect it, then Terracide will enquire whether to attempt to use this or run in non-accelerated mode. If you have an MMX chip, Terracide will initially start up unaccelerated, and you can change to the MMX version by going to the graphics configuration menu and picking the MMX option. The initial resolution for the unaccelerated version of Terracide is 512x384 with black bordering (alterable with the - and + keys.). If this is not possible (because your graphics card cannot display this resolution full-screen) then Terracide will start at 640x480 with black bordering. The 3D accelerated version of Terracide will start at a resolution of 640x480 with all of the rendering and filtering capabilities enabled, although this may depend on specific 3D card capabilities. Any of the initial options can be changed during the game, by using the graphics configuration menu. These options will then be saved on exit and used in future games of Terracide, so you will only have to configure your options once! If at any stage a configuration is obtained that does not work properly, and cannot be rectified using the configuration option, then deletion of the "Teracide.cfg" file from your Windows directory will ensure that Terracide starts with its initial settings the next time it is run. Important --------- On a minority of graphics cards, the actual cards themselves refuse to support less than a resolution of 640x480. Obviously, this is a problem because Terracide won't run in conventional lower resolutions such as 320x200. The way to get round this is to run Terracide windowed, but with the window expanded to fullscreen. You can do this by doing the following: 1. Making sure your desktop size is reasonably small (preferably 640x480) and that the desktop is running in the same colour depth as you want the game to run in (eg, if you want Terracide to run windowed 16bit, you must have your desktop 16bit too.) 2. Run up Terracide and change the tickbox to run windowed - you should now have the option to run Terracide at lower resolutions. 3. Click on one of these resolutions to bring up Terracide windowed, and then hit the maximize button on the Window. If you then find Terracide running extremely slowly, there is a very easy fix for this - just enter the graphics configuration menu and switch the game from using system memory to video memory, or vice versa. Increased speed using bordering ------------------------------- Pressing the '-' button will reduce the rendered screen within the window. Pressing '+' will then increase the screen again. Changes occur in 1/8ths of the window size and the minimum width is 1/8th of the window size. This is particularly applicable if you have a graphics card which is unable to run below a certain resolution and you want Terracide to run faster. NB: The best alternative way to gain an increase in frame rate is by changing the full HUD to the minimal detail HUD in the Options menu. Terracide Graphics Configuration Dialog --------------------------------------- The graphics configuration dialog is accessed through the Game menu, Graphics Configuration option. This dialog is used to control the detail levels deciding how fast and with how much detail the game runs. The configuration options are grouped into six options, click on a tab to select the page of options associated with it. The tabs available are: Screen Includes resolution, colours and software/3D card options. Texture Controls various detailed texturing options. Advanced Filtering Options controlling bi-linear filtering (smoothness). Details Controls levels of detail of explosions and similar features. When you have changed the options required, click on OK to apply them. Most will come into effect immediately. Clicking CANCEL will resume without any changes. We should emphasise that, in the majority of cases, Terracide will tart with the correct configuration. But if you wish, you can reconfigure any part of Terracide to allow faster or more efficient running. A conventional user should only have to use the Screen and possibly the Details dialogs, but the more technically minded can play with any of the more complex drawing features on Terracide. Screen ------ This is the most important dialog, and allows you to switch resolutions and color usage. When you first run Terracide, you should go to this dialog to decide which resolution is best for your machine. Driver Allows you to switch between unaccelerated, MMX, hardware modes and the native drivers. Fullscreen Controls whether the game runs fullscreen or in a window. Video Modes Lists the resolutions available to run Terracide in. The lower the resolution, the faster Terracide will run. Higher resolutions may require you to select a lower texture detail level from the Texture menu. Colour Detail Options for amount of colours being used in the game when running Terracide unaccelerated - hi-colour is recommended. Texture ------- This is a detailed dialog dealing with texturing - generally this should only be needed for the more technically-minded user. Listed below are the most important options. Texture Detail Decrease the texture detail to medium or low if your graphics card has a limited amount of memory on it. This option may also be required if running at high screen resolutions. Gouraud Shading Light levels are shaded smoothly when enabled - turning this off may lose visual quality but increase speed somewhat. Filtering Smoothes textures when they are close to the viewer - turning this off may speed things up. This should be turned off for the unaccelerated version. Dithering Improves colour resolution when smooth light shading is enabled - turning both this and gouraud shading off may increase frame rate significantly. Video memory/ When playing the unaccelerated version of Terracide, system memory objects can be drawn directly to the video memory on the graphics card, or to normal system memory. Using video memory is generally faster, especially when running in a window which has been maximised, but on some graphics cards system memory may be faster. Therefore, it's worth testing both. Details ------- Explosions This defaults to minimal - on faster machines increase the detail for a spectacular time! Particles With this you can toggle the coloured nature or the existence of particles given off by the rocket and your ship's engines. Brightness This governs how bright your screen is, and defaults to medium brightness. Intro video Here you can toggle whether the intro video runs or not. Advanced Filtering ------------------------ The magnification option is for when the objects get closer to the viewer. Linear filtering smoothes the distortion which would normally occur when this happens, whereas the nearest option is standard for the non-accelerated versions and is much faster, but doesn't smooth. The minification option is for when the objects move further away. A variety of different schemes are available for improving visual quality when this happens. Mip options are generally worth the small speed cost. The linear options improve image quality, but at some cost. Texturing Dialog - Advanced Options ----------------------------------- Texture On Allows all textures to be switched on and off - not used for speed optimization. Perspective Stops inaccuracies, turning this off will speed Correction Terracide up marginally. Sub-Pix Improves accuracy, very marginal increase in speed if Correction toggled off. Anti-Aliasing Some cards can draw much smoother lines and points when this is enabled. Mip-Map Prevents pixelation when objects are not close to the viewer.