Troubleshooting Crime Cities

Crime Cities requires 
- Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 SP3, Windows 2000
- at least DirectX 6.0 
- OpenGL(r) 3D accelerator card (see http://www.opengl.org/) with 4MB video memory.
- Pentium compatible CPU (200 MHz or better)
- at least 32 MB RAM, preferably more
- CD-ROM      

Optionally
- Sound card
- Creative EAX 2.0 API
- Aureal A3D 2.0 API

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Vocabulary
 OpenGL, Direct3D, Glide, SGL, S3DTK, MSI95 - "languages" that allow program
 to access 3D drawing function of your 3D accelerator card.
 
 OpenGL ICD - driver that enables OpenGL acceleration on your Windows.
 
 Standalone OpenGL driver - driver that allows OpenGL acceleration and doesnt
 use so called ICD mechanism.
 
 AGP - motherboard slot and system bus used for graphics cards. Allows
 very fast access to graphics card and augmenting texture memory with
 system memory.
 
 System memory - memory on your motherboard
 Video memory - memory on your video card (frame buffer memory + texture memory)
 Frame buffer memory - memory that contains picture you see on screen
 Texture memory - memory that contains textures
 

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Operating system issues

Windows 95
 You have to install OpenGL support driver from Microsoft.
 AGP is unsupported with original Windows 95. If you have AGP video card AGP textures
 will be unsupported or you may get no 3D acceleration !                  
 Please install DirectX 7.
 
Windows 95 OSR2
 You need to install usbsupp.exe that comes on your Windows Install CD. Otherwise
 AGP will be unsupported and you may encounter similiar problems like with Window 95.
 Please install DirectX 7.
 
Windows 98                                                        
 Well, it isnt perfect gamer's OS but its close. Please install DirectX 7.

Windows NT 4.0
 You need Service Pack 3 or higher. (We recommend 6a.) This Service Pack installs
 DirectX 3.0 components required by Crime Cities.
 
Windows 2000             
 Windows 2000 comes with DirectX 7 and we like it.
 Video card drivers that come on Windows 2000 install CD do not support 3d acceleration
 both in Direct3D and OpenGL mode. You need video card drivers from your card
 manufacturer that support OpenGL acceleration. Please keep in mind that some
 Windows 2000 video card drivers are still beta or very immature, e.g. they
 contain lots of bugs and sometimes 3d acceleration is not supported.
 
Linux or FreeBSD are UNSUPPORTED
 Crime Cities is Windows game. You may try Wine or VMWare. If you try real hard
 you may run Crime Cities under Wine if you have latest Wine and hardware
 accelerated GL. This is purely theoretical possibility and we havent tried it. 
 
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Motherboard chipset issues

VIA based motherboards http://www.via.com.tw/
 Windows 9x
  Make sure you have installed latest IRQ routing driver and AGP GART driver from VIA.
 
SiS based motherboards http://www.sis.com.tw/          
 Windows 9x
  Make sure you have installed latest IRQ routing driver and AGP GART driver from SiS.

ALI (Acel Laboratories) base motherboards http://www.ali.com.tw/
 Windows 9x
  Make sure you have installed AGP GART driver from ALI.

Intel base motherboards http://www.intel.com/
 Windows 9x
  Make sure you have vgartd.vxd installed.

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Video Card issues
 Video card driver are generally very poor quality due to short product cycles
 in the industry. Initial drivers are very buggy. Then half a year later new
 product is released and drivers for older product are neglected. 
 To make matters worse some vendors are trying dirty tricks to cheat on benchmarks.
 They are buffering lots of drawing commands (sometimes hundreths of frames ahead).
 This results in very big lag between user input and result on the screen and
 is especially visible in Direct3D. 
 
 We generally recommend you should install latest reference drivers. Reference
 drivers come from your video card CHIPSET manufacturer. They are least buggy
 but you may loose some extra card functionality (TV OUT, Video capture etc).

 Please consider visiting www.glsetup.com for easy video card driver upgrade.
 
 We advise against using drivers that come on CD with your graphic card. Chances
 are they are very outdated and buggy. Please visit you card manufacturer
 or your video card CHIPSET manufacturer website and download and install
 lastest drivers.                                  
 
 Also please make sure you have installed proper and latest drivers for your
 motherboard for AGP GART, IRQ routing. Some driver/video card/motherboard
 combinations have problems with AGP Sideband transfers, noise on some signals
 on AGP bus, inaquedate (weak) power supply on motherboard, graphic chip
 overheating. You may experience those problems while using 3D graphics
 only when graphic chip is heavily used. Your system may freeze or crash
 or you may experience visual artifacts on screen. Please consult your
 PC vendor tech support or qualified PC technician in such case.
 
