Expo3D™ Technical Support

	Leaders in the development of virtual 3D environments for business	Expo3D Corp.
		(805) 815-3976

Troubleshooting Guide

The most common problems encountered are listed below. Click on the link to get to the solution for the problem you may be having. If you encounter a problem not listed here, please contact technical support. 1. Expo3D fails to connect to the server. 2. Random lines or triangular shapes are making the screen hard to see. 3. The entire screen appears white, and may or may not display people. 4. Lettering in E-Brochures seems to be cut off on the bottom. 5. The 3D scene never appears, but I can still communicate with others. 6. Some of the images are disappearing or are white as I move in the 3D world. 7. No one seems to be hearing me in voice chats. 8. My computer freezes or locks up while running Expo3D. 9. Performance is slow while moving around in Expo3D. 10. Expo3D is fast at times, but pauses shortly and then is fast again. 11. About Firewalls.
Solutions
1. Expo3D fails to connect to the server. Several things could be causing this: You may not be connected to the Internet. Sometimes Expo3D is not able to automatically launch your Internet (or dial-up) connection, in which case you need to do this before you start Expo3D. Your PC may be behind a corporate or personal firewall. If so then read the section About Firewalls. Your dialup service may be using data compression. See Dialup Modem Service. Our server may be temporarily down. 2. Random lines or triangular shapes are making the screen hard to see. This typically means that your video card either does not have the latest manufacturer driver installed, or the video card is not compatible with DirectX version 7 or higher. Refer to the video card manufacturer's website to download and install the latest drivers. 3. The entire screen appears white, and may or may not display people. This typically means either your video card is too old to support the advanced 3D requirements of Expo3D, or something is preventing your DirectDraw/Direct3D Acceleration from working properly. If you have old hardware, please visit our Upgrade Section for more information. First check to see if your Hardware acceleration is turned up to full by right clicking on your desktop and choosing Properties. On the Display Properties dialog box, click the Settings tab, and then the Advanced button. Then click the Troubleshoot tab, and on that form you should see a slider control for Hardware acceleration. If it is not all the way to the right, then go ahead and slide it all the way to the right and then click on OK to everything to close all windows and try Expo3D again. If that was already fully enabled, then read on... To find out if DirectDraw/Direct3D Acceleration is enabled, start by clicking on the Windows Start button, then click "Run...". In the "Open" text box, enter dxdiag and press enter. This runs the DirectX Diagnostics Tool. In DXDIAG, click on the "Display" tab and read what kind of video card you have, and in the features section, see if the DirectDraw Acceleration and Direct3D Acceleration is marked as Enabled. If it is not, click the Enable button to enable those features. If it is now enabled, try Expo3D again. If DXDIAG reported that NetMeeting was running and the acceleration may not be available while NetMeeting is running, you'll have to stop NetMeeting before running Expo3D. Windows XP: Click Start and Run, then enter conf in the Open box and click OK. This starts NetMeeting. Then from NetMeeting's Tools menu, select Options. On the General tab, uncheck "Run NetMeeting in the background when Windows starts". Then on Tools menu again, select Remote Desktop Sharing, and Uncheck "Enable Remote Desktop Sharing on this computer". Non-XP: Click the Windows Start button, then All Programs, then Accessories, then Communication, then NetMeeting. In the NetMeeting options (or tools) menu, select remote desktop sharing option and use the wizard to install/start it. After it's started, go to the same option and disable remote desktop sharing. Then close the NetMeeting program. Note: Administrators can install NetMeeting across a corporate intranet by creating a configuration file that installs and configures NetMeeting globally. A global configuration may or may not limit options available to users and if your NetMeeting was installed by a remote administrator, you may have to contact them to get the ability for you to turn it on/off. After making the NetMeeting configuration changes, run DXDIAG again and see if the display now shows that hardware acceleration as enabled. If it does, close DXDIAG and try running Expo3D again. If you are not running NetMeeting, and your attempts here just cannot enable acceleration then you'll probably have to upgrade your video card and/or drivers. In rare cases this display problem may also mean your video card does not have the latest manufacturer driver installed. Refer to the video card manufacturer's website to download and install the latest drivers. If you are using a laptop computer through a docking station, it could also be that the docking station does not have updated drivers or supports 3D functions. Test this by running Expo3D while not connected to the docking station. 4. Lettering in E-Brochures seems to be cut off on the bottom. Most likely you are running in a non-standard font mode of Windows called "Large Fonts". Expo3D will run in this mode, but many E-Brochures and text messages may be hard to read because they are overlapping and cluttered. To change your display mode to a normal font display: Right click on your Windows desktop Click "Properties" Select the "Settings" tab Click the "Advanced" button near the bottom Under Font Size, choose "Small Fonts" (Normal Fonts on some systems, or 96DPI on others) Click OK or Apply Click Close If prompted to reboot, click Yes 5. The 3D scene never appears, but I can still communicate with others. The 3D engine failed to initialize properly. This typically means that your video card is too old to support the advanced 3D requirements of Expo3D. Please visit our Upgrade Section for more information. 