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BONGOSOFT

Speed Racer
User Manual
System requirements
On Windows 95, 98, Me, NT and 2000:

v1.1 (December 2002)

300MHz or faster processor (700 MHz+ recommended) 32 MB RAM (128 MB recommended) A screen resolution of at least 800600 pixels in 16-bit or higher colour mode (High Color or True Color)

On Windows XP:
If your computer meets the requirements for Windows XP, it will run Speed Racer. As with most Windows XP games, a 700MHz or faster processor and at least 256 MB RAM is recommended for better performance.

Installing the game

If you obtained Speed Racer on the AllFive 2000 CD-ROM
Insert the AllFive 2000 CD. If, after a few seconds, a box appears, click Install Speed Racer. Otherwise click Start, then Run and type the following in the box: D:\autorun.exe (replace D with your CD-ROM drive letter). Click OK. The box should now appear and you can click Install Speed Racer to continue. Click Next, select a location by typing or using Browse, click Next again, and then click Install to begin. Click Exit when the files have been copied.

If you downloaded Speed Racer from the Internet

Find the folder where you saved the downloaded file and double-click it. Click Next, select a location by typing or using Browse, click Next again, and then click Install to begin. Click Exit when the files have been copied.

Running the game

To run the game, click Start, point to Programs (All Programs on Windows XP), then Speed Racer, then click Speed Racer. Or, double-click the desktop icon created during the installation.

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The Main Menu

When the game loads, you are presented with the Main Menu, where you will find all the game options.

This button displays the About box, with version and copyright information. This button exits Speed Racer. There is no confirmation of this action. The options for the race appear down the left hand side. Number of Players: Select one, two or three human players. There is no computer opponent. Player Names: You can edit the name of each player here. These will be used for the record scores. Number of Laps: Select 1, 3, 6 or 9. Note that on 9-lap races* you will need to make at least one pit stop if you have fuel consumption enabled. Unlimited Laps: Set the time trial not to count laps. This lets you continue for as long as you like without ending the time trial. Enable fuel consumption and pit stops: (Option available when Bronze Award won) Pretty self-explanatory, really. Cruise Control: (Option available when Bronze Award won) If on, vehicles maintain their speed unless the brake is applied: they do not slow when the accelerator is released. On Space Race, Cruise Control is always on. Sound Effects and Music: Experiment and see!
* On Space Race you will need a pit stop after approximately three laps.

The Edit Player Controls button opens a window where you can set each players control method (keyboard or joystick) and customise which keyboard keys are to be used. See Edit Player Controls (page 3). The Reset Lap Records button allows you to reset lap records and driver names for a particular track or for all tracks. See Resetting Options and Settings (page 6). Select a track using the red arrows to the left and right of the track image. This will cycle through the 14 tracks available, displaying the record time and brief summary information for each track. To start the race, click RACE!

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Edit Player Controls

To open this window, click Edit Player Controls on the main menu screen, or from the Menu button on any race screen.

Control Methods
Select a control method for each player (Keyboard, Joystick 1 or Joystick 2) by selecting the appropriate radio button in the players column. Up to three players may use the keyboard, but since most keyboards do not reliably detect more than 3-4 simultaneous key-presses, it is recommended that only two people share this device. Note: if you have a joypad, this is treated like a joystick. If your joystick or joypad does not function correctly in Speed Racer, please ensure that it is correctly set up for use with Windows. To set up and calibrate your device, go to Game Controllers in the Control Panel.

Customising Keyboard Controls

There are five controls for each player: Accelerate, Brake, Steer Left, Steer Right and Horn. These can be customised for all those players whose control method is the keyboard (see above). To change any control for any player, click the appropriate button, and then press the new key to assign to that control. Most keys are acceptable, including Ctrl, Alt, Caps Lock, F1 to F12, Escape, etc. However there are a few which are not. These include Tab, Print Screen, and certain symbol keys.

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The Race Screens

All racing is top-down: this means your view is from above. In particular, you will need to get used to seeing the track from your vehicles point of view; when driving down the screen this is particularly important as the vehicles right will be your left! With two or three players, the objective is simply to reach the finish line first after completing the selected number of laps. With one player, the objective is to beat your best lap time, or just to have a bit of fun!

