Installation The Untouchable requires that DrawSprocket and InputSprocket be installed in your Extensions folder. This release contains DrawSprocket 1.1.3 and InputSprocket 1.3. If you have older versions of these extensions, or if you have never installed them before, drag the files from the folder "Into Extensions" and drop them on top of your System Folder icon. Introduction This is the official demo release of the Untouchable. It is missing several things that are included in the commercial release: Ą Only three fighters (instead of nineteen). These fighters (Prodigy, Li Kwai and Kingston) should give you a good idea of the different types of martial arts and fighting styles. Ą Only two play modes (instead of six) You can either play one player vs. the computer (single player arcade mode) or two players (arcade mode or battle mode). Ą Only one stage matches in arcade mode. Instead of working your way through stages, a match is only one stage (the longest full match would only be two stages with three fighters anyway). Furthermore, a player two "challenge" is only one stage as well, as opposed to "taking over" the loser's stage position. Ą Only four songs in the soundtrack (instead of twenty-two). Although we've included each fighter's song, we've removed the menu-mode song and the graphics loading song in order to conserve space for the download. Ą No QuickTime movies. The commercial version has various movies that play on startup and as bonuses. They have been removed from the demo to conserve space for the download. Ą All "secrets" disabled. Sorry. Ą Only low-resolution fighters. This was a tough decision. Since "The Untouchable" uses full motion video, the average move set for each fighter is 20MB in high resolution. Including high resolution moves wasn't possible for a reasonably sized download. Ą No animation effects. Some messages that appear during gameplay won't be animated in order to conserve space for the download. Ą No game option settings. You can't change any options concerning gameplay. Ą No installer or CD-ROM play. Only the commercial version includes an installer and allows play directly off the CD-ROM. Controls Escape/Pause - This escapes from the current menu to the last (in menu screens), escapes from the selection screen to the main menu or pauses a game (during gameplay). Up/Down - This moves from one menu item to another (in menu screens), moves the cursor (in selection screens) or jumps/ducks a fighter (during gameplay). Left/Right - This sets a menu item value (in menu screens), moves the cursor (in selection screens), or moves a fighter forward/backward (during gameplay). Action Buttons - These choose a menu item (in menu screens), select a fighter (in selection screens), or perform a move (punch, kick, special or block). Patterns and multiple action buttons can cause various moves to occur. The keyboard arrow keys and return key always work in menu screens to select, set and choose menu items. Modes Arcade Mode The default is a one-player match vs. the computer. If you want to start a two-player match, then player two should press an action button in the selection screen. If player two waits until a one-player match has started, player one decides whether or not to allow the "challenge." If so, both players return to the selection screen as if a two-player match was started. Battle Mode This is a two-player match. Each player can select a fighter and play a match against each other. After the match, the game returns to the selection screen and the players can select again. A tally is kept of each player's wins. Options Display Options Fighters - You can set high or low resolution fighter move sets (unavailable in demo). Backgrounds - You can set high or low resolution backgrounds. Layers - You can set multiple (for parallax scrolling) or single layered backgrounds. Animation FX - You can turn animation on or off for some gameplay messages. Shadow FX - You can turn shadows for the fighters on or off. Max Zoom - You can set the maximum zoom used by the camera when it auto-zooms in on the action. The optimal zoom (where you won't degrade graphic quality) for low resolution fighters is 50%. The optimal zoom for high resolution fighters is 100%. Camera Lock - You can lock the camera in place if you want to disable zooming and panning. Frame Skip - You can "skip" frames of animation to artificially increase the frame rate. FPS Display - You can the display of the frame-per-second counter on or off. Audio Options There are volume controls for master volume, music, sound fx, fighter voices and narration. There are also on/off switches for these categories. Controls Options This will display the InputSprocket control configuration dialog box. Advanced Display Options By default, The Untouchable tries to play in 640x480 screen resolution. You can use the Advanced Display Options application to override this default and also to set the following: Sync Refresh To Vertical Retrace - This option synchronizes the display drawing with the refresh rate of the monitor. In cases where you are getting "tears" or "flickering" in the display, this mode will result in much smoother game animation. Since this locks down the frame rate, you may slow down the game (66Hz refresh rate can lock down to 33fps, 22fps or 11fps). It is best to use this option at higher monitor refresh rates. Use Hardware Page Flipping - If your video card supports "page flipping," using this option may increase the frame rate of the game. High Quality QuickTime Playback - This option does not affect the demo, since the demo does not include any QuickTime movies. Memory Issues The Untouchable has two memory modes: disk and full cache. In disk mode, every fighter's move is read off the hard disk before it is performed. This can greatly affect frame rate depending on the speed of your hard drive. If you have enough RAM, full cache mode will enable, loading the entire move set for each fighters into RAM. This results in the fastest frame rate. For low resolution fighters, 15MB of additional RAM must be available to enable full cache mode. If full cache mode is enabled, the word "cached" appears opposite of the fps display (when it is turned on). DO NOT INCREASE the preferred memory setting of the untouchable to try to enable full cache mode. The memory used by full cache mode is TEMPORARY memory, allocated OUTSIDE of The Untouchable memory partition. Increasing the preferred memory setting will only guarantee that you don't have enough temporary memory available for full cache mode. In fact, DECREASING the preferred memory setting WILL HELP, but may affect gameplay at very low settings. For example, if you decrease the preferred memory to the minimum (or lower -- it isn't recommended, but it is possible), you may enable full cache mode but only be able to use low resolution backgrounds. Before you touch the preferred memory settings, you may want to maximize the amount of RAM available by: Quitting Other Applications - You should quit out of all other applications before playing The Untouchable. Disabling Extensions - Disabling unneeded extensions can help free up system memory. Since this demo version doesn't play QuickTime movies, you can even disable QuickTime. Lowering Disk Cache - The Untouchable bypasses the disk cache. You can set your disk cache as low as possible to free up more system memory. Restarting Your Macintosh - The Macintosh OS sometimes fragments memory which may make it impossible to allocated a 15MB chunk even though "About This Computer..." says there is enough memory available. You should restart your Macintosh when this happens. It should be possible to play in full cache mode (low resolution fighters) on any Macintosh with 32MB of RAM. The Untouchable will not use virtual memory for full cache mode, and furthermore, Virtual Memory will affect the performance of music and sound playback (see below). If memory is running low, The Untouchable will automatically switch to low resolution backgrounds (or no background). If this occurs the message "lomem backgrounds" will appear in the fps display. The Untouchable may also lose the performance-gain of using camera lock (see below) in low memory situations. If this occurs, the message "lomem camera" will appear in the fps display. Performance Issues For optimal gameplay, The Untouchable should run at over 30fps. There are many options to increase the frame rate in the game, but you can do the following outside the game to increase the performance: Disabling Virtual Memory - Virtual Memory does not help The Untouchable at all. In fact, it will degrade the playback of music and sound. Defragmenting Your Hard Disk - If you are not playing in full-cache mode (or you are and you want to decrease "loading time") make sure that your hard disk is defragmented. In the game, you can do the following to increase the frame rate: Use Single Layered Backgrounds Turn Off Shadow FX Set the Max Zoom to 25% or Turn On Camera Lock Set the Frame Skip to 1 or higher Turn OFF (not mute) Music Turn OFF (not mute) Sounds Turn OFF (not mute) Narration You should experiment with different settings to get a frame rate and quality of play that is acceptable for you. Thank you, Creative Edge Software, Inc. Power Media, Inc.