GameStar 1998 May

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============================================================================= G-Police Demo v1.19.2 Psygnosis Ltd. (c) Psygnosis Ltd. All rights reserved. ============================================================================= * Instructions/Troubleshooting Info * ============================================================================= AGP Enhanced Version Requires: Processor: Intel (R) Pentium(R) II, AGP Graphics Accelerator OS: Windows 95 RAM: 32 Megs Hard Drive: 2 Megs CD ROM: 4X or better Controller: Keyboard, Joystick(optional), SideWinder Force Feed Back Pro Joystick, SideWinder game pad Standard Version Requires: Processor: Intel (R) Pentium (R), (Graphics Accelerator Recommended, not required) OS: Windows 95 RAM: 16 Megs Hard Drive: 2 Megs CD ROM: 4X or better Controller: Keyboard, Standard Joystick, SideWinder Force Feed Back Pro Joystick, SideWinder game pad (optional) Starting G-Police -------------------------- Insert the G-Police CD into your CD ROM Drive. If Windows 95 is configured to use the autorun feature, G-Police will automatically start its autorun program and present you with Installation and gameplay options. If your computer is not configured to take advantage of the Windows 95 autorun feature, skip this section and begin and the section titled "Installation". If G-Police is not installed on your computer, you will be presented with the option to install G-Police on your computer. To select this option, position your mouse pointer over the install icon and click the left mouse button to select it. If you have previously installed G-Police, the following options will be displayed: Play: Selecting this will start the game. Install: Select this option to reinstall G-Police. Uninstall: Selecting this option will remove G-Police from your hard drive. Installation ------------ To start the installation process, select "Install" from the autorun menu that appears when you insert the CD into the CD ROM drive, or follow these instructions to start the installation program. 1. Insert the G-Police CD into the CD ROM drive 2. Click on the "Start" button located on your desktop. 3. Select "Play" from the Start menu. 4. Type in "D:\autorun.exe" (without the quotes) then click on "OK". Note: replace "D" with the drive letter of you CD ROM drive if it is different than "D". When the Installation program begins, you will be prompted to confirm that you would like to install G-Police. Click "Yes" to continue with the installation, or click "No" to Exit. Follow the instructions given to complete the installation process. Direct X Setup Notes -------------------- G-Police requires that DirectX 5 is installed on your computer. If you do not have DirectX installed, the installation program will optionally install it for you after G-Police has been installed. If you haven't got DirectX5 or you are not sure which version you have, choose to install it. If you know that you already have DirectX 5 installed, you may skip this option. NOTE: IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU INSTALL DIRECTX 5 ON YOUR COMPUTER TO RUN G-Police. Starting G-Police ----------------- G-Police will initially start with a dialog box allowing you to select the type of rendering. If you have a 3D accelerator, G-Police will automatically select this in preference to the software renderer. However, if the card is too slow, or for some reason G-Police will not run on that card, you may select the 8Bit software renderer, although the graphical quality will be reduced. If you have two or more hardware accelerators installed, you should be able to select the accelerator used in the pulldown menu box to the right of the hardware selector. This will default to the second device. The Hi-Res Movies selector will be enabled if you have a PC with Intel's MMX(TM) technology. However movies displayed in this resolution may be too slow on slower machines or video cards. This box will allow you to disable the feature and watch the movies in a lower resolution but at a higher frame rate. Saving the game --------------- After successfully completing or failing a mission, you are debriefed, then you go to the following screen: Continue Save Mission Training Options Main Menu If you choose the Save Mission option, you will be able to save at the point after your last successfully completed mission. Choose one of the 15 save slots, give the save a description, and confirm the save. Changing the Sound Setup ------------------------ When in the front-end, you can change your sound configuration by choosing the Options button, then choosing the Sound Setup button. In the Sound Setup menu, you will see the following options and possible settings: music on/off music volume low-high sfx volume low-high reverb on/off sample rate 11.025kHz/22.050kHz sound mode mono/stereo/Q-Sound/Dolby Music: You can turn the music on or off. Music volume: You can increase