Tech Info

[Gobalopper]

Both Chris Longpre and Cliff(Devinoch) posted responses in the forum today dealing with tech support issues. Chris is first and his message deals with common tech problems, check them out below:

In the interest in helping you all out, I'd like to clarify a few things.

1) If you want help with a technical problem with Emperor, you do need to use the (800) phone number or our customer support request at www.westwood.com. We can then properly track your problem and help you solve it. We can start a file and collect all your system information and have some idea about the true frequency of the problem, and more importantly, have better suggestions to fix them.

2) VIA has admited that their chipset has problems with PCI bridge timings... and is readily seen as freezing, crashes & music corruption on systems with SBLive & VIA motherboards (may also be seen on other PCI cards too). They have updated their drivers and we have verified that the new drivers fix this problem. The more data that flies accross the bus, the more likely the freeze. This is why Emperor shows the problem and not other games. We are sending lots of data to both the sound card & the 3D card. When a collision happens, its fatal.

3) We look into every issue reported by Customer Support, so again, its your best way to have your voice heard. Also, returns are nowhere near 40% .. I don't know who created that number. Emperor is running well on most systems out there, AND we will continue to help those who are still experiencing problems.

4) Voodoo3 problems are 100% solveable with the correct drivers. The only tricky one is Win2000 users. You will need the v1.05 driver, even though there is a more recent one on the 3dfx website. Many users have hosted & posted locations to these drivers, so please search the message base for the URL.

5) Unable to create 3D device is also 100% solvable with current DX8 installation, and current video drivers. This error is generated by Microsoft DirectX, and is purely driver related. There is really nothing for us to fix on that one. You need DX8 drivers that work for your video card.

6) There are some AMD K6-2 chips that are not Pentium-II compatible... Some are, some aren't. There is no easy way to tell which ones, although we are still looking into this issue.

Thanks again for everyone's patience and support. If you are having problems, please please contact us through the official channels. When we have a case that is not solveable by the above means, it comes directly to my desk. Currently, I have no unsolveable issues on my desk. So if you feel you have something that is unqiue, please visit www.westwood.com and click on 'Support' tab. - LINK

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1) We believe we may be making progress on improving LAN performance. There is a theory into the LAN problem that we are investigating, and if the theory holds, we should be well on our way towards making progress towards combatting the problem.

2) Shadows are bound to be system hogs, but if they are causing you that much problems, we suggest you turn them down and/or off.

3) I'm sure there are several players who disagree with you about the Harkonnen "sucking ass." They may not fit your personal style of play, but the Harkonnen are a very effective force in capable hands. - LINK

Good to hear that the LAN issue could be found/fixed soon, I know a number of people had this problem.