X-TENSION V2.1a
---------------------------------------------------------
Note: 2.1a is just a minor bugfix over 2.1
The following three issues were resolved:
- Some savegames from earlier versions could not be loaded
into 2.1
- In some rare circumstances the game could crash when
a TL ship
tried to dock to a shipyard.
- One quest had no text in 2.1, all dialogues appeared
empty.
Welcome to X-TENSION 2.0, the next step in the ongoing evolution of
the X-UNIVERSE.
New features in XT 2.1:
===============
- All player property is marked green in the all menus.
- Objects (Ships, Stations etc.) are sorted by name and
type in menus.
- An exciting new mission awaits every friend of the paranids!
- TL type ships (large transporters) can now be sold.
- Your fighting rank now goes up no matter what sector you are in
and no matter if you have a police license or not.
- Sector and Station defence ships now also defend one another.
- Pirate stations now produce ships in cycles, much like shipyards.
- You now get additional information about your notoriety with the
Goner. Also your start notoriety with the Goner is better now, so that
shooting at a single Goner ship won't stop you from landing at their temple
immediately.
- The trade ranking is now also affected by your factories' activities.
- All big ships including TL transporters, M1 carrier and M2 destroyer
of ALL races (optionally also including the Xenon) are now rebuilt
if they are destroyed! However, when loading an old save game,
only a few missing TL transporters are built to make up for
eventually missing ships. Potentially this can lead to
Xenon destroyer or carrier ships flying from a Xenon shipyard
through other races' territories.
- When manually entering text into the log, you can now also use
',' '.' and '!'.
- Stations send out defence ships only when these ships do have
lasers installed and they do not currently have a command
such as "get ware for best price".
- When shooting at a NPC ship, your notoriety is affected less than
before. Only if you destroy NPC ships, your notoriety is deducted more.
- The command "Get ware for best price" has been improved. Now ships
also take the amount of resource types into account when ordering.
- Memory management (fastmem) has been changed in XT 2.1!
Many systems should get a better performance because of the new change.
However, in some cases the game might consume slightly more memory
than before. If this occurs, you can turn off the new memory
management with the command line option "-nofastmem".
This can be done using a system shortcut or by calling the game
from the command line:
X-Tension.exe -nofastmem
- The TL docking bug of X-TENSION 2.0 has been fixed. Many
other minor bugs are also fixed. This docking bug could lead to
TL transporters not docking at a shipyard under certain
special circumstancesafter you commanded them to.
- An issue with the latest version of NVIDIA drivers has been
fixed so that X-tension 2.1 should now work fine with all
versions of NVIDIA graphic card drivers.
- Player logos were sometimes displayed with incorrect colours in
X-tension 2.0. This has been fixed.
- Save games of older Versions are now compressed when loading them
for the first time. We suggest loading all save games once and saving
them again immediately. Then quit X-tension and restart the game.
- And many other smaller new features...
- One remaining issue of X-tension's voice output in combination with
Direct X 8.0 can unfortunately not be fixed in the EXE. The game can
sometimes disturb all spoken sentences by a few milliseconds
in affect cutting off parts of words from the beginning and the end
of sentences. This only happens since version 8.0 of Direct X!
Microsoft has told us that this will probably be fixed with the release
of Direct X 8.1! So for the moment the only solution we can offer is
the suggestion to stay with older versions of Direct X (the X-TENSION
installation will install Direct X 6 if no newer version is already
present).
---------------------------------------------------------
Information about X-tension V2.0
---------------------------------------------------------
X-TENDED STRATEGY
*****************
- There is a new Friend/Foe system which allows you to set the attitude
of your ships to the other races (including Pirates and Xenon). These
settings can be changed globally from the main menu, or on a ship-by-ship
basis in the info menu for each ship. When a particular race is set to
Foe the ship will automatically attack ships of that race when set to
"Attack All Enemies"--it is no longer necessary for your property to
come under attack before the ships will be considered enemies!
