Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine Technical FAQ

[GameDevChris]

Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine Technical FAQ

Summary of Questions and Answers

1) Running at 640x400 changes to 640x480 (letterboxed) mode with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.
2) When I load the game, the screen constantly flickers on and off every few seconds.
3) Running at 640x400 in full-screen mode, the game appears in a centered 640x400 window with black outer borders.
4) I receive an error message regarding screen resolution when I try to load the game.
5) I receive an error message regarding the speech and/or music pack when I try to load the game.
6) I'm having trouble with the digital sound feature (i.e. sound effects), and the game says it failed to initialize.
7) Selecting "Disable music" as the "Music" setting in the winsetup.exe program won't allow the game to run.
8) I can hear a lot of static in the sound effects or digital music.
9) When I run the game, my screen is misaligned.
10) At start-up. the game freezes on a black screen. Or the cutscene movies freeze shortly after they begin playing.
11) The game keeps asking me to enter my license key every time I play it.

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1) Problem:
I'm running the game at 640x400 resolution but it automatically changes to 640x480 (letterboxed) mode with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. How can I run the game at full screen mode?

Solution: If you are unable to run the game properly in 640x400 mode, you may select the "2x nearest-neighbour" graphics filter from the drop-down box in the winsetup.exe program. However, be warned that the graphics filter option *will* slow the game down, so it's not recommended unless you have a high-end system capable of handling it.

2) Problem:
When I load the game, the screen constantly flickers on and off every few seconds. I have tried using all the different resolutions and both checking and unchecking the option for CRT, but nothing works.

Solution: There are a number of suggestions to help resolve this issue:

1. Close all other applications before you run the game.

2. Click the "Letterbox resolution" option in the setup program.

3. If all else fails, try downloading the latest drivers for your video card, downloading the latest version of DirectX, and/or lowering your video card's refresh rate.

3) Problem:
When I run the game in 640x400 resolution at full screen mode, the game screen appears in a 640x400-sized rectangular window in the very middle of the monitor. The outer edges are completely black.

Solution: On rare occasions, some video cards will exhibit this symptom. You can bypass it by running the winsetup.exe program and changing the resolution to 640x480 mode by clicking the 'Force alternate letterbox resolution' checkbox.

4) Problem:
I receive the following error message when I try to load the game:

"WARNING: This game must be run at a minimum screen resolution of 640x400 in 32-bit colour. Please run the setup program and select either 640x400 or 640x480 mode. Also make sure that the 'Downgrade 32-bit graphics to 16-bit' option is not checked before playing."

Solution: Al Emmo must be run at 640x400 resolution or higher. If you do not have the "2x nearest-neighbour" graphics filter enabled, you will need to ensure that the winsetup.exe program is set to 640x400. If the "2x nearest-neighbour" graphics filter is enabled, you will need to set it to 1280x800 resolution instead. Furthermore, your graphics card *must* be capable of displaying 32-bit colour in order to play the game.

5) Problem:
I receive the following error message when I try to load the game:

"WARNING: Please run the setup program and check the 'Use digital music pack' and 'Use speech pack' options before playing. These files must be available for the game to run. Individual music and speech settings may be adjusted or enabled/disabled from within the game."

Solution: The music.vox and speech.vox files must be present in the game directory for the game to work. If you have deleted these, the game will refuse to run. Ensure that these two files exist in your game directory and then run the winsetup.exe program, making certain that both the "Use digital music pack if available" and "Use speech pack if available" boxes are checked. Also, please make sure that you do not have the "No Sound" setting selected as your "Digital Sound" option.

Note: You may adjust the volume level for (or disable) voices and music from within the game.

6) Problem:
I'm having trouble with the digital sound feature (i.e. sound effects), since the game says it failed to initialize.

Solution: Try running the winsetup.exe program and selecting a different option for "Digital Sound".

7) Problem:
I selected "Disable music" as my "Music" setting in the winsetup.exe program and now the game will not run.

Solution: Please select an option other than "Disable music".

8) Problem:
I can hear a lot of static in the sound effects or digital music. What's wrong?

Solution: Some sound cards appear to have trouble with the "Default WaveOut Device" setting for digital sound effects. If you hear static, try running the winsetup.exe program again and changing the "Digital Sound" setting to "Default DirectSound Device" instead. Note that sometimes the reverse situation may be the case.

9) Problem:
When I run the game my screen is misaligned.

Solution: Your monitor's settings may not be correctly calibrated for a 640x400 resolution. The first time you run a game, such as this game, you may need to adjust your monitor settings to fit its specific resolution. This should not affect your Windows monitor settings, and the game should remember your monitor adjustments the next time you run it.

10) Problem:
I run the game and the screen freezes at a black screen and doesn't go any further (sometimes automatically exiting back to the desktop without giving an error message). Or I run the game and the cutscene movies freeze up shortly after they begin playing.

Solution: This was very likely to be an issue that DirectShow has with the user's system attempting to render the cutscene's video stream using the FFDShow filters. The issue has been resolved in the latest version of the game which replaces the MPEG-1 format videos with Ogg Theora videos instead.

If you do experience video playback issues, you can try running the winsetup.exe program and selecting to run the game in windowed mode. This may also solve playback issues with the cutscene movies.

11) Problem:
The game keeps asking me to enter my license key every time I play it.

Solution: If you are running Al Emmo under Windows 7 64-bit edition, the game will not remember your license key after you enter it, unless you take the following steps:

1) Go to the directory where the game files were installed (usually C:\Program Files\Himalaya Studios\Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine).

2) Right-click on the Al_Emmo.exe file and click "Run as Administrator". Then simply load the game as normal and enter your license key. Windows 7 should now remember it from this point onward.