[AVARICE title picture]

AVARICE PREVIEW (PUBLIC BETA5) MANUAL
Copyright (c) 1996, Continuous Software Systems, L.L.C.

Note: Like the actual preview, this manual is a work in progress.  Some
      of the things/features mentioned may not be described in the best
      manner or may not be in the preview.  If you have any suggestions
      or comments about this manual, please send them either to CSS
      (csoft@primenet.com) or Stardock (wardell@ibm.net).

Note: In the final version of AVARICE, this will become a nice,
      paper manual.



******************
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
******************

I.    Important Info
II.   New Features/Upcoming Features
III.  Fixes/Known Bugs
IV.   Introduction
V.    Installation
VI.   The Interface
VII.  Playing a Game
        A.  The Pointers
        B.  The Objects
        C.  The Puzzles
VIII. The NPCs
IX.   Performance notes
X.    Acknowledgments
XI.   Final Thoughts



******************
I. IMPORTANT INFO:
******************
- Things aren't done yet!!!!!  While this update is closer to the final
  game than any other public beta, there is still many things to do.
  A lot of objects will be getting improved and added, etc.

- We are also still testing the puzzle type and quality.  Please let us
  know your opinions on the puzzles.

- PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read the known bugs before posting or
  submitting a bug report.  A lot of reports contain bugs that we already
  know about.  We appreciate every report, but it will save everyone time
  if you take a quick look at the known bugs before you submit a bug
  report.

- This manual lists all the new features, all of the planned features, and
  all of the known bugs.  A copy of the manual appears as a book in
  Gareth's inventory.  No, you cannot burn the manual in the game:).

- We know that many of the object pictures are not that great.  They will
  be getting replaced (and expanded) over time.



************************************
II.  NEW FEATURES/UPCOMING FEATURES:
************************************
NEW FEATURES IN BETA4.4:
- Popup menus now have a configurable texture (like the logger and
  inventory windows).  Selecting the "Black" texture should improve
  the popup menu performance on memory constrained machines.

NEW FEATURES IN BETA4.3:
- IMAGE PREVIEWING!  This is a pretty exciting new feature for the game
  engine.  When Preview is on (check under the Image Quality menu), the
  game will load the low quality bitmaps when you first move or otherwise
  cause a new picture to be loaded.  The game will then start a
  background decompression of that same picture (at your chosen image 
  quality).  When that new image is ready, the game will wait the specified
  delay (set via the Preview menu option) and then update the image.
  Note: for this option to really make sense, the image quality should
  either be set at High or Medium quality (in other words, the image
  quality should be set to a higher quality than the low quality bitmaps).
  This option should allow for very fast movement through the house, yet
  provide quick, transparent access to the higher quality graphics once you
  get where you are going.  Use of this feature also improves the preloading
  algorithm.  Please let us know what you think of this feature.

- Two new movements have been added to the engine: forward&turn left
  and forward&turn right.  These movements will be available if you have
  the "forward" arrow that turns left and/or right.  This movement will
  take you forward *and* turn you in the given direction.  This will let
  you walk around corners without having to go past the corner (Note: you
  never had to actually go past the corner, just even with it.  However,
  because monitors don't support peripheral vision, the corner went out
  of your viewport window).  Note: there isn't any data that uses this new
  feature yet, but there will be in the final.

- Multiple save game slots.  The UI for the save and restore dialogs
  will get redone for the final release.

- Options that are not useable for a given image setting are now greyed out.

NEW FEATURES IN BETA4.2:
- Changing an image quality option now results in the immediate refresh of
  the picture with the new quality settings.  This improves gameplay as you
  no longer have to move around to have the new image quality settings take
  affect.  It should also make F7 (high/low quality toggle) and F9 (color/
  greyscale toggle when using JPEGs) more usable as the image will get 
  updated immediately with the new settings.  It should also improve the
  initial decision stage where you decide what image quality to run with.

- When you save the settings, etc. a message box comes up to give you visual
  verification that the action did in fact complete.

