Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends

May 2006
2006 Big Huge Games, Inc. Portions 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Welcome to Microsoft Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. This file contains information to help you install, play, and troubleshoot Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. It also includes late-breaking information not included in the in-game Help.

CONTENTS
A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H I. J. Installing Playing Getting Help Known Issues DirectX Troubleshooting Video-Board Troubleshooting Video-Board Manufacturers Audio Troubleshooting Multiplayer Troubleshooting Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends Support Services

A. Installing
System Requirements
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends requires a personal computer running at least Microsoft Windows XP. It also is required that your computer have a processor speed of 1.4 gigahertz (GHz) or higher, at least 256 megabytes (MB) of RAM, and a 64 MB video card with hardware transform and lighting. For the best gameplay experience, a 2 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, and a 128 MB video card is recommended. To install Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends To install Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, insert CD 1 into your CD-ROM. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the Setup process. If installation does not start automatically, complete the following steps: 1. From the Start menu, click Run. 2. Type D:\setup.exe (where D: is your CD-ROM drive). 3. Click OK. 4. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete Setup. Select Play Now, and click Finish to launch Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends.

B. Playing
You can play Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends after you have installed it on your computer. You must have the Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends CD in your CD-ROM drive to play. To start Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends 1. With the Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends CD in your CD-ROM drive, click the Start button. 2. Point to Programs (or All Programs). 3. Point to Microsoft Games. 4. Click Rise of Legends. Note: You can skip the opening animations by clicking on-screen or pressing ESC.

C. Getting Help
You can find out more information about Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends by using the in-game Help.

To display in-game rollover Help Hold your mouse pointer over any button or interface item in the game. Help text automatically appears on the screen. To display the list of keyboard hot keys 1. While playing a game, click the Menu button or press F10. 2. Click Options. 3. Select the Hotkeys tab to display a complete list of the hot keys used in Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. Note: Most hot keys also are listed in the in-game rollover Help.

D. Known Issues
Anti-virus software: Having anti-virus software enabled while playing Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends can increase game load times and degrade performance significantly. Cant install game when Windows boot drive is low on space: By default, Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends Setup uses space on the boot drive to decompress files. Setup will not finish if there is not enough space to do so. To resolve this issue, free up space on your Windows boot drive (at most, 650 MB) or change the location of your system TEMP directory (only applicable if you have another hard disk). To free up disk space 1. Select Start. 2. Select All Programs. 3. Select Accessories. 4. Select System Tools. 5. Click Disk Cleanup to run it. Note: If you need to clear even more disk space, erase any unneeded personal files or uninstall any unneeded programs. To change the location of your system TEMP directory (only if you have another hard drive) 1. Select Start. 2. Right-click My Computer, and select Properties. 3. Select the Advanced tab. 4. Click the Environment Variables button. 5. Under User Variables, select TEMP, click Edit, and change the Variable value to a different hard drive. 6. Repeat step 5 for the User Variable TMP. Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends does not launch on Windows Server 2003: Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends currently does not support Windows Server 2003. Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends runs too slowly: The performance Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends can be increased by lowering the games graphic settings. To change the settings 1. From the Main Menu, select Options & Extras. 2. Select User Options. 3. Click the Performance tab. 4. Drag the performance slider bar down to lower performance settings. Cannot install on a machine running Windows XP Service Pack 2: Uninstalling Service Pack 2, running

Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends Setup, and then reinstalling Service Pack 2 and any critical updates should resolve this issue. TAB and Spacebar hotkeys cannot be set from in-game menu: To change a hotkey to Spacebar or TAB 1. Select Options & Extras from the Main Menu. 2. Select User Options. 3. Click the Hotkeys tab. 4. Set hotkeys. USB mouse disabled after installation: To resolve this issue, reboot the machine. Hitting ALT+F4 at the profile Name-Input screen brings up a black screen instead of quitting: To quit 1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL. 2. Open Task Manager. 3. Select Rise of Legends. 4. Click End Process. Units are firing laser beams while trapped in glass prisons: Although these units are firing laser beams, they are not doing any damage while in the glass prisons. There is currently no solution. Can not join a GameSpy match when using a Linksys 54A-G or a Belkin FD5230-4 router: There is currently no solution regarding the use of these routers. Game might be minimized and performance might go down if someone nudges you on MSN Messenger: To resolve this issue, restart Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. Product Key can not been seen in initial game launch: To resolve this issue, restart Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. In GameSpy, setting your birthday in your profile to Feb 29, 1900 causes a runtime error: There is currently no solution to this issue. Hardware color-cursor support and game resolution: When running Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends on systems without hardware color-cursor support, the bit-depth cannot be changed from the Graphics Options panel within the game. To change the bit depth between 16- or 32-bit 1. Exit the game. 2. Select Start. 3. Point to Settings. 4. Point to Control Panel. 5. Double-click the Display icon. 6. Click the Settings tab. 7. Select either 16- or 32-bit color quality. Limited users overwrite profile files: Playing as a Windows-limited user (someone who does not have permission to write files to the hard drive) does not prevent that user from saving to other users profile folders and overwriting their files. A game-speed change from the User Options Panel under the Main Menu will not take affect: To

