After the problems I had getting Harry P to run, I thought others might find this FAQ useful ... Sue Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Game FAQ Updated 13 Nov, 2001 www.uk.ea.com http://common.ea-europe.com/faqs/hp.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------ This document contains common questions and answers relating to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. There are currently 8 commonly asked questions covered here. SERIAL NUMBER ISSUES TECHNICAL ISSUES INSTALLATION PROBLEMS CONTROL ISSUES Please make sure that your machine meets this specification, before continuing. Minimum specification for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is: Microsoft Windows 95,98, 2000, ME or XP (Windows NT is not supported) 266 Mhz or better Intel Pentium II or 100% Compatible 32MB RAM 500MB plus space for save games 4x CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive 4MB PCI/AGP DirectX 8.0 video card DirectX 8.0 compliant sound card DirectX 8.0 (supplied on CD) Keyboard, Mouse The recommended specification for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is: AMD Athlon/Intel Pentium II 400 MHz processor or faster 128MB RAM (256MB RAM for Windows XP) 750MB hard disk space 32MB 3D Hardware Accelerator Card with full Direct3D driver support ------------------------------------------------------------------ Serial Number Issues Q. I cannot find my Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Serial Number so I am unable to install the game. Where is the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone serial number? The serial number for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is printed on the back of the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone manual. If no serial number has been printed on the back of your Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone manual then contact your nearest Electronic Arts Customer Service department who will be able to help you, the phone number can be found in the Customer Service section at the back of the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Easy Install Guide. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Technical Issues If you are experiencing one of the problems listed below then try the following advice. Crashing on starting up Crashing when changing video resolutions Corrupted textures Unexpected bright flashing on screen Unusually slow performance First of all confirm that your PC meets the minimum requirements to run Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as displayed at the top of this FAQ and on the back of the game's DVD case. If your PC does meet the minimum requirements to run Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone then please follow the instructions below: Install the latest video card and soundcard drivers. These updated drivers are available from your card manufacturers' websites, the web addresses should be provided with the documentation that came with your video and sound cards or PC (see below for popular video and sound card manufacturer websites). 3Dlabs http://www.3dlabs.com (e.g. Permedia 3) ATI http://www.ati.com (e.g. Rage 128, Radeon) Creative Labs http://www.europe.creative.com (e.g. SB Live!, PCI 128) Matrox http://www.matrox.com (e.g. Millennium G400, Millennium G450) nVidia http://www.nvidia.com (e.g. Riva TNT/TNT2, GeForce 256, GeForce 2) For more detailed help on any DirectX issues try our helpful DirectX Problems guide found at http://common.ea- europe.com/gens/directx.htm. Set your Windows Desktop resolution to 800x600 using 16-bit colour depth before starting Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This can be changed by right clicking on the Windows Desktop and selecting "Properties", then going into the "Settings" tab. If this fails to solve the problem try running Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone using 16-bit colour depth. The colour depth can be adjusted from the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Options Menu. Programs that run in the background can cause problems when starting or running Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. To close down these programs hold down the CTRL and ALT buttons together and press DELETE once, the CLOSE PROGRAM window appears. Highlight a program in the CLOSE PROGRAM window and click onto END TASK at the bottom of the window to close the currently highlighted program. Repeat this process for the other programs making sure that EXPLORER and SYSTRAY are the only programs left running. Try adjusting the Hardware Acceleration for your video card. To do this Right-click the MY COMPUTER icon on the Windows Desktop and choose Properties from the pop-up menu. Select the Performance tab, click the Graphics button and make sure the Hardware Acceleration slider is set to full. Q. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is running slowly on my PC. How can I improve the performance of the game? Some machines will benefit from experimenting with the in- game video/sound options. Try lowering the texture detail inside the 'Options' menu. This is particularly useful for computers with less than 128MB of RAM. If your video resolution in-game is greater than 640x480, try reducing it to 640x480 in the 'Options' menu. If your colour bit depth is set to 32 bit, try reducing it to 16 bit in your video menu. If Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is still running slowly check that the Colour Depth in both the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Options Menu and Windows Settings are set to 16-bit colour and that the resolution in the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Options menu is set to a resolution suitable for your video card. As a general rule, when running Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone all Windows background programs should be closed down (especially any anti-virus programs). To close down these programs hold down the CTRL and ALT buttons together and press DELETE once, the CLOSE PROGRAM window appears. Highlight a program in the CLOSE PROGRAM window and click onto END TASK at the bottom of the window to close the currently highlighted program. Repeat this process for the other programs making sure that EXPLORER and SYSTRAY are the only programs left running. Try adjusting the Hardware Acceleration for your video card. To do this Right-click the MY COMPUTER icon on the Windows Desktop and choose Properties from the pop-up menu. Select the Performance tab, click the Graphics button and make sure the Hardware Acceleration slider is set to full. Q. How do I select the graphics mode in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone? (Software Renderer or Direct3D)? Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone attempts to automatically select hardware (Direct3D) or software rendering, depending on the hardware you have installed in your PC. Since certain graphics cards aren't supported, some computers have only the software rendered option. To switch between Hardware mode (Direct3D Support) and software rendering or vice versa, select Start>Programs>EA Games>Harry PotterT>3D Setup. The Harry Potter 3D Setup screen appears. Now, select SOFTWARE RENDERING or DIRECT3D SUPPORT and click FINISH. The game will now run in the mode you have just selected as the default. If you want to change again, simply follow points 1 and 2 above. Note: Hardware rendering (DIRECT3D SUPPORT) generally looks better and runs faster, but may have problems running on some computers with out-of-date driver software. If you are unable to get the latest drivers or if the game still fails to run, you should select SOFTWARE RENDERING as described above. Software rendering is a safer option, and perfectly playable. However, it doesn't give the visual quality of the best hardware rendered graphics cards. Note on video card compatibility: The following graphics chipsets are supported in Direct3D mode in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: nVidia TNT & TNT2 family (all variants) GeForce family (all variants) Matrox Millennium G200 Millennium G400 Millennium G450 ATI Rage 128 Radeon NEC PowerVR Kyro and Kyro 2 Intel i810 (16-bit colour mode only) 3D Labs Permedia 3 The following graphics chipsets are supported in Software Renderer mode in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: ATI Rage II Rage Pro Intel i740 If your video card is not listed here, it does not necessarily mean that it will not work, but the card may not have been compatibility tested with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. If your card is not listed and you are experiencing problems, we suggest that you obtain the latest DirectX 8.0 drivers for your video card. If this does not help, switch to Software Renderer by following the instructions above. Additional note on 3Dfx video cards Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone requires 100% compatible DirectX 8.0 video card drivers. 3Dfx have not produced 100% compatible DirectX 8.0 compatible drivers for any of their cards to date. As such, no 3Dfx video cards are supported by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. We have found however that the following 3Dfx cards may offer some success in the given display mode in some cases: Voodoo 3 - Software Renderer Voodoo 5 - Software Renderer and Direct3D Please note however that due to these cards not having DirectX 8.0 compatible drivers, their use with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is unsupported. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Installation Problems Q. I am having problems installing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone or when I try to run Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone I get a message similar to 'Cannot detect CD' or 'My PC will not detect the game disk'. If you have more than one CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive you must ensure that Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is in the first logical CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive before commencing play, e.g. If you have a CD-ROM on drive letter E: and a DVD-ROM drive on letter F, install the game from drive E. Also, you may want to try inserting a music CD in the other CD- ROM/DVD-ROM drive(s) when trying to run Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. If you are using Windows 95 and 98 you may be using 16-bit DOS drivers for your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive. The Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone installation requires a 32-bit driver for the CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive. We advise you use the SYSEDIT (Windows 95 and 98 only) program and remove any references to your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive from both the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files. For more detailed help on any CD-ROM issues try our helpful CD-ROM Problems guide found at http://common.ea-europe.com/gens/cdrom.htm. Q. When I try to install Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone I get a 'Could not write to the file %s' error message, or the game fails to copy any files. Additionally, the install program may suggest that I do not have sufficient hard-drive space to install the game. First of all try installing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone into its default directory (C:\Program Files\EA Games/Harry Potter). Make sure you have at least 750MB free on your chosen install drive (600MB for the game, 50MB for save games and 100MB for the swap file.) If you have more than one CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive then try installing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone from the first drive letter - e.g. If you have your CD/DVD drives assigned to letters D: and E: use the drive assigned to D: If this does not help, try deleting the files in your Windows\Temp folder. Important! - Do not delete the Temp folder itself, nor any other files or folders in your Windows folder. Delete only the files within the Temp folder. If you cannot delete some files, they are probably in use. Simply restart your PC and try deleting them again. If you are using Windows 95 and 98 you may be using 16-bit DOS drivers for your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive. The Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone installation requires a 32-bit driver for the CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive. We advise you use the SYSEDIT (Windows 95 and 98 only) program and remove any references to your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive from both the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files. For more detailed help on any CD-ROM issues try our helpful CD-ROM Problems guide found at http://common.ea-europe.com/gens/cdrom.htm. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Control Issues Q. Does Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone support Gamepads or Joysticks? Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone does not support the use of gamepads or joysticks. Only 100% Microsoft compatible Keyboard and Mouse are supported for use in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Q. The character Harry Potter is uncontrollable. When I am not pressing any buttons on the keyboard or moving the mouse Harry is moving in different directions. This could be due to having a joystick or gamepad plugged into the game port on your PC. Try removing the joystick or gamepad from your PC. - o -