NEW FEATURES IN BETA4.1:
- SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!  Starting a new game and
  restoring a saved game have been dramatically improved from an
  overall speed, disk access, and memory perspective.  On our test
  machines, starting a new game is now up to 8 times as fast
  (putting it into the 1-3 second range for most Pentium class
  machines).

- Reorganization of some menubar options (the On/Off choices are now
  check marked menuitems rather than submenus).

- A "None" cache feature for memory-challenged machines.

- Some (hopefully all) of the crashes should be gone.

NEW FEATURES IN BETA4:
- Greyscale pics!  If you're using either of the JPEG image types, you
  can turn the color off and get greyscale pics.  These have a nice
  feel to them. There is also a change so that F9 will hotkey toggle
  between greyscale and color pics (NOTE: this will have no affect o
  the bitmap pics).

- The Logger and Inventory window textures make their return.
  We're taking suggestions for textures to put in the game
  (as options).

- Options that have no effect in a given configuration are now
  non-choosable.

- The menubar can be turned on permanently via an option.

- The menubar stays up until a game is started/restored.

- The closed captions may now be turned on while the sound still plays.

- Logger and Inventory window buttons are bigger.

- Old Logger text will now grey out when you perform a new action.
  During group testing, this greatly improved readability and decreased 
  confusion about which messages went with which actions.

- Save and Restore now work (though there is a limit of one slot for the
  time being).

- "Archway" objects that let you move to an archway w/o having to go
  through all the pics in between.  To use them, just right click on
  an archway.

- Drag and drop should be completely fixed now (i.e. no more hangs).

- Special screen exiting can be done with either the popup menus *or*
  the side "DONE" hotspots (both have the same effect).

- Logger and Inventory windows now feature bigger buttons.

- New books feature flip macros to make reading them easier.

- Exiting special screens is now consistent throughout the game (except
  for one screen in the entryway).  You can exit *every* special screen
  with *either* the "done" side hotspots or the popup menu.  Selected
  screens will also offer context-sensitive buttons, etc. that will also
  exit you from those screens.

- Better pointers.  Let us know your opinions of the new turning
  pointers.

- Animating pointers.  We've put in three trial animations for the first
  three left rotation pointers.  These are on by default, but can be
  turned off in the Interface submenu.  The performance impact should
  be negligible.  Let us know what you think.

- Inventory window should operate in a more logical manner now.

UPCOMING FEATURES:

- NPCS.

- More Objects, Puzzles, Sounds, Places to go.

- A better intro (movie, etc.).

- More books in the library (currently only the first five shelves have
  actual books on them).

- More savegame slots.



***********************
III.  FIXES/KNOWN BUGS:
***********************

BETA4.4 FIXES:

- Fixed small bug with previewing not preloading higher quality pictures
  sometimes (Note: there still happens in some cases).

- Restore now works.

BETA4.3 FIXES:
- No more crash when changing the cache flushing.

BETA4.2 FIXES:
- When Avarice loses focus and you have animated pointers on, the Avarice
  pointers no longer take over.

- Various minor object fixes.

- Drag and drop should not crash the game anymore.

- When the animating pointers are turned off, the memory space they were
  using is freed.

- When the target cursor is shown, a RMB click should now always do the
  target action (on some screens, the RMB still gave a popup all of the time).

- The elevator rotation cursors are now correct.

- The card reader should be fixed.

- No more strange messages about "limbo".

- The orange pieces that should disappear now disappear, etc.

BETA4.1 FIXES:
- Starting games should be significantly faster.

- Starting AVARICE should be somewhat quicker.

- More stable.

- Greyed out choices in image options are gone.

- The wallet is fixed.

BETA4 FIXES:
- No more seeing objects through other objects.

- The Cache size is now settable.

- The mirror bug from beta3 is fixed.

- The Logger Scrollback is now settable.

- Inventory title is now visible in all resolutions

- An internal structure was replaced to remove some access-violation
  crashes.  Crashes related to this bug may not have appeared in previous
  betas, though.