or decrease the music volume. Sfx volume: You can increase or decrease the sound effects volume. (explosions, engine noise, radio chat etc.) Reverb: You can turn the reverberation effect on or off (an echo effect). Sample rate: You can change the sample rate between 11.025kHz and 22.050kHz. 11.025kHz will result in slightly poorer quality sound effects than 22.050kHz. Sound mode: You can change between mono, stereo, Q-Sound, and Dolby. If you do not have the appropriate sound card or speaker combination though, you may not get the desired effect. Changing the Graphics Setup --------------------------- When in the front-end, you can change your graphics setup by choosing the Options button, then choosing the Graphics Setup button. In the Graphics Setup menu, you will see the following options and possible settings: *Filtering on/off Haze on/off Traffic Density low/medium/high View Depth v near/near/mid/far/v far Gamma Correction -4.....-1/normal/+1.....+10 *Anti-Aliasing on/off Lensflare on/off Animated Textures low/normal/*high/*extreme Screen Resolution (All Resolutions supported by GP and your graphics card) *Some options may not be available depending on the capabilities of your graphics card Filtering: Filtering is an effect where the textures are smoothed and blurred to stop them pixellating. This can be turned on or off. Haze: Haze is the smog effect in the GP domes. This can be turned on or off to try to increase or decrease framerate. Traffic Density: The traffic density can be either low, medium, or high. The higher the traffic density, the more affect it has on framerate. View Depth: Closer view depth results in a quicker framerate, but may make dog-fighting slightly tougher. Gamma Correction: Gamma correction is a way changing the brightness of the displayed graphics. Positive numbers increase the brightness, and negative numbers decease it. Anti-Aliasing: Anti-Aliasing is another effect that smoothes textures, edges of objects, and joins between polygons in objects. Lensflare: Lensflare on certain explosions and missiles can be turned on or off. Animated Textures: Animated textures can be switched between low and normal. If you have a graphics card with AGP facility, you will also have a high and possibly an extreme option. This affects the number of frames for he advertisement boards in the cities. High and extreme settings will have movies on the advertisement boards, and enhanced explosions. Screen Resolution: You can change the screen resolution at which GP is played. The lower resolutions will result in faster framerates, but will make the display less detailed. Control Setup ------------- Default Controls: Key Mappings Joystick Pitch down *UP FWD on stick Pitch up *DOWN BK on stick Left *LEFT LEFT on stick Right *RIGHT RIGHT on stick Fire Weapon LEFT CTRL FIRE 1 Increase thrust RIGHT SHIFT FIRE 8 Decrease thrust RIGHT CTRL FIRE 7 Air brake LEFT ALT LEFT ALT Scan C FIRE 4 Hover up S FIRE 3 Hover down X FIRE 2 Change view SPACE SPACE Weapon select up A FIRE 6 Weapon select down Z FIRE 5 Pause Menu ESC ESC (including map) *Cursor keys General Hint ------------ If you ever lose track of your mission objectives, either follow the waypoint indicator (red arrow on edge of radar), or check your current mission objectives in the map screen. ============================================================================= Known Problems and Solutions ============================================================================= Graphics issues --------------- It is very important to remember that G-Police requires the latest manufacturers drivers for video accelerator cards. If you do experience problems of a graphical nature, it is strongly suggested you contact the video accelerator card manufacture and, if need be, update your drivers. G-Police includes a Graphics Setup menu. If you are experiencing problems with frame rate, try adjusting the settings in the Graphics Setup menu. Occasionally you may experience some graphic corruption with some cards, this can often be fixed by pressing ALT-TAB to switch from G-Police back into Windows and then pressing ALT-TAB again back to G-Police. This will force the graphics to be reloaded, but will return you to exactly the same place in the game. This may also fix some problems with the sound or Force Feedback joysticks. 