Front Page Sports: Football Pro '97 Demo Version 1.0 Release Notes 2/17/97 _____________________________________________________________________ CALL 1-800-757-7707 TO ORDER Frontpage Sports Football Pro Table of Contents A Features not available in this Demo version - The Play Editor - The Player Ratings Editor - League Play - Game Length - MultiPlayer Play - Reduced Animation and Sound quality B Getting Started - System Requirements - What is Virtual Memory? - Installation Path C Windows 95 Compatibility - Installing The Game To Your Hard Drive - Running The Game - Screen Savers - Task Swapping - Removing The Game From Your Hard Drive D Troubleshooting - CD-ROM Troubleshooting - SCSI Drivers - Problems with Movies (AVIs) E Miscellaneous - Additional Command Line Options ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A Features that are unavailable in this Demo The Play Editor Football Pro '97 has a sophisticated Play Editor that allows you to create virtually any type of offensive or defensive scheme. You can build customized playbooks by creating all-new plays or by modifying some of the over 10,000 plays included with the game. After you have created a play, you can test its effectiveness by practicing it against a variety of opposing formations on the Practice Field. Once the play is perfected, the Game Plan Editor allows you to assemble your plays into opponent-specific Offensive and Defensive Game Plans. In addition to customizing the plays you can also personalize how the computer will use your them by modifying one of the stock coaching profiles. Each profile consists of over 2500 game situations in which you can decide what happens. The Player Ratings Editor Football Pro '97 includes a Player Ratings Profile Editor that lets you reassign player ratings based on your own criteria. You may edit any of the eight ratings for any position and, from the Pro Bowl Screen, edit and apply Pro Bowl player selection criteria. The Formula screen allows you to create a formula for the rating, while the Results screen allows you to see how players are ranked and to assign new ratings based on one of four distribution curves. When you are satisfied with the results, you may save the new ratings to the original league or to a newly-created league. You may also go the View All Ratings screen to edit the ratings for individual players. In addition , you can save any formulas you create into a Player Ratings Profile. You may create formulas to establish each individual rating for each position. For example, you may create a QB strength formula, a Defensive End agility formula and so forth. League Play Football Pro '97 offers you the choice of competing in the default NFLPI 1996 (30 teams) league or building one or more new leagues of your own. The full version includes six career leagues filled with players who are members of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA). In addition to the NFLPA leagues there are several other fictional player leagues of varying sizes (8,10,12,18,28). Over the course of a season players and teams will accumulate statistics in over 1500 available categories. At the end of a season players will age and possibly retire. When starting a new season you have the option of dumping all of the players into a common draft pool. Each team can then draft players one at a time to fill out their rosters. A Free agent draft is also available at the beginning of each season. After the draft your players are run through training camp where you can allocate training time for each position. You might want your running backs spending training time on wind sprints to increase their speed while having the Defensive backs spend time watching game films to increase their intelligence. It is all up to you take your team to the championship. Game Length This demo version allows you one quarter of play (5-15 minutes). At the end of the first quarter it will return you back to main menu. MultiPlayer Play MultiPlayer play has been disabled in the demo. The full version of Football Pro '97 supports head to head games over a LAN or modem. Internet play is also available over the Sierra Internet Gaming System. Reduced Animation and Sound Quality The full version of Football Pro '97 offers 16 angles of animation rotation and 22Khz sounds. This demo limits the animation to 8 angles of rotation and 11Khz sounds. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- B GETTING STARTED System Requirements Football Pro `97 requires the following minimum machine configuration: Required: 486 DX2 66MHz or better processor SVGA color monitor VESA Local Bus video card with at least 1MB RAM Windows '95 Mouse Double Speed CD-ROM drive THE DEMO REQUIRES 31 MB for installation 8 MB RAM 12 MB Virtual Memory and 30 MB disk space free (after install) during game play. Recommended: Pentium processor 16 MB RAM Quad Speed CD-ROM drive One or two joysticks Sound Blaster or 100% Sound Blaster compatible sound card. What is Virtual Memory? Virtual memory is a method that uses disk space to supplement your machine's RAM. When Football Pro `97 is running, it creates a file on your hard drive (known as a swap file) which is used to store information when there is not enough available RAM. The size of the swap file is equal to the virtual memory requirement (12 MB) minus the amount of available RAM. Systems with more RAM will have smaller swap files created. The swap file is deleted automatically when you quit Football Pro `97. Due to the swap file requirements of Windows 95, you will need at least 30 MB of free disk space on the drive where your swap file resides, or Football Pro '97 will get errors allocating memory. Installation Path Football Pro '97 MUST be installed in a directory named \SIERRA\FBPRO97 for all features to function properly. It is not important on which physical drive (C,D etc.) it is installed, but it MUST be installed off the drive's root directory in \SIERRA\FBPRO97. Examples: C:\SIERRA\FBPRO97 (good) D:\SIERRA\FBPRO97 (good) C:\FBPRO97 (bad) C:\FOOTBALL (bad) C:\GAMES\SIERRA\FBPRO97 (bad) Should you install Football Pro '97 to a directory other than \SIERRA\FOOTBALL you may have problems when using custom data (game plans, plays, profiles, etc.) or when playing multiplayer games. In addition, Football Pro '97 cannot use game plans that include plays saved to floppy disks, or stored in the EXTRA directory on the CD. These plays should be kept in the \SIERRA\FBPRO97\CUSTOM directory. To use the plays in the EXTRA directory, copy the plays you want into your \SIERRA\FBPRO97\CUSTOM directory. With Win95 Explorer, select these files and right click to bring up the short menu. Pick "Properties" and toggle the "read only" file attribute box to the off setting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C WINDOWS 95 COMPATIBILITY Installing the game to your hard drive Football Pro `97 supports the Windows 95 Autoplay feature. Follow these steps to install and run the game under Windows 95: 1) Start Windows 95. 