6. Some of the images are disappearing or are white as I move in the 3D world. Your video card probably doesn't have enough memory to display all images at once. This is typical of older cards that have less than 32MB of memory. Consider upgrading to a newer video card. Please visit our [Upgrade Section] for more information. 7. No one seems to be hearing me in voice chats. Assuming you do in fact have a sound card and a microphone on your system, this is usually caused by the microphone (or mic) not being selected in your sound cards setup. Bring up your Windows Control Panel (Start \| Control Panel \| Sound / Audio Devices). Under the Volume tab, click Advanced in the Device Volume section. Click Options, then Properties. Under "Adjust volume for", select the Recording option. If the Mic Volume is not checked, then check it and press OK. Make sure that the "Mic Volume" is not muted, or if your sound options displays "Selected" instead of "Muted" checkboxes, then make sure the microphone is selected as your input device. Click the X in the top-right corner to close the audio properties. You can now try voice chat again in Expo3D. If you still have difficulties voice chatting, please refer to our more detailed document or contact technical support. 8. My computer freezes or locks up while running Expo3D. Expo3D requires a fairly new computer in order to run properly. In many cases this type of problem can come from not having enough system memory (RAM). While Expo3D only requires 128MB of RAM minimum, Windows requires the majority of this memory, leaving very little to run Expo3D and other applications your computer is running at the same time. Upgrading to 512MB of RAM or more will likely resolve this issue, and can not only dramatically increase performance in Expo3D but also other applications as well. It is also advised to upgrade to DirectX 9 if you have not done so already. DirectX is available on the Expo3D CD-ROM in the \DirectX directory, or via download from Microsoft. You should also upgrade to the latest video card drivers as well. Refer to your video card manufacturer's website to download and install the latest drivers. In rare cases the sound card drivers could be causing the problem. If you have done all of the above steps, you can also visit your sound card manufacturer's website to download and install the latest sound card drivers for your computer. It is also a good idea to visit Microsoft's website (http://www.microsoft.com) and download any updates for your particular operating system that are available. If your computer is not from a brand-name or well-known computer manufacturer then you may also be experiencing issues related to cheap or faulty hardware / software. In particular if your computer has a video card from S3 Graphics we highly suggest upgrading as we have had numerous complaints regarding these video cards, and to date, we have never found a S3 Graphics card that supports all of Microsoft's specifications for DirectX. 9. Performance is slow while moving around in Expo3D. Expo3D requires a fairly new computer in order to run properly. There are several reasons performance can be slow. Just because your computer may meet the minimum system requirements does not mean the software will run fast. It is always advisable to exceed the minimum system requirements of any software program for optimal performance. In most modern systems, the main performance limitation comes from an older 3D card, not enough system memory (RAM), or a slow processor. Please visit our [Upgrade Section] for more information. You can also try following the steps described above for freezing or locking up of your computer to upgrade all of your system drivers to the latest versions. 10. Expo3D is fast at times, but pauses shortly and then is fast again. This usually means one of two things; both relating to the amount of memory that is available to your computer. If you have less than 128MB of RAM, then it is probably due to your system running out of physical memory and relying on the hard drive for additional storage. This is extremely slow for the computer, and you probably have noticed your hard drive accessing often in Expo3D and other Windows applications. Upgrading the amount of RAM you have should greatly reduce this problem, and boost performance of your computer overall. This can also occur if you have a limited amount of video card texture memory (less than 32MB). There is not enough memory available to store all of the graphics Expo3D needs to display the show at any one time, so it must constantly swap textures in and out from the hard disk. The only resolution for this is to upgrade to a newer 3D card. Please visit our [Upgrade Section] for more information. You may also try defragmenting your hard disk if you have not done so in a while. Severely fragmented hard drives greatly increase the amount of load time all applications (not just Expo3D) can take to load on your system. In addition if you have a limited amount of RAM and the system is swapping memory often between system memory and the hard drive, this can slow performance on fragmented hard drives. For more information on how to defrag your hard drive please refer to your Windows operating system help or manual. If you were unable to find an answer to your question or cannot resolve the problem by following the above suggestions then please Contact Technical Support for further assistance.
