Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition Version 1.0 Table of Contents: I. General Information II. Late Breaking Changes to the Documentation III. What Problems Still Exist? IV. Where to find the Chessmaster FAQ V. Technical and Customer Support ===================================================================== I. *** General Information *** 1. The minimum system requirements for running Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition are: Supported OS: Windows® XP/ Vista Processor: Pentium® III 1 GHz or AMD K6 III RAM: 256 MB Video Card: 32Mb, DirectX® 9.0c-compliant video card Minimum Screen Resolution: 1024x768 (lower resolutions not supported, even if most of the game modes should work) Sound Card: optional but recommended DirectX® Version: DirectX 9.0c (included on disc) DVD-ROM: 4x DVD-ROM Hard Drive Space: 1000 MB Multiplayer: 56 Kbps or faster for Internet or LAN play 2. The recommended system requirements for running Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition are: Supported OS: Windows® XP/ Vista Processor: 2 GHz Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon™ or more recent RAM: 512MB Video Card: 128 MB recommended, see suported list* Screen Resolution: 1280x1024 Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c-compliant sound card DirectX® Version: DirectX 9.0c (included on disc) DVD-ROM: 4x DVD-ROM Hard Drive Space: 2300 MB, allowing a full install Multiplayer: broadband *Supported Video Cards at Time of Release: PCI-E Cards: Radeon HD 2900 XT, Radeon HD 2600 XT, Radeon HD 2600 Pro, Radeon HD 2400 XT, Radeon HD 2400 Pro, Radeon X1950XTX, Radeon X1950 Pro, Radeon X1950XTX, Radeon X1900XT, Radeon X1900 AIW, Radeon X1800XTX, Radeon X1800XL, Radeon X1800XTX, Radeon X1600, Radeon X1300, Radeon X850XT, Radeon X800XT, Radeon X800Pro, Radeon X700Pro, Radeon X600XT, Radeon X300SE, GeForce 8800 Ultra, GeForce 8800GTS, GeForce 8800 GTX, GeForce 8800GT, GeForce 8600GT, GeForce 8500GT, GeForce 7950GT, GeForce 7950GX2, GeForce 7900GTX, GeForce 7900GS, GeForce 7800GTX, GeForce 7600GT, GeForce 7300LE, GeForce 7300GT, GeForce 7300GS, GeForce 6800Ultra, GeForce 6800, GeForce 6600GT, GeForce 6200TC, GeForce 5900, Quadro NVS 285 64mb, Quadro NVS 285 128mb, S3 Graphics Chrome S27, AGP Cards: Radeon X1950 Pro, Radeon X1650 Pro, Radeon X1600, Radeon X850Pro, Radeon X800Pro, Radeon 9800 XT, Radeon 9800 Pro, Radeon 9700 Pro, Radeon 9600XT, Radeon 9600 Pro, Radeon 9500 Pro, Radeon 9200, Radeon 9000 Pro, Radeon 8500, Radeon 7500, GeForce 7600GS, GeForce 6800 GT, GeForce 6800 128mb, GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, GeForce FX 5800, GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, GeForce FX 5700, GeForce FX 5600, GeForce FX 5200, GeForce 4 Ti 4600 Ultra, GeForce 4 Ti 4600, GeForce 4 Ti 4400, GeForce 4 Ti 4200, GeForce4 MX 460, GeForce4 MX 440, GeForce 3 Ti 500, GeForce 3. Laptop versions of these cards may work but are NOT supported. For the most up-to-date minimum requirement listings, please visit the FAQ for this game on our support website at: http://support.ubi.com. 3. Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition uses Miles Sound System. Copyright © 1991-2007 by RAD Game Tools, Inc. Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition uses Bink Video. Copyright (C) 1997-2007 by RAD Game Tools, Inc. 4. Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition needs up to 20 MB of free hard drive space to run smoothly, due to audio requirements. Along with the needs of other Windows applications that may be running, along with the requirements of Windows' swap file, we recommend having at least 30 MB free hard drive space on the drive where you installed Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition before launching the program. 5. We strongly recommend to not install Chessmaster into your system's "Windows" folder or in any partition's root (ex: directly on C: or D:). 6. To install Chessmaster, you must have administrator privileges on your computer system. Otherwise, the installation will fail. 7. If you're using the minimal installation, Chessmaster will usually ask you to insert the DVD for needed files. If your DVD-ROM is low speed, please wait for the drive to initialize before clicking on the Retry button. 8. For low performance computers, we strongly recommend to set up your desktop on the 800x600 resolution, 16 bits and to select "Low resources engine" in the “Engine Settings” window (or the "Preferences>Engine Settings" menu). 9. The Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition DVD contain an electronic version of the Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition manual in PDF format, in the "Manual" folder of the DVD. This file was also copied to your hard drive, in the target folder that you selected for installing Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition. This file's format can be read by the Adobe Acrobat Reader program, and the installation for the Acrobat Reader program is also contained in the "Manual" folder of the DVD. Assuming that you have installed the Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can access the online manual from within Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition at any time by pressing F1. 