- There should be no more needless CD/Disk thrashing when ambient
  (background) sounds are off.

- The MQXXXXX crash when starting a new game should be fixed.

- The "floating fireplace" objects should be fixed now.

- The icons for moveable objects should now be the correct picture all
  the time (i.e. it should not revert back to an unwrinkled piece of
  paper after you wad it up).

- Fixed bug in "look on" macro that gave everything above the reference
  object instead of only those things in contact with the reference object
  (or those in contact with those in contact with the reference object,
  etc.).

- When you're viewing a special object (i.e. reading a book, examining a
  letter, etc.) and you view another special object, the first object will
  correctly reset its macros.

- The book pages should no longer change numbers.

- The book pages have the even/odd page numbers on the right side.

- The blank pages at the end of the books have been removed.

- All floating objects (that are over an object) should be fixed now.
  There is still a problem with some objects getting placed in what looks
  like midair (though they're at the right height now:).

- Should no longer be a space between the menubar and pulldown
  menus at lower resolutions.

- Music now pauses when AVARICE is paused or minimized.

- Menubar should work correctly after a minimize.

- Quantization and >256 colors problem should be fixed.
  NOTE: It is entirely possible to get pretty bad
  looking images with the wrong image option combinations.
  We have setup AVARICE to display the best image quality
  by default.  This will not always be the fastest mode
  depending on the type of machine you have and the image
  quality you would like.  Some experimentation with the
  various options is advised if you want to attempt to
  improve your image load time.

- Logger scroll buttons should no longer get mysteriously
  corrupted.

KNOWN BUGS:

- Previewing will not always load the higher quality picture if it's a
  special picture (i.e. a note or something).

- The book pictures change when you pick them off of the shelf.

- Sound performance needs work.

- The correct object does not always get selected when you right
  click.

- AVARICE just exits w/o a message.  If you have this happen, please
  get pmqsize.zip from ftp.cdrom.com in the os2/textutil directory.
  Run the pmqsize utility (following the instructions provided with it)
  and then rerun AVARICE to see if the problem still exists.  If you run
  into the bug, PLEASE let us know (if you do or don't get it working).
  This should affect slower computers more than faster ones.  Fixpack16
  is also reported to fix/help this problem.

- Object placement in the world is not always correct (i.e. some objects
  are not actually on the objects that you drag them to, etc.).

- Right clicking may crash the game (we have reports of the first right
  click in the viewport crashing the game).

- Some objects have fuzzy garbage or black around them.

- The book texts may reorganize their pages when you reach the
  last page.

- At resolutions below 1024x768, the book texts may not fit
  correctly in the pages.

- Some archway objects take you through the archway in the
  wrong direction (and you end up doing a 180deg turn).

- Repeated starting/restoring of games will increase the swapfile.
  If the swapfile becomes a problem, just save the game, quit, restart,
  and then restore (NOTE: this *should* be fixed, but we're leaving
  it in this category until we are 100% sure it is fixed).

- Using a black window texture causes overdraw on some machines.  The
  temp fix for this is to use the wood texture on affected machines.


If you do find a bug, please notify Stardock or CSS.  You can redirect
the output of AVARICE to a file, as in (the syntax of the line must be
as shown below, with the 2 and the corresponding spaces):

start AVARICE 2 > foo

and send "foo" to csoft@primenet.com to assist us in determining the
problem.  Please include a copy of the avarice.i file that resides in
the top-level AVARICE directory on your hard drive.



*****************
IV. INTRODUCTION:
*****************

                           ***** The Story *****

[pic of the letter that your uncle sent you asking you to come to his
  island]

Welcome to AVARICE!

AVARICE is a leap forward in gaming technology.  Taking advantage
of OS/2's advanced capabilities, AVARICE will lift you to the next
level of adventure gaming.  That is, if you are up to the challenge....




