Shark Tale(TM) README Last Updated: 8/20/2004 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION INSTALLATION & SET UP 1. Minimum System Requirements 2. Autoplay 3. DirectX(R) Detection & Installation VIDEO ISSUES 1. Monitors 2. In-game and Desktop Resolutions 3. Graphical Corruption When Changing Video Settings 4. NVIDIA(R) TNT2(TM) Vanta(TM) Texture Corruption 5. ATI(R) Radeon(TM) 9000 Water Texture Corruption 6. Windowed Mode 7. Changing Brightness and Contrast GENERAL ISSUES 1. Alt-Tab & Alt-Enter 2. Uninstall Problems in Windows(R) XP 3. Uninstalling with Antivirus Software Enabled INTRODUCTION Refer to this document if you encounter difficulties with one or more aspects of installation or running the Shark Tale game. Many of the most commonly encountered issues are covered here. INSTALLATION & SET UP 1. Minimum System Requirements - 3D hardware accelerator card required - 100% DirectX? 9.0b-compliant 16 MB video card and drivers* - English version of Microsoft? Windows? 98/ME/2000/XP - Pentium? III 450MHz or Athlon? 600MHz or higher processor - 128 MB of RAM - 1.0 GB of uncompressed hard disk space (plus 300 MB for the Windows? swap file and 75 MB free for saved games) - A 100% Windows? 98/ME/2000/XP-compatible computer system including: - DirectX? 9.0b (Included)????????? - 100% DirectX? 9.0b-compliant true 16-bit sound card and drivers - 100% Windows? 98/ME/2000/XP- compatible mouse, keyboard and drivers - 100% Windows? 98/ME/2000/XP- compatible quad speed CD-ROM drive (600 K/sec sustained transfer rate) and drivers *Supported Chipsets for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP All NVIDIA GeForce(TM) chipsets NVIDIA TnT and TnT2 All ATI Radeon chipsets Matrox Parhelia(TM) *Important Note: Some 3D accelerator cards with the chipsets listed here may not be compatible with the 3D acceleration features utilized by Shark Tale. Please refer to your hardware manufacturer for 100% DirectX 9.0b compatibility. This product does not support Microsoft Windows 95 or NT. 2. Autoplay If the Windows Autoplay feature is enabled on your computer, the Shark Tale Launch screen will automatically appear when you insert the Shark Tale CD into your CD-ROM drive. Simply click on Install and follow the on-screen instructions to continue the installation. If the Autoplay feature is disabled, you can begin the installation by doing the following: a) Go to the Start Menu and select Run. b) Type D:\AUTORUN.EXE (assuming D is your CD-ROM drive letter) and press Enter. -or- a) Double-click on My Computer b) Double-Click your CD-ROM drive icon. c) Double-click on AUTORUN.EXE. Windows 98 may not be setup to AutoPlay CDs. To check, perform the following steps: a. Open the Windows 98/ME Control Panel folder and double-click on the System icon. b. Click on the Device Manager tab. Click on the plus sign next to CD-ROM, select your CD-ROM and choose Properties. c. Click on the Settings tab. Insert a check mark in the box to the left of Auto Insert Notification and select OK. 3. DirectX Detection & Installation During the Shark Tale setup, the install process will prompt you to install Microsoft DirectX on your computer. If you choose "Yes," the Microsoft DirectX setup program will install the appropriate files on your computer. DirectX 9.0b is a set of sound, video, input and network functions developed by Microsoft. DirectX 9.0b is necessary to run Shark Tale. If you already have other Windows 98/ME/2000/XP games on your computer, chances are you already have a version of DirectX installed. In this case, the Microsoft installer will detect and overwrite any previous versions with DirectX 9.0b. At that point, you will need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect. If, however, you already have DirectX 9.0b installed on your computer, the Microsoft DirectX 9.0b installer will detect it and not overwrite any files. You will not need to restart your computer after installation in order to run Shark Tale. If you choose not to install DirectX 9.0b when you install the game, you can manually install it later. To do so, use the following instructions: 1. Place your Shark Tale disk in the CD-ROM drive. The Launch screen should appear. (See the AutoPlay section above if it does not appear.) 2. Click on the "Extras" button. 