README FOR SID MEIER'S SIMGOLF Version 1.03 ______________________________________________________________________________ INDEX 1. Requirements 2. Installation Instructions (includes enabled Font Smoothing) 3. Un-installation Instructions 4. Known Game Issues 5. Known Compatibility Issues 6. Credits 7. Legal Information ________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Requirements Sid Meier's SimGolf requires DirectX 8.0a or greater. (The most recent version of DirectX is at the following url http://www.microsoft.com/directx) Sid Meier's SimGolf requires OpenGL and OpenGL compatible video drivers, please visit your video card manufacturer's web site to download and apply the latest drivers for your video card. (http://www.glsetup.com, for Win 9X users) Windows 95 users may need to download the OpenGL 1.1 patch from Microsoft's website in order to play Sid Meier's SimGolf at the following URL: http://download.microsoft.com/download/win95upg/info/1/W95/EN-US/Opengl95.exe ________________________________________________________________________________ 2. Installation Instructions MINIMUM CONFIGURATION * Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows 95 (Windows NT not supported) * 300 MHz Intel Pentium II or AMD K6-2 processor * 64 MB RAM * 4x CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive * 300 MB free hard disk space plus space for saved games (additional space required for Windows swap-file and DirectX 8.0 installation) * 8 MB video card with DirectX 8.0 compatible driver * DirectX 8.0 compatible sound card * Keyboard * Mouse RECOMMENDED * 500 MHz or faster Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor * 128 MB or more RAM * 8x or faster CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive * 16 MB video card with DirectX 8.0 compatible driver A. Double click on the setup executable for Sid Meier's SimGolf (Note that you must agree to the terms of the license agreement in order to install the game.) B. Follow all prompts. C. Enabling Smoothed Screen Fonts: To enable Font Smoothing, open the Display Control panel, select the Effects tab, and check 'Smooth edges of screen fonts' ________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Un-installation Instructions A. Start Windows Operating System B. Click the Start button on your Windows taskbar, then select settings > control panel > add/remove programs. Select Sid Meier's SimGolf and then click ok/uninstall to proceed with un-installation. C. Follow all prompts. ________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Known Game Issues: Not Documented in the Manual: =============================================================== Sid Meier's SimGolf v1.03 Patch Notes (4/16/2002) =============================================================== - Corrects an obscure crash related to the selection of female golfer heads on the customization screen which affected theme packs and importation of custom heads. =============================================================== Sid Meier's SimGolf v1.02 Patch Notes (3/11/2002) =============================================================== -This revision of the v1.02 patch contains various changes from the previous version, including: adjustment of the difficulty levels, and I.M. Picky visits at the higher difficulty settings; use of tab key to find angry golfers has been removed since it was conflicting with other functions that used the tab key, (angry golfers can still be accessed through the face bar at the very bottom of the screen); as well as a small number of other tweaks, etc. Removed 50 year limit for required retirement I.M. Picky should now visit courses more often A better system for placing landmarks has been implemented. Free landmarks now appear in your landmark menu when Ivana donates a landmark, or when a happy ending occurs on your course. New ability to cancel a match or tournament (use the 'wrench' icon on the interface to access this). You can pick up a golfer and move him/her to other locations on your course, or even to the clubhouse to eject him/her. This is done by clicking on the eject-golfer icon after clicking on the golfer. J.P Bigdome will now offer more cash if he likes your course. Golfers in carts should no longer complain about steep slopes. Gary Golf (or whatever you name your golf pro) no longer loses skills when buying a new course. The 'Toilet Bowl' effect for firm-fairway and greens has been fixed. Animals can be turned off in the preferences menu. Golfer comments can be turned off in the preferences menu. Display of ranking / stars / hearts on course name box has been simplified. 'Esc' key no longer will quit the game, but rather clears messages, etc. Right-Clicks now clear messages before becoming an undo cursor. Invalid course records problem is now fixed. Problem with golfers on benches not going to the tee has been fixed. 