- Attacked player property is marked in red on more menus (e.g player
property menu). The red signal for a factory or station under attack will
turn off after a while.
- The shields on ships and factories in sectors other than the one you are
in now recharge.
- Satellites, mines and lasertowers can now be positioned more
precisely--they also stay in position when you dock or jump to another
sector.
- Lasertowers now protect other lasertowers assigned to protect the same
station, as well as the station itself.
YOUR OWN TL-CLASS CARRIERSHIPS
******************************
You can now buy, control and fly your own TL class large transport carriers.
There are many new options related to this feature:
- You can land inside your own TL and change into the TL cockpit
to fly the large ship yourself or control it with remote commands.
Many other ships you own can be commanded to land inside the TL.
IMPORTANT: The TL should be stationary when smaller ships are docking or
undocking from it, so don't forget to command it to "stay at current location"
before giving the docking order!
- All TL ships of the different races can be bought in their shipyards.
Every TL includes one 125MW shield and additional 125MW shields can now
be bought and fitted.
- Your ship marks the build location for factories, so you must be in the same
sector as the TL carrying a factory before you can order it to deploy. You must
be within 5km range of the TL when commanding it to deploy a factory.
- Before you load a factory, a TL transporter must dock at a shipyard first!
A maximum of 3 TL transporter can dock simultaneously. In order to make this
possible there is a new command on the TL communications menu: "Dock at shipyard".
NOTE: This applies to hired TL ships as well as the ones you own.
- You can dock at a shipyard with a TL you are manually flying, but you must use a
docking computer--these are fitted as standard to all bought TLs. When docked,
you can get to the trade menus of both the shipyard and the local equipment dock.
- Other ships you own can be placed inside the TL. This requires some new features:
- The TL can own transporters as well as fighters, but does not offer
trading commands for transporters.
- All ships landed inside a TL can be given the same command using the "broadcast
to all landed ships" feature, as you would use with a factory.
- When flying the TL manually you can switch to any ship inside it and fly out
from the landing bay.
- All ships have a new command "land in carrier".
- You must ask for docking permission in your TL from less than 2km distance
before landing (just like docking inside stations). You also have to pay
attention to the maximum docking speed.
- Transporting a factory takes up 10000 units of space inside a TL.
Still some of the carriers even have more space!
If you have several hired TLs, factories will first go into your own docked TLs,
then will be put into the hired ships.
ADVANCED TRADINGSYSTEM
**********************
- Every docked ship you own (even in other sectors) can now be used for manual
remote trading. You can buy and sell products just as if you were there. Of course
this feature requires a communication satellite in that sector and a trading system
extension! With "best buy" or "best selling" upgrades you can now even find good
deals in far away remote sectors if you have any ships there.
NOTE: it is the ship you are flying which must be equipped with the trading system
extension and the best buy/sell locators--it is not necessary for the ship docked at
the remote station to possess these upgrades.
- Shipyards can be traded with remotely whether you have a ship docked there or not--
you still need the trading system extension in your own ship, of course, and a
navigation relay satellite in the shipyard sector if it is not the one you're
currently in.
- Shipyards sell all ships in various sizes now:
- S: Small version with just 1MW shield and minimal laser
- M: Medium version with good shields and laser
- L: Large version fully equipped
Not all versions of all ships are available at all times. Ships
which are in great demand may be out of stock!
- Freight can be moved freely between ships landed in a station using
the new freight exchange menu. This is also possible in space if your
current ship has the transporter upgrade. In both cases, the info menu of
the selected destination ship gives access to the freight exchange menu.
- You can now also command ships to drop freight manually.
This way you can remotely place containers or other objects anywhere
you want or exchange freight between two ships when your ship does not
have a transporter upgrade.
- The trade menu now shows the total price for the planned transaction in the
form X+Y, where X is the amount of money you have after the transaction and
Y is the amount the transaction is costing you.
- Best buy and best sell upgrade now allow direct access to the menus of
the listed factories--you no longer have to quit the best buy upgrade and enter
the normal sector map to do this.
