Emperor: Battle for Dune (tm) UPDATES FROM THE LANDSRAAD COUNCIL Copyright 2001 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. Westwood Studios (tm) is an Electronic Arts (tm) brand. May 16, 2001 For latest news and updates visit WWW.WESTWOOD.COM Commander: Thank you for volunteering, your service will not go unrecognized. Please take care to read the following update from the Landsraad Council so that you are fully briefed on the current situation. 1. WINDOWS 95/98/ME/2000 1.1. Microsoft DirectX 1.2. Microsoft Office Toolbar 1.3. Windows 2000 2. TROUBLE SHOOTING 2.1. Known Video Card Issues 2.2. Known Sound Card Issues 2.3. Known DirectX Issues 2.4. Gateway Computer Users 2.5. Virtual Memory Settings 2.6. Known RealPlayer Issues 2.7. AutoPlay 2.8. Choppy Movie Performance 2.9. Power Saving Mode 2.10. Periodic Slowdown 2.11. Game Updates and Patches 2.12. Junk Buster Filtering Issues 2.13. Dynamic IP Addresses in LAN Games 2.14. Emperor and Embedded Web Browsing 3. GAMEPLAY INFO & UPDATES 3.1. Rankings for Ladders and Tournaments over Westwood Online 3.2. Quick Match over Westwood Online 3.3. Unit Selection 1. WINDOWS 95/98/ME/2000 1.1. Microsoft DirectX: Emperor: Battle for Dune is a Microsoft DirectX application. Version 8.0 of Microsoft DirectX is included on the CD and you have the option to install it when Emperor: Battle for Dune is installed. Under some early versions of Windows 95, DirectX 8.0 cannot be installed directly from the Emperor: Battle for Dune installer. If this occurs, please run DXSetup.exe located on the CD in the DXSetup folder. All Microsoft DirectX drivers are located in the DXSetup folder off of the root of the CD. To reinstall the Microsoft DirectX drivers go into the DXSetup folder and run DXSetup.exe. You can explore the CD by choosing the "Explore the CD" option in the AutoPlay title screen. If you have difficulty running Windows after these new Microsoft DirectX drivers have been installed, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary, or write: Microsoft Customer Sales and Service, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399, USA USA telephone: 1-800-426-9400 International telephone: ++1-206-882-8080 1.2. Microsoft Office Toolbar: If you make use of this feature of Microsoft Office and it appears over the game screen when playing Emperor: Battle for Dune you will have to disable the Office Toolbar before playing. 1.3. Windows 2000: Emperor: Battle for Dune requires you to have administrative rights when installing and playing the game. 2. TROUBLE SHOOTING 2.1. Known Video Card Issues: Video monitor settings may need to be adjusted after installing the Microsoft DirectX video drivers. If you screen distorts, or is shifted horizontally or vertically, you can return it to normal by adjusting the controls on your monitor. Most video display problems can be corrected by installing the latest drivers for your particular card. Please consult your video card documentation for details on how to get the latest drivers for your card. If you are running two video cards, the game may choose the video card you do not wish to use. You can force it to use your alternate card by adding "-ALTVID" (without the quotes) to the Target line in the game's shortcut. If you have a Voodoo card, you may experience display problems due to texture compression. To disable the texture compression, you will need to add "-C" (without the quotes) to the Target line in the game's shortcut. 2.2. Known Sound Card Issues: Old SoundBlaster AWE 64 and AWE 32 sound card drivers can cause skipping and repeating sound that may cause your computer to run Emperor: Battle for Dune much slower than normal. If you have one of these sound cards and are experiencing these symptoms, please contact your card manufacturer for latest drivers. Most sound card problems can be corrected by installing the latest drivers for your particular card. Please consult your sound card documentation for details on how to get the latest drivers. If you are using USB speakers, do not turn off the speakers during gameplay. Doing so may cause your system to become unstable and even crash. 2.3. Known DirectX Issues: If another application is using the sound card while trying to install or run the game, a "DXSound Error" will appear. If this error occurs, please close all applications and run the install or game again. 2.4. Gateway Computer Users: If you are using a Gateway computer with "Gateway GoBack" software by WildFile running in the background, you may experience lockups in Emperor. GoBack is loaded in the Windows system tray (by the clock) and represented by two yellow arrows. To close out GoBack, right click on the double yellow arrows in the system tray, and select close. It is recommended that you close all programs running in the background before starting Emperor. 2.5. Virtual Memory Settings: Emperor: Battle for Dune may need to use more RAM than is present on your system. Windows 95/98 automatically takes care of this by using what is known as "Virtual Memory" - which uses space on your hard disk to simulate the memory it needs and swaps data back and forth from your hard disk as required. Windows 95/98 allows you to manually set the amount of hard drive space it uses for Virtual Memory: WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT DO THIS! To let Windows 95/98 manage the Virtual Memory, go to the Windows 95/98 start menu, select 'settings\control panel', then double- click 'system', click 'performance\file system\virtual memory' and then select 'Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings (recommended). 