This update fixes a few bugs and adds some frequently requested features to Railroad Tycoon II Macintosh (for the full list, see the section labelled Changes at the end of this document). If you have trouble running the updated version of Railroad Tycoon II (especially if the game selects bad video modes or doesn't recognize your monitor), check the Troubleshooting section of this document below for tips on working around common problems.
Installation
This update only works on the full retail version of Railroad Tycoon II. If you have the demo version, you need a different update.
To install the update, simply double click the "RT2 1.0.5a Update" application and then select your Railroad Tycoon II application for updating. If you have any trouble applying the update, you may need to reinstall the game fresh from the original CD.
Troubleshooting
Below are some common problems and their workarounds:
• The game either leaves the screen black after showing the intro movies or says it can't find a video mode…
DrawSprocket (used by Railroad Tycoon II to switch the monitor resolutions) may not be able to detect your monitor's necessary refresh rate. Open the Monitors & Sound control panel from the Apple menu, and look at the list of video resolutions. Find a setting that says either "1024x768" or "800x600" (if there isn't a 1024x768) and note the "Hz" number following it (i.e. "1024x768, 85Hz"). The "Hz" number is the refresh rate the game needs to run. Next time you start up the game, hold down the Option key, and in the dialog that appears, type "forcerefreshXX", where XX is the Hz number you saw in Monitors & Sound. For example, if the number was 85, you would type "forcerefresh85". You can check the "always use command line" box to force this setting every time you start the game, whether the option key is held down or not.
• The game crashes or can't show movies at startup or in the campaign scenarios…
Use the command line (see the tip above), and enter the option "nomovieswitch". This will force the game to leave the screen at the normal resolution (1024x768 or 800x600) when playing movies.
• My monitor supports 1024x768 but the game always runs in 800x600…
Try using the command line (see the first tip), and enter the option "force1024". You may also need to find out the refresh rate of your monitor in the first tip and use the forcerefreshXX option as well (just separate each option with a space).
• The game pauses frequently when starting to play a music track or reading from the CD.
Turn off music by setting the music volume to 0 in the 'Game Options' control panel.
• I can't play network games against Windows PC's.
Unfortunately Railroad Tycoon II Mac can only play network games against other Macs. The Windows version of Railroad Tycoon II uses a Microsoft technology called DirectPlay for its networking, and DirectPlay is only available under Windows. Because the DirectPlay libraries and protocols are proprietary to Microsoft and not published, there was no way to provide networking compatibility between the Mac and PC.
• I can't play AppleTalk games against Macs in other zones.
Railroad Tycoon II Mac only supports servers in the same AppleTalk zone as the client. To play on a large network, use the TCP/IP mode and enter the direct IP address of the server Mac.
• I get "out of memory" errors while playing.
Quit all other applications before running Railroad Tycoon II. If you still have problems, you may need to increase Railroad Tycoon II's application memory partition. To do this, select the Railroad Tycoon II application file in the Finder, and then choose "Get Info" from the File menu. In the window that comes up, there will be two boxes labeled "Minimum Size" and "Preferred Size". If these boxes don't appear, select "Memory" from the "Show:" popup menu at the top of the window. The first thing to try is to set Minimum to the same size as Preferred. If this doesn't help, set both numbers to a larger amount (46000, 50000, etc).
• The screen is fuzzy and text is hard to read.
Railroad Tycoon II prefers to run in 1024 x 768 graphics mode, but the Mac version will scale the graphics down to 800 x 600 if that is the highest resolution your Mac supports. The scaling process tends to blur the graphics a bit. There are two options you can use to make the graphics more readable:
- In the preferences control panel, under General settings, turn on the "Auto-scroll Mode". In this mode, the screen stays at 800 x 600 but the graphics aren't scaled. Instead only a portion of the overall 1024 x 768 screen is displayed. As you move your mouse cursor around the screen, this "virtual window" moves to show you different parts of the larger screen. This mode can be disorienting for some people but does draw graphics and text much larger than the scaled 800 x 600 mode.
- Upgrade your VRam, video card, and/or monitor so that your computer supports the 1024 x 768 resolution. Graphics in this mode will be drawn normal size and not scaled.
• I get no sound.
First, check all your connections between your speakers and your computer. Make sure your speakers are turned on, if they have an on switch. Make sure the volume is not turned down all the way. It is also possible to turn the volume down or off from within the Mac OS. Select "Control Panels" from the Apple menu, and then double click on the "Monitors & Sound" control panel in the Control Panels window. Check the computer system volume by clicking the "Sound" button at the top of the Monitors & Sound window. Try another application to see if any of your application are producing sound. Make sure you haven't turned the sound off in the game. You can change sound and music volume in the 'Game Options' window.
