EMPIRES: DAWN OF THE MODERN WORLD™ README

This Readme file contains last minute information regarding EMPIRES: Dawn of the
Modern World™.

Minimum System Requirements

• Pentium® III or Athlon® 600 MHz processor or higher

• Windows® 98/2000/ME/XP operating system
• 128 MB of RAM (256 MB of RAM required for multiplayer games of 3 or more)
• 900MB of uncompressed hard drive space plus 200 MB for the Windows® swap
file
• A 100% Windows® 98/2000/ME/XP-compatible computer system including:
• DirectX® 9.0b
• 100% DirectX® 9.0b-compliant true 32 bit sound card and drivers
• 100% DirectX® 9.0b-compliant 32 MB video card and drivers*
• 100% Windows® 98/2000/ME/XP -compatible mouse and drivers
• 100% Windows® 98/2000/ME/XP -compatible keyboard
• 100% Windows® 98/2000/ME/XP -compatible quad speed (600 K/sec sustained
transfer rate) CD-ROM drive and drivers

Recommended System Specifications

• Pentium® III or Athlon® 1.0 GHz processor or higher

• 256 MB of RAM
• 100% DirectX® 9.0b-compliant 64 MB video card and drivers*

REQUIRED FOR MULTIPLAYER MODE

Internet (via GameSpy®) and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported. A valid Gamespy®
account is required for online multiplay.

Internet play requires a 100% Windows® 98/2000/ME/XP -compatible 56 Kbps (or

faster) modem and drivers.

LAN play (and high-speed Internet play over DSL and cable modems) requires a 100%
Windows® 98/2000/ME/XP -compatible network interface card and drivers.

*3D Accelerator Card Required

A 100% DirectX® 9.0b or higher compliant 32MB or higher 3D video card and driver is
required to play EMPIRES: Dawn of the Modern World™. Some 3D accelerator card
brands may not be compatible with the 3D acceleration features utilized by EMPIRES:
Dawn of the Modern World™. Please check with the card’s manufacturer to ensure
DirectX® 9.0b compatibility.

Important Note: This product uses DirectX® 9.0b technology, which requires your
system to have the latest Windows® 98/2000/ME/XP drivers (for CD-ROM, video card,
sound card and input devices) that fully support DirectX® 9.0b.

SUPPORTED CHIPSETS FOR Windows® 98/2000/ME/XP **

All NVidia® GeForce™ cards

Nvidia® TNT2™ Ultra
All ATI® Radeon™ cards
Matrox® Parhelia™
Matrox® G400™/G450™/G550™
SIS® Xabre 400™

**Some but not all of the cards with the chipsets listed above have been tested on
Windows® 2000, ME, and XP. For Windows® 2000, ME, and XP 3-D support, please
refer to your hardware manufacturer for 100% DirectX® 9.0b compliant drivers.

IMPORTANT - Please do NOT use the backslash "\" character in your Gamespy®
Nickname! It is an illegal character and may cause your game to crash.

SCREENSAVERS AND POWER SAVERS

Screen savers and power savers can cause problems while playing Empires: Dawn of the
Modern World™ if they are activated while you are in the game. Activision™
recommends disabling all screensavers and power savers before starting.

MONITORS

Please make sure your monitor supports the game resolution you are trying to play in. To
check what resolutions your monitor supports, do the following:
1. Open up My Computer
2. Double-click on Control Panel
3. Find the Display icon and open it.
4. Choose the Settings tab.
5. Locate the resolution pointer in the Desktop Area box and drag it to the far right.

The resolution choice shown is the maximum resolution your monitor is capable of
displaying. If you do not want to change to this resolution now, select cancel. Your
Desktop Area should be set to the same resolution you are trying to play in or higher.

NOTE: Please make sure your monitor type is properly specified to insure correct
reporting of available video resolutions.

DUAL MONITORS

Activision® does not support playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World™ with dual
monitors.

TASK SWITCHING WHILE PLAYING EMPIRES: DAWN OF THE MODERN

WORLD™

If you task switch while playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World™, it could cause
serious issues with the game. Using ALT-TAB or CTRL-ESC while playing Empires:
Dawn of the Modern World™ is not recommended.

FIREWALL PORTS

If you are behind a firewall, you must open the following ports in order to play Empires:
Dawn of the Modern World™ multiplayer:

6500 TCP
13139 UDP
27900 UDP
28900 TCP
29900 TCP
29901 TCP
33321 UDP
33335 TCP

NOTE: Activision™ in no way supports using firewalls while playing Empires: Dawn
of the Modern World™. Activision™ recommends disabling all firewall hardware and
software before playing the game on-line.

CHANGING GRAPHICS SETTINGS IN GAME

If you change some of the graphics settings in game, it may require a restart of Empires:
Dawn of the Modern World™ for these changes to take effect.

CHANGING RESOLUTIONS AND SHADOWS

If some shadow options are disabled in the game settings menu, changing to a 32-bit
resolution may resolve this issue. NOTE: Shadow Options and 32-Bit color are only
intended for high performance machines.
USING GEFORCE™ CARDS TO PLAY EMPIRES: DAWN OF THE MODERN
WORLD™

If you are experiencing poor performance or crashing while playing Empires: Dawn of
the Modern World™ with a GeForce™ card, uncheck the Texture Sharpening check box
and turn down the Anisotropic filtering down on your card. If you are unsure how to do
this, please refer to your video card’s manual or nVidia’s® website:

http://www.nvidia.com/

If you are playing on Windows® 98 with a GeForce3™ Ti500™ with the latest drivers
(version 45.23), you may experience issues starting the game. If you are experiencing
these issues, try using the previous version of these drivers (version 44.03).

