SimCity 2000 for OS/2 Warp Febuary 26, 1995 Last Minute Info Please read all of this document - it's important! Really! I. Using the OS/2 System Editor to view this document II. Fixes in this release III. How to install the Patch IV. Technical Help V. Gameplay Issues - Including loading SCURK object sets VI. How to Reach Maxis Technical Support VII. Introducing the Maxis TechGeeks Using the OS/2 System Editor to view this document To make this document easier to read, you can enlarge the editor window to its maximum size. To do so, click the Maximize button in the upper-right corner of the window or open the Control menu in the upper-left corner of the editor window (press ALT+SPACEBAR or use the left mouse button), and then choose the Maximize command. To move through the document, press PAGE UP or PAGE DOWN or click the arrows at the top and bottom of the scroll bar along the right side of the Write window. For Help on using the OS/2 System Editor, press F1. Fixes in this release The memory leak that appeared whenever signs were displayed has been fixed. The graph magnitudes have been fixed (they were scaling incorrectly). Various other small user interface glitches were fixed. How to install the patch. Open an OS/2 Window or OS/2 Fullscreen. To do this do the following : Double click on the OS/2 System folder. Double click on the Command Prompts folder. Double click on either OS/2 Window or OS/2 Fullscreen Insert the patch disk in your a: drive. From the OS/2 command line type this syntax : a:\patch x: ( Where x: equals the drive letter where SimCity/2000 is installed on. ) For example if you installed SimCity/2000 for OS/2 Warp on drive D: located in the MAXIS\SC2000 directory it would look like this : a:\patch d:\maxis\sc2000 Technical Help SimCity 2000 for OS/2 requires the same video driver features that the Direct Interface Video Extensions (DIVE) require. You must run in a 256-color or greater mode, and the video card must not be an 8514 card, or setup in an 8514-emulating mode. If your card is emulating an 8514 but is not actually an 8514, you will need to update your video driver to a more recent version. If you are in a high-color mode (24-bit or 32-bit color) and SimCity 2000 video is not displaying correctly or SimCity crashes when trying to bring up a city window, you will need to update your video driver or change your display mode to a lower color depth (like 256 colors). ALADDIN.DLL, this is a Trident video driver problem. Make sore you have the most recent driver for your adapter. ALADDIN.DLL errors may occur immediately when loading, or when querying on microsimulator objects (hospitals, police stations, etc.). If your mouse cursor blinks erradically, your video display adapter does not have hardware cursor support. This problem can sometimes be alleviated by letting SimCity 2000 handle cursor control. To try this, start SC2000.EXE with a /C command line switch. If this works for you, open up the Maxis folder, click the right mouse button on the SC2000 icon, click on Settings, and place the /C in the Parameters section. Sound and Music SimCity 2000 for OS/2 supports all sound cards that are compatible with MMPM/2 on OS/2. If you do not have a sound card, you will not hear sound effects or music. OS/2 does not support simultaneous playback of Sound Effects and Music on 8-bit audio cards. If you have an 8-bit card, you will not hear both together. If you do have a sound card, check the Options menu while playing SimCity 2000. There are two items in the Options menu called Music and Sound Effects. For music and sound effects to play, both menu items MUST be checked. Your sound card and its OS/2 software must also be configured for MIDI music in order for SimCity 2000 to grace your ears with its sonic beauty. To check this, go into the Multimedia folder on your desktop and determine if there is a MIDI player icon. If so open it and try playing BACH.MID. If it plays fine, all is well and good in the land of the Sims. If, instead, you get some kind of error message (or worse yet, no error, but no music) you'll need to consult your OS/2 manual or contact the dealer where you purchased the sound hardware or the manufacturer. If you experience loss of music and/or sound effects during gameplay and your sound options are enabled, you have encountered an OS/2 MMPM/2 stream handler problem. Other problems you may see include hard lockup of the computer, system traps in the audio driver, and constant repitition of the last sound. If the system is still runing and sound has stopped, you must shut down and restart SimCity 2000 to get sound back. If the system is repeating a sound over and over, click on an object to make another sound (like a toolbar button) and it will stop. Contact IBM support for the latest corrective