10. Compatibility Issues Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition was tested on a wide range of CPUs, as well as over different 75 video cards and 19 different sound cards. No incompatibilities were experienced. 11. Drivers To avoid any compatibility problems, always update your graphic card drivers to the most recently available versions. For GeForce cards, go to www.nvidia.com . For Radeon cards, go to www.atitech.com . ===================================================================== II. *** Late Breaking Changes to the Documentation *** The following features were omitted from the Chessmaster manual. They are explained here in detail. 1. The actual rating of the AI personalities (displayed in the Select Personality window) is affected by the power of your CPU, so differences might exist. 2. In Tournament mode, games can't be saved individually. After the tournament ends, all the games in that tournament can be saved as a big PGN file. 3. The BMP format recognized by the Wallpaper feature is 256 colors or more. Also, the preview pane of the "File Open" window will display only a part of the larger bitmap wallpapers. 4. Assisted mode If you are completely new to chess, you will start the game in the Assisted mode, where you'll get familiar with the game of chess while completing a tutorial (learning about pieces, moves and all the chess rules). During the Assisted mode, all the other Chessmaster features are locked. After completing the first lesson, you will be able to leave the Assisted mode (and experience all the other rooms of Chessmaster) or to continue the tutorials. In order to leave the Assisted mode, just close the window that proposes you a new tutorial or choose in the menu "Game>Assisted Mode", or press Ctrl+K (after you complete at least the first tutorial). You may finish your tutorials re-entering in the Assisted Mode from the "Game>Assiste Mode" menu or using the Ctrl+K shortcut. 5. Engine settings In the “Engine Settings” window (or the "Preferences>Engine Settings" menu) you will find the “Chess Engine Used” setting. Here you'll be able to choose which engine Chessmaster will use: - Low resources engine: the Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition engine, but without the multithread and multicore options; - Medium resources engine: the Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition engine, but without the multithread option; - High resources engine: the Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition engine, with the multithread option; 6. Chess Variants: Chessmaster features 16 chess variants, available in online play. - Balanced Bishops Shuffle: - Chess variant with random pieces but mirrored opening set-up. Balanced bishops condition. The rules for play are the same as standard chess, with the following exception: there is no castling. - Balanced Marseillais: - Chess variant where each turn, a player makes two moves instead of one (on his first turn, White only makes a single move). - Classic Marseillais: - Chess variant where each turn, a player makes two moves instead of one. - Crazyhouse: - Chess variant where when a player captures, he receives a piece of that type (but of his color) that he can put on the board anytime afterwards, instead of making a move. - Fischer Random Chess: - Chess variant where the starting position must meet the following rules: white pawns are placed on their orthodox home squares; all remaining white pieces are placed on the first rank; the white king is placed somewhere between the two white rooks; the white bishops are placed on opposite-colored squares; the black pieces are placed equal-and-opposite to the white pieces. - Kriegspiel: - Blindfold chess variant where the location of the opponents' pieces is given by the referee. - Limited Shuffle: - Chess variant where the starting position is randomly generated from the following constraints: - the pawns and rooks are placed as in a normal set-up; - the white king starts on d1 or e1 and the black king starts on d8 or e8b; - bishops are always on opposite colors. - Pieces Shuffle: - Chess variant where all the white pieces are randomly placed on the first two ranks and the black pieces mirror the white set-up. No castling. - Pocket Knight (2 Knights): - Chess variant where each player removes at the beginning one of his knights (from B or G column) and is able to put it on any free square on the board, instead of making a normal move. After this, the knight moves as an usual knight. There are no restrictions to the square where the knight is placed, as long as this square is empty. - Pocket Knight (3 Knights): - Chess variant where each player is able (only once during the game) to put an extra knight on any free square on the board, instead of making a normal move. After this, the knight moves as an usual knight. There are no restrictions