Yet another useless guide...but I have pics

[Aiwendil]

First something unrelated:

• The size of the download ("(380 MB)") in the download page is a little bit off..should be more "(588 MB)".
  

Content:

• Pictured guide to installing PS on windows for the ordinary windows user
  
• Pictured guide to updating PlaneShift in windows
  
• Pictured guide to repairing PlaneShift in windows
  
• Pictured guide to the settings in the Launcher
  
• TroubleShooting

        - Check if the download was successful
        - Installing openAL
        - Starting PlaneShift with console output
        - Find the log and config files on windows

Some conventions: I use <key> for a key on your keyboard. So <a> is for the "a"-key and <windows> for the "windows"-key (the one between <ctrl> and <alt>). Also I put quotes around commands to type. Please don't type in the quotes (If you need to type quotes I will say it in the text).

I have no clue about windows at all...so if you find any errors be happy and keep them...or even better send a correction. Also I give no warranty to spare sarcasm either against windows or against PlaneShift in these posts..learn to deal with it. And I really hope this is kept simple enough for wind...ahm all kind of users. If something is still not clear feel free to ask.

That stupid "wait 30 seconds after a post to make a new one" rule is very, very annoying.

[Aiwendil]

Pictured guide to installing PS on windows for the ordinary windows user

• Figure out what windows system you have. For this open the control Panel:

• If your Control Panel looks like this please click on "Switch to Classic View":

• Now it should look like this. Please double-click on "System":

• This gets you to the System overview. If you don't see any "64 bit" in the "General"-tab you are on a 32 bit system. If you see "64 bit" you are on a 64 bit system...what a surprise. Please, I know that the attention spans nowadays a pretty short..so write down on how many bits you are, we will need this in a few minutes:

• Afterwards you can close all the windows again.
• It's time to download PlaneShift. I will do this with firefox...but I hope the explanations are good enough to use any browser. Don't get scared if your browser looks a little bit different. Even the Internet Explorer has all functions needed to download PlaneShift. I'm not going into downloading with torrents here...if you know what torrents are feel free to use them for the download. So, first open your browser (firefox, Internet Exlorer, Opera, Chromium...whatever):

• Now type "http://www.planeshift.it/download.html" in he address bar of your browser. Oh..and don't forget a <return>/<enter> afterwards:

• Scroll down the page until you find the section "Windows" (Sorry, no picture of me using the scrollwheel of my mouse..if you feel uncomfortable with the mouse <page down> or <space> should work also). Remember that I told you to write down what window version you have (32/64 bit). Now you will need it. There are two windows download, one for 32 bit, one for 64. Please use the one matching your system now. Click on any of the "Download" links at the right matching your system. Each "mirror" should have exactly the same files. But as a hint...if you are in Germany it is usually faster to download from a German mirror than having the data go across an whole ocean from the USA. After you click on one of the links the download should start (maybe asking you before where to save the file):

• Wait for the download to finish...I recommend xbill...ah..sorry this is windows. Go and play solitaire.
  
• The download finished? Good. If your browser asked you where to save the file I hope you still remember it, it's only two steps ago. Otherwise you will usually find it in "My Documents\Downloads". Start a "Windows Explorer" with <windows>+<e> and go to the place you saved your download then double-click "PlaneShift-v0.5.7.exe" (or the 64 bit version of that file if you are on a 64 bit windows):

• You might get a security warning. Up to you if you trust PlaneShift enough to allow it to be executed...but as you are installing a game downloaded from the Internet without knowing what it actually is I guess you don't care much there...So just click "Run":

• If you didn't trust PS in the previous step: Congratulations..I bet you are the first windows user ever caring about security. But sorry, for you it's over here. In case you allowed the installer to run: Congratulations, you made it to the PlaneShift installer: First select the language you want for the userinterface of the game. The game itself will still be in English..only the text of buttons and such will change. I really recommend using "English" here as it makes it far more easy to ask for help. People in game will usually use the English names of functions so you will only end up with trying to figure out what it means in your language:

• The next window should be obvious...Not much chance to do anything wrong there. You can "cancel" the installation or just go on with "Next":

• Next is the license. In fact this is the first time i see this window...when compiling from sourcecode you never get to see it. So just do what people usually do in this case, accept it without reading it and go on with "Next"

• Now for the first important step...the directory in which PlaneShift should be installed. The default is fine in most cases. But I say important because you should write down the directory in which you install PlaneShift. Knowing the location might be very useful in case of problems later.

• Next Step...do you want a shortcut for PlaneShift on your Desktop? That's completely up to you. Even without the shortcut you can still start PlaneShift from the Start-Menu. If you want such a shortcut on the desktop select "Yes" and click "Next", otherwise just leave the default and click "Next":

• Now it's you last chance to come to your senses and cancel the installation. After clicking "Next" the installer will start copying the files.

