Troubleshooting support requests are typically responded to within 24-48 hours depending on the current work load.

PROBLEMS AND SUGGESTED REMEDIES

Immediately upon execution a dialog box is displayed stating that a library cannot be found

This is most likely an indication that a DirectX library cannot be found or that the desired library that was found was out of date.
Remedy: Visit www.microsoft.com/directx and update your DirectX libraries.

After I select Play from the Window, my monitor flickers as the system goes to (or tries to go to) fullscreen and then pops back to windowed mode and the game doesn't run.

Most likely, the game was not able to find a video mode that is compatible with the game requirements and your video card.
Remedy: First, make sure you have the latest video drivers for your system. Visit the web site of your video card's maker and, if necessary, update your drivers. Then, after updating, try running the program again. If the game still does not run then most likely your video card simply is not compatible with the game. In this case, do contact support and indicate to them your video card and system stats so that they may verify the incompatibility. Alternatively, you can also try to see whether the game can run on your system in windowed mode by changing the config.txt file and setting fullscreen = n. Then execute the game and select Play. Instead of trying to switch to fullscreen mode the game should just increase the size of the window and should play in the new re-sized window. If you want to troubleshoot further then follow the procedures above and contact Xandis.com with output from the log and the information on your video card and DirectX version.

I'm not seeing any explosions.

All effects are done with particle systems that are rendered using the DirectX point sprite method. Some older video cards may not support this method.
Remedy: Update your video drivers if possible. If that still does not fix the problem then it might simply be an incompatibility between your video system and the game. However, it should be noted that XR7 has tested fine under both old systems that limit video memory to about 11 megabytes as well as new NVIDIA powered systems. If your card is compatible with DirectX 8 then it should work with XR7. However, since we can't test on all systems, any feedback would help in our building a compatibility database for troubleshooting specific cases.

I can't hear any sounds or music (or audio is very low) and I have everything at 100%.

The game does not adjust the SYSTEM VOLUME. So, 100% of music and effects volume is still within the context of your system volume.
Remedy: Increase your system volume.

PERFORMANCE

The good should operate sufficiently on systems that are 433mhz or faster and with 64-megs or greater. However, performance also depends on your video card and noticeable slowdown may happen if your card is not suitable for handling the model and particle data via DirectX 8/9.

For many cards, the drawing of the sprites and particle systems slows the system down. While the particles cannot be eliminated, the sprites, for the most part, can. To terminate use of the background sprites hit the T key during gameplay. To use them again hit U. On some cards, eliminating the background causes a noticeable performance improvement.

STARTUP CONFIGURATION

The general configuration for the game is in the CONFIG.TXT file. This is a standard text file so any text editor that saves raw text can be used for editing. When you load the file into your editor, you will see, somewhere, something like:

def config main
      width = 800
      height = 600
      colorbits = 16
      fps = 30
      fxvol = 85
      musicvol = 100
      numplayers = 1
      input = KEYBOARD
      fullscreen = n
      cheat = y
      coldet = SIMPLE
      log = n
      lives = 3
      numlevels = 5
      deathdelay = 90
      loadingpos = 272.0 140.0 0.0
      loadingwplayerpos = 272.0 172.0 0.0
      playerpos = 360.0 0.0 0.0
      particlebatch = 256
      spritebatch = 64
      tilebatch = 64
end

The width and height should not be changed as the game uses fixed sprites for the background and tiling that expect this resolution. So, change at your own risk. colorbits must be either 16 or 32 -- with 16 being the only tested value. This refers to the number of color bits per pixel. 24-bit color is not supported.

The fps is the target frames per second that the game tries to achieve. If you have a system with 433mhz or greater you should be able to achieve this throughout with some minor exceptions when there are lots of particle systems in action (depending on your video card of course). To see what the system is achieving hit the D key during play to display this statistic. Hit C to cancel the stat display. By increasing the fps you will be making the game run faster and, likewise, lowering the value will make the game run slower. Also, during the game you may hit the E key to eliminate the forced frames-per-second value and you can later return to the forced value by hitting F.

