ABE'S ODDYSEE REQUIRES 16-BIT HI-COLOR MODE If your SVGA display card doesn't support 16-bit High Color mode, then Abe's Oddysee will not run. In addition, some older display cards that do support High Color mode don't switch to it properly under Direct X. Before you call technical support, try this : Select Start->Settings->Control Panel, then Double click on Display to bring up the Display Properties dialog box. Choose the Settings tab, and select "High Color (16 bit)", then click on OK. You will be prompted to restart your computer, and after it restarts, try running the game again. You may notice your wallpaper and icons look a lot better now, too! ------------------------------------------------------------------- USING THE ALTERNATE DISPLAY MODES If the game runs too slowly on your machine, or if the movies are jerky, you may want to try the alternate display modes. You must create a shortcut to run the AbeWin.exe program with the appropriate command line option. First, locate the file AbeWin.exe (in the directory you installed to, probably C:\Program Files\Abe's Oddysee), and right click on the file. Select "Create Shortcut", then find the Shortcut file created (called "Shortcut to Abe's Oddysee"). Right click on this, then select Properties. Choose the Shortcut tab, and edit the "Target" field, adding one of the following command line parameters to the end of the line (seperated from AbeWin.exe by a space) : -interline Every other line is blacked out. -vstretch Lines are doubled (this may not work on some display cards, if it doesn't, use INTRLINE). Select OK, then click on this Shortcut to run Abe. You might want to rename the shortcut something more appropriate. ------------------------------------------------------------------- USING GAME PADS WITH ABE'S ODDWORLD ODDYSEE SUCCESSFULLY To provide compatibility with the widest range of run-of-the-mill game pads out there in the PC market, we have chosen this way to support game pads that have more than 4 buttons if those game pads do not have dedicated Windows device drivers. For all these settings, and to calibrate the joystick, use the Windows joystick or gaming devices control panel applet. We can only reliably support gaming devices that are explicitly recognized by Windows, meaning they have to have a driver made explicitly for that controller. If the controller you have is not explicitly recognized, you will probably have to make a "custom" setting for the controller if the correct type (axes,buttons) is not available. This may or may not be possible due to various device driver suppliers (including Microsoft) completely replacing the default joystick control panel applet, and various versions of DirectX doing the same. If you have a 6-button game pad, most likely it will work correctly with Abe if you set it up in the Joystick control panel as a 3-axis, 4-button game pad. We treat these devices as if axis 3 going past 80% means the fifth button is down, and axis 3 going below 20% means the sixth button is down. Otherwise, if that doesn't work, set it up as a 4-axis, 4-button game pad and we will detect the fact that it only has one button per axis and use axis 3 going past 50% as the fifth button, and axis 4 going past 50% as the sixth button. If you have a 8-button game pad, most likely it will work correctly with Abe if you set it up in the Joystick control panel as a 4-axis, 4-button game pad. We treat these devices as if axis 3 going past 80% means the fifth button is down, axis 4 going past 80% means the sixth button is down, axis 3 going below 20% means the seventh button is down, and axis 4 going past 20% means the eighth button is down. Unfortunately this means you cannot use button 5 and 7 at the same time, or button 6 and 8 at the same time. If neither of those works, just set it up as a 2-axis, 4-button game pad and deal with it. Try to find a joystick device driver that works for your controller. If you have a real analog flight stick or something, you may want to unplug it and use the keyboard instead, as otherwise you'll have to keep the throttle centered or we will think it's a button being pressed. We have found that most analog controllers don't work well with Abe anyway, and it's much easier to control him with the keyboard. If all else fails, you can always use the keyboard. This is probably your best option if your controller has only 4 buttons or less or is analog, as this game was designed for a 10 button digital gamepad controller and needs a minimum of 6 buttons to keep from having to use the keyboard for anything besides start and select. For those unfortunate enough to have game pads with only 4 buttons, double-tapping the direction pad left or right will cause Abe to run. A double-tap is when you press the pad, release, and quickly press again, holding it down until you no longer wish to run. For 2-button joysticks (we pity you) we assume they are analog and moving the stick further will make a difference between walking and running. If you remap the controller somehow and get it to a state where you can no longer play or configure normally, delete the entries in ABE.INI to clear the mappings to default.