• I don't hear any music.
Railroad Tycoon II uses audio music tracks on the CD to play music. For this to work, your Mac must be passing through any sound from the CD to your speakers. To check this setting, open the Monitors & Sound control panel, and click on the Sound button. A popup menu for Sound Monitoring Source or Sound Pass-Through should be visible. Make sure "CD" is selected on this menu.
• When I move the mouse around the screen, bits of the screen or black boxes pop up under my mouse cursor, or my cursor flickers in and out a lot.
Go into 'Game Options' and select 'Color Mouse Cursor'. This may be slower, but on older Macs with out hardware cursor support it is the only way to keep the mouse from flickering or leaving bits behind.
• The screen scrolls sluggishly - overall performance seems slow.
Go into 'Game Options', and in the 'Graphics' section, lower the detail settings.
• Video playback is a bit too slow and choppy.
All of the video files are in the folder "CD Movies" on the CD. If you copy them to the folder "CD Movies" that the installer creates in the Railroad Tycoon II folder, they'll play directly from the hard drive, which should improve performance.
• I get 'Out of Synch' messages when I'm playing multi-player.
The game must keep all data synchronized across all machines playing in a multi-player game. Sometimes the system loses synchronization. Sometimes you can play through this, but often this will destabilize the game. The best course of action is for the host to save the game and for everybody to return to the main menu and relaunch using the host's saved game.
In general, having more players, both human and computer, tends to increase the chances of losing synchronization.
• While playing the game, background applications on my Mac do not get time to run.
For maximum performance, Railroad Tycoon II doesn't give the Mac OS background time while running in full screen mode. To allow print spooling or networking applications to run while playing, you can either switch to windowed mode (press F4), or use a special command line option to change the game's behavior. To set the command line switch, hold down Option while opening the Railroad Tycoon II application. When a dialog appears, type "-ostime" (without the quotes) into the command line. This will allow other processes to run while the game is playing in full screen, although overall game play will be slower, especially on low-end or mid-range Macs.
Changes
- Fixed a bug that caused crashes when going back to the main menu after playing saved games or campaigns, especially the tutorial.
- Fixed mouse tracking on fixed resolution monitors. Mouse clicks should be properly detected right under the mouse cursor, not a few pixels off.
- Added an alternate pause key for iMac and B&W G3 keyboards. The \ key (above Return on the keyboard) now acts the same as F15 to pause/unpause the game.
- Control-clicking on the main map now centers the map on that point, as mentioned in the manual.
- Running out of space when saving games or maps is now correctly reported and handled.
- Added several new command line options to help work around DrawSprocket incorrectly selecting video modes/refresh rates. To access the command line, hold down the option key while starting up the RT2 Mac application. When the command line dialog box appears, type in the command line options you wish to start the game with. You can enter several options at once, just separate them with spaces. If you want the options you have entered to be used every time you start the game (even if you don't hold down the option key), check the "always use command line" checkbox. The new options are:
nomovieswitch - Tells the game to stay in 1024x768 (or 800x600) even when playing full screen movies. If you have trouble with the game crashing after the opening movie, or after selecting a campaign scenario, or just don't want the monitor to change resolutions so much, use this option.
force800 - Forces the game to run in 800x600 resolution, even if it thinks your monitor can support 1024x768. If you know your monitor doesn't support 1024x768 (if that resolution isn't available in the Monitors & Sound control panel), use this option. Trying to switch to 1024x768 inside the game will cause unpredictable results.
force1024 - Forces the game to run in 1024x768 resolution, even if isn't detected. If you know you can run in 1024x768 but the game always runs in 800x600, use this option.
forcerefreshXX - Force the game to use a specified refresh rate when switching to 1024x768 or 800x600 resolution. If the game starts up but your monitor remains black, it is probably picking an invalid refresh rate. Go the Monitors & Sound control panel, and look at the list of resolutions your monitor supports. If it says "1024x768, 85Hz", then the refresh rate for 1024x768 mode is 85. By entering "forcerefresh85" in the command line, the game will always try 85hz when switching to the main game resolution. You can use this command with "force800" or "force1024" to force a certain resolution and refresh rate.
forcemovierefreshXX - The same as forcerefreshXX, except this setting only affects the resolution changes when movies are displayed full scren at 640x480. If you don't see the opening or campaign movies, check your Monitors & Sound control panel for a valid refresh rate for 640x480 and use this option. You could alternately use the nomovieswitch option, which doesn't change the screen resolution for movies.