• You clicked "Next"? Your own fault...don't blame me later on. Copying the files shouldn't take very long. During the process another window will pop up installing some necessary MicroSoft components...nothing to worry about. Last thing to do is then only clicking "Finish".

Congratulations...you installed PlaneShift. If you think you can play now you don't know much about PlaneShift yet. Have fun with the next section first

[Aiwendil]

Pictured guide to updating PlaneShift in windows

• First start PlaneShift:

• The first time you start PlaneShift it should ask you if you want to update. Please click "Yes" there:

• After you clicked "yes" to the update question the launcher should start downloading files. This might take a while...so back to solitaire:

• If everything worked fine you should have a fresh updated PlaneShift now. Feel free to go on with the setting in the launcher now.

[Aiwendil]

Pictured guide to repairing PlaneShift in windows
Repairing is also kind of an update...but the normal update usually only check the current version and download all necessary files for the update. Repairing on the other hand compares all files on your computer with the ones on the server and redownloads those files that are not the same. So this is pretty useful if something went very wrong with your version.

• For repairing use the button at the bottom of the launcher saying "Repair":

• In case some of your files have a problem it will give you a list and ask if you want to redownload those. Do that with "yes":

• In case all if fine with your files it should look like this:

• In both case go back to the main screen with "Ok"

[Aiwendil]

Pictured guide to the settings in the Launcher

Access the settings pages of the launcher with the "Settings" button at the bottom:

Here you have 4 different kinds of settings: Audio - Controls - General - Graphics:


Audio:

• Enable Sound - What should I say? I think this is pretty self-explaining
• Sound Renderer (Software/OpenAL) - This is more interesting. Usually you should always use openAL here. If you don't have the openAL options see in TroubleShooting hot to install openAL.

Controls:

Yeah...the picture is right..there are no options here. Didn't anyone tell you PS is not a finished game?

General:

• Graphics Quality - I don't have the slightest clue...Please set this to "custom" as I guess in that setting is uses the options you set in "Graphics". I have no clue if an other setting will overwrite the "graphics" settings...but if that is the case this is bound to lead to problems. "Custom" should be the safest options as you can play around with different setting in "Graphics" in case the game crashes for you.
• Aspect Ratio - Mainly influences what resolutions you can choose. You should adjust this to the aspect ratio of your monitor so that the game doesn't look stretched/shrunken for you.
• Screen Resolution-  The size of the window PS uses
• Enable Fullscreen - Never ever turn this on. Get used to play PS in a window. It always causes problem...so if you have this turned on and the game crashes it should be the first to try turning off again
• Language - The language of the user interface. Keep in mind that the game will still be played in English no matter what you choose here just the buttons might show up in a different language. In general leave this to English as it will make asking others for help much easier
• Current Skin - The skin/theme of the user interface. Make sure you have one chosen here or the game will crash at startup. The default is "elves"

Graphics:

• Color Depth - How many bits should be used to store colors? Seriously, leave this to 32..everything else is just bound to lead to problems.
• Anti-Aliasing - This option will smoothen displayed stuff that otherwise would show pixels. The higher the option the more computation power is needed. Also higher options mean that several rendered images need to be stored in advance to blend them together. This usually leads to nicer graphics...but means that you might notice some delay until a image is finally displayed. In case of troubles try turning this off or set it to a very low value.
• Anisotropic Filtering - This improves the display quality for textures..especially in cases the texture is stretched a lot. In case of troubles try turning it of or set it to a low value.
• Texture Quality - Defines the resolution of the used textures. Lower settings will need less display memory but also look worse (Okay..in fact lowest looks funny again...playing PS as a comic).
• Enable Shadows - Does this do anything already? As far as I know nonfunctional..it won't even save your setting.
• Enable Bloom - Bloom is a technique in which dark pixels next to bright pixels are made brighter. This gives some pretty nice effects like the sun behind the roof of a building coloring the building and making the edges less sharp. Pretty new function in PlaneShift and known to not work properly all the time. In case of problems turn it off.
• Enable HDR - High Dynamic Rending "stretches" the visibly colors over the available colorspace. Meaning...if you have a scene that almost contains only shades of the same color it will make the differences more visible. Also pretty new and can lead to troubles. Turn it off in case of problems.
• Enable Grass - After this option gets saved now I assume it does something. Sorry, no clue. But another option worth playing with in case of problems.
• Enable Weather - The weather effects of PlaneShift are known to cause crashes on some hardware. Try turning this off if you experience this (For all others..I think you can get rid of that annoying fog by turning this off also).
• Enable VBO (may cause crashes with ATI cards) - Vertex buffer objects are a way to store 3d model data in hardware memory. Usually this should be a lot faster...but for some reasons this option seem to lead to very strange behavior. In one case PlaneShift was almost unplayable slow with it turned on while no problem to play with it off. Also as the name already says it tends to lead to crashes. Ignore the warning about ATI...no matter what graphics card you have...if you have problems try changing this option. From my experience it's not possible to say that "off" is a good guess in general so try out both and see what works better.
• Loader Cache - No clue either. Default if off...so maybe better leave it at that
• Background Loading - How and when the game loads new models. Excuse me..last time I played this was so buggy that I couldn't justify suggesting anything else than turning if "off". But I heard it got a lot better. If you are annoyed about long loading times...or about a short loading window every few seconds try changing this option and see if you find a behavior that suits you better.
• Particles - The quality of the displayed particles in games. Those are usually needed for effects. So if you run into a crash when approaching a campfire or someone casting a spell try changing this.

