Running Styx under DOS
Styx was designed in 1983, so is a typical DOS game. It is a very small program (less than 20K), and runs on any IBM compatible PC.

Running DOS Styx under Windows 3.1
This works fine, expect for the sound, which cases the game to crash. To solve this problem, either use the /Q option to turn all the sound off. Better still, exit Windows (by selecting "Exit Windows" from the program manager's File menu) before you play the game - the timing will be more accurate.

Running DOS Styx under Windows 95 or 98
Create a shortcut to Styx.exe, right-click the shortcut, click "Properties", "Program", "Advanced..." and ensure that "Suggest MS-DOS mode as necessary" is unchecked. Better still, run the game in MS-DOS mode - the timing will be more accurate. To do this, press "Start", "Shut down" and select "Restart in MS-DOS mode". You can then run Styx from the MS-DOS prompt. You can also set up a shortcut to run Styx in MS-DOS mode ("Use default settings" will usually work). When running Styx in MS-DOS mode, be sure to exit using F10 and not Ctrl-Alt-Del, otherwise your computer will always load Styx when it starts. If you find this is happening and F10 doesn't make any difference, boot your computer in Safe mode and remove any lines referencing "Styx" from your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files.

Known problems
Most of these have arisen because of the way the original game uses the hardware, and because the author of  the remastered Styx version wants to keep it as similar to the original as possible, in terms of sound and gameplay.

* Crashes on when sound is on when running under Windows (3.1 enhanced mode or 95). This is considered to be a bug in Windows, not a bug in the game, the sound just wouldn't be right if Andrew Jenner didn't reprogram the timer. MS-DOS mode under Windows 95 is okay, though ("Use default settings" will usually work). On my system it basically works if you exit with F10 when it crashes and restart it with the /Q option, but, as ever, Your Mileage May Vary.

* There is a pause for a few seconds before keyboard control is available after exiting with F10 under Windows 95 (not in MS-DOS mode) on some systems. If this happens, don't panic - it does come back. I'm still trying to figure out what's causing this.

* Very occasionally crashes on exit when Smartdrv is running and you got a high score on your last game. This is because Smartdrv delays saving the high score table for a second or so, and gets confused if you try to exit while it is doing its stuff. Solution: disable write-caching before running the game, or, if you get a high score and want to exit, wait until the scores have saved. If it does crash, run Scandisk immediately, or you may lose all your high scores.

* Ball init makes sound on first game, even if sound is turned off at command line. This messes up Windows.

* Changing speed alters volume of some sound effects, and timing of others.

* Don't know if it works on CGA and EGA machines yet.

* Joystick support is thoroughly untested. It may or may not exist at all.