Frequently Asked Questions:

FAQ last updated on 17-7-04

General Questions:

Q. Blocky innit?
A. Aye, it is a tad if you have anything bigger than a 15" monitor. I recommend trying one of the other video modes, running the game thus: "giddy3.exe -v5" or "giddy3.exe -v15" gives good results on my 17" monitor. The game will remember the last mode you set.

Q. It's slow / doesn't work under Windows XP (or Windows 2000) - what gives?
A. Hurrah for Microsoft eh? In their infinite wisdom the DOS version supplied with XP is some kind of emulated (read: slow) effort.  You can try tinkering with the compatibility settings but you'll probably  have more luck launching it from a Windows 98 boot disk  (or CD, or USB Pen Drive..)

Q. What's the min (and max?) spec PC that the game will run on?
A. I've had it running perfectly on a 133MHz Cyrix CPU based PC with a 2MB ATI Mach64 PCI videocard and an ISA Soundblaster16 (in DOS) so theoretically anything above that should be fine. Memory size is totally irrelevent as long as you have over 1MB :) and you dont even need a hard drive - it'll run from a floppy disk! As far as operating systems go.. DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98 are preferable.. ME should be OK too.

Q. How do I make a Giddy3 icon on my Windows desktop?
A. After the first time you run and quit the game (say from Explorer or the Start/Run box) Windows should generate a .PIF (program information file) for Giddy3. All you then need do is right click anywhere on the desktop, select "New Shortcut", browse to the location of the Giddy3 folder andclick the Giddy3 icon.

Q. Can I redefine the game keys?
A. Sure, type "Giddy3 -k" at the command prompt / Windows RUN box (browse to find the giddy3.exe file). Your chosen key preferences will be stored for future wibbling sessions. (A standard 4 button gamepad may / can / probably / sometimes be used also, but no guarantees: read this)

Q. Its too hard innit?
A. Nah! Guard every energy point you have and dont go blundering into things. Learn the optimum route to take - dont go anywhere where you dont need to UNTIL you need to. Look out for hidden extra lives (places you can reach that you might not think you can etc).

Q. Is there a cheat mode?
A. Yes, but play the game properly, its more fun :)

Q. Any secrets?
A. Yep! Namely extra lives and a hidden mini-demo. Find them do!

Q. What, no save game option?
A. We didn't have save game options when I was a lad.

Q. I'm really stuck, is it impossible now?! 
A. Well there are no situations you can get into that renders the game impossible to complete. BTW: You can enter the Tardis without any special objects, just jump in the door is open..

Q. What's the completion code for?
A. Ah, originally (before the game became shareware) I intended to do a website Hall of Fame and the code would be used to verify the completion times. Not enough people registered to inspire me to do it though.

Q. What happened to Giddy1 and 2?
A. They were released on the Amiga home computer in the early 1990's (You can get them free here to run under an Amiga emulator on the PC). 

Q. What language is Giddy3 written in?
A. x86 Assembly Language for DOS. Why? Cus I like old-school machine code, Not exactly the best environment for games these days but it wouldn't have existed otherwise..

Q. Will there be a Giddy4?
A. To be worthy it would have to be bigger and better than Giddy3 and this one took me 18 months to make! So its a bit unlikely at the moment.
 

Graphics Questions:

Q. Occasion display jerkiness / display break-ups. Help?
A. Low processor speed, video card speed or running under XP (some kind of DOS emulation going on there) are the most likely suspects. Windows doesn't help by doing things in the background instead of letting the game run properly. Try changing the video mode (Click here for info) or running from real mode DOS (where available - on Win95/Win98 choose "restart in DOS mode" from the shutdown menu, or press F8 when "Starting Windows" appears and then select "Command Prompt Only" upon a re-boot.) PCs with Windows versions from ME onwards require a boot floppy to access the real mode DOS prompt.

Q. Ive changed the screen mode and the game seems too fast. Why?
A. Giddy 3 is tied to the refresh rate of the monitor to give a smooth display update (60hz in the default ModeX mode). You may be using a video mode with a higher refresh rate. Your Windows "desktop properties", "settings", "advanced" should allow you to set your chosen monitor resolution to 60hz in 256 colours.

Q. Voodoo3 has pixel disruption near the top of the screen. What gives?
A. Voodoo3 cards dont seem to like the default 320x240 "ModeX" display mode too much. If you find the image disruption annoying, please select an alternative video mode - see below. 
 

