Aliens Vs. Predator 2 Multiplayer Demo

Aliens Versus Predator 2 Multiplayer Demo
Readme File
10/8/01


*******************************************************************

		    	TABLE OF CONTENTS

		  I.	MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
		 II.    INSTALLATION
		III.    CUSTOM PERFORMANCE OPTIONS
		 IV.    GENERAL TECHNICAL ISSUES
		  V.    SIERRA WARRANTY & LEGAL INFORMATION




I. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
-----------------------

  P3 450 or equivalent processor
  128 MB RAM
  16 MB DirectX 8-compatible D3D video card
  16-bit DirectX 8-compatible sound card
  110 MB free hard drive space (175 needed during installation)
  English Windows compatible keyboard and mouse
  English Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000
  DirectX 8a or higher
  56k DirectPlay-compatible TCP-IP Internet connection for Internet
  play, or a NIC (Network Interface Card) and intranet connection
  for LAN play

  - DirectX can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/directx
  - DirectX installation on Windows 95 machines requires DCOM,
  which can be downloaded from
  http://www.microsoft.com/com/dcom/dcom95/eula.asp


II. INSTALLATION
----------------

To install the demo, double-click the avp2mpdemo.exe file and
follow the prompts. Once the installation has finished, run the
demo using the Start Menu shortcut, optional desktop shortcut, or
by double-clicking the AVP2Demo.exe file in the install directory.


III. PLAYING THE DEMO
---------------------

The demo has two modes of play, Multiplayer Internet or Multiplayer
LAN. LAN is used for finding games on a local area network, such as
in an office or a school. The Internet mode will find games hosted
anywhere on the Internet.

FINDING A GAME

To find a game in either mode, click the "Find Games" menu item in
that mode's submenu. After a brief pause to scan for games you'll
be shown a list of available servers. You may modify which servers
are shown in this list by using the filter options at the bottom of
the list. To get more information on a server's settings, click on
the server's name and then click the "Server Info" tab.

Set up your desired name and character on the "Player" tab screen.
There are four characters to choose from in the demo, each
representing a different team: Marines, Aliens, Predators and
Corporates.

  Marines (Human):
    With knives, pistols, shotguns, pulse rifles and smartguns,
    marines come heavily armed for any fight. Their armor protects
    them from harm, though it can be damaged. They can use health
    kits to heal themselves. Marines have night vision goggles and
    flashlights to help them see in the dark.

  Aliens:
    Fast and deadly in hand-to-hand combat, aliens can go just
    about anywhere with their wall-walking and pouncing abilities.
    They can eat the bodies of fallen players to regain health.
    Their special vision can pick out enemies by their unique aura,
    or alternately can see in unlit areas to help them navigate
    dark hive tunnels.

  Predators:
    Strong invisible hunters, predators stalk their prey
    mercilessly. With the ability to cloak, recharge and heal,
    predators are largely self-sufficient in battle. Their deadly
    shoulder cannon locks on to targets automatically in
    conjunction with the special vision modes supplied by their
    masks. Their wristblades, spear and netgun make them formidable
    at close range.

  Corporates (Human):
    Opposed to the marines, corporates are their match in weaponry
    and tools.

Once you find a server and set up your character, click the "JOIN"
button in the lower right to join the game and start battle.

HOSTING A GAME

In addition to finding other games on the Internet or LAN, you can
host your own. The Host menus offer many options for configuring
the game to your liking. If you will be using multiple
configurations frequently, you can save individual control sets by
going to the "Configurations..." screen from the Host-->Game menu.
If you want to make your game private, check the "Password" box and
choose a unique password--only those who enter the password
correctly will be able to join your game.

On the "Game" tab you can choose between two game Types: Deathmatch
and Team Deathmatch. These are described on the "Setup" tab screen,
where you can also set your own character and time/score limits.

The controls in the "Advanced" tab screen allow you to alter how
quickly characters take damage, how many points are awarded for a
killing a specific class, whether head shots ("Location Based
Damage") and friendly-fire (for team games) are active, as well as
other advanced settings.

