Software Support - Internet Curling Club

Contents
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1. General Troubleshooting
a) Missing "dll" error
b) Poor graphics performance
c) Antialiasing settings
d) Playing the game on laptops
e) Troubleshooting multiplayer

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1) General TroubleShooting
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A) You recieve an obscure message about a missing "dll".

- Direct X is likely not installed properly. Try reinstalling it and try rerunning the game.
Direct X may be obtained for free from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/ .
Just navigate the page to find the particular version for your computer and follow the
installation instructions.

B) The game plays really slow!

- Don't panic, this could be due to a couple of factors, most likely the video card.
The first thing to try is to get turn the game to "Low Detail" mode (see setup menu).
This will stop the characters from being rendered.

This game is very graphics intensive and REQUIRES an Open Gl accelerated 3D video card.
The first step is to check what type of video card you have. From the start menu, click
" Control Panel", and click on the "Display" icon. A window will appear with a number of tabs.
Click on the tab labelled "Settings" and note what kind of video card you have. Look in
your owners manual for the card, and try to determine if the video card supports 3D
hardware accelleration. Also try finding your card on the web at the manufacturers website.
If it looks like your card doesn't support hardware acceleration, alas you will need to upgrade
your card before you can play the game.

If it looks like your card does support 3D acceleration, then it's possible that the hardware
acceleration is not turned on. To determine if it is, click on the "Settings" tab again and click
on the "Advanced" button (if there is one). Unfortunatley, because there are so many different
card manfacturers there is no standard interface, so it's impossible to describe every single one.
Try to navigate to the "Troubleshooting" tab and see if there is a slider bar for the hardware
acceleration. If so, experiment with the settings, starting with "none" and gradually going to "full".
Try playing the game at each setting and see if you notice any improvement in the game play.

If that doesn't solve the problem, go to the manufacturers website and download and install the
latest drivers for the video card. After installinging, reboot your computer. Again try to adjust
the hardware acceleration and see if that makes a difference.

C) The lines in the game are jagged!

- This is called anitaliasing, and some video cards allow you to specify the level of antialiasing.
Click on the "Display" icon in the control panel again, and click on the "Settings" tab. For
NVIDA processors, click on the "nView Display Mode" tab and click on the button near the
bottom beside "Device Settings". This will bring up a window with many tabs. Click on the
tab labelled "Accuview Antialiasing Settings" and click on the radio button
" Manually select the antailaising mode". Be warned - selecting 4X will cost you performance
wise, although the game will be a lot prettier!

D) Special note on laptops

Many older laptops, even those of a couple of years ago, have fast enough processors to
play the game, but are loaded with non hardware accelerated video cards. Thus, playing
Shotstone, and in fact any graphics intensive game, is an exercise in frustration. To make
matters worse, these cards are generally not upgradable either! We recommend either the
NVIDIA 460 "Go" Mobility processor, or the ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility processor or better
for laptops.

E) Multiplayer Troubleshooting

1) "Unable to connect to 123.456.789.0"

- The computer at the specified ip address is refusing the connection. Ensure that you have
typed the right IP address. If you've tried it several times, then make sure that the host
actually has started a game on his or her computer. If they have done that, then exit the
game and ensure that any firewall software, such as Zone Alarm, is completely shut down.
It's often not enough to just turn off "Program Control', you MUST shut it down completely.
Tell the host to do the same. Once the firewalls are off, try the conection again.

If it still doesn't work, then the problem may be beyond your control. If either your computer
or the host computer sits behind a corporate firewall, and you are trying to connect through
the firewall, then the chances of connecting successfullyare slim. The firewalls are programmed
to block connections on the gaming ports. There's not much you can do at this point, unless
you feel confident about talking to your sysadmin to program the firewall to let the connection
through.

2) "Connected to 123.456.789.0 but timed out waiting for server to respond"

- the connection attempt was successful, but the server didn't send a message after
you connected. This could be due to the server shutting down the game, or some network
problem. Contact the server and ensure that his/her machine is up and running. Try the
connection agian. if it still fails then it could be something wrong with the network.
Talk to your network administrator to try to diagnose the problem. Again, make
sure that all firewall software is shut down completely on both machines.

3) "Unable to initialize game"

- this is a rare one. The connection is fine, but you weren't able to initialize your own
game to play. It could be a packet got corrupted during the network transmission.
Exit the game and try to connect again. If it still doesn't work, make sure that you have no
other programs running, like Word, or Excel, or anything like that. A reboot may be
in order as well.

4) "Timed out waiting for client to respond"

- Client connected to the game, but the client didn't send us a response when we
queried him. Could be a network problem. Check your network connections. Try the
connection again. If it happens again then it could be caused by an extremely slow
connection. The timeout is 5 seconds. If the round trip message time is greater than
that, then you won't be able to play a very good game online with this person anyways,
since the connection is likely too slow.

5) "Failed Creating the IDirectPlay8Address Object"

- failed during the initializing of Direct Play. Try rebooting you machine, and make sure
nothing else is running while you're trying to play the game. If it happens again, you may
consider reinstalling Direct Play to see if that solves the problem.

6) "Failed Setting the Service Provider to TCPIP"

- your computer isn't connected to the internet via TCPIP. You may need to install
TCPIP fromm your Windows disks. Consult the windows help for guidance on how to do this.

7) "Failed Adding Hostname to Host Address"

- you may have typed the IP address incorrectly. Try again, ensuring that the
" ." characters are there.

8) "Failed Hosting Session"

- odd one - the computer failed to host the session - you may have too many things
running on your computer. Try shutting down other programs that are running. A reboot
may be in order as well. If the problem continues then you may need to reinstall Direct X 8.1.

9) "Failed Connecting to Host"

- the client failed to connect to the host. Ensure the IP address is correct and retry.
If the connection still fails, then check the network settings and connections, and
shutdown all firewalls.

If you are still having problems, check our website www.shotstone.com for any
notices under the support column. If that's no help, then send an email
to info@shotstone.com. We'll do our best to sort it out for you!