EMPIRES: DAWN OF THE MODERN WORLD README

This Readme file contains last minute information regarding EMPIRES: Dawn of the Modern World. Minimum System Requirements Pentium III or Athlon 600 MHz processor or higher Windows 98/2000/ME/XP operating system 128 MB of RAM (256 MB of RAM required for multiplayer games of 3 or more) 900MB of uncompressed hard drive space plus 200 MB for the Windows swap file A 100% Windows 98/2000/ME/XP-compatible computer system including: DirectX 9.0b 100% DirectX 9.0b-compliant true 32 bit sound card and drivers 100% DirectX 9.0b-compliant 32 MB video card and drivers* 100% Windows 98/2000/ME/XP -compatible mouse and drivers 100% Windows 98/2000/ME/XP -compatible keyboard 100% Windows 98/2000/ME/XP -compatible quad speed (600 K/sec sustained transfer rate) CD-ROM drive and drivers

Recommended System Specifications Pentium III or Athlon 1.0 GHz processor or higher 256 MB of RAM 100% DirectX 9.0b-compliant 64 MB video card and drivers*

REQUIRED FOR MULTIPLAYER MODE Internet (via GameSpy) and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported. A valid Gamespy account is required for online multiplay. Internet play requires a 100% Windows 98/2000/ME/XP -compatible 56 Kbps (or faster) modem and drivers. LAN play (and high-speed Internet play over DSL and cable modems) requires a 100% Windows 98/2000/ME/XP -compatible network interface card and drivers. *3D Accelerator Card Required

A 100% DirectX 9.0b or higher compliant 32MB or higher 3D video card and driver is required to play EMPIRES: Dawn of the Modern World. Some 3D accelerator card brands may not be compatible with the 3D acceleration features utilized by EMPIRES: Dawn of the Modern World. Please check with the cards manufacturer to ensure DirectX 9.0b compatibility. Important Note: This product uses DirectX 9.0b technology, which requires your system to have the latest Windows 98/2000/ME/XP drivers (for CD-ROM, video card, sound card and input devices) that fully support DirectX 9.0b. SUPPORTED CHIPSETS FOR Windows 98/2000/ME/XP ** All NVidia GeForce cards Nvidia TNT2 Ultra All ATI Radeon cards Matrox Parhelia Matrox G400/G450/G550 SIS Xabre 400 **Some but not all of the cards with the chipsets listed above have been tested on Windows 2000, ME, and XP. For Windows 2000, ME, and XP 3-D support, please refer to your hardware manufacturer for 100% DirectX 9.0b compliant drivers. IMPORTANT - Please do NOT use the backslash "\" character in your Gamespy Nickname! It is an illegal character and may cause your game to crash.

SCREENSAVERS AND POWER SAVERS Screen savers and power savers can cause problems while playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World if they are activated while you are in the game. Activision recommends disabling all screensavers and power savers before starting.

MONITORS Please make sure your monitor supports the game resolution you are trying to play in. To check what resolutions your monitor supports, do the following: 1. Open up My Computer 2. Double-click on Control Panel

3. Find the Display icon and open it. 4. Choose the Settings tab. 5. Locate the resolution pointer in the Desktop Area box and drag it to the far right. The resolution choice shown is the maximum resolution your monitor is capable of displaying. If you do not want to change to this resolution now, select cancel. Your Desktop Area should be set to the same resolution you are trying to play in or higher. NOTE: Please make sure your monitor type is properly specified to insure correct reporting of available video resolutions.

DUAL MONITORS Activision does not support playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World with dual monitors.

TASK SWITCHING WHILE PLAYING EMPIRES: DAWN OF THE MODERN WORLD If you task switch while playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, it could cause serious issues with the game. Using ALT-TAB or CTRL-ESC while playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World is not recommended.

FIREWALL PORTS If you are behind a firewall, you must open the following ports in order to play Empires: Dawn of the Modern World multiplayer: 6500 TCP 13139 UDP 27900 UDP 28900 TCP 29900 TCP 29901 TCP 33321 UDP 33335 TCP NOTE: Activision in no way supports using firewalls while playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World. Activision recommends disabling all firewall hardware and software before playing the game on-line.

CHANGING GRAPHICS SETTINGS IN GAME If you change some of the graphics settings in game, it may require a restart of Empires: Dawn of the Modern World for these changes to take effect. CHANGING RESOLUTIONS AND SHADOWS If some shadow options are disabled in the game settings menu, changing to a 32-bit resolution may resolve this issue. NOTE: Shadow Options and 32-Bit color are only intended for high performance machines. USING GEFORCE CARDS TO PLAY EMPIRES: DAWN OF THE MODERN WORLD If you are experiencing poor performance or crashing while playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World with a GeForce card, uncheck the Texture Sharpening check box and turn down the Anisotropic filtering down on your card. If you are unsure how to do this, please refer to your video cards manual or nVidias website: http://www.nvidia.com/ If you are playing on Windows 98 with a GeForce3 Ti500 with the latest drivers (version 45.23), you may experience issues starting the game. If you are experiencing these issues, try using the previous version of these drivers (version 44.03).

