U N R E A L ~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright (C) 1992 The Future Crew This file specifies the requirements of this demonstration and gives tips for running it. It might be a good idea to read this file throughly, especially if you encounter problems... Unreal requires: - 2.5MB of disk space (you probably already know this :-) - a 386 or a 486 computer (preferably the latter) - 600K (actually 600000 bytes) of memory. You *CAN* use a 386 memory manager like QEMM to get this memory available. - also a SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster Pro, or Soundmaster II soundcard will make the demo more fun to watch, although the demo is able run without sound. As you can probably understand, the sheer size of the Unreal makes it impossible for us to make sure it works in every possible configuration given the time we have had to produce it. However, we have tested it as throughly as possible. And there are a few points that will probably solve the possible problems you might have running this demo. First of all, you might simple try running the demo with your normal configuration, and if it works ok, clearly no problem exists. However, if the demo hangs or runs VERY slowly or you don't have enough memory, try the following: To get memory, try installing a 386 memory manager (such as QEMM 386 or 386MAX) and/or removing all unnecessary residents from config.sys and autoexec.bat. Also decreasing the value of the buffers statement in the config.sys will help a little. If the demo doesn't work properly but you do have enough memory, first try removing all disk caches and other active residents (programs that do something and don't just eat your memory until you call them up with a hotkey). Things like enhanced keyboard drivers that intercept things like video and keyboard interrupts may cause problems because the Unreal clearly isn't your average dos application using machine resources as usual. If this doesn't help, try running without sound. Especially in slow machines, the sound output can interfere with the hard disk transfers and this will most surely cause a hang when the demo loads more data from the hard disk between parts. Also, disabling sound in slow machines is the best way to get the demo run faster. Some of the tunes use up to 10 digitized channels, and with 20Khz playing speed in a slow 386SX this takes up nearly half of the frame time! As a last option, try creating a boot disk etc. and load ONLY the NECESSARY drivers to memory. That is, possibly a hard disk driver (for SCSI etc.) and QEMM if you can't get enough memory otherwise. Leave all extras out like your countrys keyboard driver, mouse driver and so on. If this doesn't help either, your machine might unfortunately be too unique for the Unreal to work completely. If the demo always hangs in the same place, you might try skipping the problem part by pressing ESC immediately when it starts. Also, if the part hangs before you have a chance to hit the key, you can, as the final solution, run the demo part by part. This is accomplished with the following command line: UNREAL P# where # stands for the part group number (1..9). First you run UNREAL P1, then UNREAL P2 etc. and just leave the part group out that is causing problems. This, of course is a bit harder, but at least you will see the rest of the demo. Well, after reading this file you probably think that Unreal is full of bugs and the most incompatible program ever created... You are probably right :-) The Unreal has been created in a pretty short time (a month or so, except for some older parts which are nearly a year old). It contains so different routines, many utilizing some undocument (yet theoretically IBM VGA compatible) effects that even small incompatibilities or differences may trigger problems. There is also a lot of source code for the bugs to hide in (about 40000 lines not counting include files like sin tables) so hunting them down is not a trivial task. Also, as you will find out, Unreal takes up quite a lot of processing resources... Our goal was to make a great demo at the cost of bigger processor requirements... Keep this in mind while watching this presentation! In any case, we believe that Unreal as an experience is worth the trouble getting it working :-) We hope you will also think so after enjoying it.