====================================== + Battle Realms Demo + + Created by Liquid Entertainment + ====================================== Topics: Go to a particular topic by searching for the three letters next to it. [TSG] 1. Troubleshooting [IDX] 2. Installing DirectX 8 =============================================================================== [TSG] 1. Troubleshooting +++ The demo Crashes before I can even play! Game crashes like these are often due to hardware driver problems or problems with DirectX. Fortunately, the cause of these crashes can often be quickly fixed with new drivers or by changing some settings. If you are having problems with Windows or programs like Internet Explorer crashing, the computer may have more serious problems and may need repair. +++ The demo crashes and the error it gives says something about a DLL. If the DLL (Dynamic Link Library) has a name with "D3D" or "Direct" in it, DirectX 8 might not be correctly installed. To remedy this, please try installing DirectX 8. For information on installing DirectX 8, see the instructions below. Even if you have tried to install DirectX 8 before and the DirectX 8 installer told you it was successful, it might need to try again. +++ When I play the demo, I play for awhile and it crashes, but I have no problems running Windows applications like Internet Explorer or older games. This is often due to old video card drivers. As time goes on and as people who make games get better at using video cards, more and more of your video card's abilities are used and this can reveal defects in your video drivers that, before, were not important. If your video card drivers are more than a few months old, they may be causing the game to crash and they should be replaced if you want to play Battle Realms or any other new game. - Replacing video card drivers is not difficult, but you have to be patient and follow directions from the card maker carefully for the best results. An important step in getting new video card drivers is knowing where to go for new drivers and, for that, you have to know who makes the video card or who makes the chips used in the card. For example, if the card has "GeForce" or "Riva TNT" associated with it, the manufacturer of the card's chips is Nvidia (www.nvidia.com). Matrox makes video cards with the Millennium G400/G455, etc. ATI (www.ati.com) makes the "Radeon", the "Rage 128", and "Rage 128 Pro" set. For users of the "Voodoo" series of cards (Voodoo 3 and 5 work with Battle Realms), 3dfx, the makers of the Voodoo chipsets, is no longer in business, but their website (www.3dfx.com) still has the latest drivers. If you are unable to discern the maker of your graphics chipset, please refer to your computer's documentation. +++ When I play the game, things happen on screen that I know shouldn't be happening. - When buildings, people, or other things look white or really dark, if objects flash or do similar strange things, this means that there is a problem between your video card and our game. The cause of the problem could be your video card drivers on your computer. =============================================================================== [IDX] 2. DirectX 8 +++ Battle Realms requires DirectX 8 to run properly. - If you have problems running the Battle Realms demo and you think they may be related to DirectX, repeat the following steps to get the latest version of Direct X from Microsoft's website. +++ What if you don't know or aren't sure what version of DirectX you have? Don't worry, if you run the DirectX installer on a computer that already has the current DirectX on it, the installer will NOT damage the existing DirectX installation. It might give you newer versions of the DirectX files, but it will NOT replace the files on your computer with older files. Note: ONLY for users of the DirectX Software Development Kit (SDK): This is just to remind DX SDK users that, if you have installed the Debug version of the DX runtime files, the installer we supply may replace these files with the Retail version. Again, this is just a reminder ONLY for computer programmers who are writing programs that use DirectX. +++ Manual install of DirectX 8: You can manually install DirectX with a little help from Microsoft's website. Here's how: 1. Visit the Microsoft website (www.microsoft.com/directx) and get the latest version from there. Depending on your version of Windows, you should download a file named "DX80en" for Windows 98 or ME, or one named "DX80NTen" for Windows 2000 or XP. 2. Save the appropriate file to your computer. 3. Run the file by double-clicking on the file you downloaded and follow the on-screen instructions to installed DirectX. 5. When the DirectX 8 installer you ran is done, it will usually want to reboot the computer. If it doesn't, that means that it didn't replace any files. If you have already installed the Battle Realms demo, you should be able to run the game.