Get the F.E.A.R. multiplayer Demo off WP (451mb)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I.SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS AND SUPPORTED CHIPSETS
II.INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
III.NOTES ON COMPATIBILITY
IV.MULTIPLAYER NOTES
V.KNOWN ISSUES
VI.PERFORMANCE
VII.F.E.A.R. SITES
VIII.DEDICATIONS, CREDITS AND SPECIAL THANKS
IX.END-USER LISCENSE AGREEMENT (EULA)

I. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS AND SUPPORTED CHIPSETS
=============================================

In order to install and play F.E.A.R., your system must meet or exceed
the following minimum system requirements:

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIRED

•Windows(R) XP, x64 or 2000 with latest service pack installed
•DirectX(R) 9.0c August Edition (Included) or higher
•Pentium(R) 4 1.7 GHz or equivalent processor
•512MB RAM or more
•64MB GeForce(TM) 4 Ti or Radeon(R) 9000 video card
•Monitor that can display in 4:3 aspect ratio
•800MB free hard drive space for installation
•Additional hard drive space for a swap file and saved game files
•16-bit DirectX(R) 9.0 compliant sound card with support for EAX(TM) 2.0
•Broadband or LAN connection
•Mouse
•Keyboard

In order to play the game at the recommended resolution, detail and
performance levels, your computer should meet or exceed the following
specifications:

•Pentium(R) 4 3.0 GHz or equivalent processor
•1 GB RAM
•256 MB Radeon(R) 9800 Pro, GeForce(TM) 6600 or equivalent
DirectX(R) 9 compliant video card with hardware T&L and pixel shader 2.0
support
•Sound Blaster(R) X-Fi(TM) series sound card

SUPPORTED VIDEO CARD CHIPSETS WITH LATEST DRIVER VERSION INFO:

ATI(TM)

Catalyst(TM) Drivers (Windows(R) 2000/XP): v5.8

Radeon(R) 9000 Series
Radeon(R) 9500 Series
Radeon(R) 9600 Series
Radeon(R) 9700 Series
Radeon(R) 9800 Series
Radeon(R) X600 Series
Radeon(R) X700 Series
Radeon(R) X800 Series
Radeon(R) X850 Series

NVIDIA(R)

ForceWare(TM) Drivers (Windows(R) 2000/XP): v77.77

GeForce(TM) 4 Ti Series
GeForce(TM) FX 5900 Series
GeForce(TM) 6600 Series
GeForce(TM) 6800 Series
GeForce(TM) 7800 Series

Please note that attempting to play the game using video hardware that is
not listed here may result in reduced performance, graphical anomalies,
or both.

II. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
=============================

To begin, double-click the installation file icon. Within a few seconds, the
setup application should start. Once the installer is running, just follow the
on-screen prompts to complete the installation.

NOTE: During installation you will be prompted to install Microsoft's
DirectX(R). DirectX(R) version 9.0c August Edition must be installed before
playing. If you elect not to install this version, the game will not be
installed.

To launch the game once installation has finished, double click the
F.E.A.R. MP Demo icon on your desktop, or:

1) Click on the Windows(R) Start button
2) Select Programs
3) Select Sierra
4) Select FEAR MP Demo
5) Click on the FEAR MP Demo icon

III. NOTES ON COMPATIBILITY
==========================

FUNCTIONALITY

F.E.A.R. is designed to function with Windows(R) 2000/XP-compatible
graphics and sound cards. Drivers for these devices are provided
by Windows(R) itself or the respective card manufacturers and may
occasionally result in compatibility problems beyond our control.

F.E.A.R. does not support Windows(R) 95, Windows(R) 98, or Windows(R) ME
since the application requires proper installation and functionality
of DirectX(R) 9.0c or higher. Microsoft does not provide or support
DirectX(R) 9.0c for these operating systems.

If you experience any problems, it is always recommended that you
obtain the latest drivers for your hardware. Driver updates resolve
the overwhelming majority of compatibility issues. Most hardware
vendors make their drivers available on their web site. If you are
unsure of a web site URL for a particular hardware vendor, you may
want to try accessing one of the popular Windows(R) software update
sites such as:

http://www.windrivers.com

Additionally, a brief list of manufacturer web sites appears below
for your reference.

