Air Warrior(r) III Frequently Asked Questions

Last Update: April 22, 1998


OVERVIEW
========

The FAQ is designed to give you an easy and quick source of answers to
the most frequently encountered questions regarding "how to," game
features, and game troubleshooting. Note that it does not cover
service-specific game launching problems; for these, refer to the
Readme.txt file in the \DOCS directory inside the main Air Warrior(r)
III directory. 

The FAQ does not answer every question that may come up with
installing, launching, and playing games. For more information,
consult the Readme.txt file, post a question on your service's message
boards, or send e-mail to: 

awsupport@kesmai.com.


QUESTIONS
=========

-------------

Q: I currently fly Air Warrior II. Do I have to upgrade my system to
use Air Warrior III? 

A: No. The 'software rendering' option in Air Warrior III is the same
as Air Warrior II. You will see the same graphics you are used to and
get about the same performance. To enjoy the new hardware accelerated
rendering, with fully texture mapped terrain and planes, you will need
a good 3D accelerator card and a bit more power. 

-------------

Q: When I run the game with my 3D accelerator video card, the world
looks like empty patches of white, blue or dark gray. What's wrong? 

A: If no textures are being drawn in Air Warrior III, the first thing
you should try is a reinstallation of Direct X 5. Odd as it sounds,
this has worked in many cases, even when Direct X 5 had been
previously installed. If this does not help, your next best step is to
visit the web site for your video card manufacturer and download the
latest drivers for your card. README3D.TXT has a list of the 3D cards
and drivers we used when testing many popular 3D cards. 

-------------

Q: I cannot get my joystick and other controls to work. What controls
do you support and how should I configure them? 

A: First make sure your controls are configured under Windows 95 (use
the Control Panel - Joystick Setup icon). Then select your controls
and calibrate them in Air Warrior as well. If you are still
experiencing problems, then check the Air Warrior 3D help file under
the Setup Controls section. This describes controls Air Warrior 3D
supports, and provides special instructions for configuring certain
control devices. The information is also duplicated in the file
joystick.txt, which is located in the Air Warrior \DOCS directory on
your hard drive. The next two questions and answers in this FAQ cover
potentially related problems and may also prove helpful. 

-------------

Q: My joystick works, but it spikes frequently. (and/or) I'm having
problems calibrating my rudder pedals. 

A: If you experience joystick spikes, or have trouble calibrating your
rudder pedals, from the Start menu, select Settings, Control Panel,
and Game Controllers. Click the Advanced tab, and disable the Poll
with interrupts enabled option on the bottom left of the screen. 

-------------

Q: The game locked up and after I shut it down, and started it again,
it no longer detects my joystick. Why? 

A: This is a problem at the system level of Windows 95 and DirectX 5,
but it's easily addressed. In some cases, if the Air Warrior III
closes abnormally (the polite term for "crashes"), you may find that
your joystick is no longer responding. We have seen this with the
Sidewinder 3D Pro in particular. If this happens, select the Start
menu, Shutdown, and Restart the computer. In fact it's always a good
idea to do this when any program on your computer crashes. 

-------------

Q: My view settings keep changing at 1 second intervals. Why is this
happening? 

A: Check the "Minimum Frame Rate" option in the Performance settings.
Right click anywhere on the screen and select "Setup..."->"User
Preferences..." and click on the Performance tab. More than likely
this is checked and is not working well with your system. Just uncheck
this option to control the view settings yourself (keys 1, 2, 3, 4,
and 5 during flight). 

-------------

Q: I use a Wingman Warrior joystick (the one with the rotating knob)
and cannot get the knob to function correctly with Air Warrior III as
a rudder control device. What can I do to correct this? 

A: This knob does work reasonably well as a rudder control in Air
Warrior 3D if you select Generic Rudder Control and DO NOT calibrate
it in Air Warrior 3D. It is better just to use the calibration set in
the Windows 95 control panel for the rudder device in this case.

Note: The rudder and hat controls only work when connecting the stick
through the serial port, not when connecting it through the gameport.
See the Wingman Warrior user manual for more information. 

-------------

Q: My CH CombatStick view switches are not working properly. Any ideas
on how to fix this? 

A: When using the DirectInput driver available from CH Products for
the CH CombatStick, the upper-right view switch must be calibrated
first. With most other driver choices the two view switches may be
calibrated in either order. 

