DOCUMENT:Q126114 08-NOV-2001 [homegame] TITLE :Ultimate Haunted House README.WRI Contents PRODUCT :Microsoft Home Games PROD/VER::1.0 OPER/SYS: KEYWORDS: ====================================================================== kbreadme kbmm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The information in this article applies to: - Microsoft Haunted House for Windows, version 1.0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY ======= This article contains a copy of the information in the README.WRI file included with Microsoft Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House. NOTE: This Readme document refers to the Microsoft Download Service (MSDL). As of 12/31/1998, the MSDL service is no longer available. To download support files, visit one of the following Microsoft Internet sites: http://support.microsoft.com/support ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles MORE INFORMATION ================ Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House Read Me File Microsoft Corporation December 16, 1994 To read this file on-screen, use the Page Down and Page Up keys. You can also print the file by choosing the Print command from the File menu in any Windows word processing program. This README file contains important information on the following topics: Section Description Problems Setting Up Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House Running In Low Memory or Running Slowly CD-ROM Problems Video Display Problems Audio Problems Skipping the Introduction Problems Setting Up Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House Installing on Non-Windows' Program Manager Systems Most Tandy Sensations use WinMate as their default desktop shell. WinMate may cause a conflict with the setup procedure and needs to be disabled by changing the shell= line in the SYSTEM.INI file to read as follows: shell=progman.exe To change the shell= line in the SYSTEM.INI file: From the Windows Accessories group, run Notepad. Open the SYSTEM.INI file and comment out the shell= line in the [boot] section by typing a semicolon (;) at the beginning of the shell= line. This is the line loading the Tandy WinMate shell. Create a new line under the commented shell= line reading as follows: shell=progman.exe. After saving the changes to the SYSTEM.INI file, exit and restart Windows. The WinMate shell will now be disabled and your shell will now be Program Manager. Run Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House Setup. Upon completion of Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House Setup, you can change your shell back to the WinMate desktop, if so desired: Edit the SYSTEM.INI file again by commenting out the "shell=progman.exe" line (adding a semicolon to the beginning of the shell=progman.exe line). Remove the semicolon (;) in front of the previously commented "shell=" line that loads WinMate. Running In Low Memory or Running Slowly Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House uses your computer's system memory to display pictures. Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House requires you have 8MB of RAM memory in your system. If you find Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House runs slowly or if you encounter out-of-memory errors, Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House probably doesn't have enough memory. Consider doing the following to improve your computer's performance: Close all unnecessary applications. If you are running Windows for Workgroups, Run without network support by typing "win /n" at the DOS prompt. Make sure you have the most recent versions of SmartDrive and MSCDEX (SmartDrive 5.0 and MSCDEX 2.23 are the most recent versions at the time of this release). The most recent version of SmartDrive can cache the CD-ROM drive, greatly improving performance. Make sure smartdrv is after MSCDEX in your Autoexec.bat. For information on the current SmartDrive settings type "smartdrv" at the DOS prompt. For help with SmartDrive type "smartdrv /?" at the DOS prompt or consult your DOS User's Guide. Determine how much memory your computer has available by typing "mem" and pressing ENTER at the DOS prompt. You need a minimum of 8MB of total memory to use Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House. If you do not have at least 8MB of memory, you may not be able to run Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House until you add more memory. When using Windows 3.1, we require you run Windows in Enhanced mode while using Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House in order to improve performance. To see if you are running Windows in Enhanced mode, from the Program Manager Help menu choose About Program Manager (or from the File Manager Help menu choose About