The "Player" tab screen allows you to set up your character just as
in the Find Games menus.

Once the game is set up to your liking, click the "LAUNCH" button
in the lower left-hand corner to host the game.

OPTIONS

The Options menus allow you to change various aspects of the game
to your liking. You can access the Options screens from the Main
Menu or by hitting the ESC key during gameplay.

  Controls:
    Bind the game's controls to keyboard, mouse or input-device
    functions. If you ever want to return to the default
    configuration, click the "Restore Defaults" button in the lower
    right-hand corner. All characters have certain Shared controls
    in common as well as special controls which are only used while
    playing that species.

    The "Mouse," "Keyboard" and "Joystick" tab menus allow you to
    tweak the control for those devices.

  Game:
    Set certain game-wide options here.

  Graphics:
    Configure the look of the game to your preferences. Choosing
    lower Resolution and Performance settings will improve the
    game's speed and smoothness, at the cost of graphical detail.
    Advanced users may tweak individual rendering options to their
    liking in the "CUSTOM PERFORMANCE" menus.

  Sound:
    Configure various sound options.

  Credits:
    View the credits for the game.

GAMEPLAY

When you first find yourself in a game, you'll be invulnerable for
a few seconds as you get your bearings. If you move or switch or
fire weapons during this time, you will become vulnerable.

Deathmatch tends to be a fast-paced affair. You'll find that
movement and evasion important for survival, though you'll need to
become adept at your character's weapons if you want to win the
round. When your character is killed, press the spacebar or fire
button to restart on the map with a new life. The player with the
most kills or highest score (depending on the server's settings) at
the end of the round is the winner.

Team Deathmatch rewards cooperation as you score points only for
killing members of the opposing teams--killing someone on your own
team will lower your score, so be careful who you attack. The team
with the most kills or highest score (depending on the server's
settings) at the end of the round is the winner.


III. CUSTOM PERFORMANCE OPTIONS
------------------------------

The "Options-->Graphics-->Custom Performance" menus contain
advanced user options you can use to tweak the appearance and speed
of the game.

  GENERAL:

    Texture Depth:
      Toggle between 16 and 32-bit textures. 32-bit textures are
      much smoother and more detailed than 16-bit textures, but
      increase load times, require more video and system RAM and
      may slow down the framerate on some video cards. If you have
      an older video card, particularly one with only 16 MB of RAM,
      it is recommended that you keep this setting on "16-bit."

    Lightmap Resolution:
      Toggle between 16 and 32-bit world shadows. As with textures,
      32-bit shadows are smoother in appearance but require more
      RAM, loading and processing time.

    Shadows:
      Toggle character shadows on/off. Turning them off give a
      slight performance boost on slower systems.

    Detail Textures:
      Toggle detail textures on/off. Detail textures provide the
      tiny details you see on the world when you look at objects at
      close range. Turning them off will yield a slight increase in
      framerate. Some older cards may not support detail textures:
      if everything in the game looks flat white, try turning
      detail textures off.

    Environment Chrome:
      Toggle environment chrome mapping on/off. Environment maps
      provide the shiny surface effects you see on some metallic
      surfaces in the game. Turning this off will improve
      performance, particularly on older video cards.

    Model Chrome:
      Toggle model chrome on/off. Model chrome is the shiny surface
      effects you see on some glass and metal models, such as
      certain of the predator's weapons. Turning this off will
      improve performance, particularly on older video cards.

    Trilinear Filtering:
      Toggle trilinear filtering on/off. Trilinear filtering makes
      textures look smoother when viewed at an angle. It is not
      supported by all video cards, and may also decrease
      performance.

    Triple Buffering:
      Toggle triple buffering on/off. Triple buffering can provide
      smoother framerates by causing the video card to store an
      extra rendered frame before sending it to the monitor. Triple
      buffering requires additional video RAM; 16 MB card users may
      want to keep this setting off if they are running the game in
      a high screen resolution.

