Serious Sam 2 Demo file

Serious Sam 2

Release 1.00
Release notes

Developed by: Croteam
Published by: 2K Games

This demo contains the complete Seriousopolis Uptown level from the game, which
can be played solo, or over LAN or online by up to four people.

It also contains all the weapons from the game (although you may have to cheat
to see all of them), one of the game's vehicles and a nice variety of the
insane enemies that Sam is well known for.

Contents:
1. Introduction
2. System requirements
3. Troubleshooting
4. Tips and tricks
5. Difficulty Settings
6. Hardware compatibility issues
7. Updates
8. Legal Information

IMPORTANT:
If you have any problems running the game, please see troubleshooting.
If you feel that the game is too easy or too hard for you, please see
difficulty settings.

1. Introduction

Serious Sam is an action based FPS (First Person Shooter) game set in
7 beautiful, colorful fantasy environments including the oriental
cities of Chifang, deep jungles of M'digbo, castles of Ellenier and
the sci fi planet Sirius. It is fast, frantic and humorous action,
with 20+ hours in single play and much more in cooperative mode. You
take the role of Sam 'Serious' Stone, Earth hero, chosen to defend the
Universe from the dark evil entity, Mental. After battling through the
pyramids of ancient Egypt, the monumental temples of Persia, sacred
Mayan shrines and medieval ghost towns, killing some of the most
horrific villains in the Universe, now Sam has finally left the Earth
and is heading towards Sirius, home planet of Mental for a final
confrontation.

Good luck! You'll need it...

If you are eager to start playing right now, we recommend that you
skim through the manual first, and get familiar with the game's
interface. Make sure you don't miss out on how to use the NETRICSA!
For those who like to read the game background before they jump into
the gameplay, we recommend a visit to the Croteam site and take a look
at the loads of materials we have prepared there for you.
For discussions about the game, tips, news and general chat, take a
look at the Serious Sam 2 forum.

To Play the game:

1) Launch the Serious Sam 2 shortcut.
2) From the Main Menu select Single Player.
3) Select existing player profile or create new one.
4) Select Difficulty level.
5) Watch the intro video and get ready to fight!

2. System requirements

Hardware Requirements:

OS: Windows 2000 or Windows XP

CPU: AMD Athlon or Intel Pentium

RAM: 512MB

GFX: Graphics board with complete support for hardware pixel shaders
(compliant with DirectX 8 or higher).

Drivers: newest available hardware drivers

DirectX 9.0c

Please make sure that DirectX9.0c is installed, and that you have
updated your graphics card drivers.

Not supported:

- Windows 95, 98 and ME

- DirectX 7.0 or lower 3D accelerator, or one without DirectX 9.0
compatible driver

(Matrox Parhelia, nVidia TNT and GeForce1,2,4MX series, ATI Radeon
7000 series, Intel integrated graphics prior to 915G chipset, ...)

Minimum supported (low-end system):

CPU: ~1.5 GHz Athlon XP or Pentium M, or ~2 GHz Pentium
4

RAM: 256 MB

Sound: any DirectSound compatible sound board

Graphics: DirectX 8.0/8.1 compliant or low-end DirectX 9 3D
accelerator

(nVidia GeForce3 and 4 series (not MX!), GeForceFX 5200 through 5700
series, ATI Radeon 8500 through 9200 and X300 series, S3 DeltaChrome
or XGI Volari ... )

Recommended (mainstream):

CPU: ~2.0 GHz Athlon XP or Pentium M or ~2.6 GHz
Pentium 4

RAM: 512 MB

Sound: DirectSound3D compliant sound board

(Creative SoundBlaster Live series, nVidia SoundStorm, ...)

Graphics: DirectX 9.0 compliant 3D accelerator

(nVidia GeForceFX 5900 series and GeForce 6200 and 6600 series, ATI
Radeon 9500 thru 9800 and X600-X700 series, ...)

Full-experience (high-end):

CPU: ~2 GHz Athlon64, or ~3 GHz Pentium 4

RAM: 1 GB (1024 MB)

Sound: DirectSound3D with EAX 2.0+ sound board

(Creative SoundBlaster Audigy series, nVidia SoundStorm, ...)

Graphics: DirectX 9.0 high-end 3D accelerator

(nVidia GeForce6 6800 and 7800 series, ATI Radeon X800 and X850
series, ...)

3. Troubleshooting

Although Croteam has invested all efforts to provide maximum
compatibility with all hardware configurations, there are some cases
that cannot be remedied in the game, but require intervention from the
user. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but those problems are
beyond our control and are usually caused by limitations imposed by
the operating system, faulty drivers or other problematic software
installed on your machine.

