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Troubleshooting / frequently-asked questions about Geiss
for Winamp
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NOTICE: If you don't have Winamp or have never heard of
Winamp, then this program is useless to you - delete it!

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE WEB AT
http://www.geisswerks.com/inst_plug.html

THE MOST RECENT TROUBLESHOOTING/FAQ INFORMATION IS AT
http://www.geisswerks.com/faq_plug.html

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Before e-mailing me, please MAKE SURE you've done the following:
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   -read this entire FAQ.  It is short.
   -downloaded & installed DirectX 3.0 or later.  About 50% of
       problems are solved by this!
   -downloaded the latest version of Geiss for Winamp
   -downloaded the latest version of Winamp

   If the bug persists, then please e-mail me, and mention
   that you have tried these 4 things.  Make sure you 
   include your Winamp and Geiss version numbers.  My 
   e-mail address is in the 'about' box of the config 
   panel.

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Requirements:  Windows 95 or 98
               DirectX 3.0 or later
               Pentium-200 or faster
               Latest version of Winamp
               Sound card

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Problem:   Winamp stops at the end of each song.
Problem:   My Z/X/C/V/B keys don't work.

Solution:  You need to lower Winamp's priority.  Hit CTRL-P to 
   go to preferences, select the "Audio I/O" tab, then set the
   slider marked "Process Priority Class" to the "NORMAL" 
   setting.  Click OK.  The problem should be fixed.  This bug
   tends to pop up for new Winamp users - older versions of
   Winamp had the priority set to normal, and when you upgraded
   that setting was kept.  Newer versions of Winamp have it set
   to "Highest" by default.


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Problem:   After I run the plugin, Winamp disappears... it's 
   only visible as a tiny icon in the system tray, and I can't 
   bring it back up.

Solution:  The Winamp window is hidden.  To bring it back,
   right-click its system tray icon, and select "Main Window".
   Then **do it a second time**, and Winamp will pop up.  To
   prevent this from happening in the future, hit CTRL+P to go 
   to Winamp's preferences, select the "Options" tab, and in 
   the bottom left corner, under "Show Winamp In:", select 
   "Taskbar Only (like normal programs)."  This should prevent 
   the problem from occurring in the future.


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Problem:   After I run the plugin, my mouse is misaligned... I 
           can't properly click on things.

Solution:  In Winamp's preferences, uncheck the "Use Winamp
   Cursors" option.  (This bug should be fixed in Geiss 3.50
   and later when using Geiss's "Minimize Winamp before 
   running" option.)


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Problem:   When I run the plugin, it says something about 'DirectDraw
           couldn't set EXCLUSIVE or FULLSCREEN mode'.

Solution:  Make sure you're not using the DIRECTSOUND output plugin
           underneath Winamp... you have to use the WAVEOUT output
           plugin.  This very often does the trick.  If it doesn't,
           either DirectDraw is not installed properly (try seeing if
           other programs can run it fullscreen) or your video card
           might have problems.


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Problem:   When I go to run the plugin, the config panel pops
           up, and the plugin won't run.

Solution:  Download the latest version of the plugin.  This
   was fixed in version 3.22.   If that doesn't work, and you're
   sure it's version 3.22 you're working with,  please be sure
   to e-mail me.  


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Problem:   When running the plugin, the screen flickers
           occasionally or a lot... it looks like the main
           Winamp window is still trying to draw itself onto
           the screen.

Solution:  Make sure you have Geiss 3.50 or later.  Then make 
   sure the "Minimize Winamp before running" checkbox is 
   checked (from the Geiss config panel).  If you still have 
   problems please let me know.
     

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Problem:   There are often artifacts (stray pixels) at the 
           screen edges and they won't go away.

Solution:  During the plugin, press 'r' to refresh the screen.  
   This will clear the edges.  If they persist, see the above 
   problem.


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Problem:   I select a new video mode, but it just goes back
           to the default every time.

Solution:   None - your video card doesn't support that mode;
   you must pick another.  Older video cards can't properly
   enumerate what video modes they support, so they just list
   them all.  If you have one of these video cards, you might
   have to dig around to find a video mode that really works.
      

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Problem:   Geiss gives me an error message that says "Ordinal
           Not Found - The ordinal 6 could not be located in
           the dynamic link library DSOUND.dll."

Solution:  You need to download and reinstall DirectX 3.0 or
   later.  You can download DirectX 6.0 from Microsoft on the
   web at http://www.microsoft.com/directx/download.asp .


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Problem:   When I try to run Geiss it gives me an error box that
           says, "Geiss executed an illegal instruction at..."

Solution:  You probably have version 3.60 of Geiss and a Cyrix
   5x86 processor.  This was fixed in Geiss 3.61.


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Question:  Are you going to make a 3dfx version, or support AMD's
           3dNOW! instructions?  It would be a lot faster.

Answer:    No - 3dfx is not applicable to this program.  Geiss
   is neither polygon-based or sprite-based, and therefore the
   hardware acceleration of 3dfx or other 2d/3d systems would
   offer it no benefits.  In addition, it is mostly integer
   math, and 3dNOW! is only good for floating point math (which
   is much, much slower to start with, so I won't be switching
   to it!).


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Question:  Why does it run so darn slow?

Answer #1: Have you tried 8-bit color?  This is the target
   color depth for the program.  Higher bit depths (16,24,32)
   are there for posterity and the age of 1-gigahertz machines.
   They require 3 times as much processing: one for each red,
   green and blue buffer, as opposed to one monochrome
   (paletted) buffer in 8-bit modes; and then the blit (image
   copy) to the video card has to send about four times the
   volume of data every frame.  As you can see, 8-bit color
   is going to be a lot smoother.

Answer #2: Have you tried a lower resolution, like 640x480,
   or tried setting your "vertical screen size" to about 50%?
   The image is smooth enough that once you're at 640x480,
   you can't see much of a difference between it and higher
   resolutions.  Also, the 50% vertical screen size saves a
   lot of CPU time and makes a cool letterbox effect.

Answer #3: Are you running an AMD or Cyrix (as opposed to
   Intel)?  That could be it.  I've been able to tweak the
   main loop to very high frame rates on the Intel, but no
   matter what I try for the AMD, I can't get the same
   performance out of it.  The AMD and Cyrix are good
   processors, but for this specific muscle of the processor,
   they don't hold up as well.  Other related hardware
   could be RAM... slow RAM will hurt you, or a slow or
   small L2 cache will hurt very bad.  Also, a cheap
   motherboard with a slow bus could drop performance too.
   Your video card shouldn't make a huge difference, though,
   as long as it has EDO or faster RAM, and is PCI or AGP
   (AGP is not taken advantage of yet... anybody want to buy
   me an AGP motherboard & video card so I can do it? :).
   Also, a 3d-accelerated video card will make NO difference..
   What you see in Geiss right now is not hardware accelerated
   (nor can it be).

Answer #4: Don't forget to minimize other windows first...
   this can make a huge difference, especially under '98.