    Draw Sky:
      Toggles sky rendering on/off. When off, the sky will just be
      a flat color but rendering performance will be slightly
      higher.

  EFFECTS:

    Draw Weapons:
      Toggles player-view models such as your hands and gun on/off.
      When turned off you won't be able to see your hands, however
      since the game no longer has to draw these models the
      framerate will improve slightly.

    Muzzle Flash Light:
      Toggle muzzle flash dynamic lighting on/off. Turning this off
      may improve performance in intense gunfights. You may also
      wish to turn this setting off if you find the flashing
      irritating.

    Shell Casings:
      Toggle shell casing models on/off. Turning them off will
      improve performance on slower systems.

    Weapon Impacts:
      Toggle Weapon impact detail between Low, Medium and High.
      Higher settings create more effects (sparks, smoke, debris)
      where weapons hit solid surfaces. Turning this setting down
      may improve performance on slower systems when weapons are
      firing.

    Debris:
      Toggle Debris detail between Low, Medium and High. Higher
      settings create more pieces when objects break. Turning this
      setting down may improve performance on slower systems when
      objects break.

  TEXTURES:

    Overall:
      Toggles overall game texture detail between Extra-low, Low,
      Medium, High and Extra-high. Higher settings provide more
      surface detail. Lower settings decrease load times and may
      improve performance, particularly on systems with low RAM.

    World/Sky/Characters/Weapons/Props/Effects:
      You can set texture detail for specific types of objects
      using the arrow sliders. Experiment with different settings
      to find your own preferred balance between visual detail and
      game performance.


IV. GENERAL TECHNICAL ISSUES
-----------------------------

- To increase the rendering speed of the game, go to the Options-->
Graphics menu and lower the "Resolution" and/or the "Performance"
settings.

- Users with 128 MB system RAM and/or 16 MB video cards,
particularly cards which do not support S3TC compression, may
improve game performance by setting "Texture depth" to "16-bit" in
the "Options-->Graphics-->Custom Performance-->General" menu.
Lowering "Overall" texture detail in the "Options-->Graphics-->
Custom Performance--> Textures" menu may also boost performance.

- If you are experiencing periodic hitches in performance, try
setting sound detail to "Low" in the Options-->Sound menu.

- Shut down all non-essential programs before you run the game.

- If you haven't done so in several weeks of use, you may find that
defragging your hard drive will yield improved performance.
Window's disk defragmentation tool is generally found in the Start
Menu at "Programs\Accessories\System Tools\Disk Defragmenter."

- Task-switching with ALT-TAB back to the desktop while running the
game is not recommended.

- Make sure your sound, video and motherboard drivers are up to
date. We recommend using the latest reference drivers available
from your chip manufacturer. Major vendor sites include:

http://www.soundblaster.com - Drivers for Soundblaster sound cards.

http://www.nvidia.com - Reference drivers for TNT and GeForce video
cards.

http://www.3dfx.com - Reference drivers for 3dfx Voodoo video
cards.

http://www.ati.com - Reference drivers for ATI video cards,
including the Radeon.

http://www.matrox.com - Reference drivers for Matrox Graphics video
cards, including the G400 and G450.

http://www.viatech.com - Reference drivers for VIA-based
motherboards.

http://www.amd.com - Reference drivers for AMD motherboards.


Operating Systems:

Windows 95:
  DirectX installation on Windows 95 machines requires DCOM, which
  can be downloaded from
  http://www.microsoft.com/com/dcom/dcom95/eula.asp

Windows XP:
  While not officially Windows XP certified, preliminary testing
  has not uncovered any WinXP-specific compatibility issues.


Hardware-specific Notes:

Sound:

Diamond MX400:
  - May hear static when sounds play while running under Windows 95
  or 98.

TBS Daytona:
  - "Illegal Operation" error may occur during game installation
  under Win98SE or WinMe, and the system loses sound until
  rebooted.

Yamaha YMF719:
  - This sound card is unsupported by AVP2.

