| • | No sound in Flash (Video, Binding, MCI, external application or second instance of MMB application) |
MMB crashes on Win9x/ME on page with Flash/Video or audio running over a 3rd party PlugIn.
Another sound problems & crashes on Win9x/ME systems
Incorrect time reported by some (VBR) audio files
Min. SW requirements:
Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista (Windows ME is not recommended but usable;)
DirectX 6 or higher (for Video playback)
Windows Media Player 6.2 or higher (and appropriate codecs) - mainly if you use WMA, WMV, ASF or MPEG4 files
Min. HW requirements:
CPU (x86 comp.) - Intel/AMD 300MHz - (550MHz or better is recommended)
32MB RAM (playback) - 64MB RAM (development) - (128MB is recommended)
Sound card - it's not required if you don't use sound
Enough disk space for unpacking the embedded files and swapping.
What OS are supported?
MMB and the applications you create with it works on Windows Platform. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. MMB can works also with Windows NT4 and Windows ME, but we do not recommend to use these OS because of two reasons...
- Windows NT is simply too old and doesn't fully support DirectX (required for Sound&Video)
- Windows ME is not very reliable OS, especially the HW drivers are not well optimized. In other words, Windows ME often crashes (from our own experience).
Is there a version for MAC or Linux?
No there is no version for MAC or Linux.
MMB is for Windows platform only.
Do I have to pay any royalties?
No. You need to just register once and you can make as many applications as you want.
What is the upgrade policy?
Currently the upgrades are free of charge. You simply install any new version over the previous and it should pick-up your registration.
Can I distribute the files I create?
Yes. If you are registered user, you can distribute your files free of any royalties etc...
Is there a book about MMB?
We are not aware of any book about MMB. However, MMB may be mentioned in books about multimedia generally. The best place to learn MMB is looking at a many samples on this or many others web pages dedicated to MMB. Also Discussion Board is a great help.
How can I use 16bit (XP/Vista) multi-icons with MMB?
There is currently no way to add the 16bit true color (XP/Vista) icon to your MMB project via Compile dialog. But you can replace the 16/256color icon after compiling the project. There is a tool to do this right in MMB installation folder called "mmb_iconchanger.exe ". Simply run this tool, chose your compiled project, your XP/Vista multi-icon and simply press [Replace] button.
What is the recommended graphic application to make my artwork?
We recommend Real-DRAW Pro because it is the only program where you can make a fully functional page with buttons and then export it to MMB. However you can use other tools as a PaintShop Pro, PhotoShop etc...
What is autorun?
When a CD-ROM disk is inserted into the drive the Windows examines the disk looking for file autorun.inf .The autorun.inf is a simple ASCII text file and could be edited just with the notepad and it tells windows what program to run and what icon to show for the drive when it appears in the My Computer folder.
What are the lines in autorun.inf?
Inside the autorun.inf file you will see lines:
[autorun]
OPEN=autorun.exe
ICON=autorun.exe,0
The autorun.inf file must be on the root of the CD. However, you can even put that file to the root of a harddrive and then your icon of the harddrive will change.
Note: You can use for the icon directly icon file if you want so the third line will look like: ICON=myico.ico
How to enable Autorun on my computer?
Select Start Button, then Settings > Control panel. Doubleclick on System. Select Device Manager tab, expand the CD-ROM entry, click on appropriate CD-ROM drive and click Properties. Select Settings tab and finally check the "Auto insert notification" box.a
Trick: If you as an user don't want the AutoRun application to start when you inserting new CD, hold down the Shift key while you insert the CD!
Why Autorun still doesn't work on some computers?
Make sure the that the Autorun is enabled on that computers. If you are sure that autorun is enabled on these computers, but the CD still won't auto-start, or MMB reports an error (something like "cannot find the file.."), the most probably reason of this problem is a long file name of exe or file name with empty spaces. Simply keep the length of file name of compiled exe in 8+3 format (8 characters for name and 3 for extension) and don't use empty spaces inside the file name! If you still wish to use empty spaces in the program file name, you need to edit the Autorun.inf and enclose the program name in double quotes. So instead of this..
OPEN=autorun.exe
use this..
OPEN="autorun.exe"
If I want to make an audio CD with digital multimedia track, what is the format and software to do it?
The industry standard format is CD Extra. In this format, the audio tracks are recorded in the first session and the second session is the data. You can create CD-Extra with most of the mastering software, Adaptec Easy CD Creator for example.
There is a also an older format named Mixed Mode CD. On such CD the audio and data are recorded in the same session where the data are as a track 1 with following audio tracks. The disadvantage of this is that a CD player can play a CD from track 2 skipping the track 1.
Why I can't play Audio Tracks from my CD-ROM?
You can't play Redbook audio (regular CD audio tracks) and read files off the CD at the same time. Redbook audio tracks are streamed off the CD at 1x speed. If your drive is faster than 1x (let's hope so), it actually slows down to play Redbook.
Most games do one of two things:
| ο | Copy all game files to the hard disk during install. This ensures the fastest possible loading times, brisk play, and huge installs (Baldur's Gate install is over 500MB). |
| ο | Read all necessary data off the CD before starting the Redbook track. If your level/map/whatever data is small enough to fit entirely in RAM, you can get away with this. |
MMB actually offers a third strategy: embed your data. This means your data gets unzipped to a temporary directory each time you run. If possible, I would recommend not using this option unless absolutely necessary.
I would probably use OGGs, since they are already so nicely supported by MMB. This sort of depends on what kind of machines you need to run on and how CPU intensive the rest of your project is. OGGs can eat some clock cycles, Redbook audio is free.
How to Shut-Down computer from script?