 Also if you overclock your CPU and/or graphic card and your PC burns hole
 in the ground 50 meters deep it is not our fault.

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3Dfx http://www.3dfx.com/

Voodoo Graphics, Voodoo Rush, Voodoo 2
 Those cards work only in fullscreen mode. You cannot run Crime Cities in
 window.
 
 Those cards come with standalone OpenGL driver (3dfxvgl.dll) that is equivalent
 to full OpenGL ICD. Please select "3dfx standalone OpenGL (3dfx Voodoo)".
 You may also try "Techland Glide 3.x Renderer (3dfx Voodoo)" which may give
 you better performance and/or visual quality. Please note that 32 bit
 color is not possible with this hardware.
 
 Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo Rush has very little texture memory. Please set
 texture quality sliders to LOW for smoother gameplay.
 
 Voodoo 2 has more texture memory, you may try higher texture quality settings.

Banshee, Voodoo3, Voodoo 4/5
 Those cards have full OpenGL ICD. Please select "System default OpenGL".
 In case of troubles you may try "Techland Glide 3.x Renderer (3dfx Voodoo)"
 which may give you slightly better performance or
 "Techland Direct3D Renderer (Direct3D)". Please note that Banshee and Voodoo 3
 do not support 32 bit color.
 
 In case of texture corruption on Voodoo 4/5 "System default OpenGL" please
 uncheck "Use texture compression" check box in Graphics Settings.
 
 32 bit color is not supported through "Techland Glide 3.x Renderer (3dfx Voodoo)"
 on Voodoo 4/5.
 
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3dlabs http://www.3dlabs.com/

Permedia 2
 This card supports full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".
 This hardware is little old and slow. You may need to lower your
 texture quality settings.
 
Permedia 3                                                              
 This card supports full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".

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S3 http://www.s3.com/

Virge, Trio3D                         
 Those cards are OFFICIALLY UNSUPPORTED.
 You can use "Techland S3DTK Renderer (S3 Virge)" or
 "Techland Direct3D Renderer (Direct3D)". Please expect no high framerates
 and poor visual quality. Set low texture quality, do not exceed 640x480x16.

Savage 3D, Savage MX, Savage IX
 This card supports full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL". 

Savage 4                                                                
 This card supports full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL". 
 Some Savage 4 Windows 9x drivers come with so called "Performance ICD". They are
 faster but older versions are extremely buggy e.g. Crime Cities may
 crash. Please upgrade to latest drivers. Also when you experience black
 screen in game (it may happen with older "Performance ICD" drivers
 please check Disable Fog check button in graphics settings.

Savage 2000                                                             
 This card supports full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".

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nVidia http://www.nvidia.com/

Riva 128, Riva 128 ZX                                                   
 This card supports full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".
 You may need to decrease texture quality settings especially on Riva 128
 (it has only 4MB video memory)

Riva TNT, Riva TNT2, Riva TNT2 m64, Riva TNT2 Vanta
 This card supports full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".
 Some TNT cards come with 8MB video memory. Please consider decreasing
 texture quality to improve performance. Also in 32 bit modes
 textures take two times as much memory and card performs slower
 so you may need to tune resolution and texture quality.

GeForce 256, GeForce 256 GTS
 This card supports full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".
 Well, we love this hardware.

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ATI http://www.atitech.ca/

RagePro
 RagePro support full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".
 Textures with alpha transparency may be poor quality. This is hardware
 limitation.

Rage128                                                              
 Rage128 support full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".

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Rendition http://www.rendition.com/

Verite 1000
 UNSUPPORTED

Verite 2x00 
 Verite 2x00 support full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".

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Intel http://www.intel.com/

i740                                                                     
 i740 support full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".
 We have experienced problems with i740 installation and operation on
 non Intel chipset based motherboards.

i810                                                              
 i810 support full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL".

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Matrox

Matrox Millenium and Millenium II
 those cards are UNSUPPORTED (they support no texturing)
 
Matrox Mystique                                         
 this hardware is not OFFICIALY SUPPORTED
 you may try 
 "Techland Matrox MSI95 Renderer (Matrox Mystique)"
 or "Techland Direct3D Renderer (Direct3D)"
 please note that Mystique doesnt support bilinear filtering and alpha transparency
 so visual quality will be very very poor. Dont ever try to do it on 2MB Mystique.

Matrox m3D
 see PowerVR

Matrox G200/G400
 Those card support full OpenGL ICD. Please use "System default OpenGL" with them.
 
