General Tips For PC Games

» Windows Vista: Currently only a few of our games are officially Vista compatible. Please check the system requirements on your game box or at our store to confirm. We cannot provide answers to support questions regarding Vista compatibility for games that do not include Vista on their system requirements.

» Drivers: Manufacturers update their video card drivers every few months. If you have just purchased a new PC, it could have been sitting in inventory for a few months, and it is possible that your video card drivers are out of date. It is critical that you update your drivers. Make sure all your graphics card and sound card drivers are current. Always download your drivers from the card manufacturer, i.e., ATi, nVIDIA, Creative. Check driver version numbers to confirm that your system is up to date.

Get DirectX: Install the latest version of DirectX. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.aspx

» Reboot Your PC: If you experience poor performance during play, reboot your computer and close out all extra programs, including those running in the Windows system tray. If you cannot complete installation, uninstall the game, reboot, exit all open programs and try again.

» Adjust Display Settings: If you experience video lag or poor frame rate, try lowering the screen resolution.

» Clean Up Your Hard Drive: Run ScanDisk and defrag your hard drive. Remove unwanted software that is not being used.

Help Us Help You

There are steps you can take to help us understand problems you may experience with one of our products. In addition to providing as much detail as possible about an error and when it occurs, you can do the following:

1. Take a screenshot when an error occurs. To capture an image of your computer screen, open your favorite graphics program, e.g. Microsoft Paint or Adobe Photoshop. Once your image editor is running, begin playing your game. When you get to the scene where you want to take a screenshot, hit the PRTSCN button. Use the ALT – TAB command to switch to your graphics program. Press CTRL – V at the same time to paste your screenshot into your graphics program. You know have a screenshot of your game. Make sure to save it under a file name and directory you will remember. It may be useful to resize the image as screenshots are aometimes very large. This will also reduce the file size.

2. Provide a Microsoft DirectX dialog file. Go to the RUN command in your Windows Start menu, type “dxdiag”, wait for it to finish, then click “save all information…”. This should save information about your current drivers as a text file that you can attach to an email.

Contact us at support@merscombetagamers.com

How to update your drivers

nVidia FAQ and Knowledge Base
nVidia graphics card owners can get tech support and troubleshooting tips here.

ATi Support FAQ
Find operating system-specific help and support for your ATi graphics card.

SoundBlaster Drivers
Drivers for any Creative Software product can be found here.

Download.com
Get free drivers for video cards, sounds cards, Windows, multimedia, and more.

Microsoft Games Support Center
Solutions to common technical issues are highlighted here. Get information on DirectX, display, sound, controllers and more.

Winfiles
Find drivers for your graphics card, sound card, other hardware and more for free.

Windrivers
Get everything from hardware drivers to price comparisons on the latest processors.