RCT 3 PC RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 FAQ

[Michael Brookes]

Thank you for playing RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. We've provided the following information to supplement the manual in order to try and help any of you who may have questions or be experiencing problems. Unfortunately our help can't extend to diagnosing or fixing PC-specific problems; Atari customer support is better equipped for those questions (see your game manual for contact details). We will also be making available Updates from time to time that introduce minor new features, modify the games’ behavior based on player feedback and, of course, address any problems which come to light.

Updates

Official updates for RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3 are delivered two ways: click the UPDATES button found on the game's autorun screen (which is displayed when you insert the game-disc into your CD-ROM drive); or when you click the Check For Updates shortcut found in the Windows START menu under START > Programs > Atari > RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3. Downloads have also been made available for those who cannot access the internet from the PC on which they play RCT3.

If you choose to download an Update, you need to select the correct one (for your territory and to update from either the standard retail version or an Updated version of the game) - please be aware that re-mastered versions of the game are now in retail which include Update 1 and in future will include Update 2, which complicates this decision.

To avoid the possibility of any confusion we strongly recommend that you use the UPDATES button found on the game's autorun screen; or click the Check For Updates shortcut found in the Windows START menu under START > Programs > Atari > RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3. This will automatically detect which game version you have and download the latest one if necessary.

Our thanks go to all who are continuing to contribute feedback to us, we really appreciate your communication. If you want to send us feedback on the game, please do so via rct3game@frontier.co.uk - even if an issue you have is not fixed in the latest Update we want to know about it so that we can keep improving the game.

To learn more about installing updates check this link: http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3

Frequently Asked Questions

Will my PC run RCT3?
How can I tweak RCT3 to run at its best on my PC?
Why does my game suffer from framerate slowdown / lags, graphical glitches, crashes?
How can I restore my screen resolution after changing it to an unsupported setting?
Why don’t peeps get on my rides?
How should I lay out my park to get best distribution of peeps round all the rides?
Why do peeps who need the toilet, are hungry, thirsty or tired not use facilities?
Why do some lights flicker at night?
Why can't I build paths or scenery or rides in some areas of the park?
Why don’t I see night-time in RCT3?
Can I adjust the park operating hours (when it opens and when it closes)?
How can I call a mechanic to go a broken-down stall?
Why does my park’s financial information appear to be incorrect?
How do I import my RCT 1 and 2 coasters into RCT3?
Why does RCT3 crash when I try to save a game?
How do I change numeric values quickly rather than clicking on the arrows repeatedly?
How do I get my VIP to visit my coasters and complete a scenario goal?
What are the effects of training staff?
Why does water not appear on my system?
Why doesn't my Looping / LIM Coaster connect properly?
Why can I import certain track configurations, but not build them in RCT3?
Why can’t I save the game when ‘My Documents’ folder is on a network drive?
Why are rides/scenery placed in the air after changing terrain?

 

[Michael Brookes]

Will My PC Run RCT3?

In order to determine whether your PC system can play the game and how it performs then please download the free demo version of the game from http://www.RollerCoasterTycoon.com/ - this site also lists the minimum and recommended specifications for PCs. The section "How can I tweak <RCT3> to run at its best on my PC?" immediately below may also provide useful information.

In common with most modern games RCT3 requires 3D graphics acceleration – typically with a minimum of a 32MB graphics card that offers support in hardware for Transform & Lighting calculations (‘hardware T&L’) support, such as an Nvidia GeForce 2 and higher or ATI Radeon cards.

There are a couple of error messages which can be seen when the graphics capability of your system is not up to the required specification: Graphics cards provide information to the PC system when they are installed regarding their capabilities, and RCT3 reads this information. If the graphics card is not of the required performance then RCT3 will not start and will display a message to that effect. In some cases the driver software for the graphics cards can effectively “mis-represent” their capabilities to the PC system, causing RCT3 to try and run on a graphics card which does not offer the required functionality. In this case an error message “Cannot create Direct 3D device” is displayed by Direct X. If you see either of these messages they mean that the 3D graphics capability of your system does not meet the game’s requirements. Please be aware that this could well be the case with PCs which are relatively new – even today PCs are sold with on-board graphics systems that do not offer hardware T&L.