3. Click on "DirectX" and follow the installation process. When DirectX installation finishes, you will need to restart your computer for the new drivers to work. If you encounter the following error message, then you have tried to start the game without the correct version of DirectX installed on your computer: "Error Starting Program A required .DLL file, D3D8.DLL, was not found." You will need to follow the directions above to install DirectX before starting the game. VIDEO ISSUES 1. Monitors - Please make sure your monitor supports the game resolution you are trying to play in. To check what resolutions your monitor supports, do the following: a) Open up My Computer b) Double-click on Control Panel c) Find the Display icon and open it d) Choose the Settings tab e) Locate the resolution pointer in the Desktop or Screen Area box and drag it to the far right The resolution choice shown is the maximum resolution your monitor is capable of displaying. If you do not want to change to this resolution now, select cancel. Your Desktop Area should be set to the game resolution you are trying to play in or higher. NOTE: Please make sure your monitor type is properly specified to insure correct reporting of available video resolutions. 2. In-game and Desktop resolutions Do not choose an in-game resolution that is higher than your desktop resolution. You may only be able to see as much of the game as is viewable at your desktop resolution. (For example, if your desktop resolution is set to 800x600, and you choose an in-game resolution of 1024x768, the game screen may stretch beyond the size of your monitor screen). This issue may be more prevalent in windowed mode, which is not supported by Activision Customer Support. In most cases, Shark Tale should choose the proper resolution for your system based on your processor, system memory, and video card. Changing the game resolution may result in decreased performance or visual quality. 3. Graphical Corruption When Changing Video Settings Changing the settings on your Video Options menu may sometimes result in temporary color corruption of the screen. These irregularities will disappear when you return to the game. 4. NVIDIA TNT2 Vanta Texture Corruption Users playing Shark Tale on a NVIDIA TNT2 Vanta may see some graphical corruptions and flickering textures. These errors are specific to the TNT2 Vanta video card. 5. ATI Radeon 9000 Water Texture Corruption Users playing Shark Tale on an ATI Radeon 9000 video card may see some texture flickering when playing in 32-bit color mode. These errors are specific to the Radeon 9000 card. 6. Windowed Mode Windowed mode is not a supported feature of Shark Tale. 7. Changing Brightness and Contrast On some video cards, changing the Brightness and Contrast levels all the way up or down may produce undesireable graphical results. If this happens, it is suggested that the "set default" option be used to reset these sliders back to their default settings. 8. Upgrading Video Cards If you upgrade your system?s video card after installing Shark Tale, the game will not automatically update the graphics settings to take advantage of the new hardware. To force the game to redetect for the appropriate video settings follow these steps: For Windows XP/2K Go into My Documents Open the Shark Tale folder Delete the Game.ini file. For Windows 98/ME users: Double Click on My Computer Go to the directory that you installed Shark Tale. The default directory is C:\Program Files\Activision\Shark Tale Double Click on the System folder Look for the Game.ini file, highlight and Delete it. Now, restart the game, and it will recalibrate your graphics setting for your new hardware. GENERAL ISSUES 1. Alt-Tab & Alt-Enter Using Alt-Tab or Alt-Enter to exit Shark Tale and switch to another application is not recommended. While you may be able to Alt-Tab/Alt-Enter to exit Shark Tale, and the game will remain running in the task bar, you may not be able to recover the game by Alt-Tabbing/Alt-Entering back to it. At this point, you may have to use the Windows Task Manager to close Shark Tale. Hold down the Ctrl-Alt-Delete keys to bring up the Task Manager, then select Shark Tale from the list of programs currently running and hit the End Task button. Alt-Tab & Alt-Enter are not supported features of Shark Tale. 2. Uninstall Problems in Windows XP If you receive the following error while attempting to uninstall Shark Tale: Internal Failure Error number: 0x80040707 You are attempting to uninstall on a Power User account when the game was installed on an Administrator account. You?ll have to uninstall Shark Tale on the account you were logged into when you installed it. Log out of Windows and login to the Administrator account on your system. Then you will be able to uninstall Shark Tale normally. 3. Uninstalling with Antivirus Software Enabled The uninstallation process may take more time if an antivirus software (like Norton Utilities or McAfee) is currently running, even if the antivirus software is running in the background. Although Shark Tale will still uninstall correctly with this software running, disabling any antivirus program will make this process run faster. 4. Skipping Cut Scenes Due to important story line information the ?s...
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