Philip Marlowe Private Eye Read Me File 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 READ ME file contains important information on the following topics: 1. Private Eye Quick Start: - Installing Private Eye. - Playing Private Eye. - Skipping the introduction. - Quitting the game. - Tips and Shortcuts. - Switching to other Windows. - Playing the Private Eye Demo. 2. Problems installing Private Eye: - Examining your hard drive. - Temporarily disabling other applications. - Checking your system hardware. 3. Problems Running Private Eye: - General Protection Faults. - Out-Of-Memory error. - Having a new CD-ROM or hard disk drive letter since last installation. - Special software that is not supported. - Windows 95 taskbar overlapping the program screen. - Conflicts with Screen Savers. - Turning off Microsoft Office Manager. 4. Performance Issues: - The program runs slowly. - Improving performance with SmartDrive. - Tips for Notebook computers. - Choppy animation frames and sound. 5. CD-ROM Issues: - Increasing the CD-ROM drive reading performance. - Errors reading from the CD-ROM drive. - Problems finding the CD-ROM drive. 6. Video Display Issues: - Basic display requirement. - Problems when running in 16 bit, 24 bit or 32 bit color mode. - Private Eye looks best in 640x480 resolution. 7. Audio Issues: - Conflicts with other applications. - Audio driver problems. - IBM Aptiva Mwave sound card. - Sounds play, but not very well. - Sound does not play at all. 8. Credits: - Private Eye credits. - Byron Preiss Multimedia Company masthead. - Infogrames Multimedia Credits **************************************************************** 1. Private Eye Quick Start: **************************************************************** - Installing Private Eye. Make sure your monitor is set to display 256 colors at 640 x 480 resolution. With Windows 3.1: (i) Choose the Run command from the File menu. (ii) Type the following in the Run dialog box: D:\setup.exe (Where 'D' is your CD-ROM drive letter. If your CD-ROM drive letter is not 'D' then replace 'D' with the correct letter.) With Windows 95: (i) Choose Run from the Start menu. (ii) Type the following in the Run dialog box and click OK: D:\setup.exe (Where 'D' is your CD-ROM drive letter. If your CD-ROM drive letter is not 'D' then replace 'D' with the correct letter.) Restart Windows if a dialog asks you to do so. - Playing Private Eye. With Windows 3.1: (i) Open the Private Eye Program Group. (ii) Double-click the Private Eye Program Item icon. With Windows 95: (i) choose Programs from the Start menu. (ii) Select the Private Eye item in the Private Eye group. - Skipping the Introduction. To skip the introduction, press the ESC key any time while it is playing. To view the introduction again, quit and restart Private Eye from Windows. - Quitting the game. There are two ways to quit from Private Eye. Method One: Hold down the ALT key and press the F4 key. Method Two: Go to the main menu (click the white notebook on the desktop to display the Main Menu) and click Quit. - Tips and Shortcuts. You can reach the desktop resources by clicking the gray border while viewing an animated scene or searching a location. - Switching to other Windows. There is only one way to switch to other Windows: Hold down the ALT key and press TAB. - Playing the Private Eye Demo Also included on the disc is the demo version of Private Eye. This demo can be installed and started the same way as the game. After selecting "Run," type the letter of your CD-ROM drive followed by the path, for example: D:\PVT_DEMO\setup.exe A Private Eye Demo item will be created in the Private Eye program group. **************************************************************** 2. Problems installing Private Eye: **************************************************************** If you encounter any error during installation, please try the following: - Examining your hard drive. Windows 3.x users: i) First exit Windows. ii) Run CHKDSK.EXE or SCANDISK.EXE in DOS to examine your hard drive. Windows 95 users: i) From System Tools group, Click the Scandisk icon to start. ii) Follow instructions to examine your hard drive. - If there is a problem in your hard drive, please consult the DOS manual or other hard disk management manual before you attempt to fix the problem. You may need to backup your data and other system files. - Temporarily disabling other applications. If you have any DOS TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) application (e.g. virus shield) or Windows screen saver running in the background, please temporarily disable it. You can enable it again after the installation. If you have other Windows applications running in the background, please close the ones you are not using. - Checking your system hardware. Please check your system hardware and make