to the square where the knight is placed, as long as this square is empty. - Progressive (English): - Chess variant where the players alternately make a sequence of moves of increasing number (white makes 1 move, black makes 2 moves, white makes 3 moves, and so on). Each sequence of moves must be completed. Inability to complete a sequence counts as a 'progressive stalemate' (provided one's King is not in check). A check can be given at any move of a sequence; however, giving a check ends prematurely the sequence. A check can be nullified only in the first move of a sequence; if the king can’t escape from check, it’s checkmate and the game is over. If a check cannot be nullified without checking the enemy King, the game is lost by a 'progressive checkmate'. If neither a Pawn is moved nor a piece is captured in 10 successive sequences, and neither player can show an impending mate, the game is a draw. No piece can move twice in a sequence until all other pieces have moved at least once, can’t move thrice until all other pieces have moved twice etc. The movement counter resets at the beginning of every sequence. The king can not be exposed to check during a sequence of moves, even if the check is just temporary. En passant capture is not allowed. If the player moves into a stalemate position before completing his turn, the game is a draw. - Progressive (Italian): - Chess variant where the players alternately make a sequence of moves of increasing number (white makes 1 move, black makes 2 moves, white makes 3 moves, and so on). Each sequence of moves must be completed. Inability to complete a sequence counts as a 'progressive stalemate' (provided one's King is not in check). A check can be given only on the last move of a completed sequence. A check can be nullified only in the first move of a sequence; if the king can’t escape from check, it’s checkmate and the game is over. If a check cannot be nullified without checking the enemy King, the game is lost by a 'progressive checkmate'. En passant capture is permitted on the first move of a sequence only. If neither a Pawn is moved nor a piece is captured in 10 successive sequences, and neither player can show an impending mate, the game is a draw. - Progressive (Scottish): - Chess variant where the players alternately make a sequence of moves of increasing number (white makes 1 move, black makes 2 moves, white makes 3 moves, and so on). Each sequence of moves must be completed. Inability to complete a sequence counts as a 'progressive stalemate' (provided one's King is not in check). A check can be given at any move of a sequence; however, giving a check ends prematurely the sequence. A check can be nullified only in the first move of a sequence; if the king can’t escape from check, it’s checkmate and the game is over. If a check cannot be nullified without checking the enemy King, the game is lost by a 'progressive checkmate'. En passant capture is permitted on the first move of a sequence only. If neither a Pawn is moved nor a piece is captured in 10 successive sequences, and neither player can show an impending mate, the game is a draw. - Replacement - Chess variant where when a player captures, he immediately puts the captured piece back on an empty square on the board (Bishops are placed on a square of the same color the Bishop was on when it was captured; Pawns are not placed on the first or last row. Pawns that are placed on the second row regain the ability to make a double step with their first movement). - Shuffle: - Chess variant where the white pawns are placed on their usual squares and all the other white pieces are placed at random positions on the first rank. The black pieces mirror the white set-up. No castling. - Three checks: - Chess variant where the first player to check the other three times wins (simultaneous double check counts as one check). 7. Load avatar: When creating a new profile, you may load a picture created by yourself. The picture has to be 76x97 pixels and 24b color. Useful information: 1. While the Chessmaster Development and Quality Assurance teams have done their outmost to ensure that Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition is as free of bugs as possible, there is a statistical likelihood that some bugs have made it through all rigorous testing procedures only to be found by YOU. Unfortunately, every once in a while a bug can cause a program to "crash", shutting it down immediately. Because Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition uses the Winboard protocol for all of its chess engines, these engines are actually SEPARATE programs that constantly communicate with the Chessmaster main program. While Chessmaster automatically closes all the King instances upon crashing, there are still very rare instances when these engine processes may still be running "in the background," and may still be churning away on the current game, taking up your computer's memory and CPU time. The only way to shut these engines down is to access the Windows Task Manager (usually by pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL) and looking for the name of the chess engine program that is still running. Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition's engine is called "TheKing". You would then highlight any entry in the program list that is called "TheKing", and press the "End Task" button. Also, if you happen to close Chessmaster by using the Windows Task Manager, be aware that the King's engine will NOT be removed automatically. You have to look for any entry in the program list that is called "TheKing", and press the "End Task" button. 2. If you are concerned about optimizing the performance of the Chessmaster engine, be sure to follow these guidelines: -- Run as few other programs as possible while you are running Chessmaster. -- Use as few child windows as possible. Some of these windows (most notably Chess Coach, Mentor Lines, Thinking Lines and Visual Thinking) can take up a decent amount of CPU time due to either their visual updates or because they might cause a mentor engine instance to be launched. -- Do not activate the Blunder Alert feature in the Training Mode. This feature will also launch a mentor engine instance to watch your game. -- Do not switch to other game modes, or access other game features or dialogs while running a game, and try to avoid adjusting game settings (such as the players or the time control) in the middle of a game. Some of these features/dialogs will actually restart any chess engines that may be associated with the current game, causing any memory that these engines has allocated (used to "look ahead," among other things) to be destroyed. This, of course, will lower the quality of play. -- In the "Piece Movement" tab of the Sound dialog, select "No Sounds." This will prevent the program from taking up a significant portion of time queuing up and playing piece movement sounds. -- Be wary when modifying the default engine values in the Engine Settings window. The default values are: XP/ Vista - Engine 1, Blunder 2. 3. If you are concerned about optimizing the frame-rate for the 3D chess sets, we suggest the following: -- Go to "Preferences -> Board Settings" and turn off reflections, shadows, transitions, bump mapping, antialiasing and glare. Realistic shadows cause the biggest dip in performance, followed by complex shadows, reflections, glare, simple shadows and then bump mapping. Antialiasing also eats a lot of your processor's resources. -- Run Windows in a 16-bit display mode instead of a 32-bit mode. For significantly older cards, this could cause a very noticeable performance increase. 4. Chessmaster automatically considers your graphic card's performance and alters the default settings accordingly. The default values are: Shadows - Complex, Reflections - OFF, Bump Mapping - ON, Transitions - ON. If you want to change any of these settings, just go to "Preferences -> Board Settings". 5. Chessmaster uses a third engine instance (called the "Mentor" engine) for all "mentor" features, such as Advice, Game Analysis, Hint and Solve for Mate (as well as providing data for the Post Game Analysis, Mentor Lines and Visual Thinking windows). Unfortunately, starting up any of these features will restart the Mentor engine and any analysis data that is currently in the Mentor Lines or Visual Thinking windows will be lost. 6. You may notice that computer players sometimes make their moves very quickly (usually during the opening moves of a game), and that other audio/visual aspects of the program (such as piece movement audio and the updating of the board and child windows) seem to lag behind or even get lost in the speed of the consecutive moves. This is because the actual moves themselves are given the highest priority in Chessmaster. The engine, in a nutshell, gets to do what it wants, WHEN it wants. For example, making the engine wait to move so that the audio for the previous move can finish playing could possibly cause the engine to lose a game by running out of time when it normally would not have done so. So, let's assume that you are watching a game between two computer players. If this game starts with a flurry of opening book moves on both sides, you may not hear or see anything, other than the moves being made on the board, until all of the moves have been made and one of the engines starts thinking (out of opening book). After a short time, all of the windows will be updated with the current data, but much of the piece movement audio may be lost. 7. If you experience choppy audio in Tutorials or Natural Language Advice/Analysis, it could be caused by one of several problems: -- You might need to update your drivers for your sound card and/or DVD-ROM drive. Chessmaster "streams" its audio and sometimes requires several megabytes of compressed audio data, assuming that the DVD-ROM will be ready to retrieve the data when asked. If your DVD-ROM is lagging behind (either because it is too slow, needs updated drivers, or Windows is generally slow), then you may hear the audio skip and jump. -- Another possible cause is not having