ESS Maestro1-ES1948F:
  - May not get sound using the current drivers under Windows XP.

Video:

General:
  - On a multimonitor system, changing your screen resolution in-
  game may change your display back to the first monitor. To
  correct this, run avp2.exe, click the Display button and re-
  select the correct display.

  - The demo defaults to a screen resolution of 640x480, 32-bit. If
  your video card cannot run in 32-bit and you find that the demo
  won't launch correctly, use the following procedure to force it
  to start in 16-bit:

    1) Open the "autoexec.cfg" file in the root directory with
    Notepad or some other text editor.
    2) Go down to the line that says

        "BitDepth" "32"

    3) Change "32" to "16" on this line.
    4) Go down to the line that says

        "GameBitDepth" "32"

    5) Change "32" to "16" on this line.
    6) Save the file.
    7) Run the demo. It will now start in 640x480, 16-bit.

3dfx Voodoo Cards:
  - The mouse pointer may flicker on the menu screens.

3dfx Banshee and Voodoo 3:
  - The Options-->Display menu on the avp2.exe game launcher and
  the Options-->Graphics menu in the game will allow you to select
  32-bit color resolutions but these resolutions are not supported
  by the video card, and the resolution will reset to the previous
  16-bit depth.
  - Detail Textures and Environment Maps will not display.

3dfx Voodoo 4:
  - The game may crash when run on a Voodoo 4 in Windows 95.

3dfx Voodoo 5:
  - The user may encounter rare crashes when running in High or
  Best detail. It is recommended that you use Medium or Low detail
  for the "Performance" setting on the "Options-->Graphics" menu
  screen when running the game on this video card.

ATI Radeon:
  - There may be some artifacting around lettering on the menus.
  - Fog does not render with the Radeon's default driver settings.
  - The smartgun's crosshair may look like a green square.

Matrox G200:
  - May experience low framerates during gameplay.
  - The smartgun's crosshair may look like a green square.
  - Does not run the game under Windows XP.

Matrox G400, G450:
  - May experience low framerate in vision modes.
  - The smartgun's crosshair may look like a green square.
  - May experience some odd lighting artifacts.

Nvidia GeForce 2:
  - User may find areas in the game where sections of the screen
  lose textures. This bug appears to have been introduced with the
  Nvidia 21.81 drivers. It may be resolved with a future driver
  release. It can be avoided in most cases by setting "Detail
  Textures" and "Environment Chrome" to "Off" in the "Options-->
  Graphics-->Custom Performance" menu.

Power VR Kyro and Kyro 2:
  - Menu options do not display at 32-bit screen depths. They show
  up at 16-bit screen depths. If using a Kyro card, it is suggested
  that you use the "Display" button on the game Launcher to select
  a 16-bit mode before running the game. This issue may be resolved
  by a future driver release.
  - Polygon distortion may be visible in the skies when using
  vision modes.
  - Certain trim textures may appear unusually bright.
  - Blocks may appear around certain objects.

S3 Savage 2000:
  - User may encounter some odd lighting artifacts.

S3 Savage 3:
  - AVP2 does not run on the Savage 3. This card no longer has
  active driver support.

S3 Savage 4:
  - Significant graphical corruption. This card no longer has
  active driver support.

Input Device:

Logitech Mice:
  - When the scroll wheel is set to a special function in
  Mouseware, activating the scroll wheel during gameplay may have
  undesired results. Setting the scroll wheel's function to "Middle
  Mouse Button" in Mouseware should resolve the issue.

Mad Catz Panther DX:
  - Binding a control to "Z rotation" will cause the view to spin
  in circles.

All joysticks:
  - Joystick hats are not supported by the control binding system.
  Your joystick software may be able to bind the hat to equivalent
  keyboard keys.
  - If your analog joystick doesn't seem to be working after you've
  set up the control bindings, try setting "Analog" to On for the
  non-working axes. Note that this won't actually provide true
  analog control.


CONTROLS:

To delete a control binding in the Options-->Controls menu,
highlight the control, but don't click on it, and press the
[DELETE] key on your keyboard.


