Hype: The Time Quest

Hype: The Time Quest

Developers
	Ubisoft Montreal
Publishers
	Playmobil Interactive
Engines
	OpenSpace
Release dates
Windows	November 20, 1999
Taxonomy
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person, Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, Adventure, Puzzle, Platform, RPG
Art styles	Stylized
Themes	Medieval, Fantasy
Series	Playmobil

Playmobil
Laura's Happy Adventures	1998
Alex Builds His Farm	1999
Hype: The Time Quest	1999
Rescue from Rock Castle	2004
The Big Treasure Hunt	2005
Playmobil Alarm	2007
Playmobil Constructions	2007
Playmobil Knights	2009
Playmobil Pirates	2009
Playmobil: The Movie VR Adventures	Cancelled

Warnings

SafeDisc DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected releases).

Hype: The Time Quest is a singleplayer first-person and third-person action, adventure, puzzle, platform and RPG game in the Playmobil series.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SafeDisc DRM (not all versions).

SafeDisc DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected releases).

Demo

A free demo version is available here.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%WINDIR%\UbiSoft\ubi.ini

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\GameData\SaveGame\

Video

Video settings.

Ubisoft Configuration tool.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen & FPS Fix.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen		See Widescreen & FPS Fix.
4K Ultra HD		See Widescreen & FPS Fix.
Field of view (FOV)		See Widescreen & FPS Fix.
Windowed		The game can be forced to run in Windowed mode, when using dgVoodoo2.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS		See Widescreen & FPS Fix.
120+ FPS		See Widescreen & FPS Fix.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
Color blind mode		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Widescreen & FPS Fix

Change the aspect ratio and remove FPS cap
The Direct3D Widescreen & FPS Fix makes it possible to play the game at any aspect ratio and at higher framerates. It also includes a tool to change the game's field of view (FOV) to match the new aspect ratio.

Input

Keyboard Settings

Gamepad Settings

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		The game doesn't support mouse.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Keyboard and mouse prompts
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping		Limited to remapping buttons.
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Input prompt override
Haptic feedback
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Sound settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles		Intro and outro are lacking subtitles. Aside from it, subtitles are always enabled in-game.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Polish
Portuguese				"Hype: O Cavaleiro do Tempo".
Spanish

Issues fixed

At startup, the load bar gets stuck at around 50%

This happens if too much video memory is detected, which causes an integer overflow and ultimately results in the game getting stuck in an infinite loop during startup.

Use a Direct3D wrapper[citation needed]
Either dgVoodoo 2 or DDrawCompat will fix this issue

When using dgVoodoo 2 and setting the VRAM in the DirectX tab very high (e.g. 4096 MB), the problem will still occur.

FMVs do not play / game crashes at startup

There are really only two FMVs in the game. One plays at the start and the other one at the very end of the game. For this reason, FMV playback can safely be disabled and the FMVs can be watched manually (e.g. using VLC player) from <path-to-game>\Gamedata\Videos\.

Disable movies in configuration file
Open ubi.ini. Under the section [Hype - The Time Quest], find the line PlayVideo=1 and change to PlayVideo=0.

Getting the FMVs to play natively in the game engine can be quite challenging. In the following, there are some suggestions, which might help. However, there is absolutely no guarantee that they will work on every system.

Fix the problem with Indeo 5 codec playback[citation needed]

There are two ways to fix the problem with Indeo 5 FMVs. It is only necessary to use one of the fixes (either one should work). Follow the instructions to re-enable the Indeo 5 codec. Warning: After playing the game, the codec should be disabled again, due to the security issues. Convert the FMVs to the more compatible Cinepak format: Download ffmpeg (the "essentials" build should suffice). Move the FMV files from <path-to-game>\Gamedata\Videos\ to the bin subfolder of ffmpeg. Open a command prompt and navigate to the bin subfolder of ffmpeg. Run the following commands (the occasional errors that might pop up during the conversion process can be ignored). Note: The conversion may take a considerable amount of time, even on fast machines! Luckily, this only needs to be done once. ffmpeg -i "HypeConclusion.avi" -c:a copy -c:v cinepak "HypeConclusion_NEW.avi" ffmpeg -i "HypeIntro.avi" -c:a copy -c:v cinepak "HypeIntro_NEW.avi" ffmpeg -i "LOGO.AVI" -c:a copy -c:v cinepak "LOGO_NEW.AVI" Make a backup of (or delete) the "old" files and rename the new ones by removing the suffix "_NEW". Copy the new FMV files back to <path-to-game>\Gamedata\Videos\.

