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Deadlock: Planetary Conquest HELPME file for Full Domestic version 1.20 Thanks for playing Deadlock and reading this file! This contains some common technical problems and solutions for Deadlock. GET THE PATCH! -------------- No matter what kind of problem you are having with Deadlock, there's a good chance it's been fixed in the patch! A patch is a new version of the program which you can get for free from Accolade. You download the new version and use it to replace the version that was previously installed on your hard drive. Poof, your problems can disappear, and you can get some nifty new features as well! The fastest way to get a Deadlock patch is from the World Wide Web. You can get Deadlock support and patches on the Accolade Web site at http://www.accolade.com. You also may find patches on any of the many Web sites of game magazines and game review sites. If your Web search does not work out, you can also call Accolade customer service for other ways to get the patch. Once you get the patch, the first thing you should do is read any file included with it called README. It's also a good idea, once you get a patch, to keep it someplace safe on your hard drive or on a floppy disk. If you ever re-install Deadlock, you should find and reapply the patch afterwards. TECHNICAL SUPPORT-- WHO TO CALL FIRST? -------------------------------------- You are always welcome to call Accolade's customer support line no matter what your problem. However, if you are having trouble with any Internet, network, or modem services you may be using, you will save yourself time if you contact these other customer service technicians first. You can also look for your problem in the Frequently Asked Questions section below to see who you are recommended to call. Accolade's Technical Support: Accolade provides help by telephone Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM Pacific Standard Time. Call 1-408-296-8400 to reach a live technician or FAX us at 1-408-246-0231. Here also is our postal address: Customer Service Accolade, Inc. 5300 Stevens Creek Blvd. Suite 500 San Jose, CA 95129 You may also contact us through your modem at the following online services: America Online: Industry Connection, keyword: Accolade CompuServe: Game Publishers' A Forum, GO GAMAPUB Internet: techelp@accolade.com WWW: http://www.accolade.com Modem Problems: If you have trouble getting your modem to connect to another modem, you may have to consult your modem's manual or customer service technicians through the telephone or the Web. Internet Problems: If you have any problems getting your Internet connection to start up, it would be best for you to call your Internet service provider. If you are using the free Earthlink sign-up software included with Deadlock, you can call them at 1-800-395-8410. This number will be answered 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can also contact Earthlink through email at support@earthlink.net and through the Web at http://www.earthlink.net. (Here's a free hint-- unless you are calling from Southern California, make sure the characters ELN/ appear before your username when you log in. For example: ELN/matthewf or ELN/bethw) TEN's Technical Support: The TEN game service can be reached by telephone at 1-800-8040- TEN. You may also contact them through the Web at http://www.ten.net, or send any email to technicalsupport@ten.net. TEN's technicians are available from 10 AM to 9 PM seven days a week. They will also help you with any general Internet problems too! Mplayer's Technical Support: Mpath can help you by telephone Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 12 AM (Midnight) and Saturday, Sunday, and all holidays from 9 AM to 12 AM (Midnight). Call 1-408-342-8844. They can also be contacted through your modem at support@mplayer.com and through the World Wide Web at http://www.mplayer.com. They will also help you with general Internet problems too! Video and Sound Card Problems: If you find that your hardware does not work properly with Win32s (such as video display problems or sound failures), you will need to contact your video/audio card manufacturer for an updated driver that works with Win32s. Contact their customer service through the telephone or the Web. Here are some Frequently Asked Questions and their answers. --------------------------------------------------- INSTALLATION: Q: Why isn't the Deadlock installation working? A: You may not have enough room on your hard drive to install Deadlock. This game takes between 22 to 37 megabytes of space to install. First remove any programs you do not use and try reinstalling the game. Windows 3.1 users also must install Win32s or Deadlock will not work properly. This program comes with your Deadlock software, so please be sure you let Win32s install onto your system during Deadlock's installation. Q: Deadlock is installed, but I can't find it! Where is it? A: Windows 3.1 and Windows '95 have programs which can help you find the game. Windows 3.1 users should use File Manager. This program will show you everything that is on your computer. Deadlock should be (unless you changed the directory's name when you were installing) at C:\Programf\Accolade\Deadlock. Windows '95 users can find Deadlock using Windows Explorer. Once you are in Explorer search for the following directory (unless you changed