****************
V. INSTALLATION:
****************

BETA5 Auto Installation:
Put the zipfile and the update.cmd file into a directory where you want
AVARICE installed to.  Run update.cmd.


BETA5 Manual Installation:
Put the zipfile(s) into the top level Avarice directory on your harddrive.
Unzip them all and allow all of the files to be replaced.  Edit the
avarice.i file lines:

CDDrive .
SoundDirectory .
VideoDirectory .
MBmpDirectory .

To point to your CD drive.  For example, if your CD drive was H.  Those
four lines would be:

CDDrive h:
SoundDirectory h:
VideoDirectory h:
MBmpDirectory h:


PREVIEW Installation:
AVARICE can be played directly from the CD.  To do so, just pop the
CD into your CD drive and double click on the AVARICE.EXE icon.
You will not be able to save games or settings if you
do not install AVARICE to your hard drive.  To install AVARICE to
your hard drive, you will need about 3MB of free space.  To install,
just run the install.cmd script found in the top-level directory of the CD.


Starting AVARICE:

AVARICE should be startable by just double clicking its icon.  You
can also start it from an OS/2 command with by typing "AVARICE"
or "start AVARICE" from the top-level AVARICE install directory.

AVARICE can be started with a command line argument of "3" to
permanently turn off the sound module.  In some cases, this can
dramatically improve performance and increase stability.

If you are experiencing problems with AVARICE, please try starting
the game with the 2 option (i.e. "start AVARICE 2 >foo") and sending
us the output file.  The 2 and 3 options can be combined to turn on
the logging and turn off the sound by using "start AVARICE 23 >foo".



******************
VI. THE INTERFACE:
******************

When AVARICE starts, you will be presented with a looping
AVARICE introduction.  A menubar will be present until a game is
started or restored.  This menubar will let you start games, change
settings, etc.  If not set to display all of the time, the menubar is
accessed by moving the mouse to the top of the screen.  The full list
of game options is explained below:

AVARICE:
   New:
      Start a new game of AVARICE.

   Save:
      Save a game of AVARICE.

   Restore:
      Restore a game of AVARICE.

   Pause:
      Pause the current game.

   Minimize:
      Minimize the current game.

   Save Settings:
      Save the current settings.

   Quit:
      Exit AVARICE.

INTERFACE SETTINGS:
   Increment Viewport Size:
      Increase the size of the world view window.

   Decrement Viewport Size:
      Decrease the size of the world view window.

   Main Text Color:
      Sets the main text color in the Logger and
      Inventory windows and the Popup Menus.

   Pointer Animations:
      Turns pointer animations on and off.

   Menu:
      Determines if the menu is shown permanently

   Popup Title Text Color:
      Sets the color of the Popup Menu Title text.

   Popup Background:
      Sets the background texture for the popup menus.

   Window Backgrounds:
      Sets the background texture for the Logger
      and Inventory windows.

   Logger/Inventory Timeout:
      Sets the delay value for the Logger and
      Inventory window timeout.

   Logger Scroll Buffer:
      Sets the number of lines stored in the
      Logger buffer (NOTE: more lines means
      more memory used).

   Logger Double Spacing:
      Controls whether or not an extra, blank line
      is inserted between text responses.

   Inventory Title:
      Determines if the inventory title is shown

IMAGE QUALITY:
   NOTE:
      By default, AVARICE is setup to display the
      best possible image quality (for each given
      color depth).  This, however, is not always
      the fastest image load time option.  If you
      are interested in attempting to improve your
      image load time, please feel free to 
      experiment with different option combinations.
      If you get to an undesired image quality,
      selecting High Quality will always take you
      back to the default for your color depth.

   High Quality:
      Sets AVARICE into High Image Quality Mode.

   Medium Quality:
      Sets AVARICE into Medium Image Quality Mode.

   Low Quality:
      Sets AVARICE into Low Image Quality Mode.

   Image Preview:
      When this option is used, the low quality image
      will be loaded while the chosen (as per the other
      image settings) image quality will be decompressed
      in the background.  For those players familiar
      with WWW browsers, this is the same idea.

