Eight Ball Deluxe additional notes
----------------------------------

Although the manual covers most of the details, there are some additional
you should be aware of when first running Eight Ball Deluxe.

This file contains the following sections:

- Important Note for ATI and other SoundBlaster compatible cards
- Error Messages
- VGA Problems
- Special Options
- High Score Registration
- System Setup Example (DOS 5 or Higher)
- Windows Installation
- Operation under OS/2
- Programmers' Note


Important note for ATI and other SoundBlaster compatible cards
--------------------------------------------------------------

The ATI Stereo VGA/FX video/sound card, which is SoundBlaster compatible, has 
a special feature called Buffering. This is to improve sound quality, but it
unfortunately requires close attention of the CPU, which has to wait for
the card to accept new sample data. This feature dramatically slows down
game play. You can check this when running the game and turning the sound 
off and on using the 'A' key.

In the setup program of the card (usually \vgautil\vinstall.exe) is an option
to turn this feature off. The sound will still work but may be a bit 'clicky'.
This may also improve performance of some of your other software, which may
suffer from this problem as well.

Sometimes ATI Stereo VGA/FX card (and possibly other cards as well) hang up
internally. You have to reset the card using a program that should come with
your sound card. In the case of the ATI card it usually is c:\sfx\reset.exe.

According to it's specifications, the SoundBlaster card uses DMA channel 1.
Eight Ball Deluxe will only use this DMA channel.  If your sound card allows
you to change DMA channels, make sure it is set to Channel 1 for SoundBlaster
sound to work properly.

SoundBlaster's default IRQ number is 5.  Eight Ball Deluxe will scan for 
other IRQ's as well, but prefers them to be from 3 to 7.

SoundBlaster's default Port number is 220H.  Eight Ball Deluxe will usually
work with any Port setting, but if you are experiencing problems, try setting
your Port to 220H also.

If you are using a Media Vision sound card such as the Pro AudioSpectrum 16,
or the CDPC XL, you should note that you can change the volume by holding 
down the CTRL and ALT keys simultaniously with the D and U keys to move 
volume Down or Up.  This may become necessary as this board will occasionally 
start up very quietly.


Error Messages
--------------

If the installation is incomplete, or after installation one or more
files are accidentally deleted, the program will exit and a message will
appear. If the first message is a filename, you should reinstall
Eight Ball Deluxe. Simply install Eight Ball Deluxe on top of the directory
where it was originally installed.

Other messages:

Not enough XMS available for Soundblaster to run:

    Eight Ball Deluxe stores all the samples in Extended memory. Therefore,
    you need to make sure that enough Extended Memory (XMS) is available.
    Make sure that an extended memory manager is present. Himem.sys should 
    suffice.  Find out where your himem.sys is located on your harddrive.  It 
    usually lives in the C:\DOS directory, or, when you have windows 
    installed, then try the C:\WINDOWS directory. If you have more than one 
    partition or have more than one hard drive, try finding it in the other 
    partions. Make sure config.sys contains "DEVICE = C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS".

    Some drivers in config.sys and autoexec.bat take all XMS away for their
    own use.  An example is emm386.exe, which converts all XMS into EMS
    (Exp(!)anded Memory). If you wish to have EMS available as well, try 
    telling the driver (such as emm386.exe) to only take a portion of the 
    memory, so that after running the driver, at least 800Kb of XMS is 
    available.  Refer to your DOS manual for instructions on using EMM386 or 
    product documentation for third party software.

Not enough memory available:

    Eight Ball Deluxe needs about 590Kb of conventional memory to run.
    Some drivers or TSRs which are loaded in config.sys/autoexec.bat take 
    away too much conventional memory. If you have DOS 5 or higher and are 
    not familiar with loading devices and TSRs into upper memory, please 
    refer to your DOS manual to help you set up your system more efficiently. 
    Take a look at the system setup example at the end of this file.
    If you still can't run Eight Ball Deluxe, take out some of the device
    drivers and TSRs until you can run successfully.

Allocation failure:

    There are several memory allocation failure messages. Most of the time 
    this is a result of not having enough conventional memory available.


VGA Problems
------------

On some older VGA boards connected to a monochrome VGA monitor the screen may
appear black and stay black when starting up Eight Ball Deluxe. In that case,
try typing 'mode co80' before you run Eight Ball Deluxe again, which should
switch your VGA card into color mode.  Press 'ESC' several times to return
to DOS.  Your screen should return to normal.

Some VGA cards do this even when it's connected to a color monitor.

Some really old VGA cards won't work at all; these are not 100% VGA compatible.
Refer to your VGA manual for switches/jumpers, try every possible setting as
long as your VGA manual indicates that what you're doing is safe! Also, turn
your computer OFF and UNPLUG it BEFORE you open your computer to look for
jumpers!

There were some problems with fading the graphics on some VGA cards. Although
they have all been fixed, there's still a special command line option that
tells the program not to use any fading. See the Special Options paragraph.

VGA boards are usually normal AT boards that go into an AT slot. Because of 
this, all VGA graphic changes slow down the system. This in combination with a 
slower computer, such as a 386 SX/16, may sometimes result in choppy animated
graphics.  This may show up when you flip the flippers. What the program does 
in that case is cut the frame rate to a lower rate so that the actual 
gamespeed remains the same.

Make sure the memory caches and the wait states of your system are set up
properly (refer to the manual of your motherboard). This is important if you 
want your system to run at its fastest.