its name during installation) C:\Program Files\Accolade\Deadlock. Q: I have Windows 3.1. Since Deadlock installed this "Win32s" thing, my whole computer system has been acting weird. What do I do? A: There are several different versions of Win32s made by Microsoft; Accolade has given you the most recent version. Some applications that once worked with your older Win32s program may not run as well now. If you are having problems using other applications, you may want to contact the company that developed this older software to get their latest version. Hopefully they will have developed a patch that will let your application run with this new Win32s version. DURING GAMEPLAY: Q: The opening movie's sound stutters and the image breaks up. How can I improve it? A: If you use Windows '95, you can adjust the memory of your system to play the opening movie. First, click on your Start button. Next choose Settings and then Control Panel. Now select System. In the System dialog box choose the Performance tab. In this Performance tab section, choose File System. Once you are in this box, choose your CD-ROM tab. This tab brings up a box that lets you adjust the Supplemental cache size, so change it from small to large. The movie should now run better. Please note, however, that your CD-ROM and/or processor may not be fast enough to run the large version of the opening movie. Deadlock comes with a smaller version that will play on most systems. Change to this smaller version of the movies by first starting a Deadlock game. Under your FILE Menu select Personal Settings. Unselect "Use Large Cinematics" and the smaller movies will play. Q: The game crashed! I haven't been saving my game! What can I do? A: Deadlock automatically saves the game every turn! Restart Deadlock and choose Load Game. Scroll through your list of saved games until you find autosav.sav. Load this file and your game will be restored! Please note that this will not restore multiplayer games, but if you do wish to restart a multiplayer game, you can continue with the computer taking the place of your human opponents. Q: The game seems awfully slow to respond. How can I speed it up? A: When Deadlock is running on its minimum memory requirments (8 MB of RAM), the game can often slow down. You can free up more memory by changing a few settings. Go to Personal Settings under your FILE Menu. Set the graphics to no detail; this will make it faster for you to see the settlement view. Next under the MAP Menu choose the Top Down World command. This makes it easier to see the planet map. Also you can save more memory by holding down your <Shift> key while Windows is loading. This prevents the programs in your StartUp folder from launching. Q: My hard drive is continually running. What can I do to stop it from doing this? A: If you are using Windows 3.1 Deadlock may continually access your hard drive. You stop this by either shutting off or adjusting your SmartDrive program. Exit Windows. At your DOS prompt type EDIT AUTOEXEC.BAT <Enter>. Next scroll through this file until you see the command line for SmartDrive. If you want to keep SmartDrive on, you can change the command line slightly to free up memory. At the end of your command line change its cache size by typing 512 512. (Be sure to put a space between the two numbers) This will free up more memory for Deadlock. You can also temporarily disable SmartDrive by typing the command REM in front of this line. Here are some examples of these command lines: C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE 512 512 or REM C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE Q: My videos and music sometimes stop playing in the middle of the game. How do I start them again? A: Occasionally Deadlock cannot find a video or sound file due to random CD-ROM errors. There is nothing wrong, as this problem occurs on all CD-ROM drives from time to time. When this happens the program automatically shuts off your video or sound. Turn these features back on by going to Personal Settings under your FILE Menu. Select these features again and gameplay will resume as normal. MULTIPLAYER/NETWORKING Q: We want to play Deadlock on a LAN. How do we use NetBIOS? A: You turn on NetBIOS differently if you are using Windows 3.1 or Windows '95. Windows 3.1 users must turn on NETBIOS in DOS before starting Windows -- but after logging onto your LAN. At your C: prompt, change to your Deadlock directory. Type NETBIOS and press <Enter>. You should receive confirmation that this program has been started successfully. Windows '95 users turn on NETBIOS from the Start menu. From this Start menu, go to Settings and then Control Panel. Double-click Network. You will see a list of network protocols available on your machine. Click on any line in the network components list that has the world "protocol" in it. In the resulting box, look for a "NetBIOS" tab. If there is no tab, close this box and look on the network components list for another item with "protocol" in it, and repeat this process. If you find a NetBIOS tab, click it and check the box that says "I want to enable NetBIOS". Close all boxes, restart your computer, and start the network game. Q: We are trying to play Deadlock on a LAN. Some of us have a blank "Join Game" box, even though we know there's a Deadlock game to join. Why can't we see the game to join? A: Be sure to wait at least sixty