   Preloading:
      Turns preloading of images On/Off.  When on,
      AVARICE will guess at the images you will need
      and preload those images in the background while
      you are occupied with other parts of AVARICE.

   Cache Size:
      Sets the size of the cache AVARICE uses to
      store images.  More cache means a faster image
      display time.  The cache comes out of the OS/2
      Swapfile, though, so be sure to specify a size
      that will fit.

   Image Type:
      Determines the type of image AVARICE displays.
      Large JPEG images are the best quality, but will
      take the longest to display.  The bitmap
      images are the lowest quality, but will display the
      fastest (on most machines).  The small JPEG
      images are in the middle in both quality and
      performance.

   Dithering:
      Controls whether or not AVARICE dithers the
      JPEG images.  Dithering produces better images
      at 256 colors, but the effect is generally not
      noticeable at 64K colors.  The effect will do
      nothing at 16.7M colors.  Dithering adds time
      to the image display process.

   Number of Passes:
      Determines whether one of two passes is used
      in the JPEG decompression process.  Two passes
      are sometimes rather ineffectual at color depths
      higher than 256 colors (depending on which
      dithering options are being used at the time).
      Two passes produces much better images when used
      at 256 colors and when used at 64K colors with
      anything but F/S dithering.  Two passes do
      increase the display time, though.

   Color:
      Sets whether or not the game is in color or not.
      (NOTE: This setting only works when JPEG
      images are being used).

   Flush On Change:
      Sets whether or not the image cache is emptied
      when an image setting is changed.

HINT:  AVARICE was designed to run on both 486s and Pentiums.
If you find that the JPEG images are too slow, try using the
bitmap images.  You will not get quite the picture quality, but
the display should be faster.  You might also try using the JPEGs in
greyscale mode to increase speed.

SOUND:
   Effect Volume:
      Controls the volume of sound effects.  When
      the volume is Off, AVARICE will automatically
      display the closed captions for each sound.
      These will appear in the Logger as blue text.

   Background Volume:
      Controls the volume of background (ambient)
      sounds.

MOVIES:
      Sets the movies On/Off.  When Off, AVARICE
      will display the important information from each
      movie in the Logger.


[picture of Logger and Inventory windows]

Beneath the viewport, you will find two other windows:  the Logger
(on the left) and the Inventory window (on the right).

The Logger will display and store any textual output from the game.
Examples of this output might be the results from looking at an object
or the text of a conversation with an NPC.  If the Logger is currently
storing more lines than can be shown in its display, one or two blue
arrows will appear on the left side of the window.  The UP arrow
appears if you can scroll back through previous lines of text.  The
DOWN arrow appears if you can scroll forward to newer lines of text.
If a text message cannot fit in the space of Logger, the first few
lines will be shown, while the rest will be accessible via the DOWN
arrow.

The Inventory window is filled with any objects present in the area
referred to by the Inventory title.  For example, if the title says 
"Under The Chair", the Inventory window will contain pictures for any
objects that are under the chair.  When the title says "Gareth", you are
looking at the things you are currently holding.  Your inventory will
always be open and can never be closed.  As you open inventories, they
are added to the end of the Inventory Ring.  The Inventory Ring is a
circular list of the inventories that you currently have open.  Newly
opened inventories will be added to the end of this ring (in other words,
just before the first inventory in the ring which is your inventory).
The blue, double-arrow button in the top right of the Inventory window
will appear when you have more than just your inventory open.
Pressing it will cycle through all of the open inventories.  The red
X will close a given inventory.  The Inventory window scrolls in the
same manner as the Logger.

You may also use the function keys to perform certain activities in
AVARICE.  The list of those activities is:
F2:      Start a new game
F3:      Quit AVARICE
F4:      Toggle Logger and Inventory On/Off
F5:      Increment the Viewport Size
F6:      Decrement the Viewport Size
F7:      Toggle between Low and High quality images
F9:      Toggle between color and greyscale images (Only applicable if
            JPEG images are in use).