resolve this issue, open the User Options Panel from in-game, and click OK. Audio sounds distorted after waking the computer up from Stand By: If Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends was running when a computer was forced into Stand By mode, the audio might sound distorted after the computer wakes up. To resolve this issue, restart the game. Can not force a computer to hibernate when Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends is running: To resolve this problem, close Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends before attempting to force the computer to hibernate. When All Users installation was selected, Desktop and Start Menu Shortcuts to Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends might only appear in the account that installed the game: To resolve this issue 1. Navigate to the games installation directory. 2. Right-click legends.exe and select Create Shortcut. 3. Copy this shortcut to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Games\Rise of Legends and C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop (where C: is the hard disk where Windows is installed).

E. DirectX Troubleshooting
Microsoft DirectX version 9.0 or later must be installed on your computer before you can play Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. If you experience any problems installing DirectX, go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/ and follow the DirectX links to install the latest version. If you experience any problems using DirectX, go to http://support.microsoft.com/support/directx/ for the latest troubleshooting information. You also should check with your video or sound card manufacturer for the latest DirectX-compatible drivers.

F. Video-Board Troubleshooting
Check with your video board manufacturer for the latest DirectX-compatible drivers. See Video-Board Manufacturers later in this Readme for more information on video-board manufacturers. AGP texture acceleration-warning pops up on a machine with a PCI video card: This warning might pop up on machines with some low-spec PCI video cards. There is currently no solution. Computers with a Sapphire ATI Radeon X1300 PCI-Express 512MB video board might display purple lines across game buttons: There is currently no solution. Specific 3-D Graphics Accelerator Issues It is usually a good practice (unless otherwise noted below) to install the latest certified drivers for all your hardware.

G. Video-Board Manufacturers
3DFX ASUS Creative Diamond Multimedia Guillemot Hercules Leadtek Matrox NVIDIA ATI (Radeon video boards) http://www.3dfx.com http://www.asus.com http://www.creative.com http://www.sonicblue.com http://www.guillemot.com http://www.hercules.com http://www.leadtek.com http://www.matrox.com http://www.nvidia.com http://www.ati.com

H. Audio Troubleshooting
It is usually a good idea to check with your sound-board manufacturer for the latest DirectX-compatible drivers. The following are the known audio issues and workarounds: Creative Sounds Cards: Audio might reverberate when CMSS2 is turned on. To resolve this issue, select OFF or CMSS under the CMSS 3D tab under the card properties. Aureal Vortex 8830 stops working when using the drivers on Windows Update and after rollback: There is currently no solution. DirectX: If you experience audio problems using DirectX, go to the DirectX website for the latest troubleshooting information. For more information, see DirectX Troubleshooting earlier in this Readme.

I. Multiplayer Troubleshooting
Recommended memory for Multiplayer games of five or more players: For Multiplayer games with five or more players, it is recommended that each player has more than 512 MB of RAM installed on their computer to prevent latency problems. Difficulty connecting to GameSpy or joining game lobbies when a user has a VOIP modem or VOIP Gizmo on his or her network: Disconnecting the VOIP unit should resolve this issue. Systems with more than one IP address currently are unable to host multiplayer games: To host a game, one IP address must be removed, so the system has only one valid IP address. Firewall connection error message pops up on a machine with no Internet connectivity when going to the Local Network game menu: To resolve this issue, either connect the machine to the Internet or click OK until the error message completely goes away. XP ICS Server Clients: Clients of XP ICS Server cannot join internally-hosted game without upgrading ICS Server to Service Pack 1 (SP-1). On GameSpy, it is difficult for machines on a NAT (Network Address Translation) or router to take the last few slots in game where all of the other users are on a NAT/router: There is currently no solution. Users might be unable to join games after a user with Surfboard SB4100 Cable Modem joined the game: There is currently no solution. Enabling Multiplayer gameplay through Windows XP Service Pack 2: The new Windows Firewall in Windows XP Service Pack 2 must have specific settings selected to allow connections to the Internet for Multiplayer games. To select the correct Windows Firewall settings 1. After installing the Service Pack (SP2), launch the game. 2. Enter the Multiplayer Game menu. 3. Click either Online or the Local Area Network button to attempt to connect to a game over your Internet connection or private network. (The Windows Firewall application will present a notification that a program has attempted to access the network.) 4. Click the Unblock button. 5. Click OK to allow the game to connect to other Multiplayer games.

J. Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends Support Services

You can find more information about Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends on the Rise of Legends website (http://www.riseoflegends.com). You can find information on Microsoft Product Support Services in the manual that came with your game. Note: If Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends came installed on your computer as an OEM version, contact the manufacturer of the computer or other hardware with which it was bundled for product support. Refer to the documentation that came with your computer or hardware for the product-support telephone number.