'No Dandelion' landmarks now prevent new weeds as well as the spread of weeds. Faster scrolling on member report screen. Tees and Holes can no longer be removed during a tournament, though other course elements may still be altered, placed, or removed. Clicking on the faces at the bottom of the interface/screen will now center your view on the the golfer it represents; to see more golfers in the event of overlap, hold the 'Shift' key. An issue with the routing map screen and golfers who wandering aimlessly looking for old holes has been corrected. You can press keys 1-9 (top row of keyboard) to jump to the corresponding hole. If the hole is already on the screen, this will bring up the hole report. Press the keys shift 1-shift 9 to jump to holes 10-18 on the 'back nine'. Added the '.' version of the Shot Analysis function which assumes the hole of the previous shot analysis and allows you to control which hole the analysis shoots toward. i.e. '.' is the same as '/' except it doesn't change holes. Increased difficulty at "difficult" and "impossible" levels as now golfers sometimes feel their partner's pain. Fixed issue with golfer returning to tee after first shot. Worked on pathing issues to prevent stuck golfers. Fixed issue with buildings losing connection w/ clubhouse. Fixed crash problem at max zoom out. Fixed saved game issues with Themes (ie themes should now load automatically when a game that was saved using a theme is loaded from the load game menu). =============================================================== Sid Meiers SimGolf v1.01 Patch Notes (1/29/2002) =============================================================== Enabled SimGolf Web-Exchange support for championship courses Resolves an issue with occasional crashes for tournaments that had prize awards of 500k or more. =============================================================== How to import your face into Sid Meier's Sim Golf You can use just about any graphics editing program, as long as it supports pcx file format. This tutorial is done with the evaluation version of a popular paint shop program. Step One: Your Face You will need 3 versions of your face, normal, happy, and angry. They are used to reflect the moods of your customized golfer. You can scan in existing photographs, or snap a few pictures with your digital camera. Step Two: The Template Open a file called M_HeadTemplate.pcx (male) and F_HeadTemplate.pcx (female) in the “Heads” folder, in your SimGolf directory. This is the file you will be pasting your heads into. Step Three: Get your heads ready Ok. Now that you have your heads digitized. We need to do a few things to get them ready to be pasted into the template file. So, open the images of your heads and lets get to work. First, we need to paint background to white (255,255,255). Because that is the color the golfer heads in the game are anti-aliased to. Then, resize the image so your face is roughly the same size as the heads on the template. Now, cut out your face and paste it into the template. Make sure your chin lines up with the bottom of the head in the template. The easiest way to cut out your face is to use a "magic wand" tool to select the white around your face, then inverse the selection. Repeat step three for all 3 faces. Step Four: Clean up There is one last thing we need to do before we save the file, clean it up. We need to paint way the lighter pink outlines in the template. Those outline were there to help you position your faces, and are no longer needed. Just carefully paint over them with the darker pink color (255,0,255). Step Five: Saving your file Place an “M_” in front of the filename if it's a male, and a “F_” if it's a female. Save the file in the “Heads” folder, in your Sim Golf demo directory. Step Six: Fire up the game and have fun! Other Known Game Issues: When attempting to run the game in 16-color desktop mode, the game will quit without providing an error message. To correct this, desktop colors must be set to 256 colors or higher in order to run SimGolf. When attempting to run the game in 640x480 desktop mode, the game will quit without providing an error message. To correct this, the desktop resolution must be set to 800x600 or higher in order to run SimGolf. ****You may import your own head images for your own golfers (need tutorial from artist inserted here).**** When placing terrain, the interface may occasionally obscure the ability to place a terrain tile (if placing terrain in close proximity to the edge of the interface. To avoid this, scroll the game map so that the area you will place the terrain in is centered, and then proceed to place terrain as normal. ________________________________________________________________________________ 5. Known Incompatibility Issues: The following are known issues with the autorun program: When using Windows 95, the link to http://simgolf.ea.com may not function correctly. Please use the link in the SimGolf folder of the start menu, or manually enter the address into your web browser url box. When selecting EA Help from the autorun program menu, clicking Support Info, Online, and then Contact Technical Support it appears that nothing happens. To remedy this, either install SimGolf and select EA Help from the start menu options, or explore the CD manually and run the en-us_eahelp.hlp file in order to access this particular feature. The following are known issues with the Install Program: When installing to an invalid drive (ie a floppy drive or drive with no available space), the install program may not allow the user to attempt to pick a valid drive, and will close instead. To correct this, select a valid drive that has the appropriate amount of free space (see requirements). When installing DirectX 8.0 as prompted by the install program, the DirectX install program will prompt to reboot the system. After the reboot is complete, users will have to manually restart the SimGolf installation to begin installation again. There are known issues with the following soundcards: (Note that 3D Sound and Gameport are not supported.) Altec Lansing ADA70 USB Speakers, with Direct X Diagnostic Driver Version 4.10.00.1998, and Windows 98 Default Driver results in no game audio. Ensoniq SoundScape PNP, with Direct X Diagnostic Driver Version 4.02.00.000 Drivers and Ensoniq driver v.4.02.0151 results in crackling audio. Additionally, while loading a course, sound gets stuck in a continuous loop and does not stop until game is closed. Microsoft Digital Sound System 80 USB, with Direct X Diagnostic Driver