Experiment with some settings to fix FMV playback[citation needed]

Open ubi.ini. Under the section [Hype - The Time Quest], find the line starting with ForceVideoMode= (add the line if it does not exist) and try either ForceVideoMode=DXMedia or ForceVideoMode=ChildWindow. Use a Direct3D wrapper and experiment with different windowed/fullscreen modes (e.g. fake/borderless fullscreen vs. exclusive fullscreen). Use a Direct3D wrapper and use features that prevent inactive app state. In DDrawCompat, this is known as "AltTabFix" and can be configured by editing DDrawCompat.ini. Sometimes alt+tabbing out of the game once and alt+tabbing back in fixes subsequent FMV playback.

Graphical glitches when using dgVoodoo 2

Visual artifacts when using dgVoodoo 2

Select ATI Radeon 8500 as the emulated videocard[citation needed]
Run the dgVoodoo 2 configuration tool dgVoodooCpl.exe. In the tab "DirectX" under "Videocard", select "ATI Radeon 8500" from the dropdown menu. Click "Apply" to save the changes.

Black screen when using Glide wrapper

Install compatibility fixes
Download the installation package for Hype: The Time Quest and extract it. Go to Compatibility and run PatchInstall.bat to add the compatibility entries to the system's database.

Game crashes on Alt+Tab

Install dgVoodoo 2

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	6
Glide	3.10

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Installing on modern versions of Windows

64-bit versions of Windows can't run the CD installer due to it being a 16-bit application. Trying to run the installer in Windows 7 x64 will cause the process to freeze in the background and require the task manager to close.

Note:
The ReadMe of the Widescreen & FPS Fix includes some simplified instructions how to install the game on modern systems. However, the instructions below should still work.

Alternative Installer[citation needed]
Download and use Alternative Installer. Notes Alternative installer only works with English, German and Polish version of the game. For documentation and common problems, see Hype: The Time Quest - Alternative Installer.

Manual installation

Create a folder named Hype somewhere on the drive (from now on, we'll be referring to it as <path-to-game>). From the CD's root directory, copy DSETUP.DLL, DSETUP16.DLL and DSETUP32.DLL to <path-to-game>. Copy DLL, GameData and InstData to <path-to-game>. Go to exe on the CD. Copy Gli.ini to <path-to-game>. Copy MaiD3Dvr_bleu.exe from D3D to <path-to-game>. Copy MaiDFXvr_bleu.exe from Glide 3x to <path-to-game>. Copy all files from UbiConfig to <path-to-game>. Go back to the CD's root folder, and go to LangData\<current language>\world\. Copy levels to <path-to-game>\GameData\World\. When asked about scaling folders, answer yes. Go to the Windows directory (%WINDIR%). Inside it, create a folder named UbiSoft. From the CD's root directory, copy DSETUP.DLL, DSETUP16.DLL, DSETUP32.DLL and SetupUbi.exe to a newly created directory: %WINDIR%\UbiSoft\. It may be possible that the folder already exists, as it's shared with other Ubisoft games of the same era. In such case, do not replace any of the files. From the InstData directory on the CD, copy strings.eng to %WINDIR%\UbiSoft\. Download the installation package for Hype: The Time Quest and extract it. From config, copy ubi.ini to %WINDIR%\UbiSoft\. If there are other Ubisoft games already installed that use the same file, ubi.ini has to be manually edited by adding [Hype - The Time Quest] under [INSTALLED PRODUCTS] as well as the section responsible for game configuration (just copy the lines from [Hype - The Time Quest] to [OSD] from ubi.ini provided in the installation package). If the current language is different from English, edit ubi.ini, find the line Language=English under the [Hype - The Time Quest] section, and change it to a language currently being used (e.g. for Polish it's Language=Polish - incorrect language will make all the characters mute). Go to the folder where the files from the installation package were extracted to. Go to Compatibility and run PatchInstall.bat to add the compatibility entries to system's database. Install the nGlide wrapper, if it's not already. Finally, go to <path-to-game>, run Ubiassistant.exe and choose 3DFX configuration. Run the game using MaiDFXvr_bleu.exe.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum		Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95, 98, NT
Processor (CPU)	200 MHz with MMX		233 MHz with MMX
System memory (RAM)	32 MB		64 MB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)	115 MB		490 MB
Video card (GPU)	4 MB of VRAM DirectX 6.1 compatible		Glide 3 compatible 3D Card 4 MB of VRAM