--------------------------------- Breath of Fire 4 PC Release Notes --------------------------------- WARNING: TO OWNERS OF PROJECTION TELEVISIONS Still pictures or images may cause permanent picture-tube damage or mark the phosphor of the cathode ray tube. Avoid repeated or extended use of video games on large-screen projection televisions. EPILEPSY WARNING: << Please read this warning before using this game or allowing your children to use it! >> Some people are susceptible to epileptic seizures or loss of consciousness when exposed to certain flashing lights or light patterns in everyday life. Such people may have a seizure while watching television images or playing certain video games. This may happen even if the person has no medical history of epilepsy or has never had any epileptic seizures. If you or anyone in your family has ever had symptoms related to epilepsy (seizures or loss of consciousness) when exposed to flashing lights, consult your doctor prior to playing. We advise that parents should monitor the use of video games by their children. If you or your child experiences any of the following symptoms: - Dizziness - Blurred Vision - Eye or muscle twitches - Loss of consciousness - Disorientation - any involuntary movement or convulsion, while playing a video game, discontinue use IMMEDIATLY and consult your doctor. PRECAUTIONS TO TAKE DURING USE: 1.) Do not stand too close to the screen. Sit a good distance away from the screen, as far away as the length of the cable allows. 2.) Preferably play the game on a small screen. 3.) Avoid playing if you are tired or have not had much sleep. 4.) Make sure the room you are playing in is well lit. 5.) Rest for at least 10 to 15 minutes per hour while playing a video game. -------------------------- Contents: 1.Free Disk Space 2.System Requirements 3.Exclusive Application 4.Installation 5.Software Conflicts 6.Hardware Compatibility 7.Troubleshooting 8.Technical Support -------------------------- 1. Free Disk Space ------------------ Breath of Fire 4 takes up 540Mb of hard drive space when installed fully. In addition to this the product may require up to 100Mb of free hard drive swap space for both installation and running of the application depending on the configuration of your machine. These requirements are exclusive of the hard drive space required for DirectX 8.0 which is required to run the application. For low spec machines with out any of the required software currently installed, it is recommended that at least 800Mb of free disk space be available before commencing installation of the product. NOTE: Some operating systems require a certain amount of "Swap space" for Windows to function correctly. Never let your Harddisk get too full and regularily run a defrag to clean up space. 2. System Requirements --------------------- SYSTEM CONFIGURATION (Minimal) Supported Operating Systems: Windows® 95, 98, 2000, Me CPU: Pentium® 233 RAM: 64MB Hard Disk: 230MB (standard install) CD-ROM: 4X or higher Sound: Microsoft® Direct Sound Graphics: Microsoft® Direct 3D VRAM: 8MB SYSTEM CONFIGURATION (Recommended) Supported Operating Systems: Windows® 95, 98, 2000, Me CPU: Pentium® II 350 RAM: 64MB Hard Disk: 230MB (standard install) CD-ROM: 4X or higher Sound: Microsoft® Direct Sound Graphics: Microsoft® Direct 3D VRAM: 16MB If you are unsure about your PC's specifications consult your DXDIAG. 1. In Windows choose START. 2. Choose RUN. 3. Type DXDIAG. 4. Press OK. Most of the components can be found on the first page. The video RAM (VRAM) can be found under display. This program will also inform you of any problems with the computer which could affect the running of the game. 3. Exclusive Application ----------------------- Breath of Fire 4 is designed to be run as an exclusive application. It is therefore recommended that the user shut down other applications before running Breath of Fire 4. Please consult the troubleshooting section if you require help with this. 4. Installation --------------- If you are running Windows 9x/2000/XP the splash-screen should launch automatically as soon as you place the CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive. >From this screen you can choose to install the game. If the Autostart function is not enabled you can start the installation by clicking on the "Start"-Menu and choose "Run". Then type "E:\launcher.exe" in the window (if "E" is the letter of your CD-ROM Drive). If another letter is assigned to your CD-ROM Drive please use this letter instead of 'E'. Note: In order to run "Breath of Fire 4" you will need to have DirectX Version 8.0 or better installed on your PC. If not, the installer will let you know and you will be able to install it after the actual game has been installed. The splash-screen should provide you with the option to install this application. 5. Software Conflicts -------------------- Breath of Fire 4 is not known to have compatibility issues with specific software, but we do advise to turn off all programs running in the background before starting the tilte. Steps on how to do this can be found in the Troubleshooting section (Section 7). 6. Hardware Compatibility ------------------------- The following hardware products are not compatible with Breath of Fire 4: 3dfx graphics cards 3dfx have ceased trading and are no longer producing graphics drivers to give their graphics cards compatibility with the latest versions of DirectX. As a result there are no official drivers available to make 3dfx graphics cards compatible with DirectX 8. We therefore cannot guarantee that this game will run correctly on 3dfx graphics cards such as the Voodoo 3. Ati Rage Pro Turbo AGP Problems were seen during testing with this graphics card. These problems included severe graphics corruption in some instances. We do not recommend playing Breath of fire 4 on this graphics chipset. If you have any problems with older graphics cards it is advised to get the latest supported drivers for the devices from the manufacturer. 