MULTIPLAYER

Multiplayer performance will depend on the quality and speed of
your Internet connection. If you are experiencing poor performance
in multiplayer, try the following:

- Make sure you choose the connection speed most appropriate to
your Internet connection. "Join Connection Speed" is found on the
"Multiplayer Internet" and "Multiplayer LAN" menus. If you are
playing on a 56k modem, make sure you set Connection Speed to
"56K."

- Play on servers whose "ping" (round-trip signal time, in
milliseconds) is lowest for you, as shown in the server list. Ping
times under 200ms will offer the best performance.

- Play on servers with fewer players. The more players there are in
a server, the more data your computer will have to download.

- Avoid playing during peak Internet traffic hours. Internet
traffic is generally heaviest between 5 and 10 pm Monday through
Friday. Depending on your ISP (Internet Service Provider) you may
experience decreased performance during these times.

- Contact your ISP to make sure that your Internet connection
software is configured correctly.

- Players behind a firewall may encounter difficulty finding and
joining Internet games. Consult your network administrator for help
in resolving these issues.

- We recommend that systems running a dedicated Internet server
have at least a 128K Internet connection. If your server seems to
have performance issues, try limiting the total number of players
allowed in the game. Use the bandwidth setting in the Host options
to prevent bandwidth overload.

Switching Characters
  Pressing F1 during play brings up the character info screen,
  showing all the available characters. To change to a different
  character, click on the desired character and press F1 again to
  close the character info screen.

Spectator Mode Controls
  Before you respawn in multiplayer, you can press F1 to switch to
  Spectator mode.

  Spectator mode has two variations: Observe Point mode and Free-
  Fly mode. In Observe Point mode you watch the action through
  fixed cameras placed throughout the level, while in Free-Fly mode
  you may fly throughout the level, even going through walls.

  Observe Point mode has on-screen controls you can operate with
  the mouse, or via keyboard keys as follows:

    Right Arrow:      takes you to the next observe point
    Left Arrow:       takes you to the previous observe point
    Spacebar:         takes you to a random observe point
    F2:               switches to Free-Fly mode
    F1:               opens the character info screen, allowing
                      you to switch characters

    The "> Respawn <" button, if available, will start you back in
    the game.

  Free-Fly mode offers the following functions:

    Fire:             takes you to the next observe point
    Alt-Fire:         takes you to the previous observe point
    Next Vision Mode: takes you to a random observe point
    F2:               switches to Observe Point mode
    F1:               opens the character info screen but will
                      not allow you to switch characters
    Mouse:            controls your direction
    Forward:          moves you in the direction in which you are
                      facing
    Backward:         moves you away from the direction in which
                      you are facing
    Strafe-Left:      moves you left
    Strafe-Right:     moves you right
    Crouch:           moves you down
    Jump:             moves you up
    Turn Left:        turns left
    Turn Right:       turns right
    Look Up:          looks up
    Look Down:        looks down

Advanced Server Commands
  Users can control certain advanced aspects of the multiplayer
  game through command-line parameters.

  Private messages
    To send a chat message to one player only, start the message
    with the player's name in pointy brackets. For instance if you
    entered the chat message

      <mandiller> Hey, how's it going?

    then only the player named "mandiller" would get the message.

  Server controller commands
    The player who has been on a server for the longest time has a
    star to the left of their name indicating that they are the
    server controller. In addition to controlling the start times
    of team-based games, the server controller can input the
    following commands in the Message window:

    <serv> kick [playername]
      Boots a player from the server. Replace "[playername]" with
      the name of the player you wish to remove.
    <serv> prevlevel
      Ends the current match and switches to the previous map.
    <serv> nextlevel
      Ends the current match and switches to the next map.
    <serv> restart
      Restarts the server at the first map in the rotation.

  Server operator commands
    The operator of a dedicated server can chat with players on the
    server by entering a message in the command-line at the bottom
    of the dedicated server window.