-------------

Q: I just joined a squadron today and my squad is not displayed with
my name on the Kill Board. Why isn't this information displayed? 

A: Scores, rankings, and squadron information is not updated until the
wee hours of the morning. Check the boards again in 24 hours and you
will find your squad name and other information up to date for the
previous day. 

-------------

Q: Why would you keep your game interface at 1024x768 and your flight
window resolution at 640x480? 

A: Keeping the flight window resolution set to a smaller size helps
improve the frame rate in the game. As you increase the flight window
resolution you may see the frame rate slightly decrease. However, game
interface art has no bearing on frame rate, therefore you would want
to use the highest resolution game interface to get better quality
images. If you find that you fly in Full Screen Mode a lot, please
read the next question and answer. 

-------------

Q: When I fly in full screen mode, the cockpit art looks blocky. 

A: This is because Air Warrior 3D uses the same art file for all view
resolutions. In full screen mode, the art must be stretched to fit the
screen. If you fly full screen mode at 640x480 often, you can tell Air
Warrior 3D to use the high res art (A26____2.art for example) for full
screen mode by going to "Setup..."->"User Preferences" and clicking on
the "Flight Window Resolution" tab. Select "Allow All Modes" and
"Optimize Full Screen Mode". 

-------------

Q: My frame rate is only 5 to 10 frames per second. What should I do? 

A: To show your actual frame rate, press Esc-O-D while in flight. Most
likely the video driver you are currently running is not the latest
DirectX 5 compatible video driver. This is especially true for the
Matrox cards. Go to your video card manufacturer's web page to get the
latest driver. This should improve your frame rate. 

-------------

Q: How can I capture an Air Warrior III screen and save it to a file? 

A: To capture the screen while in a conference room or offline screen,
use <shift> <ctrl> c, in flight hit F11. This will save the screen,
with a DIB extension, in your root Air Warrior III directory. 

-------------

Q: How do I get sounds and voice to work on my SoundBlaster AWE32 or
AWE64? 

A: In order to get sounds, particularly network speech, to work
properly in Air Warrior III, you need to disable a sound processing
mode on the card called WaveSynth. It employs floating point
processing for sound and can create conflicts with other programs
(such as AWIII) that also use a lot of floating point. 

To disable WaveSynth, go to Settings, Control Panel, and select
Multimedia. Under the Advanced tab you should see an option called
"Midi device and Instruments." Select it and highlight, "WaveSynth/WG
Midi" and click on properties. Then check the box that says "Do not
use midi features on this device" and it will disable your WaveSynth
without taking it off the system. 

-------------

Q: The inflight cockpit artwork looks strange in the view mode I
prefer using. Is there anything I can do? 

A: Set the program to optimize for that mode. From the Setup Hangar,
select User Preferences, and Flight Window. There are three inflight
view modes: Normal (reduced view window, more range reporting
information on other aircraft), Combat (larger view screen, digital
gauges), and Full Screen (full view window, limited range reporting
information on other aircraft). Optimize for the one you use most. You
may also need to download higher resolution art for your favorite
planes. 

-------------

Q: I sometimes see a mouse cursor in my cockpit when I fly. How do I
get rid of it? 

A: Some pilots have reported seeing the mouse "waiting" cursor in 2D
mode while flying in the full screen view. If you switch to another
cockpit view, by hitting either F5 or F6, and then switch back to full
screen view by hitting F7, the mouse cursor will go away. 

-------------

Q: I have a Rendition V2100 or V2200 based 3D card (Hercules Thriller
3D, Diamond Stealth II, etc.) and when I fly in hardware accelerated
mode, I see a big colored square in the middle of the screen. 

A: This is a known problem with the latest drivers for these cards.
Rendition has verified that there is a problem and is looking into it.
There is currently no work-around for this. Until a fix is posted, we
suggest flying in software rendering mode. Contact your card's
manufacturer for more information on when an updated driver will be
available. 

-------------

Q: I have an ATI RAGE or RAGE Pro based card (ATI ALL-IN-WONDER, ATI
XPERT@WORK, etc.) and now that I updated to the new "Turbo" drivers,
my color is all messed up in hardware accelerated mode. 

A: This is a driver bug. ATI has fixed the problem in the latest
internal BETA drivers; the fix should be available in the next
released driver update. Until that time, you will need to reinstall
the pre-"Turbo" driver version to fly in 3D mode, or you can fly in
software rendering mode. Contact ATI for information on installing the
older driver.