service diskettes for OS/2 and MMPM/2. Video drivers, palettes and pictures What are Video Drivers? OS/2 uses a set of programs called Video Drivers to control how it accesses your particular hardware to display things on the screen. Usually, the video card that you have installed in your machine will come with a set of video drivers that you can install for use with OS/2. OS/2 comes with some video drivers that work on almost any video card and allow OS/2 to display 16 colors at a resolution of 640x480 pixels. What does this have to do with SimCity 2000? SimCity 2000 for OS/2 will not run in a 16 color environment. Make sure your video driver is setup to provide at least a 256 color environment. SimCity 2000 for OS/2 fully supports color depths of 256 or greater. The steps to change the type of video driver you are using are system-specific; you may have a driver for your adapter on the OS/2 disks, or an OS/2 driver disk from the manufacturer. We recommend that you check with your vendor or manufacturer for information on your display card, but here are some general hints and tips we can run through. Find the System Setup folder, usually located in the OS/2 System Folder. Open the System Setup folder, then find the System icon. Double click on the System icon, then check the Screen Settings. If it's 640x480x16, that means 640x480 resolution (which is fine) but 16 colors (which we need to change). To change, you will likely need your original OS/2 disks, so keep them handy. Select one of the other selections (such as '640x480x256'). If you do not have any other selections, you need to install another video driver for your adapter. Once you have selected another item, close the settings window, then shutdown and restart OS/2. Gameplay Issues Loading object sets If you have SimCity 2000 object sets in your SimCity 2000 directory (some are provided), an option in the New Game window and the file menu will be available. These will allow you to load object sets from the SimCity 2000 directory. The object sets from the SimCity 2000 Urban Renewal Kit for Windows may also be loaded. You cannot import .TIL sets from the Urban Renewal Kit for DOS - they must be converted in the Urban Renewal Kit for Windows. When importing a object set, only the tiles that exist in the set will affect SimCity 2000. If you have an object set with only 2 buildings, only those two tiles will be replaced in SimCity 2000 when loaded. You may load object sets on top of object sets to create a completely original set, but when SimCity 2000 is exited and re-launched, only the original object set will be loaded. Saved Cities For your simulating pleasure, we have included several saved cities created by various Maxis employees and other SimCity 2000 users. They are located in your SimCity 2000 Cities directory. Micro-Simulators When querying some structures, you get local statistics about that structure. For instance, querying on a Police Station will tell you how many crimes and arrests were handled by that station, and querying on a school will tell you how many teachers and students are attending that school as well as the average grade of the students. Most placeable structures (police, fire, schools, colleges, power plants, the Mayor's House, arcologies, etc.)have these micro-simulators. Some structures share one micro-simulator for all the structures placed. Things like the bus system, railroad depots, marinas, libraries, windmills, and hydroelectric power plants among others have one micro-simulator for each category (one micro-simulator for all the bus stations, one for all the railroad depots, etc.). Where is this all headed, you ask? Well, each city can only have 150 microsimulators in it. If you go beyond that, the structure you place will still affect the simulator globally (police stations will still stop crime, bus stations will still carry passengers, arcologies will still hold people), but you just won't be able to see any local information on those structures. This isn't going to harm your city in any way. We're telling you this because it's pretty easy to run out of micro-simulators in a large city and we don't want you thinking something's wrong. Terrain Editing If you are building a city and go into the terrain edit mode, your city will disappear, but any trees or water that you have placed in the city will show up in terrain edit mode. Also, if you have placed a bridge or other structure that automatically builds landfill, the landfill will also show up in terrain edit mode. These can be removed with the Lower Terrain tool. Airports Keep in mind when building an airport that it needs space for a runway, or it will not build. The minimum usable airport space is 2 x 6 tiles. Your best be...
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