- The info menu of your own factories now gives more detailed information
on how long it will take to produce the next item in its production cycle.
MORE DEPTH OF GAMEPLAY
**********************
- Astronauts flying freely in space (e.g. which have bailed out of a ship you
have captured) now try to reach a nearby space station. However, they only have
oxygen for 2 hours. (This oxygen limit also applies when you are flying in your
own suit).
- Pirate transporters are now defended by other pirate vessels, more often than
not, and pirate tactics have improved.
- Instead of collecting illegal goods, police ships now destroy them.
- NPC ships can now use drones, if they have them.
- You can set your own factories to refuse docking permission to NPC ships--this
allows you to reserve the factory's goods for your own use.
- You can specify the maximum number of jumps your transporters will take while
searching for resources for your factories.
EASIER AND FASTER CONTROLS
**************************
- A new option menu can be accessed with "SHIFT O". It contains:
- SETA FACTOR:
This is the maximum time acceleration factor when using SETA. Do not change
the default value of 6 to a higher value if your PC is not fast enough.
If the PC is too slow, the game will start stuttering when in full SETA mode (j).
Default value: 6
- SHOW JUMPTUNNEL
Using this feature you will get an additional "jump tunnel" animation when
jumping from one sector to another using jumpgates or the jumpdrive extension.
Default: NO
- SHOW DOCKING SCENES
You can turn off the docking sequences with this feature, making the docking
procedure a little faster.
Default: YES
- SHOW DOCKING CLAMPS
Shows the docking clamp animation when docking or undocking.
Default: YES
- NEW EXPLOSION ANIMATION
Show more detailed explosions
Default: NO
- RESPAWN PIRATE BASES
If you destroy a pirate base it will normally never reappear. Switching this ON
changes this behaviour so there is always at least one pirate base in the universe.
Default: NO
- OFFER MISSIONS
When turned off you will not be offered any missions during gameplay.
Default: YES
- The throttle is not automatically maxed when activating SETA, so you can fly at
any speed (including zero!) when using time acceleration.
- The keys 1-4 now automatically toggle the type of laser installed into the relevant
laser bay, so there is no longer any need to open the weapons menu in the middle of a
battle.
- Galaxy map, sector map and the property menu can now all be opened when you are
docked at a space station.
- New entries to your logbook are now automatically marked yellow!
There is also a new command to clear the logbook completely.
- The ship info menu now shows how much cargo space is left and how much is
used for freight.
- Newly bought ships now no longer start automatically from the
shipyard. They won't move until you give them a new command.
- Navigation on the galaxy map is now faster:
- You can jump direct to some sectors by typing their first
letter.
- The map opens with the same level of zoom you had set when you last closed it.
- Holding down a cursor key will repeat the scroll action.
- Many menus have new hotkeys (marked in blue).
- New general keys: SHIFT J = jump device, 5 = Best Selling,
6 = Best buys, r = Property owned
- New broadcast command for landed ships:
This command allows broadcasting the same command to all ships landed
inside a station or TL transporter, much like the sector broadcast
sends the same command to all ships in a sector.
- The various rankings in the Personal menu now show how far you have advanced to the
next rank as a percentage.
- When using the jump device, the galaxy map now shows all sectors in range.
- The property owned menu now sorts sectors alphabetically, ships by
class, and alphabetically inside each class.
BALANCE OF THE UNIVERSE
***********************
- You can earn more money with factories now, making a life as industry
magnate more profitable.
- Engine, rudder and freight tunings are now available inside equipment docks.
- The Xenon are more active ;-)
- Your ship will be scanned less frequently for illegal cargo.
- The productivity of powerplants varies based on the amount of light in a
system, e.g. the number of suns and their brightness. Note this will not change
how many energy cells are produced per unit of crystal; it will only affect how
fast energy cells are produced.
- NPC ships now use missiles more frequently.
- Spaceweed is now legal in Teladi space. SQUASH mines are legal in Paranid, Split
and Teladi space.