The numplayers is the default number of players that will play each game. This can be changed within the game in the setup scene. This value must be either 1, 2, 3 or 4.

input indicates the default input device. This may be either KEYBOARD or MOUSE or JOYSTICK. The input device may be changed in the setup scene and during game play.

cheat may be either y or n to indicate whether cheating is on or off. This value may also be changed in the setup scene. Cheating allows one to move to the next scene, switch players (or restart the level) and to replenish energy at will. It is normally used for testing purposes as the game is easy when cheating, obviously.

The *pos values are coordinates in screen space that indicate placement of sprites during the inter-scene time. Change them and you'll see what this means...

The fxvol and musicvol values simply set the default volumes (from 0 to 100). These are not system volumes so if you need higher volume even after setting these values to 100 then you'll need to increase your system volume. During the game, hit F1 to increase the sound effects volume and F2 to lower it. F3 when hit will increase music volume while F4 will lower it. The default values may also be changed in the game in the setup screen which allows changing volume, number of players and input device.

The log value tells the system whether to log warnings and error messages to the log.txt file. Normally this is off but if are troubleshooting or editing data files then it is recommended that this be changed to y.

The coldet value indicates whether the default collision detection method is SIMPLE or the TREE method. With low-triangle count models the SIMPLE way is best and this is the default for the game. Otherwise, experiment with the TREE method. Using trees may be best with high poly-count models but it should be noted that the tree method takes up significantly more memory and will be slower with low-poly models. It is possible to use both methods during the game depending on the need as scripting commands can alter the method use.

lives and numlevels are game-related values and should be changed only if the nature of the game has changed. lives determines the number of lives at the start of a game while numlevels is the actual number of gaming levels there are. The system assumes the game is over if the player completes the final level as indicated by this value.

The batching values (particlebatch, spritebatch and tilebatch) indicate how many of each respective type will be rendered in a single DrawPrimitive(..) call. If you don't know what that means that's OK as the mearning is only important for programmers. For non-programmers, if you feel that the rendering of sprites (static background images and panels) or tiles (scrolling backgrounds) or particles (explosion effects) is slowing the system down then perhaps one of these values needs to be changed. Experiment! Technical information about your video card would assist in optimizing these settings.

GAME PLAY - Joystick or Keyboard

In our experience, the keyboard provides a finer control but the joystick tends to be more fun. However, the finer control is quite helpful during level 4. Our recommendation is to use whichever you prefer but be prepared to switch to keyboard control in level 4 for those parts where needed (you'll know!). Switching controls is easy - just hit the letter K on the keyboard to switch to keyboard control and J to switch to joystick control. It doesn't matter whether the CAPS LOCK is on or off. You can switch back and forth as many times as you want. The mouse - hit M - can also be used but that isn't recommended. Shooting with the keyboard is the SPACE key.

To provide some fine tuning to the keyboard controls - such as to make them more responsive - edit the userinput-spec.txt file. Here is a brief review of that file.

USERINPUT-SPEC.TXT

def userinput player
      device = KEYBOARD
      mousebtn1 = 0
      mousebtn2 = 1
      joybtn1 = 0
      joybtn2 = 1
      shootkey1 = SPACE
      shootkey2 = Z
      rightkey = RIGHT
      leftkey = LEFT
      upkey = UP
      downkey = DOWN
      mouseslack = 1 1 1
      joyslack = 3 3 3
      keyshootdelay = 2
      keymovedelay = 1
      mouseshootdelay = 2
      mousemovedelay = 1
      joyshootdelay = 2
      joymovedelay = 1
end

In order to fine-tune the performance and responsiveness of the game play, consider editing some of the above values. Note however that gameplay was only tested with the default settings and changing, for example the shooting delays, may change the nature of the game (making it easier or harder).

slack values are triplets representing how much the device has to move to be considered an actual move. To make moving more sensitive, reduce the slack. To decrease the sensitivity, increase the slack. The three values represent movements in the three directions - along the X, Y and Z planes. The shootdelay values are the number of frames that must pass between shots while the movedelay is the number of frames that must pass before moving is permitted. To move faster, decrease the move delay values. Likewise, to make movement more sluggish, increase the delay. In the same manner, to make shooting faster, reduce the shoot delays and to make shooting slower, paced increase the delay. The delays are different for each device type to allow for finer tuning.