Here is the list of the cases and suggested remedies:

FatalError: 'Cannot set display mode'

Sometimes "Serious Sam 2" won't start, and will report the above error
message. Here are the possible reasons and suggested remedies:
- You do not have a proper DirectX driver for your card installed.
See here for a list of recommended 3D card drivers.

Game crashes at startup

If you have incompatible video card drivers installed, if something
else is bad in your system, or if you have changed some of the
advanced rendering options, the game might not be able to start at
all.

To remedy this:
a) Make sure you have all the proper drivers installed, and
b) Try to start the Safe Mode.

Choppy performance or 'stuttering'

On some mis-configured systems, you may experience extreme slowdowns,
or game playing very choppy. Here are the possible reasons and
suggested remedies:

- Old motherboard chipset drivers.
See here on how to update your motherboard drivers.

- Old or incompatible sound drivers.
See here on how to update your sound drivers.

- Old or incompatible 3D card drivers.
See here for the list of recommended 3D card drivers.

- Misconfigured or incompatible joystick drivers.
For some joystick drivers, if a joystick driver is installed, but
the actual joystick is not present, driver may cause random delays
when reading the device. "Serious Sam 2" tries to auto-disable
joystick reading if it detects faulty drivers, but this mechanism
might fail in some cases.

Even if you think you don't have any joystick installed, please double
check in the Game Controllers configuration in the Windows' Control
Panel. Maybe you don't remember that it was installed once, or maybe
it was autoinstalled without you knowing it. Also, it may be possible
that you have installed a driver that is not compatible with your
operating system. (E.G. this can happen if you install some Win98
joystick drivers on WinXP/2000.) To uninstall a joystick driver, go to
Control Panel and open Game Controllers. Select the
joystick/controller. Press Remove.

- Too high quality settings
Unless you have a very fast 3D accelerator, your system may not be
capable of running "Serious Sam 2" at high resolutions.
See here for information on how to configure the game for improved
performance.

Sound crackling or stuttering

This symptom is usually due to either:
a) Sound hardware incompatibility
Some sound cards do not work well with some interfaces, or sound
output formats.
- Try disabling EAX in the 'Options->Audio Options' menu.
b) or performance problems
If the game has an overall slow framerate, the sound output quality
will suffer. See here on how to improve the overall performance.

Crashes when switching between full-screen and window modes

On some operating systems and/or hardware setups, switching
full-screen and windowed mode might not work properly. This is a
driver issue and cannot be fixed from our side.
See here for the list of recommended 3D card drivers.

Cannot connect to an internet game

If you cannot connect to an internet game there are several possible
reasons:
- You are using personal firewall software, or a hardware firewall or
NAT. Such software or hardware can block game data traffic between
your computer and the server that you are trying to connect. It all
depends on how it is set up.
You should configure your firewall to allow "Serious Sam 2" to access
the internet, and forward the ports 25600 (UDP). You should check the
firewall's documentation on how to do that.

Poor performance in a network game

See network tips on how to improve the network gaming performance.

Screen Tearing

On some systems, when standing in place and rotating your view
left-right quickly with the mouse, it might seem like the bottom of
the screen is lagging behind the top of the screen. It can appear as
if the screen is divided into stripes by one or more horizontal lines.
This is a usual effect known as 'Screen Tearing', noticed only if you
concentrate on it, and doesn't really affect the gameplay.
It is caused by the rendering not being synchronized with the vertical
refresh rate of your monitor. The option is usually present in one of
the advanced settings options in the Display Preferences in Windows.
It is driver-dependent and will be different for each video card. You
should consult your video card driver manual for details on this (if
any available).

There is an option to turn the vsync on/off from "Serious Sam 2" in
the menu 'Options->Video Options'. But this might not work on some 3D
cards.
Note that, even though turning the vsync on might remedy this, it will
as well limit your framerate in game.

4. Tips and tricks

Network Tips

- Make sure that you have the correct speed setting in the
Multiplayer->Internet->Connection Type option. If this is set to a
setting higher than what you connection can handle, you may experience
issues like severe lag, jerky gameplay and even disconnection.
- When playing cooperative on slower computers, you might experience
slowdowns. This is normal. Minimum required configuration is tested
for single player gaming. If you play cooperative with a lot of
players, more action goes on on the screen, and your computer might
not be capable to process it all.
- If you are playing over the internet, try to find servers that give
you a better ping and have fewer players.
- Poor performance in a network game can sometimes be caused by not so
good overall performance of your game setup. See general performance
tips on how to improve the overall game performance.

Multiplayer Internet gaming

For multiplayer play on the Internet behind a firewall and/or proxy
server please make sure to have the required port open to connect. The
game's server uses port 25600 by default (it can be changed in game's
console through net_iPort cvar ).