7.Troubleshooting ----------------- Below are some general troubleshooting steps that may prove helpful in the event of any performance problems with Breath of Fire 4: Freeing up System Resources: The Windows OS allows you to have lots of different programs running at the same time. Sometimes these programs do not play happily together and create problems. Many modern games are very demanding on your computer. Some game problems can be solved by making sure that the game is the only program on the field. Limiting the number of other applications and programs running can help your system and program performance across the board, not with just games. There are a couple of steps you can take to clear the field. Step 1: Taskbar Programs Most programs that you run have boxes on the Windows taskbar. If you click on any of the boxes on the taskbar that program will become active. You can either select each program there and then close them within the program, or you can right click on each box and select Close. Before you run the game the task bar should be empty of any active programs. Step 2: Ctrl-Alt-Del The second step involves disabling background programs that may be running. There are a lot of programs that may be running that you wouldn't see on the taskbar. We call them here background programs, and they take up memory and other resources. The following steps will close all of those. 1.) Press CTRL+ALT+DEL keys to bring up the Close Program window. 2.) The only programs you need to leave open are Systray and Explorer. 3.) Highlight the program you want to close and click on the End Task button. 4.) Once all the programs are closed EXCEPT Systray and Explorer, try: Step 3: Run the Game Once you complete these two steps then your system is ready to run the game. These steps can clear up a lot of problems you may be experiencing. Your performance may also increase because you have more memory free and more resources are available to the game. Not only can this make games run more smoothly, but applications can benefit from this, as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Altering display settings: Please make sure your desktop is set to 640 x 480 and High Colour (16 bit). Follow the instructions below to check your color palette: 1.) Click on Start, go to Settings, and click on Control Panel. 2.) When the Control Panel comes up, double-click on the Display icon. 3.) Click on the Settings tab. 4.) Modify the Color Palette to say High Color 16 bit and the Desktop Area to 640 x 480 . 5.) Click on the Apply button once the changes have been made and follow the on-screen prompts to finish the process. True Color 24/32 bit will cause some games to freeze or not work at all. Not having Windows in the same color depth as the game will force the game to switch the color for you (which can cause problems) or have to perform color re-mapping which slows down the game performance. Note: Windows XP user may only be able to use a 800x600 resolution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Graphics Hardware reduction: 1.) Right-click on the My Computer icon. 2.) Select Properties from the menu. 3.) Click on the Performance tab. 4.) At the bottom of the screen you will see three equal-sized buttons - click on Graphics. 5.) You will then see a hardware acceleration tab - this is normally set fully to the right. Try to click on this and drag it back two notches. 6.) Click Apply and close this until you are once again at your Windows desktop. 7.) At this point you will be prompted to restart your computer - click yes. 8.) After the machine has restarted, try the title again. You may need to experiment with the setting of your acceleration tab - depending on the computer, it has been necessary to take this to zero acceleration. These steps are slightly different in XP. Right-click on your desktop, select properties and then settings. Select the Advanced button and then Troubleshooting. You should now see the hardware acceleration slider bar. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sound Playback Alteration: 1.) Click on your Windows Start button. 2.) Click on Settings and then Control Panel. 3.) Double click on Multimedia. 4.) At the top of the first screen you will see Playback and in the Windows highlight colour the sound card's current playback preferred device - please take a note of where this is set. 5.) If you click on the small arrow to the right of the preferred device you may see other options. Typically the ones which work for some sound problems are Game Compatible and/or Use Any Available Device. We have noticed that Game Compatible Device seems to be more successful. You could try to click on one of these at a time: to make the change happen, click the "apply" button at the bottom right of the screen. Exit back to your desktop and try the title again. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reducing sound hardware acceleration 1.) Click on your Windows Start button. 2.) Click on the Run Command. 3.) Type in the white box "dxdiag" in lower case and without the quotes. 4.) Click OK. 5.) Click on the sound tab. 6.) You will see a slider bar for your hardware acceleration - I would recommend you reduce this to no acceleration (fully left) although you may wish to experiment with settings. 7.) Exit the DXDIAG and try the title again. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installing the latest Graphics card drivers This can help the performance of your computer with certain games. Below is a list of the most common manufaturers websites. www.nvidia.com www.matrox.com www.ati.com www.hercules.com www.sis.co.jp www.s3graphics.com www.europe.creative.com Capcom does not take responsibility for any drivers downloaded and/or installed onto your systems. 8. Technical Support -------------------- If you encounter any technical difficulties with this Capcom game, please email our support team at feedback@capcomeuro.com Please make sure that you give precise details of any error messages that you receive, and details regarding the specifications of your computer, as this will help us in giving you a faster and more efficient service. If you are unsure about your system specification consult your DXDIAG. For further help on this view the Minimum specification section (Section 2) If you would prefer to write to us, please send your letters to the following address: Feedback Capcom Eurosoft Ltd 9th Floor 26-28 Hammersmith Grove London W6 7HA