WEB LINKS

ATI: http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html
Creative: http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/
NVIDIA(R): http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
Turtle Beach: http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/support/ftp.asp

IV. MULTIPLAYER NOTES
=====================

Hosting a game on a system that falls below the recommended system
requirements can result in poor performance for both the host and all
clients.

We recommend that hosts running on a DSL connection set the player
limit to no more than 4 players to avoid bandwidth saturation and
packet loss. Hosts using a Cable Modem connection may set the player
limit between 4 and 16 people dependent upon connection speed and
performance. If you experience performance degradation, consider
decreasing the number of players allowed on the server.

Please see the serverreadme.txt file in your main F.E.A.R. installation
folder for detailed instructions on setting up and running a dedicated
server.

V. KNOWN ISSUES
================

The following items are known issues with the demo version of the
game.

GLOBAL:

* Please download the latest Windows(R) service pack before playing.

* If you attempt to run the game on a system with a missing or out-of-date
version of DirectX(R) installed, then an error message will appear on
launch that mentions "The dynamic library d3d9.dll could not be found in
the specified path". To fix the problem, re-install the application and
elect to install DirectX(R) 9.0c.

* Some users may experience problems with saving game data. This problem can
manifest itself as a "Feature Transfer Error" during install, or as
difficulty in saving profiles and performance settings. This issue may
also prevent levels from loading. This is due to complications with the
installer and some Windows platforms, most notably Windows XP Home.

To fix this issue, follow these steps:

1. Open the “All Users” folder (Typically “C:Documents
and SettingsAll Users”).
2. From the “All Users” folder, right click the mouse on the
“Shared Documents” folder (or "Documents" in W2k) and select
“Properties”.
3. In the “General” tab, clear the checkbox marked as “Read-only”
4. Click "Apply".
5. Click "Ok" on the box that pops up.
6. Click on the "Security" tab.
7. Select "Everyone".
8. Verify that "Deny" is not checked for anything, if it is, clear that
check by clicking on it with the left mouse button.
9. Verify that "Allow" is checked for "Full Control". if it is not,
check it by clicking on it with the left mouse button.
10. If there are any other entries in the group or user names list,
repeat
steps 8-9 for each of them.
11. Click on "Apply", then on "OK".

Note: You may need Administrator-level access to change the folder
permission settings.

* Users of Windows(R) X64 Edition may experience a crash when repeatedly and
rapidly clicking on "Find Servers" or other buttons on the Multiplayer
screen.

* Some users have reported falling through the floor occasionally when killed
on multiplayer servers where ping or packet loss is unusually high.

* Very occasionally, players may occasionally respawn back in at the position
where they just died.

* If you experiencing video or sound problems and have ACE Mega CoDecS Pack
or similar codec packs installed on your computer, you will need to disable
installed codecs from the CoDecS Dashboard settings screen before running
the game. Please note to which Codecs are being disabled so those Codecs
can be enabled at a later time.

* Make sure that all applications that are running in the background such as
virus scanners, desktop Utilities (menus/toolbars), media players, and
chat programs are disabled before running F.E.A.R.

* Task-switching with ALT-TAB or the Windows(R) Key back to the desktop while
running the game is not recommended.

* Striking the Shift key five times may cause the 'Sticky Key' feature to
become enabled in Windows(R). If this happens, the feature will task
switch to a desktop dialogue box with options related to this feature,
including one to disable it entirely.

* If are having difficuly viewing the names of players in other countries,
then you may need to install East Asian Language support in Windows. To do
this in Windows(R) XP:

1.Open the “Control Panel”
2.Open the “Regional and Language Options”.
3.Select the “Languages” tab.
4.Under “Supplemental language support”, check the box next to “Install
files for East Asian languages”.
5.Follow any directions to complete the installation of the selected
languages.

In Windows(R) 2000:

1.Open the “Control Panel”.
2.Open the “Regonal Options”.
3.On the “General” tab, select which languages you want to install for your
system in the “Language settings for the system” box.
4.Follow any directions to complete the installation of the selected
languages.

GRAPHICS:

General:

* Selecting a display resolution that is supported by your video card but
not your monitor will result in a black screen. If this occurs, use
ALT-F4 to quit the application, and then use the display option in the
configuration utility (CONFIG.EXE) to select a resolution supported by
your monitor.

