Death Gate CD-ROM                                  Legend Entertainment Company
Version 1.0.0                                                    (703) 222-8515


SMARTDRV.EXE
------------

The version of SMARTDrive included with DOS 6.0 (and higher) supports the 
CD-ROM in addition to your hard drive.  You should disable SMARTDrive for 
your CD-ROM before playing the game.  If you don't, you may hear a stutter 
effect during voice playback.  We recommend that you disable the CD-ROM 
caching by adding /u to the SMARTDRV command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT.  However, 
you can also disable SMARTDrive entirely by adding a REM at the start of the 
line which contains the SMARTDRV command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, or you can 
temporarily disable SMARTDrive by typing SMARTDRV D- before you start the 
game (replace the "D" with the letter for your CD-ROM drive letter).  


Other Disk Cache Software Users
-------------------------------

If you experience a stuttering effect in the voice playback, we recommend 
that you disable disk caching for your CD-ROM drive.


Low Memory Problems
-------------------

Check the Troubleshooting section of the manual for help.  One of the
biggest problems we ran into during testing was SMARTDRV disk caching 
software.  If you've only got 4MB RAM and you let your disk caching software 
grab part of that, then you're probably going to be low on memory.  Try
disabling your disk cache software, or at least reduce the buffer size.


Test Programs
-------------

To assist our customer support personnel, we have included several test 
programs on the CD.  PMEM attempts to allocate all available memory, then 
reports its results.  VTEST will test your video card's Super VGA capability 
and report its results.  QPLAYER tests your system's overall capabilities 
and performance.


Ultrasound MAX Owners
---------------------

Please use the UMID.BAT file to start the game following installation.  This 
batch file loads the TSR that initializes the General MIDI instruments on 
your Ultrasound board prior to starting the game.


Sound Blaster Clone Problems
----------------------------

Packard Bell Forte 16SBP

According to Page 1.14 of the Packard Bell forte 16SBP Sound Card User's 
Guide, the Sound Blaster compatibility module works only in 8 bit.  You 
should select the Sound Blaster menu options for both music and sound.

"Chirping" During Voice and Sound Effect Playback 

During testing, after a few hours of play, the Cardinal DSP16 and a limited 
number of other Sound Blaster compatible cards exhibited a tendency to 
"chirp" while the voices were played.  We found that the problem could be 
temporarily eliminated by saving the game, quiting, and restarting using 
the saved game.


VESA Compatibility for Super VGA Users
--------------------------------------

If you want to run the game with Super VGA graphcis and your graphics card
is not VESA compatible at the hardware level, then you will need to load
a VESA driver before running the INSTALL program and the game.  If you
do not have a VESA driver for your card or you find that the driver that
has been supplied doesn't work, then you have a few options: 

  (1) Call your manufacturer or dial up their BBS or Compuserve 
      support forum and download a copy of their latest VESA driver.
      Most all graphics card manufacturers will supply a VESA
      driver on a disk with their graphics card if the card is not
      VESA compatible at the hardware level.  Those that don't will
      most likely have one available if you call. 

  (2) Use the SciTech UNIVBE version 5.0 universal VESA driver 
      supplied on this CD-ROM.  To get up and running with UNIVBE,
      change directories to the UNIVBE50 directory on the CD-ROM and
      type INSTALL.  Please note that this is a shareware product
      produced by another company and will need to be registered
      if you decide to use it beyond the trial period specified
      during the installation of the driver software.  Follow the
      instructions on the screen during the UNIVBE installation
      to register your copy.  Please note that the UNIVBE driver 
      is NOT specifically required to play Death Gate, and is 
      provided for the convenience of users who do not have 
      VESA compatible graphics boards or a working VESA driver.




