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System Requirements FAQ

Q: What are the system requirements for Zillions of Games?

Zillions of Games 2 requires the following:

• Windows® 98*/ME/2000/XP
• 800 x 600** or higher graphics resolution
• Sufficient free hard-disk space for temporary files
• DirectX 8 or higher*** for network play (included on CD)

Additionally, we strongly recommend:

• Windows ME/2000/XP
• 1024 x 768 or higher graphics resolution to avoid clipping any boards
• 16+ bit color
• 38 MB of hard-disk space for a hard-disk install****

Finally, to get the very most out of Zillions you should have:

• An Internet connection for online play
• A mouse/trackball with Immersion TouchSense® for haptic effects

* Windows 98 users without the latest service pack may run into some of the same problems with old system components as Windows 95 users (see the next FAQ question below). We suggest that you upgrade Common Controls and HTMLHelp if necessary as described below or upgrade to the latest service pack.

** We've designed it so that 800 x 600 resolution is sufficient for nearly all the games in Zillions. The exceptions are Jungle and Maze. At 800 x 600 you may need to turn off things like the Toolbar, Status bar, or Chat window to be able to see the entire board. (You can toggle these from the View menu.)

*** Microsoft's DirectX is a set of core gaming technologies that are part of Windows. Some version of DirectX is shipped with all the required operating systems; however, Zillions requires version 8 or higher for net-play. If you don't have DirectX 8+ on your machine already, DirectX 8.1 is available on the Zillions CD-ROM as well as for download from Microsoft's site. Note that you will need quite a bit of hard disk space for installation: DirectX installation requires 55 MB of free space, although after the setup files are deleted DirectX may only take up 15 MB.

**** Although Zillions can be run directly from a CD-ROM, installation to hard-disk is recommended for better performance. It is also a requirement for the download version.

Q: Will Zillions of Games run on Windows 95?

Windows 95 is not a supported operating system; however, it is possible for Windows 95 users to run Zillions of Games as long as some system components are updated.

DIRECTX: Zillions of Games requires version 8.0 or higher. You should install the last version of DirectX that is compatible with Windows 95: DirectX 8.0a. You can download the DirectX 8.0a installer from Microsoft's site. The Zillions of Games 2 CD ships with an installer for DirectX 8.1 on it. DirectX 8.1 is not compatible with Windows95 and should not be installed from the CD. For more information on DirectX, visit the DirectX User Guide Area on Microsoft's DirectX site.

COMMON CONTROLS: Old systems (Windows 95, early Windows 98) may not have a recent enough version of the Common Controls (COMCTL32.DLL). You can download the latest COMCTL32 install now from this Microsoft web page. Either "401comupd.exe (x86)" (which installs version 4.72) or "50comupd.exe (x86)" (which installs version 5.80) will work.

HTMLHelp: Zillions displays its help in standard "HTMLHelp" format. HTMLHelp support might not be installed on some Windows 95 and Windows 98 systems. This installer will add system support for HTMLHelp. Click here to download HTMLHelp 1.32 Update Package (hhupd.exe) [Windows 9x/NT only; Don't install on Windows 2000/XP] This installer is also available on the CD.

Although the games that come with Zillions should run fine, it is possible that you will run into some user interface limitations (bugs) of Windows 95 with the largest games users have created for Zillions. The two that are known are:
1) it is possible to create moves that are so long (hundreds of parts) that they overflow what can fit in the move list, and
2) if a game with a lot of pieces is played on a low resolution screen, the right-click menu may not appear at all, because Windows 95 doesn't know how to scroll multi-column menus that do not fit entirely on the screen.
Both of these situations are rare and not serious.

Q: Will Zillions of Games run on Windows NT 4?

We have never tested Zillions of Games 2 on Windows NT 4 and it is not supported. The only reason we know of why it wouldn't work is the DirectX requirement, as NT 4 doesn't support DirectX 8.1. (Don't try to install it!) It may be possible to play Zillions of Games without net-play on NT 4, but we don't guarantee it.

Q: Will Zillions of Games run on Linux?

Zillions of Games is a Windows program, not a Linux program, and Linux is unsupported. However, several customers have reported running Zillions of Games 1 under emulation. Steve Evans reported:

"I was wanting to test my Zillions Chu Shogi implementation against Colin Adam's JDK Chu program. Having failed to get Colin's program working under Win98, I decided to see if I could instead run Zillions under Linux (RedHat 6.1). I was pleasantly surprised when Zillions ran quite contentedly in Linux using Wine.

From memory I think I was running Zillions from Linux but off a Windows HD partition. I don't know whether or not it will work if run using Wine without access to standard Windows DLLs etc (ie: whether it can be run on a machine that has no access to the c:\windows directory on a DOS partition). In theory I guess if the required libraries and so on are set up appropriately in Linux then access to a DOS partition containing Windows may not be necessary.

Basically, I just did the minimum required on my machine (which had both partitions) to get Zillions running from Linux. I also didn't test things like internet play etc.."

Q: Will Zillions of Games run on the Mac?

Zillions of Games is a Windows program, not a Mac program, and the Mac is unsupported. However, several customers have reported running Zillions of Games 1 under emulation. One user reports no problems playing Zillions on his G3 Mac running Virtual PC 2.1/Win98. Another user reports that Zillions under Virtual PC 2.1.3/Win95b on his G3/MacOS 8.6 also works fine.

It should be noted that the original prototype was Mac-only and we began developing the current form of Zillions in a cross-platform programming environment, Microsoft Cross-Development Edition for Macintosh, in order to support both PCs and Macs. Unfortunately, Microsoft abruptly abandoned support for the Mac side of that development environment and we were left only able to produce a Windows product. We have a lot of in-house Mac programming experience and would love to create a Mac version, if we're successful enough in the Windows space. Otherwise we will not have the resources. We are not currently working on a Mac version, so I'm afraid you won't be seeing one any time soon.

Q: Will there be a Palm, Windows CE, Be, etc. version of Zillions of Games?

Possibly. If the current Windows version is successful enough, we will look at which OS'es it makes sense to port to. We are not actively working on any ports at this time though.

Didn't find the answer to your question? Email your question to Zillions Development.