2) Insert the Football Pro `97 CD into your CD-ROM drive. 3) If the game has not yet been installed, you will be asked if you wish to install it. To proceed with the installation, click "Yes". 4) Follow the on-screen directions to complete the installation process. Note: If Autoplay has been disabled on your system you will need to double click on the CD-ROM icon in your MY COMPUTER folder. Running The Game Football Pro `97 is designed to start automatically when you insert the CD-ROM into your CD drive. When you insert the CD, you will be asked if you want to start the game; click on "yes" to run the game. Note: If Autoplay has been disabled on your system you will need to double click on the CD-ROM icon in your MY COMPUTER folder. You may also start the game by selecting it from your Start Menu under the SIERRA group. If you wish to launch the game using some of the optional command line parameters, create a shortcut for HIKE.EXE and edit the properties to include the options you want. Screen Savers Some screen saver programs may interrupt Football Pro `97 and prevent it from continuing afterwards. We HIGHLY recommend that you do NOT use any screen saver programs while playing Football Pro `97. This includes the Windows 95 screen savers. Task Swapping We recommend that you quit all other applications prior to running Football Pro `97, or you may experience game lock-ups or other problems. When Windows 95 is focused on Football Pro '97, it will not allow sounds for other applications to play. Football Pro '97 will perform best if no other applications are open in Windows 95. Removing The Game From Your Hard Drive To remove the game from your hard drive, open the Sierra folder in the Windows 95 Start Menu, Select "Setup & Uninstall". This will start the Sierra Setup program that will allow you to uninstall any Sierra product. Select Uninstall from the main menu. Choose FPS: Football Pro '97 from the list. All of the original Football Pro `97 program files will be removed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- D TROUBLESHOOTING CD-ROM Troubleshooting If you are experiencing "CDR-101 Read errors" or are experiencing random lock-ups, then make sure you are using the latest CD-ROM drivers and the correct version of MSCDEX.EXE for your revision of MS-DOS. To verify that you are using the correct device drivers in your CONFIG.SYS file, contact your CD-ROM drive manufacturer. To verify that you are using the latest version of MSCDEX.EXE, please examine the chart below: MS-DOS 5.0 Users....................Use MSCDEX 2.21 or above MS-DOS 6.0 Users....................Use MSCDEX 2.22 or above MS-DOS 6.20-6.22 Users..............Use MSCDEX 2.23 or above Windows 95. ........................Use MSCDEX 2.95 or above NOTE - MSCDEX 2.22 is included with MS-DOS 6.0, and MSCDEX 2.23 is included with MS-DOS 6.20-6.22. To update from an older version of MSCDEX, simply copy the updated file from the DOS directory into the directory where you are loading MSCDEX. For more information, please refer to your CD-ROM hardware manual or contact your CD-ROM drive manufacturer. SCSI Drivers If your system is equipped with a SCSI hard drive, you will need to make sure that you are loading the appropriate SCSI driver in your CONFIG.SYS file. For additional information or instructions on how to accomplish this task, please refer to your hard drive or SCSI controller documentation or manufacturer. Problems with Movies (AVIs) Some users may see vertical black and white lines and a message "Video not available" when the program tries to play movies (AVIs). This indicates that the Windows95 Media Player is not properly installed. (This player is normally installed with Windows 95, but you may have chosen not to install it to save disk space.) This does not affect game play, but you may correct the problem by installing the Media Player from your Windows 95 disks. (For information on installing Windows 95 components, consult your Windows 95 documentation.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E MISCELLANEOUS Additional Command Line Options Option Effect -l Save a log of all play-by-play information. A weeks worth of games will be appended to a single file if you are simulating league games. The PLAY.LOG file will be deleted at the start of a new weeks worth of games. -f Print all output to a text file called PRINT.OUT. You can view the file with any ASCII text editor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Direct Sales Information U.S. Direct Sales Sierra Direct PHONE: 7100 W. Center Rd STE 301 Main: (800) 757-7707 Omaha NE 68106 Hours: 7AM to 11PM CST, Mon-Sat; 8AM to 9PM CST, Sundays ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (c)Copyright 1996, Sierra On-Line, Inc. Front Page Sports and Front Page Sports: Football Pro are registered trademarks of Sierra On-Line, Inc. MS-DOS and Windows 95 are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro are registered trademarks of Creative Labs, Inc. Pro Audio Spectrum is a registered trademark of Media Vision, Inc. Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SIERRA ON-LINE, INC. DOES NOT WARRANTY OR PROMISE THAT THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL WORK WITH ANY OR ALL COMPUTER SYSTEMS. SIERRA DOES NOT ASSUME ANY LIABILITY, EITHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL, FOR THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN, INCLUDING ANY AND ALL DAMAGE TO OR LOST USE OF COMPUTER HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, LOSS OF WARRANTIES, OR LOST DATA BY THE CUSTUOMER OR ANY THIRD PARTY. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY SIERRA, IT'S EMPLOYEES, DISTRIBUTORS, DEALER OR AGENTS SHALL CHANGE THE RESTRICTION OF LIABILITY OR CREATE ANY NEW WARRANTIES. IN NO CASE SHALL SIERRA'S LIABILITY EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE OF THE SIERRA SOFTWARE PRODUCT.