 You may experience wrong colors in motion videos in game. This is due to bug
 in Matrox's GL_EXT_bgra extension. Phone them.
 
 CAUTION! Old G200 drivers didnt have OpenGL ICD. Please upgrade.

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PowerVR http://www.powervr.com/

PowerVR PCX1, PowerVR PCX2, Matrox m3D   
 Please use "Techland Direct3D Renderer (Direct3D)" 
 or "Techland PowerVR SGL Renderer (PowerVR)" whichever will give you better performance
 or visual quality. 
 If you see white polygons on screen it means you need to decrease texture quality
 in Graphics Settings. PowerVR is scene capture card, it MUST have all textures
 that are visible in texture memory during rendering. So in case there is too many
 textures it will just display white polygons. (Other cards can swap textures
 in texture memory which just slows them down).

PowerVR Neon250                                 
 Please use "Techland Direct3D Renderer (Direct3D)" setting with your Neon250 accelerator. 
 PowerVR initially advertised that Neon250 will have OpenGL ICD. It has only MiniGL
 which is not enough to run Crime Cities. Also there is PCX1/PCX2 compatibility
 library (sgl.dll) for Neon250 but it is very buggy so do not use
 "Techland PowerVR SGL Renderer (PowerVR)" setting.

PowerVR Kyro                                       
 Kyro is advertised to support OpenGL ICD. We havent been able to test on Kyro
 before Crime Cities release.

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Sound Card issues                                                             

Do not exceed 8 channels/low sound quality if you do not have sound card with 
hardware mixing or fast processor.

If you experience any problems with sound please try checking "Force
software mixing" check button in Sound Settings. It will be slower
but it will use DirectSound software mixing instead of hardware mixing
on card which may be broken because of driver bugs.

You may experience Crime Cities crashes with A3D. Upgrade your Aureal Vortex driver.

If you think that left and right channels are reversed you may
 - switch speakers or wear headphones other way (hardware solution)
 - check swap stereo channels check box in Options/Audio (software solution)

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Network game

Crime Cities requires Winsock 2. If you get error that ws2_32.dll is not found
you should
- install tcp/ip network component
- if you have Windows 95 you may need to install Winsock 2 upgrade W95ws2setup.exe

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does Crime Cities support hardware Transformation and Lighting ?
A: When using OpenGL ICD on hardware T&L video card Crime Cities uses Transformation
acceleration. Our lights and system architecture makes it unfeasible to use
Lighting acceleration.

Q: The game is very slow when I run it through "System default OpenGL".
A1: Your driver do not support Hardware Acceleration of OpenGL. Crime Cities
    is using GDI Generic OpenGL renderer which is SOFTWARE implementation of OpenGL.
    Upgrade your graphics card driver. Check if you have installed AGP GART and
    IRQ routing drivers for your motherboard.
A2: You may try rebooting your machine (some drivers can loose hardware acceleration
    when debugging and crashing OpenGL application).
A2: Your graphic card is slow. Please consider using lower resolution, 16 bit
    instead of 32 bit rendering, lower texture quality settings.
A3: Some drivers (e.g. Banshee, Voodoo3) do not support 3d acceleration in 32 bit color mode. 
    Other do not support 3d acceleration in high resolutions or some color modes.

Q: I see psychodelic colors and weird things on Neon250 using "Techland PowerVR 
   SGL Renderer (PowerVR)".
A: While Neon250 have PCX1/PCX2 compatibility library it doesnt work too well. Use   
   "Techland Direct3D Renderer (Direct3D)" with your Neon250. You may also ask
   PowerVR technical support why there isnt OpenGL ICD for your Neon250.
   
Q: I have video card that is not listed in as supported. Can I play Crime Cities?
A: It depends. You generally need video card that has at least 4MB video memory,
   supports (preferably) OpenGL 1.1 driver (or Direct3D driver), acceleration of 
   texture mapping, alpha blending, z buffer. You may try then "System default OpenGL"
   or "Techland Direct3D Renderer (Direct3D)". Get Crime Cities demo and
   test on your system before you buy it. Also it is possible to get older
   generation 3D accelerators very cheaply (we would recommend Riva TNT).

Q: Crime Cities is very slow and there is lots of disk thrashing during game play
   what should I do ?
A1: Close all applications before running Crime Cities. This includes Winamp,
    Office fast find and fast start toolbar programs. Look into your system tray.
    Are you sure you need everything that is there ?
A2: Decrease texture quality sliders in graphics options.
A3: Buy more memory. 64MB is nice, 128MB is perfect.
A4: Are you sure someone isnt accessing your harddisk through local network ?

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OpenGL is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics Inc.
Other names are registered trademarks or their respective owners.