Version 4.10.00.1998, and Windows 98 Default Driver results in no game audio. OPTI 82C 931, with Direct X Diagnostic Driver Version 4.00.00.0000, and Direct X 5.0 Driver results in popping audio throughout game. There are known issues with the following video cards: Cirrus Logic 5464 4MB PCI card; when using the Windows 2000 default driver (no manufacturer drivers being available) it will distort game audio when using this video card. There are known issues with the following CPUs: AMD K6-2 266MHz 3DNow! (Socket 7 Bus) Long load times scrolling and placement of items is very slow, and offers very poor performance overall. Intel Celeron 266MHz (Slot 1 Bus) Long load times scrolling and placement of items is very slow, and offers very poor performance overall. There are known issues with the following Operating Systems: Windows 95 - When closing SimGolf, the desktop resolution will be set to 800x600. Right-click on the desktop, select properties, select settings, then select the correct desktop resolution and apply in order to return to the correct desktop settings. Windows 95 - Has compatibility issues with DirectX 8.1 which will prevent SimGolf from running correctly. It will be necessary to uninstall DirectX 8.1 from Windows 95 systems in order to play SimGolf. Windows 95 - When attempting to run the game a program errors occurs stating, "A required. DLL file, GLU32.DLL, was not found." The game then terminates. If the OpenGL v.1.1 patch for Win95 (available from Microsoft's windows update website) is installed, the game will then run. However, when the game is running the windows start bar remains on screen during the game preventing access to some game menu options. Game also seems to run a little slower than normal. Windows 95a - When attempting to run the game a program errors occurs stating, "A required. DLL file, GLU32.DLL, was not found." The game then terminates. If the OpenGL v.1.1 patch for Win95 (available from Microsoft's windows update website) is installed, the game will then run. However, when the game is running the windows start bar remains on screen during the game preventing access to some game menu options. Game also seems to run a little slower than normal. Windows 95 OSR2 (95b) - While running the game, the windows start bar remains on screen during the game preventing access to some game menu options. Game also seems to run a little slower than normal. Windows 2000 / XP - While playing the opening and closing Bink movies there may be stuttering or skipping during the play of the movie, depending upon system setup and hardware. Windows XP - Ejecting the CD during the installation of the game may halt installation, and may also result in orphaned game and/or install files on the system. Windows XP - Limited users may need a higher permissions level in order to install SimGolf. Please consult your system administrator. Windows XP - Installer does not account for friendly error messages that are generated by not having certain rights in XP (the appropriate level of user rights necessary to install software on XP). Please make certain your user settings are configured to install software on your computer. Consult your system administrator for further assistance. ________________________________________________________________________________ 6. Credits DESIGN Sid Meier PROGRAMMING Sid Meier Jacob Solomon Javier Sobrado David McKibbin ART Greg Cunningham, Lead Greg Foertsch Steve Chao Marc Hudgins Dennis Moellers Ryan Murray Alex Kim Kevin Margo Dorian Newcomb Mike Bazzell MUSIC & AUDIO Mark Cromer PRODUCTION Mike Gibson Michael Fetterman FIRAXIS MARKETING Lindsay Riehl Kelley Gilmore Dan Magaha ADDITIONAL ART Jon Marro, Intern Megan Quinn, Intern Justin Thomas, Intern Zach Wilson, Intern Rick Kolesar Tracy Smith ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING Pat Dawson Jon Armoza, Intern PRODUCT TESTERS - AQI Clint McCaul John Kuhn Debby Dillon Scott Kramperth SPECIAL THANKS Barry Caudill Ellie Crawley Jim Crawley The Swing Central Band: Mark Cromer David Smith Nathan Reynolds Emanuel Coleman FIRAXIS WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK: Our Families, including: Susan Meier Ryan Meier Alisha "Eeka" Vincent Barbara Merrin Julia Thurston Anne Takeuchi Alice Wright Donna, James, and Nathan Cromer Sparkle the "Homicidal TerraHawk" Flieo aka - "Big" Peanut aka - "Little" Gus McBarkalot Sid the Vicious Hamster MAXIS PRODUCER Nana Chambers ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Fred Dieckmann PRODUCT MANAGER Emily Kenner SENIOR PUBLICIST Robin Chandler TECHNICAL WEBSITE DIRECTOR Mark Templin ASSISTANT WEBSITE PRODUCER Daniel Grove WEB DEVELOPER Griff McClellan Noel Molon Wren Weburg ELECTRONIC ARTS EA GODFATHER Bing Gordon TESTING MANAGER Kurt Hsu PRODUCT SUPERVISOR Ludon Lee LEAD PRODUCT TESTER Zach Mumbach ASSISTANT LEAD PRODUCT TESTER Edmund Huey CORE PRODUCT TESTERS Ian Riff Shari Tague ADDITIONAL TESTERS Mike Doran Bryan Caton Brad Solari CUSTOMER QUALITY CONTROL Ben Smith Dave Knudson Andrew Young Darryl Jenkins Tony Alexander Anthony Barbagallo PACKAGE DESIGN Mike Lippert PACKAGE PROJECT MANAGMENT Adrienne Rogers PACKAGE ILLUSTRATION / PHOTOGRAPHY Jon Watson DOCUMENTATION Sharon Maher DOCUMENTATION LAYOUT Big Idea Group, Inc. SimGolf Uses Bink Video. Copyright (C) 1997-2002 by RAD Game Tools, Inc. ________________________________________________________________________________ 7. Legal Information SimGolf Uses Bink Video. Copyright 1997-2002 by RAD Game Tools, Inc. (C)2002 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. EA GAMES(TM) and MAXIS(TM) are Electronic Arts Brands. Firaxis Games and the Firaxis Games logo are registered trademarks of Firaxis Games Inc.