enough free hard drive space. Chessmaster sometimes uses your hard drive as temporary storage for large quantities of audio. If your hard drive is full, and it cannot accommodate the space requirement, then Chessmaster has to search for other means of storing the data. This can cause the audio to stop and start. Freeing up hard drive space is the way to solve this cause of the problem. -- Your machine speed is just too slow to successfully pull all of the audio from the DVD, for any of several reasons. The best way to solve this problem is to install everything (including the large audio files) to your hard drive. This will maximize the speed at which the audio can be handled, but does require an additional 770 megabytes of hard drive space for all three large data files. 8. Although you can play Rated Games against user-created personalities and imported Winboard engines, we recommend that you refrain from doing so. It is very difficult to accurately determine the rating of a personality that you create, or to accurately calculate how well an imported engine will play on your computer. Therefore, although you may play Rated Games against these types of personalities, it is possible, and perhaps quite easy, to make your overall rating less accurate when you do so. The ratings for the personalities in Chessmaster were tested over many thousands of games, a large portion of which were played against rated human players. The ratings for these personalities is believed to be accurate to within 50 points of their "real world" equivalent. Only playing Rated Games against these personalities will keep your rating as accurate as possible. 9. Using the LAN game mode requires that your computer have the IPX protocol installed. 10. For the Online game mode to function properly, the ports that need to be opened are: TCP: 6668, 40000 - 42999 UDP: 41006, 44000, 45000, 45001 for the ubi.com matchmaking services and UDP: 17110 for the game communication. The game was designed to facilitate connectivity even if the computer is connected through a NAT to the internet (but keep in mind that not all router/NAT combinations work). If you can't connect to the matchmaking services or to a game server, please contact your network administrator and provide him this information. 11. During Online play, the ladders, tournaments and simul games are not rated. 12. During ladders, tournaments and simul games, every victory is worth one point and every draw is worth 0.5 points. 13. To be able to create tournaments, simul games or ladders, a player must have played at least 50 rated games. 14. Players can play a scheduled tournament game even before the scheduled time, if both of them agree upon this and join the game. However, there is a time limit - you can join a scheduled game with at most 3 hours before the scheduled hour. This can speed up tournaments, if all players are present and willing to play this way. 15. The Global Reward System The Online play contains a hidden reward system based on the GRP - the global reward points. To put it simply, each game offer players reward points; new game modes or add-ons to the personal profile are unlocked according to the number of points gained. The amount of reward points gained by playing is as follows: Unrated Games - defeat: 1 point - draw against a weaker player, rating difference >200: 1 point - draw against a weaker player, rating difference (50,200): 1 point - draw against a weaker player, rating difference (0,50): 1 points - draw against a stronger player, rating difference (0,50): 1 points - draw against a stronger player, rating difference (50,200): 2 points - draw against a stronger player, rating difference >200: 2 points - victory against a weaker player, rating difference >200: 2 points - victory against a weaker player, rating difference (50,200): 3 points - victory against a weaker player, rating difference (0,50): 3 points - victory against a stronger player, rating difference (0,50): 4 points - victory against a stronger player, rating difference (50,200): 5 points - victory against a stronger player, rating difference >200: 7 points Rated Games: - defeat: 1 point - draw against a weaker player, rating difference >200: 1 point - draw against a weaker player, rating difference (50,200): 1 point - draw against a weaker player, rating difference (0,50): 3 points - draw against a stronger player, rating difference (0,50): 3 points - draw against a stronger player, rating difference (50,200): 5 points - draw against a stronger player, rating difference >200: 7 points - victory against a weaker player, rating difference >200: 5 points - victory against a weaker player, rating difference (50,200): 7 points - victory against a weaker player, rating difference (0,50): 9 points - victory against a stronger player, rating difference (0,50): 10 points - victory against a stronger player, rating difference (50,200): 12 points - victory against a stronger player, rating difference >200: 15 points Simultaneous Exhibitions: The games are considered rated and the host receives a