Creatures 3 Technical and Troubleshooting FAQs

Q: Creatures 3 and Docking Station will not start in Win2K. A: Some users have noticed that Creatures 3 and Docking Station do not load on occasion. The game is launched but the splash screen simply quits out returning to the desktop. If you have Office XP installed on your machine as well then the issue might be due to CTFMON, a file that is run (and keeps on running) when Office XP applications are launched. Please read this article on the Microsoft (TM) Support website.

Q: I've got more than enough RAM, but Creatures 3 is still running slowly. What could be the problem?
Most people who have experienced this are running Creatures 3 on non-Pentium machines, such as AMD K6 and K6-2. We have found that AMD processors do not perform floating point process as efficiently as Pentium chips do. Creatures 3 Norn brains make extensive use of floating point calculations and this is the reason that the game runs slowly on non-Pentium machines. That said, we believe that the new AMD Athlon processors should be fine.

Q: Is Creatures 3 compatible with Windows 2000?
Yes, Creatures 3 has been tested under Windows 2000 and it can be run, however, you must install the Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 before installing Creatures 3.

Q: Is Creatures 3 compatible with Windows NT?
No, unfortunately, Windows NT does not support DirectX7. DirectX7 is required to run the game and therefore Creatures 3 will not run or install under Windows NT.

Q: I've heard there is a Creatures 3 Update 2. Do I need to install Update 1 first?
No, you don't. The Creatures 3 update on the Gameware site contains all updates and fixes which were present in the Creatures 3 Update 1 plus extra updates and fixes since then. Remember that you need to create a new game world once you have installed the Creatures 3 Update 2 to gain the full functionality of all the fixes.

Q: How can I switch into windowed mode.
Hold down Shift+Alt and then tap the Return button.

Q: How do I remove agents from the game?
First, you must have the Creatures 3 update installed and then have started a new game. When you go to the Creator machine, you will now see an X button. You use this button to remove selected agents from the game.

Q: I've installed the upate but I still can't inject agents
You need to make sure that you create a new world after installing the update. The update only affects worlds created after its installation.

Q: The user menu on the right hand side of the screen seems to wrap around onto the left hand side of the screen, I can't get rid of it.
This is a problem which is (so far) only related to S3/Diamond video cards. We have been in touch with S3/Diamond about this and they have confirmed that there is likely to be either a hardware error in the card itself or problems with the software drivers. The issue has been passed on to the Tech Support people at S3/Diamond, they should hopefully be looking into the issue soon. One way around this issue is to use the Shift +Alt + Enter combination to switch into windowed mode and use the cursor control keys to move around the game world.You can get in touch with S3/Diamond directly through E-mail at this address: [email protected] or you can fill in the S3/Diamond Online Form which asks for more specific details regarding your query.