File Manager). In the bottom section of the dialog box, you should see the phrase "386 Enhanced Mode." If you do not see this phrase, you can force Windows to run in Enhanced mode by typing WIN/3 or WIN/E at the DOS prompt when launching Windows. Windows for Workgroups always runs in Enhanced mode and no message is displayed in the About dialog box. When running Windows in Enhanced mode, set up a permanent Windows swap file on your hard disk. See your Windows User's Guide for more information. Defragment ("clean up") your hard disk by running a defragmentation program (MS-DOS 6.2 and above includes the program "defrag"). CD-ROM Problems Do not remove Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House compact disc from your CD-ROM while the program is running. If Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House program cannot find the data files it needs from the compact disc, you'll see a message telling you the correct CD must be in the drive to continue. To find the source of the problem, do the following: Make sure Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House compact disc is correctly inserted into the CD-ROM drive. Make sure you have the most recent versions of SmartDrive and MSCDEX (SmartDrive 5.0 and MSCDEX 2.23 are the most recent versions at the time of this release). The most recent version of SmartDrive can cache the CD-ROM drive, greatly improving performance. Make sure smartdrv is after MSCDEX in your Autoexec.bat. For information on the current SmartDrive settings type "smartdrv" at the DOS prompt. For help with SmartDrive type "smartdrv /?" at the DOS prompt or consult your DOS User's Guide. Make sure Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House program is looking for the compact disc on the correct drive. Check to see if the drive letter for your CD-ROM drive has changed. You can use the Windows File Manager to determine which drive letter is assigned to the CD-ROM drive. The Select Drive command in the Disk menu will say "CD-ROM" next to the CD-ROM drive letter. If you have an external CD-ROM drive, make sure the drive is connected to your computer, plugged in, and turned on. If you still see the error message after checking the points above, check the documentation that came with your CD-ROM drive or contact the company that supplied the drive. Make sure your CD-ROM drive is MPC2-compatible. An MPC2-compatible drive "has an average seek time of less than one second and can transfer data from the compact disc at 300K per second while using less than 40% of the CPU bandwidth." Check the documentation that came with your CD-ROM drive to make sure it meets these requirements. An incompatible CD-ROM drive will slow down the performance of Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House. Video Display Problems Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House is a 256 color application. In order to view Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House properly, you need a video card which supports 256 colors in at least 640x480 resolution. Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House requires you run in 256 color mode. If your computer is running in 16-color mode, and your video card will support 256 colors in at least 640x480 resolution, you should run Windows Setup to change the screen driver to see Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House at 256 (8-bit) colors. Check your Windows documentation for information on changing video drivers. If Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House is too small on your screen, you are probably running in a resolution greater than 640x480. To make Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House fill the screen, run Windows Setup* and change your video driver to run in 640x480 resolution with 256 colors. You will need to restart windows. Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House will now fill the entire screen. * - (Some Video display adapters have a separate program you may have to run to change the display mode, see your display adapters user manual to check how to change your display resolutions) Make sure you are using the most recent Windows video drivers for your video card. These may be obtained from your video card manufacturer. To find out what video driver you are using, go to the Windows Program Manager Main group window and double-click the Windows Setup icon. To the right of "Display" you will see the name of the video driver currently in use. Screen Savers: If you are running a screen saver of any kind, Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House will continue to play unless you pause the game (CTRL-P) manually. Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House will continue to count down time unless you pause the game manually. Dell S3 Drivers, versions 1.3 and 1.3a: If you have a Dell computer with S3 video and are using the Dell S3 video drivers version 1.3 or 1.3a, you should install the latest driver. For details on installing this driver, contact Dell. ATI Mach Drivers Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House is incompatible with some advanced features used by some video cards such as the Mach32 chip set running the ATI drivers. For information about ATI video cards contact ATI Technical Support at (416) 756-0711. ATI Ultra Crystal Driver: The ATI ULTRA CRYSTAL driver will allow you to select a 256-color 1024x768 display for a video card having 512K of memory. However, 512K of memory will not support 256 colors at this resolution. Because Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House requires 256 colors to run properly, you must select a driver supporting a 256-color display. You must also make sure the video driver is compatible with your specific video card. For details on selecting an appropriate driver, see your ATI documentation or contact ATI technical support. A 256-color SVGA driver is included with Windows for Workgroups. For details on installing this driver, see your Windows for Workgroups documentation. Obtaining Updated Drivers Contact the manufacturer of your video card to determine if newer Windows display drivers are available. Another option for obtaining updated drivers is the Microsoft Download service, an electronic bulletin board accessible via modem at (425) 936-MSDL(6735). Drivers provided on the MSDL are compressed with the PKWare utilities, and are in the form of executable files (.EXE extension). It is best to download the file or files you need into an empty directory on your hard disk or a blank formatted floppy. To decompress these drivers after downloading them, either: From Windows File Manager: double click on the filename (e.g., the appropriate file ending in .EXE) you downloaded. From the DOS prompt: change to the directory containing the downloaded file, type the filename, and press ENTER. The following video cards have been tested and give good results with Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House: Model Bus Date Driver Notes Actix ProStar VL VLB 8/18/93 1.42 Note 1 ATI Graphics Ultra ISA 3/19/93 2.3 ATI Graphics Ultra Plus ISA 4/25/94 2.3 ATI Graphics Ultra Pro ISA & VLB 4/25/94 2.3 Blackship Color DesignerA3 VLB 7/8/93 1.32 Diamond Speed Star Pro ISA 2/17/94 1.08 Diamond Speed Star VGA ISA 4/14/92 Diamond Stealth 24 VLB 6/3/94 3.00 Diamond Stealth Pro VLB 10/6/93 ELSA Winner2000 Pro PCI 6/23/94 1.22 Hercules Dynamite Pro ISA 12/1/93 2.10 Note 2 Hercules Dynamite Pro VLB 12/1/93 3.00 Hercules Graphite Power ISA 4/6/94 2.10 IBM XGA Display MCA 11/12/93 2.11 Note 3 Matrox MGA Power Graphics PCI 3/28/93 Mitac MVA-CL5428-1MB VLB 3/15/94 V1.43 Number Nine 9GXe Level 10 ISA 2/9/94 V3.11 Note 4 Number Nine 9GXe Level 11 VLB 2/9/94 3.10.061 Notes 4, 5 Number Nine 9GXe Level 14 VLB 4/7/94 3.15 Note 4 Number Nine 9GXE64 VLB 6/22/94 1.19.04 Recommended Orchid Celsius VLB 10/1/93 1.32 Recommended Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 Plus VLB 3/1/94 rel 7 Note 6 Orchid Fahrenheit VA VLB 4/29/93 5.01 Orchid Kelvin 64 PCI 3/14/94 1.1 Orchid Kelvin 64 VLB 2/23/94 1.21 Orchid ProDesigner IIS ISA 3/1/92 2.0 Paradise WD90c33 VLB 6/28/93 1.2 Standard 1Mb-24X ISA 3/19/93 1.30 STB Horizon VL Pro VLB 6/29/93 1.3 STB Lightspeed PCI 12/1/93 1.1 STB Pegasus VLB 11/29/93 1.3 TrueVision Bravado 8 ISA 1/15/92 Note 1: Driver version 1.53 sometimes hangs when playing certain transitions. Driver version 1.42 is recommended. Note 2: Does not always properly display QuickTime digital video in 16 bit (thousands) and 24 bit (millions) color modes. Note 3: Does not draw extremely wide arcs properly. Note 4: There is sometimes sound break-up or distortion during complex transitions using most sound cards. Note 5: The cursor sometimes disappears when using a large virtual desktop. Note 6: Video snow appears during some palette transitions. Audio Problems Audio problems can have many causes. Other applications playing sounds may interrupt sounds in Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House, because your computer cannot play two sounds simultaneously. This is generally a temporary clash that will resolve itself. However, a few applications that play sounds, such as some screen savers, may remove audio capability from all other Windows applications. If you suspect you have such an application, turn it off or do not run it while running Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House. Sounds play, but not very well Distorted or "fuzzy" sounds have several possible causes. A likely cause is simply your