********************
VII. PLAYING A GAME:
********************

                           ***** The Pointers *****
When a game is in progress, you will see your current view of the
AVARICE world through the viewport.  Everything in AVARICE
is accomplished by using a mouse.  The mouse cursor/pointer is context
sensitive in AVARICE.  The different cursors have the following
meanings:

[picture for each]
POINTING HAND:
   This is the general cursor in AVARICE.  When the
   hand appears over the viewport or Inventory
   windows, a right mouse button click (RMB) will
   create a popup menu for the object the hand is
   currently over.  When applicable, a click with
   the left mouse button (LMB) while the hand is
   showing will push buttons or areas of control
   panels.  The hotspot for this pointer is the tip
   of the index finger.

ARROWS:
   These pointers appear in the viewport when you can
   change your current view.  The arrows indicate how
   your view will be changed.  The forward pointing
   arrow will move you forward when you LMB.  The
   backward pointer arrow will move you backward when
   you LMB.  The curved arrows will take you forward
   and turn you in the given direction when you LMB.
   A RMB with any arrow up will create the popup menu
   for the object underneath the tip of the arrow.

EYES:
   The eyes looking up and down will cause you to look
   up and down, respectively, on a LMB.  A RMB will
   create a popup menu for the object under the center
   of the eyes when either set of eyes is up.

WHITE CIRCLES w/
RED LINES:
   These cursors indicate that you will be turned
   when you LMB at that spot.  The red line indicates
   how many degrees in that direction you will be
   turned.  When the red line is pointing straight
   down, for example, you will be turned 180 degrees.
   RMB popup menu activation still works when any
   arrow is up.

TARGET:
   This becomes the active cursor when you choose an
   action that requires selecting an object.  For
   example, selecting "unlock ___" from the popup
   menu of a key would require that you specify what
   object you want to try to unlock with that key.
   A LMB or a RMB selects the object the pointer is
   currently over as the object of the current
   action.  The hotspot for this pointer is the center
   of the crosshairs.

   The target also becomes the cursor during a drag
   and drop operation.  To move an object via drag
   and drop, position the cursor over the object you
   would like to move, hold down the right mouse
   button, move the cursor to another object and
   release the right mouse button.  AVARICE will
   first try to put the item inside the recipient
   object.  If that fails, AVARICE will try to put
   the item on top of the recipient object.  If that
   fails, AVARICE will not move the item.



Throughout AVARICE, you will encounter various control panels
and other screens that appear in your viewport.  Currently, many of
these special views follow different methods of interaction.  This is
so you can tell us which methods you prefer.  Exiting these special
views will either be done using the RMB/Popup Menu or by
moving the cursor the extreme left and right edges of the picture.

                           ***** The Objects *****
One of the most interesting parts of AVARICE is the way that you
interact with the objects in the game.  Many games give you a small
set of verbs or actions that you must use for every object.  In
AVARICE, there is no set limit on the amount of applicable actions
that can be performed on or with any given object.  An object's
applicable actions can also change over time.  All of this, together with
thousands of interactable objects, allows AVARICE to give you a
more realistic gaming experience.

[picture of object and popup menu]

[sequence of popup/sub-popup menus]

To interact with an object, do a RMB while the cursor is over it.  This
will present you with a popup menu.  The first line tells you what the
object is.  The rest of the lines list the actions you can perform to or
with that object.  In some cases, there will be a sub-popup menu that
allows you to pick a more specific action.  To select an action, just
left click on it.  If the action has a "_____" after it, that means that
you need to select a second object to perform that action on or to.
You may also move objects via drag and drop (as outlined in the
cursor section above).

If you RMB in the inventory window and do not select an object, you
will get the popup menu for the item represented by the inventory
window.  For example, if you RMB the inventory window when its
showing your top level inventory, you will get a popup menu for
yourself (allowing you to check the time, how you are feeling, etc.).