2.6. Known RealPlayer Issues: RealPlayer seems to have a conflict with the movie player used in Emperor. With RealPlayer's "Start Center" feature enabled (which seems to keep RealPlayer resident in some form) we have found stability issues when exiting Emperor as it goes to the desktop. 2.7. AutoPlay: If your CD does not AutoPlay when inserted in the drive, you may have this feature disabled. To Enable AutoPlay, right click on 'My Computer' and select 'Properties' then 'Device Manager'. Select your CD-ROM drive and click 'Properties'. Select 'Settings' and check the 'Auto insert notification' box. 2.8. Choppy movie performance: If you find that the movie performance is choppy or jerky, try reducing the Windows 95/98 CD caching by going to the Start/Settings/Control Panel and double-clicking the System applet. In the System Properties dialog, click the Performance tab and then click the File System button. From the File System Properties dialog, click the CD-ROM tab and note the Supplemental Cache Size setting (so that you can reset the cache size if need be). Now set the Supplemental Cache Size to Small. This should have a marked effect on movie performance. You can also try adjusting your detail settings in the Options Menu. Low Detail will remove effects like water wakes behind ships, smoke and effect lines. Emperor will also dynamically remove animations in certain situations on low spec machines to ensure a high quality game performance. If you are still experiencing problems, you can add "+w" (without the quotes) to the Target line in the game's shortcut. This will force the game to preload each movie into memory before playing. 2.9. Power Saving Modes: It is possible that your computer loses connection to your ISP due to long periods of inactivity. Sometimes this is caused by the sleep mode in your "Power Saving" options. This can cause problems during game play or when connected to Westwood Online. To avoid any problems please disable your screen saver or power-saving modes when running the game. 2.10. Periodic Slowdowns: If periodic slowdowns occur while playing Emperor: Battle for Dune and the CD is not being accessed please insure that there are no other applications running during your game session. This includes anti-virus software. 2.11. Game Updates and Patches: Emperor: Battle for Dune contains an auto-updating feature. Updated versions of the game will be announced to you when playing Emperor: Battle for Dune on Westwood Online. When an updated version of the game is available you will be able to receive it and automatically have it installed, if you wish. If you do not intend to play Emperor: Battle for Dune on Westwood Online then please check www.westwood.com for update information. 2.12. Junk-Buster Filtering Issues If you have a junk-buster program (a program that acts as a proxy filtering out ads, banners, etc..) you may experience problems connecting to our web pages from within the game. If you do experience problems, disable your junk-buster before running the game. 2.13. Dynamic IP addresses in LAN games. Users with networked systems that are assigned dynamic IPs (or can switch IPs) may experience issues opening the LAN lobby in Emperor. The symptom is: 1. A user must enter the LAN lobby at least once with a particular IP. 2. User then changes IPs (whether manually or by reconnecting to their Internet Service Provider). 3. After launching the game again, if the user clicks Multiplayer > LAN, they will receive a "Failed to open network socket". Here is a simple workaround: After receiving a new IP, click Options in the Main Menu, then click the "Network" tab, then click "Back" and then enter the Multiplayer LAN lobby. 2.14. Emperor and embedded web browsing Certain functionality in the game has been enhanced with the inclusion of "embedded web browsing" support, namely: Westwood Online account signup, ladder ranking display, Battle Clan administration and news updates. In order to utilize this feature, you must have Internet Explorer 5.0 or above installed on your machine. If you do not have IE5 then Emperor will revert to launching your external default web browser, whatever that might be. Emperor is designed to use the embedded web pages, which avoids having to launch an external web browser to check ladder ranks and so on. Note: if you prefer to use a web browser other than IE5 for your regular web browsing, you should be able to install IE5 in addition to your other web browser and make your other browser the default. Emperor will still find IE5 and use it in this case. 3. GAMEPLAY INFO & UPDATES 3.1. Rankings for Ladders and Tournaments over Westwood Online: Westwood offers many opportunities for players to test their mettle against the best players in the world. Check out Westwood.com for the latest breaking news. Rankings for Ladders and Tournaments in Emperor are defaulted to "Short Games" 3.2. Quick Match over Westwood Online: Emperor offers players an easy way to meet players on the battlefield. Simply try the "Quick Match" selection in Westwood Online. This option will try to match players of similar ranking, similar ping times (Internet connection latency to other players), location, and system specs. 3.3. Unit Selection: Emperor only allows you to select a maximum of 64 units at any one time. Therefore when pressing the "T" or "P" keys to select multiple units, or selecting a large group of units with your mouse, only 64 of those units will be included in your selection.