* Launching the game in Windows(R) XP 64-Bit Edition with ATI Radeon
Windows(R)
64-Bit edition Beta Drivers 3 may result in a black screen on launch. To
work
around this issue, toggle your color quality settings in Windows(R) from 32
to 16-bit (or vice-versa) and then back again. This should allow the game to
launch normally.

* If you get a black screen on launch and have ACE Mega CoDecS Pack or similar
codec packs installed on your computer, you will need to disable installed
codecs from the CoDecS Dashboard settings screen before running the game.
Please note to which Codecs are being disabled so those Codecs can be
enabled at a later time.

* The Soft Shadows option will have no effect if the Full-Screen Anti-Aliasing
(FSAA) option is enabled. Also, you may notice odd rendering issues with
shadows in the game if you enable this option while FSAA is enabled
through the Windows(R) control panel.

ATI Radeon:

* Enabling FSAA and Pixel Doubling at the same time will result in a black
screen.
This appears to be a driver issue.

* Hitching may occur when a large number of new materials are loaded into
video
memory at the same time. Please contact ATi for the latest information
regarding this issue. In the meantime, try turning texture resolution down
to
Medium in the performance menu.

Nvidia:

* Some surfaces in the game may exhibit minor rendering problems when viewed
from certain angles. Nvidia is working on a driver fix for this issue that
should be available very soon.

SOUND:

General:

* If the in-game sounds and dialogue (voices) do not play, or there are
problems with the quality of these sounds, then please try each of the
following steps (in order) before playing again. Note that you should only
try one solution at a time, since trying them all can greatly reduce the
overall sound quality of the game.

1. Make sure that you have the latest drivers available for your sound
hardware installed. These can usually be found on the manufacturer's
website. Before installing the driver, uninstall the audio device
using the Device Manager. If possible, run a "driver cleaner"
application to fully clean out any extra pieces of the driver and/or
leftover files of another sound card's drivers. Do NOT allow Windows
to install its default driver when asked. Instead, only install the
driver you downloaded from the manufacturer's website.

2. From your main installation folder (the default is
C:Program FilesSierraFEAR MP Demo), double-click on the file named
WMFADist.exe, and then follow the on-screen instructions.
This will manually install the audio codec that is required by the
game.

3. From the in-game sound options menu, disable EAX(TM) and Hardware Sounds.

* Please note that since this game uses an MP3 codec for sound, 3rd party
codec packs such as the ACE Mega CoDecS Pack may cause speech and sound
to drop out completely. If you have a codec pack installed and still
have sound issues after trying all of the steps listed above, then you
will need to disable installed codecs from the CoDecS Dashboard settings
screen before running the game. Please note to which Codecs are being
disabled so those Codecs can be enabled at a later time.

* If 3d sounds seem to be change volume wildly (i.e. looking directly at an
object will make it sound quieter than when it is to the side), then
you may have your speaker configuration set up incorrectly. For instance,
if you're listening in headphones but have the speaker configuration set
to Surround 5.1, then a lot of sounds will be sent to speakers that don't
exist. You can change the speaker configuration in your sound card's
applications (such as Creative's AudioHQ or Surround Mixer) or in the
Control Panel.

* If sounds that are originating in front of you sound as if they are coming
from behind, and if these sounds seem distorted, and you are playing in
5.1, 7.1 or any other surround configuration, then you may need to turn off
CMSS in your EAX(TM) console. CMSS is used to create a multi-channel version
of
a stereo source. Unfortunately, it can cause issues like this when using it
on sounds that are already designed to be in Surround. Note that sometimes
you can choose not to install the EAX(TM) Console when installing your sound
card, so you may have to reinstall the driver in order to get this
application.

* Hardware conflicts with some RAID servers have been reported. If you're
experiencing very poor frame-rates and are running a RAID as your primary
hard-drive, then disable sound hardware acceleration in the Windows control
panel, or in DxDiag. Disabling sound hardware acceleration inside the game
will not alleviate the problem in these cases.

Creative:

* If you are using a Creative brand sound card and get poor framerates when
sound hardware acceleration is enabled, then check for a process called
"CtHelper"in the Windows(R) task manager. If it's there, terminate it and
try the game again. If this works, please contact Creative to learn
how to permanently disable CTHelper. If CTHelper is not present in the list
and the problem occurs anyway, then you will need to disable sound hardware
acceleration in the Sound section of the game's options menu, or in the
Windows control panel, or in DxDiag.

