Installing 3dlife - answers to common questions =============================================== ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Thanks for 3Dlife.zip which I obtained successfully by ftp. Am having some problems running it. Demo works OK, but I can only use mode 0. But if I type 3D or 3DLIFE I just get the help screen and am back at the C: prompt. Any ideas? A: With no more information, that is what will happen. You must specify some cells for the program to work on by one of 2 methods: 1 - Use the "/r" option to start a random grouping of cells 2 - Specify a file containing a starting configuration of cells with "/f" Note that you can only use mode 0 on a vanilla VGA display. If your card is a "SuperVga" that supports 640x480x256colours or 800x600x256colours or more then you may be able to use higher resolution modes. First look in the archive 3DDRVS.ZIP to find the driver with the same name as your card, and then edit the 3D.BAT file and change the appropriate line (as described by the commented lines in 3D.BAT) to refer to this new driver instead of the standard VGA.GRD driver. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: I got your 3DLIFE program from ftp, but I'm getting an odd error message. Running on a 486/VGA, I get a message that says "CPU must be in REAL mode (not V86 mode) to run this program." Do you know what this means? I'm sorry to bother you, after you were nice enough to upload the program, but I am rather eager to see it work. A: Jim, the problem is that you are not running in vanilla 8086 mode. I would guess that you have emm386.exe loaded with the "noems" switch. Remove the "noems" switch and all will be well. Also, the program will not load from MS windows or Desqview (sad but true!) since it expects to have unimpeded access to the bare 32 bit machine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- For further information contact ... Anthony Awesley awesley@canb.auug.org.au