About Firewalls
Corporate Firewalls Expo3D first attempts to connect to our servers using port 80, the Web port. Most Expo3D users will connect to port 80 without any problem. There are cases however, where more sophisticated firewalls will actually read the data going over the port 80 connection and determine that the data is not legitimate Web (HTTP) traffic. This is correct, for even though Expo3D may communicate over the Web port (80) it does not use the HTTP protocol. In these cases, it is suggested that the alternate Expo3D port 3976 be opened in the firewall by means of writing a firewall rule. The actual rule required depends on the particular firewall being used, but that's within your firewall administrator's expertise. It should be noted that the opening of this port can (in most firewall rule sets) be opened in a one-way mode. That is, the firewall should allow local clients to establish a connection from the inside of the firewall, going out, but not allow a connection from the outside coming in. This should not preclude bi-directional transmission once established however. Even tighter security can be achieved by allowing the outgoing connection to only connect to the Expo3D domain (205.159.29.0/24). Configured correctly, the opening of port 3976 in the firewall will not present any additional security threat, since no one could use this port for any other purpose. Not even Expo3D could enter your network from the outside! Even a rogue program intentionally written to exploit this port, assuming it could be installed on a computer inside your network, could only communicate with our server, and not the rogue author's server. It should also be noted that once the firewall rules are entered to allow Expo3D communication they should persist and will allow all users behind the firewall access to Expo3D services without further intervention by the firewall administrator. If a connection fails, Expo3D will automatically launch its Connection Wizard to assist you in determining if it can identify any proxy server settings that might be required. The wizard will check for proxy server settings that may be set for Internet Explorer, and if it finds any, attempts to connect via the proxy servers found, one at a time. If all that fails, the connection wizard presents the user with a form to fill in, requesting the proxy server address information. Proxy Servers The Expo3D client program understands most proxy servers, including HTTP Tunnel and Socks4, 4A & 5. If your site uses a proxy server, manually running the Connection Wizard (C:\program files\Expo3D\conwiz.exe) is useful in setting up the proper configuration the first time. Microsoft Proxy Server If your proxy server is the Microsoft Proxy Server but its Win Proxy support is not enabled, you'll have to have your network administrator install and configure the Winsock Proxy Client on your PC. This program will allow Expo3D to function once it is properly configured. Although the use of a proxy server will introduce a small latency, everything should work fine. If our Connection Wizard fails to locate a proxy server, only your network administrator will be able to instruct you on the actual configuration settings that you'll need. Your network administrator may need to know the following about Expo3D. When Expo3D tries to connect to the show server, it first establishes a TCP/IP connection to expo3d.expo3d.com, port 80 (or 3976). This connection is very short as it's only purpose it to query this server to find out what the name of the actual individual show server is. Once that info is received, that connection is closed, and a second connection is then made to showname.expo3d.com, port 80 (or 3976) (where showname is changed to match the actual host name for the desired show). This connection remains open the entire time you are online and connected to the show. The Proxy server and/or firewall needs to pass-through a TCP/IP connection from any port on your PC to port 80 or 3976 on any host at expo3d.com. The Expo3D server will never attempt to connect to your PC. Personal Firewalls Personal firewalls that allow Web, HTTP, or HTTPS (Port 80) traffic should not interfere with our communications. However, if you are able to run Expo3D in offline mode but fail to connect to our server in online mode, your personal firewall may be the cause. Most will automatically detect our connection attempt and ask you if you want to let it proceed. If not, most also have an option to temporarily shut down the firewall (refer to your specific firewall manual for details). Dialup Modem Service If you dial in to the Internet and your ISP uses compression to "speed up" your online experience, you may have to disable that in order to connect and stay connected.

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