Dedicated server:

  The dedicated server allows you to host a server for other
  players without actually participating in the game yourself. The
  dedicated server runs in a window on the desktop, allowing you to
  access other Windows functions while the server is running.
  Dedicated servers will tend to have better network performance
  than regular hosted games since the computer does not have to
  process graphics and physics while the server is running and does
  not have to hold game resources in memory.

  A dedicated server machine should meet the minimum specification
  for the game itself in CPU speed and RAM (450 mHz, 128 MB). For
  best performance it is recommended that the server have a T1 or
  faster network connection. Many cable modem and DSL services have
  very fast download speeds but relatively slow upload speeds;
  since a dedicated server has to upload information to all
  clients, servers on an upload-limited cable or DSL connection
  will not be able to support as many players simultaneously as
  will servers running on a connection whose upload speed equals
  its download speed, such as a T1 or T3 connection.

  Dedicated servers on even the fastest connections may find it
  advantageous to limit the number of players allowed in the server
  at once. The server may also limit the total amount of data
  uploaded at one time by using the "Server Bandwidth" setting in
  the Advanced panel of the Host menu--this can help prevent lag
  caused by high-bandwidth players taking all the available upload
  bandwidth.

  To run a dedicated server, go to the Multiplayer Internet or
  Multiplayer LAN screen from the main menu, select the "Host" item
  and set "Dedicated" to "Yes" in the "Game" panel, then set up the
  game settings to your own preference. Now when you click
  "Launch," AVP2 will close and the stand alone server application
  will run in a window on the desktop.

  Once you have configured the dedicated server the first time, you
  can run the server directly by double-clicking the avp2serv.exe
  file in your AVP2 folder. If you have multiple server
  configurations stored a window will appear allowing you to select
  the desired configuration.

  The dedicated server window contains the following items:

  Server Name:      The name you gave your server in the Host menu.
  Game Type:        The type of game being hosted (DM or Team DM).
  Running Time:     The total time the server has been running.
  Peak Players:     The maximum number of players that have been in
                    the server at any one time.
  Total Players:    The total number of players that have joined
                    the server during the current Running Time.
  Stop Server:      Pressing this button shuts down the server.
                    Pressing the [X] button in the upper right
                    corner performs the same function.
  Players:          Lists the players current using the server.
    Name:             The player's name.
    Ping:             The round trip time between player and
                      server, in milliseconds.
    Kills:            The number of kills the player has made in
                      the current round.
    Score:            The player's total point score for the round.
    Lives:            The number of lives the player has remaining
                      (applies to certain retail team modes such as
                      Evac which are not found in the demo
                      version).
    Time:             The total amount of time the player has been
                      on the server.
  Current Players:  Total current players / max players allowed.
  Average Ping:     The average round trip time between the server
                    and each connected player, in milliseconds.
  Boot Player:      Ejects the selected player from the server. To
                    select a player, click on their name.
  Levels:           Shows the levels in the server's map rotation.
                    The demo has only one level.
  Time in Level:    Time the server has been in the current level.
  Next Level:       Skips ahead to the next level in the map
                    rotation, automatically ending the current
                    round.
  Select Level:     Switches to the selected level. To select a
                    level, click the level name in the list window.
  Console:          Shows server activity as well as player chat
                    messages. The server operator can enter
                    messages in the command line below (see "Server
                    operator commands" above).
  Clear:            Clears the console window.

  Note: to run the server on a machine which cannot run the demo (a
  machine without a D3D-compatible video card, for instance),
  install the demo on that machine, then configure the settings as
  desired on a machine that can access the game menus. Copy this
  machine's "ServerData" folder into the AVP2 folder on the server
  machine, then launch the server by double-clicking avp2serv.exe.


V. SIERRA WARRANTY & LEGAL INFORMATION
--------------------------------------

Sierra's end user license agreement, limited warranty and return
policy is set forth in the EULA.txt installed in the demo directory
and is also available during the install of the product.

(c) 2001 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Copyright (2001 Sierra On-Line, Inc.)

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