X-Git-Url: https://git.artsoft.org/?p=rocksndiamonds.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=HARDWARE;fp=HARDWARE;h=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000;hp=49de985addeee4e51af846dbcbcf360bbff29be0;hb=e51177796149f37de339bda83558c3c49758be93;hpb=f7cee51ad23b10be242545a6445fddf45accf65d diff --git a/HARDWARE b/HARDWARE deleted file mode 100644 index 49de985a..00000000 --- a/HARDWARE +++ /dev/null @@ -1,92 +0,0 @@ - -[Very outdated -- should be rewritten...] - - -Some recommendations for more fun playing Rocks'n'Diamonds: -=========================================================== - -About sound ------------ -It is highly recommended to have a decent sound interface for playing -this game (although it only comes with bad-quality 8000-Hz-samples to -save memory and to be compatible with /dev/audio). - -The best sound platform is an actual Linux system with (at least) kernel -1.2.x, because it offers some nice real-time sound features which are -needed to have background music loops in the game. - -On all other systems you don't have music loops, but you still have all -the other sounds. - - -About game speed ----------------- -You should have a relatively fast hardware. - -The game was developed on a i486/33 (which is three years old now), -and you should probably better not try to run it on a slower system. - -You should have an accelerated graphic card; I have found out that it -starts being playable on my 486/33 with an old ISA cirrus logic 5426 -graphic card, which has a blitter that is supported by XFree86[tm], -but that it was nearly unplayable on a 486/66 with old, unaccelerated -ET4000. - -If all works fine, you should have something around 30 frames per second. - -If you think that the game is to slow to play, you should try out the -following things: - -- Set "Buffered Gfx" to "off" in the setup menu. Normally (on a fast - enough system) you should use buffered graphics, which means that - all graphics is drawn into an invisible Pixmap and is then copied - to the X11 window to avoid flickering. If you disable this double - buffering, the graphic is directly drawn into the window. This can - cause some slight flickering, but makes graphic operations roughly - twice as fast compared to double buffering. - -- Set "Game Music" to "off" in the setup menu (and maybe "sound loops" - too). Where disabling buffered graphics may be required with slow - graphics hardware, disabling sound is especially recommended on slow - CPU systems (486/33 and slower), because the sound server eats up a - significant amount of CPU time when playing long sounds. - -You might also notice that bigger levels tend to be slower on slow -systems. - -About the option "Fading" in the setup menu: It gives a nice looking -fading when switching to a new screen, but you should really only try -this out if you think that you have a very fast graphics hardware. - - -About music ------------ -The background music loops are ripped out from several nice music albums. -Just have a look at the info screen to find out from which album each -sound loop came from -- they are all very well done pieces of music, but -unfortunately they don't sound better after converting them to 8 kHz -samples (to conform to standard SUN /dev/audio). Maybe I change this to -a better quality in the future, but at the moment, where the sounds -directory has a size of nearly a megabyte, I'll stay with 8 kHz samples. - -So, if you have a non-Linux system (which cannot play sound loops) or -don't like the "telephone quality" of the music loops, just get some of -these CDs and play them while your playing the game! ;-) - - -About game-play ---------------- -It is *strongly recommended* to play this game with a high-quality joystick. -That means, throw your $10 joystick out of the window and buy a decent -Competition-Pro Digital PC joystick or a high-quality CH Products Analog -joystick. Believe me, it doubles the fun of playing the game. - -If you only have a normal Unix system (and no fine Linux system), you -are forced to play with the keyboard. It works, but is not only less fun, -but also more difficult with some levels, because you cannot move in -diagonal directions with keyboard control at the moment. Another bad thing -is that you will have some problems when pressing many keys at the same -time. This might change in the future, when I implement a better keyboard -handling which not only solves these problems but allows diagonal directions, -too. -