- You will now have 2500 Credits at the start of a new game. This makes
up for the higher product prices which were introduced to increase
the amount of money a player can earn by running factories.
AND MANY MORE DETAILS
*********************
- Jumpdrive: When leaving your ship (SHIFT E) after activating the jumpdrive, the
ship will correctly jump away without you :)
- Notification of attacks on your property in distant sectors enhanced.
- Police licenses are now bound to the player, not the ship.
- Command: "Kill all enemies" enhanced.
- Lasers no longer automatically readjust to save the laser configuration
chosen by the player
- New friendly fire detection can help avoiding misunderstandings between
friendly races.
- and many more small enhancements...
- By the way: X-TENSION V2 can load savegames of all official X-TENSION
versions (this includes 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 aka X-GOLD, and 1.5).
However it can not load X-Beyond the frontier savegames or savegames
from Beta versions of X-TENSION for technical reasons.
- Version 2.0 of X-TENSION does not yet include new missions, but
there are a couple of nice new missions on the way and will be
released in a later version.
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FAQ about X-TENSION an X-BTF
-------------------------------------------------------------
In the following text we summarized some frequently asked questions
and the answers for you. Among other things this text also makes
suggestions that should help if you have difficulties starting X-BTF
or X-TENSION on your computer.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR X-TENSION !!!
Please always insert your original X-Beyond the Frontier CD in your CD-ROM
before starting X-TENSION. X-TENSION requires the X-BTF CD for playing!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Game related issues about X-TENSION:
- Most information about X-TENSION is explained in detail in the X-TENSION
manual. You can find this document as an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file on this
CD together with the software required to read or print it.
If you run into any problems, make sure you read this document first.
However, there are some last minute updates not covered in the manual:
- You can now sell ships in a shipyard. As soon as you land with two ships
in a shipyard, you can now sell the one that you are not currently flying from
the trading menu. Order your ships to land at the shipyard or order them
to follow you before you land in a shipyard, then wait for them to arrive.
You can switch between ships with the "change ship" menu, and even sell the
ship you are currently using this way.
- When buying new ships in a shipyard you can now immediately choose some
basic upgrades from the local equipment dock.
Some other frequently asked questions about the gameplay of X-TENSION:
- The "Turbo boost" upgrade works a bit differently with X-TENSION than it used
to work in X-BTF. It now "only" accelerates your ship faster but does not make
you faster than the maximum speed of your ship. To increase the maximum speed
you still have the option to buy "engine tunings".
- You can fly more than 30 different ships in X-TENSION, and many of them have
unique special features. Most of the freighters you can buy can not be equipped
with lasers while most of the fighter ships can not transport as many goods as
a freighter can. If you see other people (e.g Pirates) flying ships that you
would like to have, you may consider to steal them. Some ships that you can not
buy can still be taken over in a fight. Pirate freighters ,for example, are a nice
compromise between a fighting ship and a transporter.
- Compared to X-BTF you will find that in X-TENSION you will have to spend a little
more time on planning where you want to build your factories. Most factory types
only make a good profit for you if you put them in a good location. Check the
demand for your product as well as the supply with the needed resources. Only when
you buy your resources cheap and sell your products expensive will your factory
make you a rich tycoon fast :)
- Like in X-BTF, in X-TENSION you still need to hire a TL class transporter ship
when you want to build a factory. Hire the ship, then dock at a shipyard!
- Check your logbook for details about possible missions you are playing.
For more and updated news about X-TENSION and links to many interesting
fanpages about the game, visit EGOSOFT on the web at:
http://www.egosoft.com/x
The following FAQ covers technical problems with X-Beyond the Frontier.
Some of the hardware related issues can still happen with X-TENSION, so if
you have problems running the game, please read through this text:
X-Beyond the Frontier version 1.9 (English)
The most common question related to X:
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Technical Problems
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Q: The game does not start. It hangs while loading or it is easily
terminated, so that the desktop appears again.
Q: The speech output is missing. What can I do?
