Troubleshooting
So you’ve bought your game, brought it home, installed it and something isn’t working right? Didn’t those losers test this game? Why can’t those greedy game developers insist on shipping games that aren’t done? Just because game developers are chick magnets doesn’t give them the right to ship this kind of junk! Right?
In reality, there are really three types of problems that 99% of users run into. There are video card issues, networking issues and genuine bugs that weren’t found by testing.
Video Card Related Issues
If the game is running too slow for you, there are 3 ways to cure it:
Get the latest version of your video drivers!
First, you can make sure you have the latest video card drivers. Before you assume you do, check again. During our beta testing with real world players, we lost a lot of time due to technical users assuming they had the latest version of their drivers just because their drivers are only a month old. Often times, a new game comes out and a bug in a driver is found and fixed.
Turn down the video settings
Turning the Fidelity down to low, lowering the shadow fidelity, and turning off anti-aliasing are keys to getting better performance.
Can you get a better video card?
Demigod doesn’t require high end video cards to run. But it does require a video card that supports Pixel Shader 3 which is a techie term for non-ancient video cards or super low end video cards. Pretty much any $40 video card will do the trick.
Learning about your computer
If you click on the Start button and hit Run and type dxdiag it will bring up a program that will tell you a lot about your computer. If none of this worked, check your sound drivers too and see if you can update them.
Still stumped?
You paid hard earned money for this game. You don’t care how glamorous the life of a game developer is. You want your game to work NOW!
First, make sure you have the latest version of the game. New versions of games often remove lines of code like this:
pCrashOnBillJohnsonOfVirgina->(TRUE);
Sometimes, games ship with lots of these. But if we haven’t found your particular line of code in the game then contact support.
If support can’t help you solve your technical issue, you can return the game directly to Stardock for a full refund. We don’t care where you bought it. It could be Germany, Russia, or Boyne City Michigan (just kidding, nobody actually lives in northern Michigan). Just include your receipt with a print out of the return authorization code that support gave you and we’ll refund that amount.
Connectivity
Separate from technical issues there is network connectivity. That is, the ability actually get multiplayer games going.
Because Demigod relies heavily on low latency, it is a peer-to-peer game. That means, all players have to be able to connect to one another. This is different from a client/server game (like Sins of a Solar Empire or Team Fortress 2) where you are fine as long as you connect to the host/server.
Demigod introduces a new technology called Impulse Reactor. Amongst its many capabilities is the ability to seamlessly connect multiple users without those users having to open up ports manually on their router.
Unfortunately, there are many types of routers and many types of firewalls out there some of which are difficult to go through.
Here are things you can do to increase the speed and reliability of Demigod connectivity:
1. Open up ports 6100 to 6200 on your router if you can.
2. Disable (temporarily) any anti-virus programs you’re running. Some of these are designed to block what Demigod is trying to do.
3. Disable (temporarily) any firewalls on your computer or router.
4. Demigod uses UDP based networking (as opposed to TCP). Make sure UDP traffic isn’t getting blocked.
If that doesn’t help, visit us on the Forums where we have applets and people who might be able to help.
Contacting Stardock
· By email: support@stardock.com
· Forums: http://forums.demigodthegame.com/
· Mailing address:
Stardock
15090 Beck Rd.
Plymouth MI 48170