double reward for each draw or victory. Clan Membership: Joining a clan gives 5 reward points. Being the clan founder gives 5 reward points. Being the clan champion (best player) gives 2 reward points at any time (if a player falls back then returns to the top it gets the 2 points again) To prevent cheating, a player can't create more than one clan every week. The amount of points needed to advance a star (there are four star shapes and three colors for each shape; the stars are visible in the Player List, next to the player's name): 20 points initial increment increasing by 15 for each level (so you can get a star at 20, 55, 105, 160, 225, 300, etc) The amount of points needed to increase in title (titles are visible in the player's profile): 10 points initial increment increasing by 10 for each level (so you can get a title at 10, 30, 60, 100, 150, 210, 280, 360, 450, 550, etc). Max title obtained at 2320 points. 16. When watching a Simultaneous Game, you'll be sent to the first game in the simul. If that game is finished, the board is inactive. Use the Simltaneous Game window to switch between games. 17. If you disconnect FOR ANY REASON (or just simply close Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition) while playing a Rated Game in Online mode, you will automatically resign the game. 18. During the Openings game mode, when trying to build a new Opening Book, you can't promote your pawns to any other piece except the queen. 19. The Switch Sides function, located in the Training Mode, will rotate the board 180 degrees and also switch players (i.e. the player who was playing the White pieces will now be playing Black, and vice versa). Note, however, that the White and Black players will NOT switch clocks and time controls. 20. When editing a personality that is currently participating in a game, the personality's new settings will not take effect until a new game is begun with that personality. 21. If you find that, for some reason, the chessboard seems to have "disappeared" from the game (either due to a change in screen resolution or in window position/size), don't panic. You can always safely get the board back by going to "Preferences -> Chess Set" and selecting a new board and/or piece set. If you find that other windows are also not appearing when and/or where they should, then you can restore all windows back to their default position and visibility settings by loading one of the default layouts that came with Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition. Of course, that's possible only if you haven't overwritten the default layouts files with a badly-saved layout of your own ... 22. Depending on the speed of your system, you may not see the introductory video. Chessmaster makes a determination of your computer's speed to see if your machine can play the videos without audio or video distortion, and then plays the videos if your machine passes the test. 23. Certain video cards may cause Chessmaster to have visual problems if you have "Large Fonts" selected in your video properties. If text in menus and dialogs appears "wrong" to you, or some text or buttons appears to extend past the boundaries of a window, you might check to see if you have "Large Fonts" selected, and change it to the Windows default setting, which is "Small Fonts". You can check this setting by going to "Control Panel -> Display -> Settings Tab" and pressing the "Advanced" button. There will be a combobox entitled "Font Size", where you can see your system's current setting. 24. If you play MP3 audio files on your computer, you may find that Chessmaster® Grandmaster Edition and programs that play these types of files (such as WinAmp and Windows Media Player) will not work properly with each other. This is because BOTH programs try to "take control" of the MP3 audio drivers, and this causes a conflict in your computer's sound card. Usually, this problem only occurs with older sound cards, the most popular of these being the Soundblaster AWE64. Some people, though, have reported that starting up Chessmaster FIRST, and THEN starting up the MP3 player, will allow both programs to work fairly well (as long as Chessmaster does not try to play any audio). So, if you enjoy MP3 music on your computer and you don't mind running Chessmaster with no sounds, then this procedure should allow you to do both. Just don't try to access advice, game analysis, tutorials or Josh Waitzkin Annotated Games, because the audio for these features is also in MP3 format. ===================================================================== III. *** What Problems Still Exist? *** The other bugs that have been reported, but are either not fixed or not confirmed, are: 1. On older/weaker computers, using the 3D animated chess set may lead to temporary "freezing" of the animations during the time when the AI opponent is thinking. 2. A very rare bug in the Fun/Learn section leads to Chessmaster quitting to the desktop. 