Note: GameSpy Arcade utilizes additional ports. A list of those ports
and other support for GameSpy Arcade can be found here:
Gamespyarcade.com

General performance tips

"Serious Sam 2" can auto-adjust the configuration to match your
system. If you feel that the game is too slow on your computer, you
can try to run auto configuration from 'Options->Video Options' menu.
Follow these steps:

1) Go to 'Options->Video Options' menu.
2) Select AUTO DETECT QUALITY and wait a few seconds till it finishes
testing your system.
3) Press Apply.
If you are not satisfied with settings you can tweak them manually.

Safe mode

In case of faulty settings try running the game from Startup
menu->Serious Sam 2 folder, Serious Sam 2 (Safe mode). This will run
Serious Sam 2 executable with "Safe mode" settings.

5. Difficulty Settings

Choosing the right difficulty

The most important thing is to choose the right difficulty, the one
that will perfectly challenge your skills. Choosing a too easy or too
hard level of difficulty can harm the enjoyment of the game. Consult
the manual for choosing the right difficulty. Here are some quick
tips:
- Tourist mode is the easiest, and it's for absolute beginners, the
ones who are still battling with the
game controls.
- Easy mode is for FPS beginners, the ones that play games but are
very casual FPS players.
- Normal mode is for experienced FPS players, the ones that played
many FPS games.
- Hard mode is for experienced "Serious Sam" players, the ones that
have already finished the Normal mode and possibly for the ones that
have finished our Demo many times on the Serious difficulty. Choose
this mode on your own responsibility.
- Serious mode - for the really serious ones.

Changing the difficulty 'on the fly'

If you find some level too hard or too easy to beat, you can always
restart it on lower or higher difficulty, from the 'Custom Levels'
menu. But in that case you will lose your score, which will be counted
from there on.

Cannot read messages

To read the in-game messages using the NETRICSA, you need to press TAB
button. If you have reconfigured your controls and you cannot find the
TAB button, you need to reset your controls and bind them again.

6. Hardware compatibility issues

3D accelerators

"Serious Sam 2" has been tested with many different 3D-accelerator
boards and drivers. The game will try to adjust optimal settings for
it. If you experience any problem, please make sure you have the
correct display driver installed.
You can download drivers from 3D board chipset manufacturer's site or
any driver repository on the internet.
All boards have been tested with Windows XP and 2000 operating system.

Motherboard drivers

On motherboards with chipsets that don't have native support in
Windows, you'll have to install the corresponding driver manually.
Complete explanation on how to do that can be found in the
motherboard's manual. You can download drivers from motherboard
manufacturer's site or any driver repository on the internet.
Even if you have the correct display and sound drivers, you can still
have some problems with "Serious Sam 2" in case you don't have proper
motherboard drivers installed.

Sound drivers

"Serious Sam 2" has been tested with many different sound boards and
drivers. If you experience any problem, please make sure you have the
correct sound driver installed.
You can download drivers from sound board manufacturer's site or any
driver repository on the internet.
All boards have been tested with Windows XP and 2000 operating system.

7. Updates

Improved versions of the game executables, additional driver
information, extra game content (like new multiplayer levels, or
player models and similar), add-on scripts, etc. might become
available with time.
You should visit the Serious Sam 2 Update page periodically to see if
something interesting for you appears.

8. Legal Information

© 2005 CROTEAM LTD. 2K GAMES AND THE 2K GAMES LOGO, A TAKE2 COMPANY
LOGO, AND TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE ARE ALL TRADEMARKS AND/OR
REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE, INC. SERIOUS
SAM 2, THE SERIOUS SAM 2 LOGO, SERIOUS ENGINE 2, THE SERIOUS ENGINE 2
LOGO, CROTEAM AND THE CROTEAM LOGO ARE TRADEMARKS AND/OR REGISTERED
TRADEMARKS OF CROTEAM LTD. THE NVIDIA LOGO AND THE THE WAY ITS MEANT
TO BE PLAYED LOGO ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OR TRADEMARKS OF NVIDIA
CORPORATION. GAMESPY AND THE "POWERED BY GAMESPY" DESIGN ARE
TRADEMARKS OF GAMESPY INDUSTRIES, INC." THE RATINGS ICON IS A
TRADEMARK OF THE ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE ASSOCIATION. ALL OTHER MARKS
AND TRADEMARKS ARE THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. DEVELOPED
BY CROTEAM. PUBLISHED BY 2K GAMES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Serious Sam 2 uses Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora libraries, under the
following license:

Copyright (c) 2002, Xiph.org Foundation
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
- Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the
distribution.
- Neither the name of the Xiph.org Foundation nor the names of its
contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
FOUNDATION OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT,
STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED
OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Serious Sam 2 uses Zlib compression and decompression library,
copyright (c) 1995-1998 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.