sure your machine is functioning properly. Any IRQ or DMA device conflict may create system instability, which will prevent software from functioning normally. **************************************************************** 3. Problems Running Private Eye: **************************************************************** - General Protection Faults. General Protection Faults may occur when there is not enough memory available to the application, or if the system is experiencing a conflict with particular software or hardware. A frequent cause of General Protection Faults is the use of outdated video drivers or audio drivers. Check to make sure you are using the latest video drivers and audio drivers available from your computer, video card or audio card manufacturer. When running the program, if a General Protection Fault occurs, quit and restart Windows. In many cases, the problem will not occur again. - Out-Of-Memory Errors. If you encounter out-of-memory errors, there is probably not enough memory available to the program. Consider doing the following to improve the memory usage. i) Close all unnecessary applications. ii) If you are using Windows for Workgroups, try to run windows without loading the network drivers by typing "win /n" at the DOS prompt. iii) 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 the program. If you do not have at least 8MB of physical memory, you may not be able to run the program until you add more physical memory. iv) Check the virtual memory setting. Try to use the Windows recommended virtual memory size; it may help to solve the out-of-memory problem. Please consult the Windows User's Guide for more information. v) If you are using Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups 3.11, you can try optimizing the memory usage by using Memmaker in DOS. - Changing the CD-ROM or hard disk drive letter since last installation. If you have changed the CD-ROM or hard disk drive letter since the last installation of Private Eye, you may experience unusual problems running the game. What you need to do is to delete the Pvteye directory on the root level of your hard drive, next delete the Pvteye.ini file in the Windows directory, then reinstall Private Eye. - Special software that is not supported. Private Eye does not support special software that assigns custom functions to simulate the left, right or center mouse button. These functions should not be used while running the program. - Windows 95 taskbar overlapping the program screen. If you find that the Windows 95 taskbar is overlapping the program screen, you can hide the taskbar by doing the following: i) Click the Start button. ii) Choose Settings. iii) Click Taskbar icon. iv) Check the Auto Hide box. v) Click the OK button. To see the taskbar again, move the mouse cursor to the edge of your screen where your taskbar is located. - Conflicts with Screen Savers. It is recommended that you temporarily disable screen savers of any kind while running Private Eye. Some screen savers may have conflicts with the program and cause General Protection Faults. - Turning off Microsoft Office Manager. If you have Microsoft Office installed (either the standard or the professional version), you should disable the Microsoft Office Manager (MOM) toolbar while running Private Eye. The presence of the toolbar in Private Eye can cause colors to be distorted. Check your Microsoft Office documentation for information on how to temporarily disable the Microsoft Office Manager toolbar. **************************************************************** 4. Performance Issues: **************************************************************** - The program runs slowly. If you find Private Eye runs slowly, your system may not be optimized for the best performance. Consider doing the following to improve the system performance. i) Run Windows 3.1 in Enhanced mode. To see if you are running Windows in Enhanced mode, from the Program Manager Help menu choose the 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. ii) If you are running Windows in Enhanced mode, set up a permanent Windows swap file for virtual memory on your hard disk. See your Windows User's Guide for more information. iii) Defragment ("clean up") your hard disk by running a defragmentation program (MS-DOS 6.2 and above includes the program "defrag"). - Improving performance with SmartDrive. Make sure you have SmartDrive 5.0 or above and MSCDEX 2.23. This new version of SmartDrive can cache data being read from 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. - Tips for Notebook computers. Some notebook computers may be still using a display driver, audio driver and CD-ROM driver that came with the system. Those drivers are probably the earliest releases, and may not be optimized for the best data transfer and hardware utilization. Please