Troubleshooting.

If you've tried "Quick Setup" in the Rhythm Rider 2.x menu system, and it still doesn't work, then here are possible solutions for any technical difficulties you may have.

Rhythm Rider not receiving musical data

1> The rule is, if Microsoft's Window's Media Player (WMP) is responding to musical data in its visualization window, then so will Rhythm Rider. The other condition is that the Rhythm Rider 2.x visualization plug-in must be selected. The visualization window is found by selecting the "Now Playing" tab on the WMP.

2> Plug-in not registered. If you can't find the Rhythm Rider 2.x visualization plug-in in Windows Media Player (WMP), then you may need to register the plug-in with Windows. This is done automatically when you run WMP within Rhythm Rider. It's done by either pressing the WMP logo in the upper left hand corner of the visualization scene in Rhythm Rider 2.0, or in the "Quick Setup" guide, step One. The WMP logo looks like this:

To register the plug-in manually, you can do it from within WMP by adding the plug-in RRwmpplugin2.dll. The plug-in can be found in the directory where Rhythm Rider 2.0 is installed. To get to this by the Windows Media Player menu system press [Alt], then select 'View', then 'Visualizatons', then "Options". A box will pop up. Select the "plug-ins" tab, and add the "RRwmpplugin2.dll". Once it's plugged in, you can select it.

3> If you can't make the above work, try upgrading your Microsoft Windows Media Player to 10 or higher. This is available freely from Microsoft over the web and can be downloaded.

4>The Windows Media Player is minimized and in system tray. If you have collapsed the Windows Media Player into the system tray, then make sure it is expanded up again. Musical data won't be passed from a minimized player. The player can sit behind Rhythm Rider, however.

5>File being played is not generating musical data. Some media formats, such as MIDI, and video formats don't generate visualization data, and thus can't be viewed via the Rhythm Rider. MP3, Wave and other formats should do so, however.

Animation Too Slow

1>Graphics card is not fast enough. The biggest reason for slow graphics is graphics card speed. A faster card may be required. It could also be the driver. If your driver is not up to date, or it's a generic driver not taylored for your graphics card, then you may not be using the full potential of the card. You should check your manufacturer's website to make sure you have the latest driver for your card.

Note, you can test to see if the card and/or driver are taylored for OpenGL by running Rhythm Rider, exiting it, and then opening the file "TestThis.Txt" in NotePad or WordPad. TestThis.Txt is stored in the directory where you installed Rhythm Rider. If it reads "GL_RENDERER = GDI Generic", this means that card and/or driver aren't designed for OpenGL. If there is a driver upgrade, this may fix the problem. If you don't know the directory Rhythm Rider is in, you can find out by going to the "All Programs" menu via window's "Start", finding "Rhythm Rider", and then mousing over the Rhythm Rider application, and a tips note should pop up by your mouse showing you the location. If this doesn't work, right click the mouse while over the app and select the "properties" entry. By "Target" you should see the directory path of the application. You can perform the same steps with the desk top icon for Rhythm Rider.

Also, note, you can see how fast the frame rate is by toggling the F2 key, which will give you FPS (Frames Per Second) in the upper left hand corner.

2>Computer CPU speed. If your computer's CPU speed is too slow, then this also can slow down the graphics.

3>Computer memory too small. This is the least likely cause, considering the amount of memory most modern computers have, but if this is too low, then this could be a problem. If you have over 500 MB, then this should not be the problem.