Similar to PHost, the general syntax for PVCR is

pvcr [-v|-h] [-pplayer] [-s|-rprogram] [-bN] [-f] [-F] [-ttime] [-Xseg:ofs] [GameDir [RootDir]]

► Note: Note that, if you use DOS Planets, PVCR will be installed under the name vcr.exe.

Defaults are such that if you have installed PVCR correctly for your planets.exe or VPA, you can simply use the normal VCR display function of your client program to invoke PVCR; if you installed it for Winplan, you can simply run it without caring for the rest.

Unless you specify an option that says something else, PVCR will do the following when run:

  • if there exists a vcrinit.tmp file, PVCR will read instructions from that file. This file is created by planets.exe. PVCR will, repeatedly, let the user choose a battle and watch it. Upon exit, it will reload planets.exe. If the battles were not generated by PHost, PVCR will hand them to the normal VCR (vcr.exe).
  • (4.0f) otherwise, if there exists a gamestat.dat file, PVCR will offer a menu of the games defined there-in. This applies when you run PVCR from your Winplan directory.

  • if none of these applies, PVCR will load planets.exe, just as Tim's VCR does.