HINT1: Object interaction is key in AVARICE.  Many times, you
will want or need to combine objects in interesting (yet logical) ways.
The AVARICE interface was designed to give the player greater
flexibility and more realism in regards to object interaction.
Approaching AVARICE objects with an open, fresh outlook is
essential for success.

HINT2: Remember, AVARICE is a realtime game.  The popup
menus for objects can change as time passes.  Also, there are quite a
few objects in AVARICE.  Try clicking everywhere in a few of the
pictures to get a feel for the level of depth in AVARICE.

                           ***** The Puzzles *****
The puzzles in AVARICE are intended to be challenging, yet logical.
All of the puzzles in AVARICE are solvable via clues that are present
in the game.  Many of the puzzles are also solvable in more than one
or two ways.  The puzzles are organized to be relatively easy at the
outset.  As you progress through the game, though, they will increase
in difficulty.  As you near one of the endings, the puzzles will be
rather difficult.

The AVARICE plot is also non-linear.  Many of the puzzles are
optional depending on which sub-plot you are currently following.
It's a good bet that you could replay AVARICE and discover quite
a few new areas or puzzles.

HINT: With the large number of objects in AVARICE, brute force
solutions to puzzles are generally impossible.  If you find yourself
trying every possible action-object combination to solve a puzzle,
you've probably missed something.  The puzzles are designed to
let you reason out the solution to a problem, not to force you to try
every possibility.  For example, reading all 1750 books in the library
is an interesting way to pass time.  But, reading through each book
looking for one clue is unreasonable.  Instead, approach the library
when you have a clue that narrows down your search to a smaller
number of books.




*************************************
VIII. THE COMPUTER CHARACTERS (NPCs):
*************************************

The NPCs will be available in Beta6 of AVARICE.  We apologize for
the delay.




***********************
X.   PERFORMANCE NOTES:
***********************

AVARICE has a lot of options that can be changed to help the
performance situation.  The options are described in the
Interface section of the manual.  There are a few general
guidelines that might be helpful:

   -  If you notice a lot of swapping, check the size of your
      swapfile during gameplay.  Increase the initial size of
      your swapfile to 2MB above the size you observed during
      AVARICE gameplay.

   -  AVARICE is best run as the only program running on your
      system.

   -  If possible, run the game in high color (64K or 16.7M
      colors) mode.  If you do this, do not use the low 
      quality (uncompressed) images, use either of the JPEGs
      instead.  AVARICE will automatically sense the change to
      high color and will take advantage of that.  The main
      benefit (aside from much better looking pictures) of 
      high color is that the JPEG decompression process will
      be shorter (in some cases, it can be as much as 1/4 of
      the 256 color decompression time).

   -  If you find yourself doing a great deal of walking during
      the game, you might turn off Preloading to see if you see
      a performance boost.

   -  If you would like a sharper, higher resolution image, but
      do not like the added delay for color images, you can use
      the greyscale mode (just turn color off) with either of
      the JPEG sizes.

   -  If the popup menu speed is not to your liking, try using
      the black popup window texture.

In general terms, we recommend the following options.  Please
keep in mind that these are very general suggestions and can
vary from machine to machine and user to user.

For any machine with 8MB of RAM:    Black window textures
                                    Black popup textures
                                    Pointer animation off
                                    Preloading off

486/33:                             Low quality

486/66 and 486/100 w/ 256 colors:   Low quality
                                    Previewing On

486/66 and 486/100 w/ high color:   Medium quality
                                    Previewing On

Pentium:                            High quality
                                    Previewing On
   


*********************
X.   ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
*********************

We would like to thank the following organizations:
      The Independent JPEG Group
      The POV-Team



*******************
XI. FINAL THOUGHTS:
*******************

If you have any suggestions or comments about AVARICE,
please let us know.  We won't know what you don't like if you
don't tell us!  With your help, we can make AVARICE a great
game.  Thanks for your assistance!

Stardock and CSS