...or Open Sound properties or... Here is a description file which allows you to do a lot of stuff with rundll32 command.
Why my video doesn't play on other computer?
Welcome to the real world of video on PC. The video on PC is a complex issue so we add an extended Video FAQ.
Why my video doesn't play using MCI commands or MCI object while it plays fine in Windows Media Player?
If the format is fine (previous Question) then make sure the video file has no space in its name. Since MCI internally comunicates using string, the space in the file name may be interpreted as beginning of another command. As such My Video.mpg may be wrongly interpreted, the myvideo.mpg should work. The best would be if you can rename the file using the simple 8.3 dos type and make sure there are no spaces or any strange characters in the name.
Why the text looks different on other computers?
You have to remember that not every body has the same font as you have. To ensure the font will be displayed properly use standard font such Arial or Times New Roman . You can use any other font, but then you have to include the ttf file on the CD and use InstallFont("<SrcDir>\myfont.ttf") command. Be aware that generally many font's should not be distributed - they are copyrighted. For more info about copyrights you can try FontMagic. To ensure that the Text object will appear the same on any systems you can just simple convert it to bitmap: Select the text object then from Menu - Object select Convert to Bitmap. This will create a bitmap object and hide the original text (in case you want to change something later).
Tip: If you don't need to show/hide text during the runtime you can simply combine all the text objects with the background to save space and memory. Menu Arrange - Combine - Objects with background
No sound in Flash (Video, Binding, MCI, TTS, external application or second instance of MMB application)
MMB crashes on Win9x/ME on page with Flash/Video or audio running over a 3rd party PlugIn.
Another sound problems & crashes on Win9x/ME systems
Unfortunately, we found, that some systems (Win9x/ME) with older or obsolete VXD sound drivers cannot play multiple sounds at a time or initialize and use audio HW by multiple sources. In other words, on those systems cannot be run for example WinAmp and Flash/Video file with audio track. And the same problem you can get with Flash/Video/embedded application running from MMB application. Some users also reprots crashes on WinME. All these problems have one comon denominator...obsolete sound card drivers.
The only cure as we know (except disabling FMOD audio library) is to reinstall older VXD type of sound card drivers (often available on W9x/ME systems) with the latest WDM drivers.
Go to the sound card manufacturer's website, and download and install the latest drivers from there. If you are not sure about the WDM compatibility of their drivers, just ask the manufacturer.
TIP: If the drivers offered on the manufacturer's web site are marked as Win98/ME/Win2k/WinXP compatible (or packed in one file), then they are most probably WDM compatible.
For SoundBlaster users could be useful this link:
http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/
If your sound card is an on-board one, then check the driver CD that you got with PC. Or go to the motherboard manufacturer's website and download the drivers from there.
Also very good source of drivers (many of them are marked as WDM compatible) can be found here:
If you are not sure about your sound card manufacturer or driver type (VXD od WDM), then try the below steps:
Click on Start, then on RUN, then type DXDIAG and click OK..
Then click the Sound tab...
In “Driver” section you can find the driver name/version and in “Device” section you can check the type of already installed driver: VXD (older..the problematic one) or WDM (new one). The VXD type of driver is the type, which cause the mentioned problems with sound under some Win9x/ME systems.
Reinstall your current drivers with WDM ones and the sound problems will go away! If you don't like to tell the users of your product to reinstall their drivers, then there are also another two options:
1) Compile your project with NoFMOD player, but this will completely disable internal MMB audio playback, therefore AudioCommands and some other Sound related commands will no longer work.
2) Use FMODConfig("3") command at application startup. This command will temporarily disable FMOD audio library, then you will able to play Sound from an external source (Flash, Video, TTS, etc...). But this will also disable the internal MMB audio playback. However, against the compiling your project with NoFMOD, in this case you will able to turn the FMOD audio library back ON and play the MMB internal audio.
Text object or Circle placed over Flash (HTML, ListBox, Binding,...) have an ugly white rectangle around it (transparent parts are not transparent)
This is a know limitation of all windowed objects like an HTML, Flash, ListBox, Binding and some other. Unfortunately, this limitation cannot be removed..at least not without significant CPU and memory usage and potential MMB slowdown.
The Video object doesn't create preview (still) image.
This is because the color depth of the loaded video file is too low (most probably 8bpp or lower). Unfortunately, creating preview image for video file like this is not currently supported.
Another cause of this issue can be too low display color depth - 16bit (High Color) or lower. Just increase color depth to 24 or 32 bit (True Color) and it will work as expected.
Slow loading of big/lengthy audio (mainly OGG) files
Incorrect time reported by some (VBR) audio files
This is because all streamed audio files (ogg, wma, asf) are loaded (by default) in a precise mode. In this mode MMB always loads entire file to get the correct total time of loaded file. This is useful mainly for VBR encoded files, which can returns wrong time.
For speeding up the reading of audio files you can turn this precise mode OFF. In a Designer you can turn it OFF in "Tools>>Designer settings" menu (uncheck "MPEG Accurate..." mode. For compiled apps you can uncheck the same option in "File>>Compile" menu. And finally, you can also turn this option ON/OFF in a runtime by FMODConfig script function.
Unfortunately, if you turn this option OFF, most of all VBR files will return incorrect total time. There is no way how to avoid this (it's an FMOD audio library feature). You have to carefully decide if you need fast loading of all (even big) audio files or precise total time of all (mainly VBR) files.
I got a virus alert while scanning MMB folder or exe file made by MMB.
In most cases, this is a false positive alert. Try update your antivirus application (mainly the virus definition file) and check the file again. If the problem persist, try to send the file to the author of antivirus for a detailed inspection. They can let you know if the file is infected or not.