3. When a modal window is opened and the user switches to another application using the Alt+Tab key combination, the Chessmaster icon will no longer appear in the task selection window until the modal window is clicked on. ===================================================================== IV. *** Where to Find the Chessmaster FAQ *** The Chessmaster FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is regularly updated with answers to many of the most popular questions that users ask when they are troubleshooting. You can find a FAQ dedicated to each version of Chessmaster at our website: www.chessmaster.com ===================================================================== V. *** Technical and Customer Support *** Technical Support Before contacting Ubisoft’s Technical Support Department, please first read through this file and the game's manual (the printed version and/or the electronic version available on the game DVD). Also browse through our FAQ listings or search our support database at our website, http://support.ubi.com. Here you will find the most recently updated information since the game’s release. Also please make sure that your computer meets the minimum system requirements, as our support representatives will be unable to assist customers whose computers do not meet these criteria. Whenever you contact the Technical Support Department, please include the following information or have it available if you are calling: · Complete product title (including version number). · Exact error message reported (if applicable) and a brief description of the problem you’re encountering. · Processor speed and manufacturer. · Amount of RAM. · Operating system. · Video card that you are using and amount of RAM it has. · Maker and speed of your DVD-ROM drive. · Type of sound card you are using. Support Over the Internet This is the best way to find answers to common issues seen with our games. Our Frequently Asked Questions list is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and contains the most up-to-date Technical Support information available, including patches that can be downloaded free of charge. We update the Support pages on a daily basis, so please check here first for solutions to your problems: http://support.ubi.com/. Contact Us by Webmail Due to high volumes of spam, viruses, and other non-support-related contacts, we no longer offer support via standard email. However, we do provide something better, webmail. By taking your questions directly through our website, we have completely eliminated all spam contacts. As a result, we are able to respond to your questions much quicker than we could through standard email. To send us a webmail simply log into our site at http://support.ubi.com/. >From this site, you will be able to enter the Ubisoft Solution Center, where you can browse through our lists of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), search our database of known problems and solutions, and send in a request for personal assistance from a Technical Support representative by using the Ask a Question feature on the Frequently Asked Questions page. Most webmail contacts are responded to within two business days. Contact Us by Phone You can also contact us by phone by calling (919) 460-9778 (For our customers in Quebec, we provide French language support at (866) 824-6515). Please note that this number is for technical assistance only. No gameplay hints or tips are given over the Technical Support line. When calling our Technical Support line, please make sure you are in front of your computer and have all of the necessary information listed above at hand. Be advised that our Technical Support representatives are available to help you Monday through Friday from 9 am- 9 pm Eastern Time (French language support available from 7 am- 4 pm EST). While we do not charge for technical support, normal long distance charges apply. To avoid long distance charges, or to contact a support representative directly after these hours, please feel free to browse our Frequently Asked Questions lists or to send us a webmail. Webmail questions usually receive a response within two business days. Contact Us by Standard Mail If all else fails, you can write to us at: Ubisoft Technical Support 3200 Gateway Center Blvd Suite 100 Morrisville, NC 27560 Return Policy Please do not send any game returns directly to Ubisoft before contacting Technical Support. It is our policy that game returns must be dealt with by the retailer or online site where you purchased the product. If you have a damaged or scratched DVD, please visit the FAQ listing for your game and get the latest replacement policy and pricing. We will not accept unsolicited returns/exchanges without prior approval and an RMA (Return Materials Authorization) number from a support representative. (c) 2007 Ubisoft Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. Chessmaster is a registered trademark and Ubisoft, ubi.com, and the Ubisoft logo are trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the U.S. and/or other countries. Uses Miles Sound System and Bink Video Technology. Copyright (c) 1997-2007 by RAD Game Tools, Inc.