Q: The speech output does not seem to stop. What can I do?
Q: No music is played. What's wrong?
Q: The game runs very slowly, if I leave a space station or during the
intro sequences. I do not hear any music?
Please examine the following possibilities.
Every single one can be a reason for your problem!
Possibility 1:
Media Player is not correctly installed. Either the newest version is not
installed by DirectX Media (a part of the Media Player) and/or no MP3
codec. In order to solve this problem, make sure you install the Microsoft
Media Player completely.
Possibility 2:
You have tried to play X directly from the CD-ROM.
Another (rather improbable) possibility could be the fact that you start
X directly from the CD ROM without having installed it on your hard disk!
Thus the music and speech output is faulty.
Possibility 3:
You did not create sufficient virtual memory: initially the game loads for
a while and then locks up before the first 3D scene. The reason for this
problem COULD be that you did not create sufficient virtual workspace.
Read also the previous responses with tips for correct music playback.
An incompatible MP3 codec or MPEG streaming component can be a
reason for X not to start.
Possibility 4:
A conflict with a virtual CD-ROM drive Another reason that X maz not
start could be that you used a program for the creation of a virtual
CD-ROM drive. Please terminate this program before you start X!
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Q: The game locks up after a short time.
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A: If the intro sequence from X and the credits run error free
(with sound, music and speech output) perhaps one of the following
paragraphs may help to locate the problem.
1) Please find out if there is a new update patch for X These are available from
Egosoft or THQ and also from their homepages (www.egosoft.com or www.thq.de).
You are currently using version 1.7. For this reason only patches with a higher
version numbers will work for you.
2) Some graphics cards need newer drivers. Particularly for graphics cards based on
the Voodoo Banshee chip, e.g. the Diamond Monster Fusion you should use the newest
reference driver released by 3DFX. Similar problems related to drivers were observed
with Voodoo3 graphics cards.
3) Software e.g. a Screensaver runs in the background and uses processor time. From
this various problems can result - even crashes can occur.
4) Please make sure that your graphic card doesn't share its IRQ with another PCI
card. If you have an AGP graphics card the PCI card in the card slot next to the AGP
card usually receives the same IRQ. This can slow down the system. In the worst case
this can cause a crash when the system is too heavily loaded. Many graphics card
manufacturers offer a solution for this on their homepage.
5) Your 3D-Card or your CPU is over-clocked, RAM is defective, your system is unstable,
etc... Sometimes instabilities of the hardware occur only if the system is running at
full load!
6) You are using old and possibly defective drivers for your sound card (A3D based
cards in particular may require an updated driver).
7) Please make sure your system has enough virtual memory. Check your Windows virtual
memory settings, and check if there is enough space left on your hard disk. A good
setting may be a minimum and maximum of 200MB virtual memory.
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Q: The ship rotates as soon as I start the game.
A: Press F8 in order to get to the options menu. Click on input devices, and adjust
your joystick in the upper left corner. Even if your joystick is currently not
attached it may be registered in Windows! Now click on OK. This should solve the
problem. Another cause could be that the third axis of your joystick (sliding
control or turning function of your joystick) is not calibrated. You can do this
in the "system control".
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Q: The game does not start up. It stops with a message saying "wrong graphic settings".
What is wrong?
A: Maybe you have some incorrect settings stored in your registry. De-select the
"use settings" button on startup. If this does not help, try to start the game in
window mode.
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Q: The ship de-accelerates, although I do not press the Z key?
A: Probably you have a joystick with thrust control (Throttle). This input mode
overwrites the keyboard entry. Either you use the thrust control of your joystick
or you deactivate it using the the options menu or you remove your joystick.
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Q: The displayed textures are sometimes incorrect. Problems with clipping?
(as far as we know this only happens on Riva TNT graphics cards.)
A: This is a known problem that occurs on some DX6 drivers. Please try to use the
XDX6.exe which we installed as alternative to x.exe, also on your computer.