* If you are using an SBLive! card and notice strange clicking sounds in the
music after using Alt-tab to task switch out of the game to windows and then
back again. To fix the problem, just quit out of and restart the game
application.

PERIPHERALS:

* Logitech MX510

Users of this mouse may find it to be extremely sensitive in-game. Please
use
the software supplied with your mouse to correct this issue.

* Saitek ST90

There have been reports of problems with mapping the buttons on this
joystick to the fire key in the game.

ADVANCED OPTIONS:

If you're encountering problems running the game, you can try
tweaking some advanced settings in the configuration utility
(config.exe). Please note that this is for advanced users only,
since tweaking these settings could very well create other problems
in the game.

DISABLE SOUND
If this box is checked, there will be no sound effects in the game.
Also, dialogue and lip-synching will not play correctly, but music
will still play.

If you are experiencing problems running the game and suspect your
sound card may be the cause, you might check this box and see if
the problem goes away. If it does then the problem may be due to
a problem with your sound hardware or drivers.

DISABLE MUSIC
If this box is checked, there will be no dynamic DirectMusic in
the game. Please use this option for troubleshooting purposes only.

DISABLE JOYSTICKS
Disables input from joysticks and game pads. Certain joysticks
and game pads may interfere with normal mouse or keyboard
control in the game. If you suspect this is occurring, checking
this box before running the game may resolve the problem.

DISABLE MOVIES
If this box is checked, the intro logo movies will not be
shown. Use this if your system is having trouble playing these
movies.

DISABLE SOUND FILTERS
If this box is checked, sound filtering effects (reverb) will be
disabled. Only cards with EAX(TM) 2.0 support will benefit from this
feature. If you experience problems such as static when firing a
weapon in a particular area within a level, then you may need to
play with sound filtering disabled.

DISABLE HARDWARE SOUND
If this box is checked, this will disable DirectSound 3D sound support
and could cause performance issues.

RESTORE DEFAULTS
If this box is checked, all in-game options will be restored to the
default values. This can be useful if a particular option setting
is preventing you from restoring the defaults from the menu system.

VI. PERFORMANCE
================

DETAIL SETTINGS and DISPLAY RESOLUTION

In order to get the best game play experience, it is not recommended to
run F.E.A.R. at high resolutions. You should avoid resolutions above
1024x768 on any current generation card. Instead, you can use the
full-screen anti-aliasing (FSAA) option under Graphics in the advanced
options menu. This helps improve the visual quality of the final scene
without dramatically increasing the amount of work that must be performed.

Most players will also notice a significant increase in frame rate by
disabling the Vsync option in the display options screen. If this doesn’t
make enough of a difference, your next step should be to lower your
screen resolution to 800x600 or 640x480.

If performance is still a problem at this stage, try these additional
steps:

• Disable FSAA and Soft Shadows in the advanced options under Graphics.
• Use Trilinear Texture Filtering instead of Anisotropic.

If your system does not meet the requirements as listed at the top
of this document, you may still be able to play with reasonable
performance by following these steps:

• If your video card doesn't meet the requirements, enable Pixel Doubling.
• If you are using a GeForce(TM)FX card, set “Force DX8 Shaders” to on.
• If you have less than 512MB of RAM or a video card with less than
128MB of RAM, use low or medium Texture Resolution.

UPGRADING

If you are dissatisfied with the level of detail that your system can
handle, then you may wish to consider upgrading. F.E.A.R.'s
performance is most affected by your video card, followed closely by the
CPU speed and the amount of installed memory in your machine. A high end
video card and CPU will usually result in considerable frame rate
improvements, while installing more RAM will result in shorter load times
and less hitching during game play.

VII. F.E.A.R. SITES
====================

WEBSITE LINKS

For more information on F.E.A.R. and additional options for
technical support, and the latest updates please visit the following web
sites:

The Official Site
http://www.gameoftheyear.com/us/

Sierra Entertainment
http://www.sierra.com

Monolith Productions
http://www.lith.com

IX. DEDICATIONS, CREDITS AND SPECIAL THANKS
===========================================

F.E.A.R. is dedicated to the memory of Wen-Chi Lee.

NO ACTUAL DELTA FORCE OPERATIVES WERE HARMED IN THIS PRODUCTION.