Fuel
After you win the Bronze Award (see page 5), the Fuel option will become available. Henceforth, if Enable fuel consumption and pit stops on the main menu screen is ticked, your vehicles will consume fuel. Remaining fuel is displayed in a bar for each player near the finish line of each track. You will not normally need to refuel if your race has 6 laps or fewer (Space Race is the exception to this; you will need to refuel after around 3 laps). To refuel, pull in to the pit lane and stop anywhere over the crossed box. If your vehicle runs out of fuel at any time, it will continue to move but at an extremely low speed. You should avoid this situation at all costs, as if your opponents have fuel left, they will have no trouble passing you at a crucial stage!

Race Timers and Lap Records

A box on each track displays the current lap time, last lap time and best lap time for that race for each player in their colour. When you cross the line, you may hear either or both of the following sounds: A bell sound indicates that the lap just completed was your best so far this race. A hooter sound indicates that you have just beaten the lap record for that track!

The Menu button At or near the top left corner of the screen on each track you will see a Menu button. Click this to bring up various options: Edit Player Controls As on the main menu, this lets you change the controls. Options The options on this submenu turn on or off Cruise Control, Sound Effects and Music, just as the equivalent options do on the Main Menu. Restart Race restarts the current race on the current track with settings unchanged. Return to Menu quits the current race and returns to the Main Menu. Use this to change tracks, driver names, etc. before the end of a race. Exit Speed Racer closes the game completely and returns you to the Windows desktop. All of the last three options will ask you to confirm before they are acted on.

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The End of a Race

A box will appear when the race is complete (unless you have selected Unlimited Laps). This shows the winner, the new lap record if one was set, and provides two options: This Race Again restarts the current race with all the same options. Return to Menu returns to the Main Menu so you can change track or options.

Lap Records and the Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards

Each track stores the lap record time the fastest time ever achieved in a single lap on that track. Youll notice that on the main menu screen, and within each track in the information box, there are Bronze, Silver and Gold target times. If you reach these levels you will be awarded a bronze, silver or gold star for that track, and if you get up to a certain level on all tracks, youll get the following Awards on the Main Menu:

Bronze Award
The Bronze level is easy to achieve with a little practise. It shows proficiency in controlling the cars, and you can do it as long as you make it round with only one or two crashes, and good general steering. The Bronze Award is simple: youll get the Cruise Control option, a fun yet unrealistic alteration to gameplay which you can control from the Main Menu.

Silver Award
Silver is a much more exciting status to reach. To get a silver award for a track, you have to put in a good lap time with no major mistakes. The Silver Award is worth having, because its a whole extra track but we wont tell you what it is or that would spoil the surprise!

Gold Award
The highest honour possible in Speed Racer. The Gold times on each track are deliberately set to test the most advanced Speed Racer drivers to the limit. Ive been playing this game for years in testing, and I dont always achieve the Gold times. But they can all be done if you keep your speed high enough and skillfully cut corners. Once you have the Gold award youve really mastered the track like a professional. And if you get the Gold in all tracks (including the Secret Track gained when you got the Silver Award of course), you can therefore congratulate yourself as a fully qualified professional Speed Racer driver! And receive a rather nice fanfare and trophy to boot!

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Resetting Options and Settings

It is possible to reset any or all of the following: The record lap time and driver name for a particular track The record lap times and driver names for all tracks All game options, settings and records

Resetting the record lap time and driver name for a particular track
To do this, from the Main Menu screen click Reset Lap Times . Select the track whose record lap time you wish to reset, and click Reset This Track and click OK to confirm.

Resetting the record lap times and driver names for all tracks
To do this, from the Main Menu screen click Reset Lap Times . Then click Reset All Lap Records, and click OK to confirm.

Resetting all game options, settings and records

This procedure will restore the game to the state it was in when you first started it. All menu options, player names, record lap times and player controls will be reset to their default values. To do this, find and delete the file spdracer.ini (depending on your Windows settings, the .ini ending may be hidden so that the file appears to be called simply spdracer) from your Speed Racer folder (default C:\Program Files\Speed Racer). The next time you start the game, it will detect that the file is missing and will replace it with a blank one, thus resetting all options.