3Dfx Specific problems ---------------------- Audio glitches when using 3Dfx based cards. If you experience stuttering sounds and speech when playing G-Police on a 3Dfx based 3D card, it may be because of a feature of the 3Dfx drivers. This should be fixed in a later version of the drivers, but at the time of writing the problem can be reduced by instructing the 3Dfx to not sync to the vertical refresh. This may be possible in the Display Properties dialog, depending on your drivers, or with a 3rd party utility, or by adding the following lines to your WIN.INI file, found in \WINDOWS\WIN.INI . [3dfx] SST_SWAP_EN_WAIT_ON_VSYNC=0 FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=0 This addition will prevent the 3Dfx card from waiting for the vsync each frame. It has the side effect of causing some graphical 'tearing' in the image. The problem may also be reduced by changing to the 512x384 screen resolution. Windows System problems ------------------------ After multiple entries and exits to G-Police within a single win95 boot session, G-Police sometimes slows down. This is apparently due to windows system resources becoming fragmented. A reboot of your system will solve this. Some problems have been experienced when using multiple input devices to move around the menus. e.g. using the joystick and keyboard combined. This can manifest itself as a menu not appearing to work, e.g. save game not saving names properly, graphics options not allowing you to change the values etc. This appears to be caused by the input system generating extra data. These problems can be solved by using the mouse instead of the joystick or keyboard when a menu appears to be behaving badly. Controller Problems ------------------- Ensure that your current joystick device has been properly calibrated in windows. If you don't do this the joystick probably won't work correctly. The Microsoft Sidewinder pad has an illuminated mode button. This has no effect in G-Police, therefore toggling it serves no purpose. If it is toggled it can cause G-Police to pause and occasionally hang. In some cases a perfectly centered Analogue joystick can be mistaken for a digital joystick by the system. This will make the joystick hyper sensitive. To get around this, move the joystick to the side slightly as the game boots up. If joysticks are changed between games, you will need to re-enter the control setup menu and re-select joystick in order for the new joystick to be detected correctly. Sound Quality and the Sidewinder Force Feedback Joystick -------------------------------------------------------- The performance of the force feedback device may be seriously degraded and or device disconnection may occur if audio quality is extremely high. To be on the safe side if using this device, try setting the audio quality to 11 Khz and mono. This may also help some occasional pauses when using the sidewinder force feedback device. ============================================================================= Contacting Psygnosis ============================================================================= For information about updates, add-ons, and new products, visit Psygnosis on the World Wide Web! Just point your browser to: http://www.psygnosis.com ============================================================================= Credits ============================================================================= Original Concept Neil Duffield Script Angus Fieldhouse Steve Hill Simon Gardner Ross Thody Neil Duffield Lead Programmer Neil Duffield Programmers Andrew Crowley Mario D'Onofrio Tony Marshall Andy McCabe Dominic Robinson Kim Watson Gavin Whitlock Lead Artist Trevor Slater 3D Artists Claire Cooper Steve Hill Theo Pantazi John Reitze Iain Thody Front End Design Iain Thody Lead FMV Artist Angus Fieldhouse FMV Artists Euan Leckie Trevor Slater Character Design and Modelling Angus Fieldhouse Music and SFX Pug Level Design Ross Thody Game Play Coordinators Jim 'Mac' McPhail Edward Persey Ross Thody Stuart Wheeler Produced by Ross Thody Graham Davis Alpha Production Assistance Pete Woods Voice Casting Phil Morris Voice Over Artists Nicole Arumagum Harriet Wootliff Colin McFarlane Brad Lavelle Laurel Lefkow Mac Macdonald Bill Dufris Gary Parker Manual Editor Damon Fairclough Manual and Packaging Design Richard Turner Head of QA Kevin Turner Product Manager David Dyett Project Manager Simon Shilleto Head Artist Angus Fieldhouse Head of Software Engineering Dominic Robinson Programming Manager Graeme Williams Art Manager Carlos Ulloa Head Producer Graham Davis Studio Manager Simon Gardner Technical Support Jeff Young Dave Collins Lead Testers Dean Ashley Wayne Smith Guideline Tester Mark Halsall Junior Testers Barclay Christmas Graham Sergeant Michael Aspinall Phillip Freeman Sean Stephen Special thanks to Rik Ede Mike Cox Jonathon Fargher Nick Bolton and Julian Morris at Oxford Metrics The Blue team for being fragged frequently and gibbed gracelessly Kevin Ayre Jacquie Govier Andy Yelland Creative and Marketing Graham Oakes Mark Blewitt Glen O'Connell Dawn Hickman Liz Sumner Karen Amor Vanessa Wood Louise Bailey Kyra Rixon Louise Thomas Mike White Everyone else at the Stroud office and Psygnosis world wide ============================================================================= Psygnosis, Limited The Wheelhouse, Bonds Mill Estate, Stonehouse Gloucester GL10 3RG United Kingdom ============================================================================= ============================================================================= Psygnosis Ltd. (c) Psygnosis Ltd. All rights reserved.