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-
- SODA Off-Road Racing Demo (BETA 1.01)
- README
- 08/20/97
-
- _______________________________________________________________________
- [ 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 computerÆs
- 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 ":\sodademo\setup".
- For example, if your CD-ROM is drive D, type "D:\sodademo\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
- several Rendition 3D-Accelerator boards. Note that SODA requires
- the 2.0 series of display drivers. A temporary set of drivers is
- included on the SODA CD, but you may need to get your vendorÆs
- 2.0 display drivers. The following boards are supported:
-
- - ScreaminÆ 3D from Sierra On-Line
- - Intense 3D 100 from Intergraph
- - Total 3D from Canopus
- - 3D Blaster PCI from Creative Labs
- - Royal Flush from Miro
-
- SODA will auto-detect the accelerator board once the correct drivers
- are installed. When one of the above boards is detected, a
- "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.
-
- To install the Rendition display drivers from the SODA CD:
-
- 1. Click the Start button on the task bar, and choose Settings then
- Control Panel.
-
- 2. From the Control Panel select Display.
-
- 3. From the Settings tab push the Change Display Type button.
-
- 4. Under Adapter Type press Change.
-
- 5. Press the Have Disk button
-
- 6. Enter the drive letter of the CD-ROM, followed by "\rendition",
- then Choose OK.
-
- 7. Select the Rendition Verite 1000 PCI RRedline drivers,
- and push the OK button.
-
- 8. From the Change Display Type dialog push the Close button. From
- the Display Properties dialog push the Close button. Select Yes
- when asked to restart the computer.
-
-
-
- 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. DonÆt 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. We slightly exageratted the traction to increase playability.
-
- 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.
-
-
- 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.
-
-
- 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.
-
-
-
- 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.
-
-
- 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.
-
-
-
- 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.
-
-
-
- IV] KNOWN PROBLEMS
- =======================================================================
-
- 1. Low-Res mode (320x200) 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.
-
- 2. The computer controlled cars can sometimes get stuck at a bluff, and
- not find their way back onto the road. This happens less often than
- it did in previous versions, however.
-
- 3. The difficulty levels of championship series have not yet been fine-tuned.
- Some levels/vehicles may seem too difficult or easy.
-
- 4, Some polygons comprising the track, usually along the road, do not
- draw. The problem is severe on some tracks, and non-existent on others.
-
- 5. Sometimes the radio voice will repeatedly announce that you have missed
- a checkpoint, when it should only say it once or twice. Sometimes it does
- not announce that you're back on track when you hit the checkpoint that you
- previously missed.
-
- 6. The radio voice has spoken while the AI is learning a track. It should
- be silent during learning.
-
- 7. Damage is not fully implemented yet. Some collisions may seem to cause too
- much damage while others seem far too gentle. Tire damage, wheel damage,
- and shock damage have been tuned for normal racing and jumping, but not for
- collisions with tire barriers, walls, other cars, etc.
-
- 8. The replay system can crash the game when a lot of splicing is done
- in one replay session.
-
- 9. Adding control points to fences, puddles, and/or the road, when the track
- is max'ed out can sometimes crash the track designer. Save your tracks
- often while developing them, and under a few different names, to make sure
- you do not lose your work.
-
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- 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.
-