Special Options
---------------

You can start 8BALLDLX using extra parameters, in any order, use as many as 
you like:

help      - summary
nosb      - Tells the game to ignore the SoundBlaster all together.
nosound   - No sound at all, PC-Speaker can be re-enabled inside the game.
notitles  - Go directly to the pinball cafe.
nomouse   - Ignore mouse
pause     - Pauses the game after execution. Usefull for reading error 
            messages after running it inside Windows.
ball1     - Use default ball
ball2     - Use slightly smaller ball
ball3     - Use huge ball
nofading  - Don't use fading, see the VGA Problems paragraph.
nudgeXXXX - Configure the Nudge keys. (Default is "nudgezZ/?" - with no spaces)
-nxxx     - Change the amount of near space the game will use (Default is -n24)
-fxxx     - Change the amount of far space the game will use (Default is -f330)


High Score Registration
-----------------------

In the high score screen, you can press on the Space bar to get a High Score
registration code.  At the same time, the program creates a file called
HISCORES.TXT in your Eight Bal Deluxe directory.  The easiest way to 
register your high score is to simply print this file and then mail or fax
it in.


System Setup Example (DOS 5 or higher)
--------------------

config.sys:

    DOS = HIGH, UMB
    Device = c:\dos\himem.sys
    Device = c:\dos\emm386.exe noems
    DeviceHigh = c:\dos\smartdrv.exe

autoexec.bat:

    LoadHigh doskey /insert

The important part is the 'DOS = HIGH, UMB' which tells the system to load
DOS in high memory and to use Upper Memory for DeviceHigh and LoadHigh.
In this case himem.sys provides XMS and High Memory, and emm386.exe provides 
Upper Memory.  Note that loading TSRs using LoadHigh, as in the example
above, leaves more conventional memory free for your programs.

If you do not want to modify your config.sys or autoexec.bat files, you can
also create a "clean" boot disk with config.sys and autoexec.bat files
created especially for this purpose.  The two examples above are a good
starting place.  To create a clean boot disk you must either use the format
command with the '/s/v' parameters (eg. format a: /s /v) or the sys command 
(eg. sys a:).  For more information on this topic, refer to the file 
CLEAN.TXT.  Also, refer to your Dos manual if you are unsure about the use of
these commands.


Windows Installation
--------------------

Eight Ball Deluxe will run under Windows in a dos shell, sometimes referred
to as a dos box.  You must, however, make Windows aware of Eight Ball Deluxe.
Please note that the game will ALWAYS run better under DOS than under Windows
because Windows does not allow for the intimate hardware control that Eight 
Ball Deluxe requires to run at optimum levels.  In some configurations, the 
hesitations that running under Windows causes may make the game virtually 
unplayable.

You can install Eight Ball Deluxe in Windows by carefully performing
each of the following steps:

1.  Create a Group for Pinball (you may skip this step if you want to install
    the game into an existing group)

    From the Program Manager, select the File menu, and select the New
    option.  A requester will come up, select the 'Program Group' option, and
    click on OK.  Enter a Group Description (eg. "Amtex Pinball") and a
    group file name (eg. "amtex.grp").  Click on OK.

2.  Select the group to which you would like to add Eight Ball Deluxe
    (eg "Amtex Pinball" from above).  You will know that the group you want 
    is selected when it's top bar is a different color from the other windows
    (Blue by default).

    Select the File menu, select the New option and select Program.  Click on
    OK.  Fill in the information that Windows requests, below is a suggestion
    for the default configuration.

    Description:        Eight Ball Deluxe

            The name that will appear under the Icon in Windows.

    Command Line:       c:\8balldlx\8balldlx.pif

            The path should be the path you installed the game to.  The
            .pif file is a file that lets Windows know how to run the
            game.

    Working Directory:  c:\8balldlx

            The directory you installed the game into.


    Click on the Change Icon button, you will be asked for a file name.
    For a default installation, use 'c:\8balldlx\8ball.ico' and press
    RETURN.  You should see the Eight Ball Deluxe icon below the file name.
    Click on OK to close the Window.

    Click on OK to close the New Program Item window.

    To play Eight Ball Deluxe, double click on the Eight Ball Deluxe Icon.


Operation under OS/2
-------------------

    Eight Ball Deluxe operates much better under OS/2 than it does under
    Windows when run in a Dos Box.  For optimal performance, the following
    parameters should be modified from the OS/2 Default configuration.


        HW_TIMER                ON
        IDLE_SENSITIVITY        100
        INT_DURING_IO           ON
        VIDEO_8514A_XGA_IOTRAP  OFF
        VIDEO_RETRACE_EMULATION OFF


    The game was tested under OS 2, Vers 2.1


Programmers' note
-----------------

Eight Ball Deluxe is written in C++ and assembler, and uses advanced 
techniques, such as extreme modularity, Mode-X graphics mode, on-the-fly 
sample calculation to sound 3 samples simultaniously, special backup-restore 
blitting techniques, special Vertical Retrace handler, timer interrupt 
controlled multiple program flow, automatic frame rate control, and 
much more!

My thanks go out to Mark Vange for helping me save some time by doing the
game-rules, PC-Speaker sounds and the Install program and to Colin Plumb
for the Hiscore/Serial Number encryption code.

Also thanks to Bjarne Stroustrup for making C++ the way it is.

Mike Pot, programmer