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Q: I would like to use a colour depth of 32 bits with my graphics card (e.g. RIVA TNT)
What do I have to modify?
A: Start the game with the default settings.
Press F11 during the game and select a texture format like 8-8-8-0 or 8-8-8-8 for
both types of texture. Select a screen resolution with a depth of 32 bits. Remember
that more graphics memory is needed and the game possibly refuses to run on some
computers.
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Q: The volume adjustments are ignored?
A: In addition to the Windows volume adjustment you can change the volume within the
game. Press F8 to display the options menu and click on the sound settings icon.
Here you can make the adjustments to the different volume levels.
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Q: The sound quality when using SB16 or AWE32 sound cards is bad / I hear clicking noises?
A: Sound cards without accelerated sound buffer like the AWE32 and the SB16 can have
a bad sound quality. Particularly if the sounds are too loud, distortions can occur.
There are some adjustments which can try you out: deactivate the 3D surround sound
effect in the driver for the AWE32. Select a sampling rate of 22kHz within the sound
menu of X.
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Q: Sometimes I cannot control the speed of the ship (a/z)?
A: Your joystick probably overwrites the speed setting with thrust control settings.
Please decide if you want to use the thrust control of your joystick, re-calibrate
your joystick or disconnect your Joystick from the system and remove it from the
Windows system control.
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Q: The game will not start, I double click on the icon but nothing happens?
A: The installation of necessary DLL files went wrong. "X - Beyond the Frontier" uses
the file ijl10.dll. This file MUST be in the same directory as the rest of the game.
If you cannot find this file, try installing X again.
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Q: The game crashes / hangs while loading, or after the Intro sequence?
A: Make sure you have enough virtual memory. X temporarily uses a lot of memory.
Make sure your virtual memory settings (system settings -> performance) do not limit
the maximum possible virtual memory, and check how much space is left on the drive.
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Game related issues
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Q: How can I save a game in X?
A: You must buy Salvage Insurance. Among other things you can obtain this in each
factory, or trading station.
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Q: What does the number tell me when I scan asteroids with a mineral scanner installed
on my ship?
A: The higher the number you get, the more minerals it contains.
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Q: Some Alien races don't allow me to dock at their stations?
A: They don't trust you. You have to work on your reputation, try to shoot down a
couple of Xenon's or pirates in their sector, this might help.
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Q: Can I hire transporters to bring crystals to my Solar power plant?
A: No you can't. You will have to bring them to your power plant yourself.
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Q: Where do I find further information about the game controls and the flow of the
game itself?
A: Within the game there are different possibilities to obtain help. With or
you receive an outline of the key assignment (refer to the manual as well).
With you can get some game TIPS.
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Q: How do I know which version I have of X?
A: When you start up the game, a small window will be opened before loading.
Here you can see the version number.
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Q: If I load a new logo, the whole screen becomes distorted?
A: This is because of some driver problems which appear on some 3D cards.
Press F8 to get to the option menu, then click on the Graphics device / 3D card
and then press cancel. This will solve the problem.
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Q: I have problems with my Voodoo 3D card and have a motherboard with an ALI chipset,
what do I do?
A: There is a new driver(1.6) available for motherboards with ALI chipsets. Using this
driver should correct the problem. For more information, please check the following
Website: www.ali.com.tw and please make sure to use the newest (reference) driver
for your graphic card.
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Q: Why are the credits I am earning in the game halfed after some time?
A: This problem is related to the copy protection. Are you using an Original (and not
a copy)? If yes, please check the following things:
1) Check if you hard drive is virus free.
2) Make sure that you are not using any programs which simulate a CD-ROM drive etc.
3) Make sure that you are not using an old DOS driver for your CD-ROM drive but
a Windows driver instead.
If this doesn't help you, please write an E-Mail to: info@egosoft.com.
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Q: X slows down and the music starts to stutters after a while, what is wrong?
A: Please make sure that Windows is not running any programs like Virus Scanners (for
example Norton Antivirus) in the background, and make sure that the Mediaplayer is
fully installed.