seconds in the Join Game screen. The new game may eventually come up. If after sixty seconds the game does not appear, press Cancel. Next select the Join Game box again, the game's name may reappear. If this still does not work, you may want to try hosting the game on a different computer. You may also want to contact your LAN system administrator to make sure your computer is properly connected to the network. Q: We are playing Deadlock on a LAN. Mid-game, some of us are told we have disconnected, but we didnÆt do anything. What's wrong? A: It is best to play Deadlock when there is less network traffic. If you are playing during a network's prime working hours it may cause the game to disconnect. Also Deadlock works better when the computers you are playing on are about the same speed. Connecting Pentium and 486 processors can sometimes cause disconnection problems. Q: My friend and I are trying to play Deadlock by modem or direct connect. Why isn't it working? A: To improve modem play right now, read the modem.txt for more specific help. You should also get the Deadlock patch. We are constantly improving our network and modem code for Deadlock and will have a better version available soon. You can download our latest patch at our Web site or contact Customer Service to have it sent to you through postal mail. Q: I want to play Deadlock on the Internet using Mplayer or TEN. How can I get it to work? A: Mplayer and TEN will only work in Windows '95 systems for now. If you are using Windows '95, you will first need an Internet provider. Both Mplayer and TEN have Internet providers you can use when you sign up for these services. Deadlock also comes with Earthlink Network software which lets you access the Internet as well. Earthlink Network offer you a very competitive price and a free trial period. Open the Earthlink icon in your Deadlock folder to join this Internet provider. Q: I want to play Deadlock on the Internet using a free service. How can I do this? A: There are a number of programs you can use to play LAN games over the Internet. However, most of the programs that we have seen depend on the game being played in DOS and also using IPX. Deadlock is a Windows game that uses NETBIOS. (We are using NetBIOS so that Windows3.1 and Windows95 machines can connect through the LAN.) If such a program comes out that works with Deadlock, go for it! Otherwise, consider using Mplayer or TEN. These are paid services, but offer a reliable, fast, populated, and fun way to play multiplayer Deadlock. APPENDIX: GENERAL ISSUES ------------------------ MEMORY ISSUES Deadlock will try to tell you if there is not enough memory available to play the size of world you have chosen. If there is just barely enough memory, Deadlock may warn you that though you can play, it might be slowed down. If you bypass this warning, you will notice lots of hard drive activity while you play. This is because Windows is using "virtual memory" on your hard drive to make up for the lack of RAM. There are a few ways to avoid both of these warnings and make available more RAM. Booting Windows 3.1 and Windows '95 "Clean" As Windows starts up hold down <Shift> until it is done loading onto your system. This prevents the programs in your StartUp folder from launching. This may save you some memory. Adjusting SmartDrive (Windows 3.1 users only) If you are using Windows 3.1, you probably are using "SmartDrive". Try setting this program to use less memory than usual or even shut it off completely. Do this by exiting Windows. At your DOS prompt type EDIT AUTOEXEC.BAT <Enter>. Next scroll through this file until you see the command line for SmartDrive. If you want to keep SmartDrive on, you can change the command line slightly to free up memory. At the end of your command line change its cache size by typing 512 512. (Be sure to put a space between the two numbers) This will free up more memory for Deadlock. You can also temporarily disable SmartDrive by typing the command REM in front of this line. Here are some examples of these command lines: C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE 512 512 or REM C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE Changing Your Screen's Resolution Deadlock will need less memory if you set your screen resolution to be 640 by 480. You usually do this by adjusting your "Display" item in your Windows control panel. Every computer's configuration is different, so how to do this varies depending upon your system. To be safe, contact your computer's manufacturer to find out how to change your screen resolution. MODEM/DIRECT CONNECT ISSUES --------------------------- Please consult the document MODEM.TXT, which should be right next to this README document on your hard drive or CD. RUNNING EMM386 WITH DEADLOCK (WINDOWS 3.1 USERS ONLY) ------------------------------- It is recommended that you shut off EMM386 before playing Deadlock. This game does not need EMM386 and so often can cause the game to crash. Shut off EMM386 by first exiting Windows. At your C: prompt type EDIT CONFIG.SYS. <Enter>. Look for the EMM386 command line. Type REM in front of this command line and EMM386 will be temporarily shut off. REM DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE WARNING: Shutting off this program may cause other applications not to run! If you experience any problems with other programs, remove REM from this command line.