speakers are not of high quality. It is also possible the software settings on your sound board are causing distortion. For example, if the sound card volume or "WAVE file input" is set to near its maximum, it will produce amplification distortion, just as it would on a stereo system. To find out how to change your sound board settings, check the documentation that came with your sound board Your CD-ROM drive should be MPC2-compatible. An MPC2-compatible drive "has an average seek time of less than one second and can transfer data from the compact disc at 300K per second while using less than 40% of the CPU bandwidth." Check the documentation that came with your CD- ROM drive to make sure it meets these requirements. An incompatible CD-ROM drive may work but give lower-quality sound or cause the sound to be interrupted while playing. Sound doesn't play at all If you don't hear any sounds, make sure the volume for your speakers is set to an audible level. If the volume is set to an audible level and you still hear no sounds at all, something may be wrong with your sound board setup. Check to see the driver is installed correctly and, if necessary, reinstall it. Refer to the documentation that came with your sound card for more information on installing audio drivers. Please note Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House requires an MPC-compatible sound board to be installed and is not intended to run with drivers which use the PC internal speaker, such as the unsupported "PC Speaker" driver. Such a driver will in most cases not play any sounds, and if the driver setup option "Enable Interrupts" is not checked, your system may crash. If you have both a sound board and the PC Speaker driver installed, it is preferable to un-install the PC Speaker driver. Media Vision cards A small number of Media Vision sound card drivers (Pro Audio Spectrum cards) may cause problems. If you have a Media Vision card and don't hear speech but you hear music, you may need to upgrade your driver. Contact Media Vision Technical Support to find out how to obtain a new or updated driver. Ensoniq Soundscape cards The Ensoniq Soundscape card will not play sounds with the driver in the Windows driver default configuration. Try the following suggestion to improve audio performance. Problems with WAV files under Windows If you are having trouble hearing sound with WAV files, check the following: Go to your Drivers applet [Control Panel] and double-click on Soundscape DVD MIDI, WAVE, AUX. Ensure that you have WAVE A setup as 0 and that WAVE B is setup to Disable [Note: if there is something else in your system that is using those DMA channels, you will need to use another DMA setting such as 3]. Contact Ensoniq Technical Support to find out how to obtain a new or updated driver. Sound Cards - General The following sound cards have been tested and are compatible with Gahan Wilson's - The Ultimate Haunted House: Sound Card Notes and comments Compaq Business Audio Creative Labs SoundBlaster Creative Labs SoundBlaster Pro Creative Labs SoundBlaster 16 Creative Labs SoundBlaster AWE32 Gateway 2000 IBM M-Audio Driver version 1.3 - Note 1 MediaVision ProAudio Spectrum MediaVision ProAudio Spectrum 16 MediaVision ProAudio Spectrum 16 Pro Microsoft Sound System Version 1 Microsoft Sound System Version 2 Orchid SoundWave 32 Reveal Forte 16 Roland Rap-10 Note 1: IBM computers having the M-Audio sound card should use driver version 1.3 or higher for best results. Older versions of this driver don't play some sounds in Director or AVI movies. The version 1.3 driver does not pass the 16-bit sounds test for Director. Testing has revealed 8 bit sounds are corrupted when played after a 16-bit sound. At the time these release notes were written, version 1.3 (dated 1/10/94) was the most recent driver available from IBM. Skipping the Introduction To skip the introduction, click the mouse button anytime while it's playing. Additional query words: kbhowto ensonic 1.00 ====================================================================== Keywords : Technology : kbZNotKeyword kbKidsSearch kbHauntedHouse Version : :1.0 Issue type : kbinfo ============================================================================= THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THE MICROSOFT KNOWLEDGE BASE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. MICROSOFT DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT CORPORATION OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS OR SPECIAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF MICROSOFT CORPORATION OR ITS SUPPLIERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES SO THE FOREGOING LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY. Copyright Microsoft Corporation 2001.