Sound Questions:

Q. Why dont I get any sound?
A.You need a Soundblaster compatible sound card with DOS drivers (or legacy emulation enabled in the case of soundblaster PCI 128 and Diamond Monster MX300 to name but two). If you have an MX300 make sure the Soundblaster Emulation is enabled in the hardware setup utility. The sound emulation seems much better in Windows than DOS on this card IIRC. 

Q What's this "Cant find SET BLASTER environment variable" error?
A. The SET BLASTER line tells DOS games where to find your sound card, if its missing Giddy3 cant play sounds. The line will normally be in the form "SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D3" (and possibly other characters) and should be in your autoexec.bat file (root directory) and / or your dosstart.bat file (windows directory). It should have been installed by your sound card's DOS drivers.

Q. And when "No Soundblaster hardware found" error occurs?
A. This can happen if you're running from a clean boot in Real Mode DOS and the card hasn't been initialized. Normally there will be a small program to do this, in the case of the soundblaster 128PCI its called "SBINIT.COM" and is found in "Program files/creative/audio/dosdrv". Note that this should run automatically if you "Restart in dos mode" from Windows.

Q. Are some sound FX "missing" when the both the fx and music are on?
A. This is not a bug. In order to fit a music module and the sound samples in memory at the same time I had to discard some of the less important sounds. Yes, I know you have probably have 1GB of RAM or whatever, but this is a legacy DOS game innit? :) Additionally, too much background sound plus music wouldnt sound good.

Changing Giddy3's Video mode

 From the command prompt type "Giddy3 -vxx" where xx is a number  between 0 and 16. If the chosen mode isnt available on your video  card you SHOULD receive a VESA error report (though a screenful  of corrupt graphics is possible too. The chosen video mode will  be saved when you quit the game (unless you were given an error).  Personally, I find modes "5", "11" and "15" quite acceptible.
 

 Mode:  Base Resolution:   Double Buffered:         Scan Lines:

  0 *     320x240              No                     No
  1 *     ""   "               Yes                    No
  2 *     400x300              No                     No
  3 *     ""   ""              Yes                    No
  4       640x480              No                     No
  5       ""   ""              Yes                    No
  6       ""   ""              No                     Yes
  7       ""   ""              Yes                    Yes
  8       800x600              No                     No
  9       ""   ""              Yes                    No
  10      ""   ""              No                     Yes
  11      ""   ""              Yes                    Yes
  12     1024x768              No                     No
  13      ""   ""              Yes                    No
  14      ""   ""              No                     Yes
  15      ""   ""              Yes                    Yes
  16   320x240 ModeX (default) Yes                    No

* Can be iffy, see below.

 Video Mode Notes:

Double Buffering: This removes tears and glitches in display.  Use it if it causes no new problems.

Scan Lines: Expands the visible image but skips alternate  horizontal lines. This gives the appearance of  running the game on a TV - with varying degrees of success. It looks better if you turn up the brightness / contrast on your monitor.

Modes 0 - 3: These are pretty non-standard modes and may be  temperamental. They require a video card with a VESA2  BIOS and, on my PC at least, they seem to be stuck at 75hz and cannot be set via the refresh  rate options under Windows. This causes the game to run faster than it really should.

 Modes 2 & 3: IE: modes based around the 400x300 resolution. Some  monitors get upset with this resolution, if the display rolls and flickers, press ESC immediately and choose a different resolution.
 

Other misc issues:

Joystick doesn't work.
The game only supports a standard 4 button gamepad connected to a bog basic Soundblaster sound card (IE: One with a 15-pin D connector). If you've enabled joystick support by typing "Giddy3 -j1" at the command l ine and your joystick doesnt work or does weird things, its not compatible - sorry - disable it with "Giddy3 -j0" and use the keyboard.

You get a file load error.
You've been fiddling with the files - re-install :)

"Not Enough DOS memory" error occurs.
Giddy3 needs about 580k of free conventional DOS memory. Windows DOS will nearly always provide this much (Type "mem" at the command prompt to see). If you're running from real DOS have drivers running (EG: for CDROM, Zip Drive etc) you may not have enough. In this case do a "Safe Mode Command prompt only" boot and then run the game (create a batch file with your sound driver initialization lines if you want sound). EG:

Text file: "Gogiddy.bat"

SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1
C:\progra~1\creative\audio\dosdrv\sbinit.com
C:\games\giddy3\giddy3.exe
 
 

"That'll be that, then."