[Aiwendil]

Check if the download was successful.

• The download page gives a MD5Sum for every file:

• A MD5Sum is a number calculated from the file that changes if only a a small part of the file changes. So it's prefect to see if a download was successful. Now for the bad news...windows sucks! Really...I didn't figure out any easier way to do this than I state here. On the Download page of PlaneShift there is also a link to a file called "md5sum.exe". Download that file and put it in the same folder as the downloaded PlaneShift installer. Then open a windows explorer (<windows>+<e>) and go to the directory containing both files:

• Now the fun starts...open a command prompt. Easiest way is <windows>+<r> and typing cmd in that window.

• You will end up with this:

• Type "cd " in the command prompt (but no <return>/<enter> yet). Switch back to the explorer window and drag the little folder icon in the Address-bar to the command prompt:
  
  
• Press <return>/<enter>. Now type "md5" and press <tab>. You should now get "md5sum.exe". Type one space and then "Plane". Press tab again and you should end up with something like this:

• Now press <return>/<enter>. After some time it should print the md5sum. Compare that to the given one on the download-page. If they are not exactly the same something went wrong with your download.

[Aiwendil]

Installing openAL.

If you don't have the "openAL" setting in audio in the PlaneShift Launcher you have to install it.

• So go here: http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/Downloads/oalinst.zip and save that file.
  
• Open the folder you saved the file in a windows explorer. The file is a zip archive so you have to unpack it first. Right-Click the file and select "Extract here":

• Now double-click the new created file to start the openAL installer:

• Click "ok" and there you go. Now you should have the openAL option in the launcher:

[Aiwendil]

Starting PlaneShift with console output

• I hope you took notes of the installation directory of PlaneShift as I said before. Now you will need this. Go to that directory with a windows explorer:

• Now press <windows>+<r> and drag the psclient.exe files from the explorer window to the input box of the "run" window. Don't press return:

• We need to edit this line now a bit. Add a "--console" at the end:

• Now press <return>/<enter>. This time PS should start with a second console window.

• This window contains the useful output if you are looking for errors (or ask in the forums for help). So always attach the whole output of this window (preferable on a page like http://pastebin.com). But how to get the infos from that window? Sorry..I can only repeat it..windows sucks!. Right-click the title of the console window and go to Edit. Select "Select All" there:
  
  
• One more time...just instead of "Select all" choose "Copy" now.

• Now we need a text editor. Using notepad here as this one should be available on all windows systems. So start "Notepad" from the Start-Menu:

• Once in notepad all you need to do is Menu->Edit->Paste and you should have the log of PlaneShift in Notepad. Should be easy to post this now.

A final note...sorry..I can only repeat it..windows sucks. It seems by default the console only saves the last 300 lines..meaning you can only get the last 300 lines of log this way. This can be changed by right-clicking in the title bar of the console, selecting "Properties", going to the layout tab and changing Screen Buffer Size/Height from 300 to something more useful..like 9999. But then you have to start PlaneShift again with the console to make use of this.

[Aiwendil]

Find the log and config files on windows
You didn't know PlaneShift keeps log of all your chat? What..your PlaneShift is still crashing after you uninstalled it and reinstalled it? What a surprise as the config and log directory doesn't get uninstalled. So if any configuration you made makes PlaneShift crash a reinstall will solve nothing. And sorry, I really pity you windows users. I know windows is very complicated...but why it must hide user files is a real mystery for me. Nevertheless here is a way to find your PlaneShift Config/Log directory:

• Open a windows explorer. (For those who still didn't get it...<windows>+<e>)
• Now go to the address bar and type "%AppData%":

• Press <return>/<enter>. Yes, I know...the path will change and %AppData% will disappear from the Address bar. That is fine and nothing to worry about. Now you can double-click the PlaneShift directory there:

• Congratulations...you just found the directory PlaneShift keeps it's settings and logs. In the "logs" subdirectory you can find text files containing all the chatting a specific character of you had done so far. And if PlaneShift start crashing from one day to another it's maybe worth renaming this "%AppData%\PlaneShift" directory to something else to start with a fresh configuration. If that solves it you can still copy the files back from the renamed directory to get you shortcuts, logs, keyboard config... back.