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Troubleshooting
If you are having problems with Speed Racer, try reading the following section. Problem: The menu is not in the middle of the screen or parts of the game are not visible. Solution: Windows is not set to at least 800 by 600 pixels screen resolution. Exit the game and rightclick on an empty area of the Windows desktop. Click Properties and select the Settings tab. Check that the setting for Screen Area is at least 800 by 600 pixels. If it is lower than this, eg. 640 by 480 pixels, use the slider to increase it appropriately. If it is higher than 800 by 600 pixels, e.g. 1024 by 768 pixels, then you do not need to change it. Click OK and restart your computer if prompted to do so. If the slider on the right wont go further than 640 by 480 pixels, your monitor or graphics card is too old and you wont be able to play Speed Racer. This, however, is unlikely as almost all 14" and higher monitors and most graphics cards made after about 1996 are quite capable of this resolution. Problem: The graphics appear odd, grainy or discoloured. Solution: Windows is not set to at least 16-bit colour (high colour) mode. Exit the game and rightclick on an empty area of the Windows desktop. Click Properties and select the Settings tab. Check that, near the bottom, the "Colors" option is set to "High Color" or "True Color" and not 16 or 256 colours. If it is set to 16 or 256 colours, click the down-arrow and select "High Color" or "True Color" from the list. Click OK and restart your computer if prompted to do so. If neither "High Color" nor "True Color" is in the list, your monitor or graphics card may be too old and you wont be able to play Speed Racer. Problem: Text in the game is misaligned, overspills boxes or looks messy. Solution: The chances are that your computer doesnt have the fonts that the game uses, called Trebuchet MS and Tahoma. To rectify this situation, ensure you have Internet Explorer 5.0 or later installed.

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Problem: The music is too loud compared to the sound effects. Solution: Windows has separate volume controls for music and sound. To adjust these individually, double click the little yellow (black in Windows XP) speaker icon in the system tray next to the clock. Youll get a window with several sliders. The SW Synth one controls the music and the Wave one the sound. Drag the SW Synth down a bit if the music is too loud. System volume for other programs is not affected unless they also use MIDI music. If there is no speaker icon in your system tray, follow the following instructions: Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000: Click Start > Settings > Control Panel and select Multimedia. There should be an option in this box somewhere to adjust the volume, but since I use Windows XP and not 9x myself, I cant remember exactly where! Windows XP: Click Start > Control Panel, and select Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices. Click Adjust the system volume and then the top Advanced button to display the volume controls referred to above. Problem: My car suddenly slows down after a few laps to a ridiculously low speed. Solution: This happens when you run out of fuel. If Enable fuel consumption and pit stops on the main menu is ticked, youll need to refuel after around 6 laps by pulling in to the Pit Stops near the Start/Finish line on each track. See page 4. Problem: In multiplayer mode, some players frequently report that steering and/or acceleration isnt working properly. Solution: Most keyboards sadly are not capable of handling more than around 3-4 simultaneous keypresses. Thus if several players are using the keyboard, some keystrokes may from time to time be ignored by the computer. This is unavoidable and it is recommended that, particularly when playing with 3 players, at least one player uses a joystick or pad instead. Problem: The menu is unresponsive and slow, and the cars stutter when they move. Solution: Although Speed Racer will run on any Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP computer, it will not run as well on computers with slower processors or less memory (RAM). For optimal performance you need a 700 MHz or faster processor and at least 128 MB of RAM. To improve performance on computers without a fast DirectX-compatible graphic accelerator card, try disabling Speed Racers DirectX support: right click the Speed Racer desktop shortcut, click Properties, and after the last quote in the Target box put a space followed by /DIB. Click OK and try running the game again. If this makes no difference, try /DDB instead of /DIB.

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Problem: The game crashes. Solution: This could be a problem with the software. E-mail me if this happens, and tell me when it is crashing, and, if possible, the module in which the crash was caused (find this out by clicking "Details" on the crash box). It may also be due to a bad driver setup on your machine. If you are getting a blue-screen error, see below. Problem: I get a blue-screen error when attempting to run or uninstall the game, or when I attempt to move or delete Speed Racer files. Solution: Try these steps until one of them solves the problem: 1. First ensure you have the latest version of Speed Racer installed (check the website) 2. If you have a system check program such as Norton Utilities, try running its comprehensive check and let it fix all errors 3. Try using System Restore (Windows Me/XP) to return to a date when all was well 4. Start Windows in Safe Mode and delete all the game files; also search for the file cncs232.dll and delete all occurrences of it you find. If the above advice does not solve the problem, or even if it does, please e-mail me and let me know your operating system version and which of the above solutions (if any) worked for you. This will help me in determining the cause.

Talk to me!
If you have a different problem, please contact me on feedback@bongosoft.co.uk, and I will get back to you as quickly as I can. If you have ideas for features or bugs to report, please e-mail me. I can release minor modifications in the form of a patch for the game if necessary. More major features may have to wait till the next version of the game. Dont forget to visit the website at www.bongosoft.co.uk for the latest updates! Thank you for playing Speed Racer! I hope you enjoy the game.