check with the manufacturer for up-to-date device drivers. If you have Windows 95 running on your notebook computer, try to use the native Windows 95 32-bit device drivers for your sound card and CD-ROM drive. This may increase performance on your machine and make Private Eye run smoother. - Choppy animation frames and sound. The Private Eye program reads most of its animation and sound data from the CD-ROM. If choppy animation or sound still occurs after you have optimized your system, including updating the CD-ROM driver and sound card driver (read the following sections for details), this is due to the nature of your CD-ROM hardware and CD-ROM interface card (including sound card that comes with a CD-ROM interface). Some earlier CD-ROM drives and CD-ROM interface cards may be a bottleneck preventing optimal data transfer, which is something not able to be fixed by software. **************************************************************** 5. CD-ROM Issues: **************************************************************** - Increasing the CD-ROM drive reading performance. Set up enough buffer for MSCDEX by putting /M:25 at the end of MSCDEX.EXE line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Some CD-ROM drives came with earlier releases of their DOS drivers. Old drivers may not be optimized for the best data transfer rate between the CD-ROM drive and the CD-ROM host. Contact your CD-ROM manufacturer for the latest drivers. If you are using Windows 95, make sure the CD-ROM Optimized Access Pattern in File System Properties is set up properly for the type of CD-ROM drive you have. e.g. if you have a Quad-speed CD-ROM drive, you should have the CD-ROM Optimized Access Pattern set up for Quad-speed or higher. If you are using Windows 95, try to use the native Windows 95 CD-ROM driver for your CD-ROM drive. Using the CD-ROM DOS driver in Windows 95 may result in slower performance. The CD-ROM DOS driver may also impede full 32-bit file system access. The file system performance may vary if it is not in full 32-bit pattern. Make sure that 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 the program. - Errors reading from the CD-ROM drive. If your system has errors reading from the CD-ROM drive, please do the following checks: i) make sure the disc surface is clean. ii) Look to find out if there are any visible scratches on the surface of the disc. iii) check the documentation that came with your CD-ROM drive or contact the company that supplied the drive in order to find out if your CD-ROM drive is functioning properly. - Problems finding the CD-ROM 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 the CD-ROM drive is moved or the drive letter is changed after installation of Private Eye, you will need to delete the Pvteye directory on the root level of your hard drive, next delete the Pvteye.ini file in the Windows directory, then reinstall Private Eye in order for the program to re-log the CD-ROM drive letter. Do not remove the CD-ROM while the program is running. If the program cannot find the data files that it needs from the CD disc, you will see a message that tells you that your computer cannot read from the drive letter of your CD-ROM. 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. **************************************************************** 6. Video Display Issues: **************************************************************** - Basic display requirement. Private Eye requires a video card that supports at least 640 x 480 resolution with 256 colors - Problems when running in 16 bit, 24 bit or 32 bit color mode. Private Eye will only work with 8 bit color mode - 256 colors. It will not work with 16 bit, 24 bit or 32 bit color mode. If there is a problem with animation playback and graphics--such as skipping frames and palette flashes--and the program is running in other screen resolutions, consider the following solutions: i) Set the screen resolution back to 640 x 480. Please consult your video card user's manual on how to change your display resolutions. ii) Update the video card drivers. Make sure you are using the most recent video drivers available for Windows from your video card manufacturer; earlier releases of video drivers may not be optimized for best display performance. Please consult your video card user's manual on how to obtain the latest driver. Most of the video card manufacturers provide BBS, WWW and FTP sites for downloading updated drivers. - Private Eye looks best in 640x480 resolution. If Private Eye is too small on your screen, you are probably running in a resolution higher than 640x480. To make Private Eye as large as possible on your screen, change the screen resolution to 640 x 480. **************************************************************** 7. Audio Issues: **************************************************************** - Conflicts