RUNNING EMPIRES: DAWN OF THE MODERN WORLD IN SAFE MODE If your games resolution is set to a resolution that your video card cannot handle, exit out of the game and run the Safe Mode shortcut. This will change the resolution of the game so that the next time Empires: Dawn of the Modern World is run, it will run in 800 x 600 resolution.

HARDWARE ISSUES Matrox Millennium G400 - It is not recommended you play at 32-bit textures settings with this card. For best performance, set the textures to 16-bit. 3D Blaster Annihilator - You might experience some cursor flickering when

playing at 32-bit. To rectify this please change your Screen Settings to 16-bit. GeForce2 and GeForce DDR - When playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World with these cards, you may not be able to see shadows on units regardless of whether shadows are enabled in the setup menu. Kyro I, Kyro II Kyro users may see some graphical anomalies with the text in the game. If you are experiencing graphical problems with the text, please make sure you are using the latest drivers for your video card. Netgear FVS318 router - Games that are hosted behind this router sometimes will not be displayed in the Internet server list. Nforce sound cards - Users of this sound card may experience sound anomalies while playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World.

PROBLEMS STARTING THE GAME If you are experiencing problems starting Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, please try the following things: Make sure the drivers for your video card are the latest version. To find the latest drivers, visit your card manufacturer or chipset manufacturers website. Make sure your video card is a supported chipset and has at least 32MB of RAM. Make sure the 3D hardware acceleration is turned all the way up. You can check this by running dxdiag.exe, clicking on the Display tab, and making sure all of your DirectX features on this page are marked enabled. Make sure you have the latest version of DirectX. This can be downloaded at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.aspx? url=/windows/directx/downloads/default.htm

PERFORMANCE ISSUES Attempting to take a screenshot with low (or no) hard drive space may result in unstable game performance. In order to avoid this, make sure the hard drive has enough free space available before trying to take a screenshot. Make sure you have at least 20 MB of additional hard drive space (along with the 900 MB needed to install Empires: Dawn of the Modern World) for saving games. When adjusting the sound slider in the Audio Settings menu, moving the slider to Min turns off the music, and moving the slider to Max turns the music on. If you adjust the Max Number of Sounds slider before entering the game, you may notice the background music turn off. If you load a mission, the music will

resume playing as normal. Changing to a 16-bit resolution may prevent users from changing the Shadow Quality option in the Graphics Settings menu. Changing resolutions in game may result in reduction in game speed. GAMEPLAY ADDITIONS Pressing the / key changes the camera view to follow the currently selected unit. When this camera mode is active, the camera cannot be rotated and it may seem that the camera is locked in this position. To resume normal camera movement, simply scroll the mouse cursor towards the edge of the screen to exit this camera mode and resume normal camera movement and rotation. Units affected by plague cannot enter or be garrisoned into houses or towers. Units affected by the plague are unable to board boats as well. If a fortress is deleted with units garrisoned inside, the units will be lost with the fortress. Airports cannot be built on the edges of a map. In order to build an airport, make sure there is sufficient room and it is not located near a map edge. Players in the game setup screen can still receive messages from players still waiting in the game channel. To respond to a message from outside the game setup screen, you must type /r before your response. This chat functionality only works if both people are on each others Buddy List. On the game statistics screen, the tribute sent and tribute received categories are only for resources that are given. Unit tributes are counted under the unit categories. When hunting animals for food, be sure to use your citizens to hunt. Animals killed by military units are worth less food. Starting number of citizens and resources per civilization - Each civilization starts with a different number of resources at the beginning of the game. o China - 0 citizens, 300 food, 0 wood, 0 gold, 510 stone o Korea - 7 citizens, 200 food, 200 wood, 0 gold, 480 stone o Franks - 5 citizens, 200 food, 200 wood, 0 gold, 360 stone o England - 1 citizen, 300 food, 500 wood, 0 gold, 600 stone o United States (WWI) - 2 citizens, 300 food, 150 wood, 0 gold, 750 stone o Germany (WWI) - 3 citizens, 200 food, 200 wood, 0 gold, 600 stone o Russia (WWI) - 7 citizens, 100 food, 200 wood, 0 gold, 360 stone o France (WWI) - 5 citizens, 200 food, 200 wood, 0 gold, 420 stone o United Kingdom (WWI) - 1 citizen, 300 food, 500 wood, 0 gold, 630 stone Adding Idle Units - When setting a hotkey for adding idle units, you must use the Shift key with the key you assigned to adding idle units. Only the host of a multiplayer game can check/uncheck the Record Game check box. Clients will be unable to change whether or not a game is recorded. Any Classified Projects or Innovations that have not been researched by the third time you advance in age will be lost for the rest of the game.

 The plus and minus keys (+/-) control the games speed in single player games.

TM, , 2003 Stainless Steel Studios. All rights reserved. EMPIRES: Dawn of the Modern World and related marks are trademarks of Stainless Steel Studios. 2001 Activision, Inc. Activision is a registered trademark of Activision, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. The ratings icon is a trademark of the Interactive Digital Software Association. This product is intended solely for private home use. Public performance or other use is expressly prohibited.