RUNNING EMPIRES: DAWN OF THE MODERN WORLD™ IN SAFE MODE

If your game’s resolution is set to a resolution that your video card cannot handle, exit
out of the game and run the “Safe Mode” shortcut. This will change the resolution of the
game so that the next time Empires: Dawn of the Modern World™ is run, it will run in
800 x 600 resolution.

HARDWARE ISSUES

• Matrox® Millennium G400™ - It is not recommended you play at 32-bit

textures settings with this card. For best performance, set the textures to 16-bit.
• 3D Blaster Annihilator™ - You might experience some cursor flickering when
playing at 32-bit. To rectify this please change your Screen Settings to 16-bit.
• GeForce2™ and GeForce™ DDR - When playing Empires: Dawn of the
Modern World™ with these cards, you may not be able to see shadows on units
regardless of whether shadows are enabled in the setup menu.
• Kyro® I, Kyro® II – Kyro® users may see some graphical anomalies with the
text in the game. If you are experiencing graphical problems with the text, please
make sure you are using the latest drivers for your video card.
• Netgear® FVS318 router - Games that are hosted behind this router sometimes
will not be displayed in the Internet server list.
• Nforce™ sound cards - Users of this sound card may experience sound
anomalies while playing Empires: Dawn of the Modern World™.

PROBLEMS STARTING THE GAME

If you are experiencing problems starting Empires: Dawn of the Modern World™, please
try the following things:
 • Make sure the drivers for your video card are the latest version. To find the latest
drivers, visit your card manufacturer or chipset manufacturer’s website.
• Make sure your video card is a supported chipset and has at least 32MB of RAM.
• Make sure the 3D hardware acceleration is turned all the way up. You can check
this by running dxdiag.exe, clicking on the Display tab, and making sure all of
your DirectX® features on this page are marked “enabled.”
• Make sure you have the latest version of DirectX®. This can be downloaded at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.aspx?
url=/windows/directx/downloads/default.htm

PERFORMANCE ISSUES

• Attempting to take a screenshot with low (or no) hard drive space may result in
unstable game performance. In order to avoid this, make sure the hard drive has
enough free space available before trying to take a screenshot.
• Make sure you have at least 20 MB of additional hard drive space (along with the
900 MB needed to install Empires: Dawn of the Modern World™) for saving
games.
• When adjusting the sound slider in the Audio Settings menu, moving the slider to
“Min” turns off the music, and moving the slider to “Max” turns the music on.
• If you adjust the “Max Number of Sounds” slider before entering the game, you
may notice the background music turn off. If you load a mission, the music will
resume playing as normal.
• Changing to a 16-bit resolution may prevent users from changing the “Shadow
Quality” option in the Graphics Settings menu.
• Changing resolutions in game may result in reduction in game speed.

GAMEPLAY ADDITIONS

• Pressing the “/” key changes the camera view to follow the currently selected unit.
When this camera mode is active, the camera cannot be rotated and it may seem
that the camera is locked in this position. To resume normal camera movement,
simply scroll the mouse cursor towards the edge of the screen to exit this camera
mode and resume normal camera movement and rotation.
• Units affected by plague cannot enter or be garrisoned into houses or towers.
Units affected by the plague are unable to board boats as well.
• If a fortress is deleted with units garrisoned inside, the units will be lost with the
fortress.
• Airports cannot be built on the edges of a map. In order to build an airport, make
sure there is sufficient room and it is not located near a map edge.
• Players in the game setup screen can still receive messages from players still
 waiting in the game channel. To respond to a message from outside the game
setup screen, you must type /r before your response. This chat functionality only
works if both people are on each other’s “Buddy List”.
• On the game statistics screen, the tribute sent and tribute received categories are
only for resources that are given. Unit tributes are counted under the unit
categories.
• When hunting animals for food, be sure to use your citizens to hunt. Animals
killed by military units are worth less food.
• Starting number of citizens and resources per civilization - Each civilization starts
with a different number of resources at the beginning of the game.
o China - 0 citizens, 300 food, 0 wood, 0 gold, 510 stone
o Korea - 7 citizens, 200 food, 200 wood, 0 gold, 480 stone
o Franks - 5 citizens, 200 food, 200 wood, 0 gold, 360 stone
o England - 1 citizen, 300 food, 500 wood, 0 gold, 600 stone
o United States (WWI) - 2 citizens, 300 food, 150 wood, 0 gold, 750 stone
o Germany (WWI) - 3 citizens, 200 food, 200 wood, 0 gold, 600 stone
o Russia (WWI) - 7 citizens, 100 food, 200 wood, 0 gold, 360 stone
o France (WWI) - 5 citizens, 200 food, 200 wood, 0 gold, 420 stone
o United Kingdom (WWI) - 1 citizen, 300 food, 500 wood, 0 gold, 630
stone
• Adding Idle Units - When setting a hotkey for adding idle units, you must use the
“Shift” key with the key you assigned to adding idle units.
• Only the host of a multiplayer game can check/uncheck the “Record Game” check
box. Clients will be unable to change whether or not a game is recorded.
• Any Classified Projects or Innovations that have not been researched by the third
time you advance in age will be lost for the rest of the game.
• The plus and minus keys (+/-) control the game’s speed in single player games.

TM, ®, © 2003 Stainless Steel Studios. All rights reserved. EMPIRES: Dawn of the
Modern World and related marks are trademarks of Stainless Steel Studios. © 2001
Activision, Inc. Activision is a registered trademark of Activision, Inc. All other
trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. The ratings
icon is a trademark of the Interactive Digital Software Association. This product is
intended solely for private home use. Public performance or other use is expressly
prohibited.