with other applications. Audio problems can have many causes. Other applications that play sounds may interrupt sounds in Private Eye. Most sound cards cannot play two sounds simultaneously. In some cases, playing two sounds simultaneously can result in a system crash or freeze; in such cases, what you need to do is to restart your system. However, a few applications that play sounds, such as some screen savers, may remove audio capability from all other Windows applications; if this is the case, you may see Private Eye start up without any sound. If you suspect you have such situation, quit the game and turn off these applications before launching Private Eye. - Audio driver problems. If you experience problems with audio, you may need to update your sound card driver. It is always a good idea to use the most recent driver. Contact the manufacturer of your sound card to find out how to obtain a new driver. - IBM Aptiva Mwave sound card. If you own an IBM Aptiva Mwave sound card and are experiencing 'looping' or 'repeating' audio playback, please contact IBM to update the sound card driver. - Sounds play, but not very well. Sounds that are distorted or "fuzzy" have several possible causes. The most likely one is simply that your speakers are not of high quality. If you are playing sound through a high-quality stereo system, try adjusting the tone controls. The 11k digital audio files in Private Eye will sound best with the treble control turned down slightly. It is also possible that the software settings on your sound card are causing distortion. For example, if the sound card volume or "WAVE file output" 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 card settings, check the documentation that came with your sound card. - Sound does not play at all. If you do not hear any sounds, make sure that the volume for your speakers is set to an audible level. If the volume is set to an audible level, you can perform a simple test by using the Windows Media Player to play a .WAV file. If you still hear no sounds at all, something may be wrong with your sound card setup. Check your sound card IRQ and DMA settings, make sure those settings are not in conflict with other hardware devices. Also, check to see that 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 that Private Eye requires an MPC-compatible sound card 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 drivers will in most cases not play any sounds. If you have both a sound card and the PC Speaker driver installed, it is preferable to un-install the PC Speaker driver. **************************************************************** 8. Credits: **************************************************************** - Private Eye credits. Raymond Chandler Original Novel, The Little Sister Barbara Lanza Game Designer and Writer Jeremy Ross Producer Brian Flumen Associate Producer Callisto Corporation Programming Alan Wong Quality Assurance Please see the Credits section in the game for a full listing of the Private Eye team. - Byron Preiss Multimedia Company masthead. Byron Preiss Multimedia Company, Inc. Byron Preiss President James R. Dellomo Chief Financial Officer John Mayo-Smith Technical Director Bill Wentworth Creative Director Jackie Snyder Marketing Director Jeremy Ross Director, Brooklyn Multimedia Founded in 1992, Byron Preiss Multimedia Company, Inc. develops and publishes a wide range of interactive multimedia software under several imprints. Private Eye appears under the Brooklyn Multimedia imprint. Other Byron Preiss Multimedia titles appearing under the Brooklyn Multimedia imprint are Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House, Robot City and Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. - Infogrames Multimedia Credits. Bruno Bonnell President With the participation of : Hubert Chardot Emmanuelle Perigault-Vigier Chrystèle Briat Mathieu-Claude Chaboud Sylvie Combet Olivier Goulay Philippe Louvet Vincent Laloy Eric Mottet Sylviane Pivot Olivier Robin Fabien Roset Christiane Sgorlon Emmanuelle Tahmazian Edouard Viollet For more information, please contact: Technical Hotline: (0) 161 2888 7102 Ocean, Infogrames Group Technical Service Department, 3rd Floor Brunel House 54 Princess Street Manchester MA6HS (c) Copyright 1996 Infogrames Multimedia. All rights reserved. Published under license from Simon & Schluster Interactive. (c) Copyright 1996 Byron Preiss Multimedia Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Brooklyn Multimedia is a trademark of Byron Preiss Multimedia Company, Inc. Based on the book The Little Sister (c)1949 Raymond Chandler, renewed 1976 by Mrs. Helga Green. Windows and Windows 95 are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Apple and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. used under license.