Solar Kingdom - FAQ

This page contains some specific questions about Solar Kingdom and the hardware it will run on.

1. What hardware is required to run Solar Kingdom?
2. If I have a more powerful PC will I see the benefit?
3. Will Solar Kingdom make use of my 3D accelerator?
4. What's the best PC configuration?
5. What operating systems will Solar Kingdom run under?
6. How big is Solar Kingdom?
7. What about support for Solar Kingdom?

1. What hardware is required to run Solar Kingdom?

The basic specification is as follows:

  • Pentium class PC - We have tested it on a 120MHz Pentium and it ran acceptably well.
  • 32MB RAM - It may run on a 16MB PC, we don't have access to any to find out. Try the demo.
  • 16-bit colour display - Virtually every graphics card allows this
  • Mouse - Required
  • CD-ROM - Needed to install Solar Kingdom

2. If I have a more powerful PC will I see the benefit?

Yes. As the speed of the PC rises so do Solar Kingdom's frame rates. As the amount of memory rises, frame rates and texture quality can also rise. The images in the simulator and encyclopedia are of a better quality with a 32-bit display.

3. Will Solar Kingdom make use of my 3D accelerator?

Yes, provided that the accelerator can use acceleration in a window (all modern cards can do this). Some of the older cards cannot do this - Voodoo 2 being the most popular. Cards which can work in windowed mode include:

  • 3dfx Voodoo 3 (and above)
  • Matrox Millennium G400 and above
  • nVidia TNT (and above)
  • nVidia GeForce (and above 256, 2, 3 ,4, 5, FX)
  • 3Dlabs Permedia2
  • ATI 3D Rage Pro
  • ATI Radeon based cards
  • SiS6326 based cards

If your cards supports full screen anti-aliasing (FSAA) then turning it one can produce even nicer results making everything smoother. I can affect the stars though - they become fuzzy.

Solar Kingdom does not require a 3D accelerator.

4. What's the best PC configuration?

Solar Kingdom was developed on a PII-350 PC with a Voodoo 3-2000 and it works very well with that configuration. A PC less than 3 years old has plenty of power. One issue which can affect all PCs is insufficient memory. In general your PC will run better with more memory (unless it has plenty).

5. What operating systems will Solar Kingdom run under?

  • Windows 95
  • Windows 98
  • Windows 2000 (all versions)
  • Windows XP (all versions)
  • Windows Millennium (Win Me)
  • Windows 2003

Solar Kingdom will not run under Windows NT 4.0 (although the encyclopedia is still readable). Solar Kingdom requires that DirectX 6.1 or above is installed. You can get the latest DirectX directly from Microsoft here.

6. How big is Solar Kingdom?

The full CD is 360MB (after compression). The simulator is about 130MB and the encyclopedia 290MB. The full installed size therefore is about 420MB.

7. What about support for Solar Kingdom?

Support is provided by e-mail.

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