 

[Michael Brookes]

How can I tweak RCT3 to run at its best on my PC?

Expectations:

The original RCT 1 and 2 games had a low minimum spec and were able to successfully appeal to a very wide audience, many of whom who do not necessarily choose to stay on the bleeding edge of PC technology. Equally, RCT2 can make even today's high-end PCs struggle if the player puts whole bunch of content in a large park.

Similarly with the new 3D release, we have tried to ensure that the game can be enjoyed by as many people as possible on a wide range of PCs. RCT3's minimum spec is pretty low compared to other 3D PC games, especially ones targeted at 'core gamers'. We have worked very hard at keeping the performance up on low spec machines, as well as making the game visually attractive on all machines without necessarily relying on very performance-hungry graphical techniques. So our intention is that players can enjoy the game on the minimum spec machine, but to experience the game looking & running at its absolute best higher end PCs / graphics cards will inevitably be needed.

Even though the individual components of RCT3 can be quite simple, the sheer complexity on offer and the number of people, ridess and special effects like lighting, water reflections etc. make it an impressive technological and artistic achievement compared to other games, that may use more polygons on each individual component but offer nothing like the richness and diversity of RCT3. RCT3 has been designed to allow players to create parks without constraints, but you do need to be aware that your PC has a finite capacity. As with previous versions of RCT everything you place in your park has a small, cumulative impact on the game's performance. Large, dense parks with lots of content require more memory and processor power than a smaller, spaceded-out park. Also some objects and scenes will impact the game more than others; for example: if you build a huge glass building, this will impact on your system more than the same building with a brick wall. This is simply because the glass wall pieces require more resources than the plainer brick ones. Also, the more water you have in your park the more work the game has to do showing the reflections. Obviously these issues will impact lower spec machines more obviously than higher ones. However it is of course possible with RCT3 to construct a large park that is rich in animated content and has genuine-sized crowds of individual park guests all interacting with the park and each other, and therefore takes even the best current PC to it's limit.

In terms of park building you will have to 'cut your cloth' to suit your system, but the exact limits for content will depend both on your machine and also how you have the game's graphical settings adjusted - if you set everything to 'max' you will hit your PC's limit of what is acceptable to you sooner (i.e. the content in your park and/or frame rate) than if you trade off some graphics settings for content and/or performance.

Performance tweaking:

The speed of your PC’s CPU, the amount of memory it has and the capability of the graphics card you have in your PC each have a big effect on how the game runs on your PC. The two main things they effect are the frame rate achievable (how many screen updates the game can draw per second) and the amount of graphical detail that can be drawn per update.

RCT3 does a large amount of sophisticated graphical and other processing. The game has been designed to run well on both older and more up-to-date systems, and to do this it offers a variety of different settings for different graphical parameters and effects. When it first runs, the game auto-senses your PC’s configuration and sets these parameters to one of 5 default configurations we have chosen – we’ve called them Low, Medium, High, Very High and Extreme. There is also the ability to manually ‘tweak’ these settings using a series of sliders. There is a temptation (understandable!) to experiment with these and push them up to the maximum – please feel free to do this but also be aware that the game will not run at maximum performance and maximum graphical detail on any but the most powerful current PCs and graphics cards in combination. Choosing the “right” settings for your PC system rather than the maximum ones will allow you to enjoy the game at its best on your particular system.



In particular, the following settings can have a big effect on performance:

• Screen Resolution: a 1600 x 1200 screen has four times as many pixels to be calculated for as an 800 x 600 screen, so an 800 x 600 resolution setting will be much faster than a 1600 x 1200 one if your graphics card is the limiting factor in your system.
• Water Reflections: the water effect is achieved by drawing the relevant portions of the scene twice, the second time upside down for the reflection, and then applying the ‘ripple’ effect mathematically using a proportion of the available CPU time.
• Anti-Aliasing: this is applied to reduce the ‘jagged edges’ that can be seen on diagonal lines drawn on computer displays, it does this with techniques which use up a proportion of the available graphics performance.
• Bloom: this lighting effect again uses a significant a proportion of the available graphics performance.
• Landscape Textures: the colouration and detail of the landscape also has a big effect on some graphics cards (systems that are ‘fill-rate’ limited). Selecting ‘Simple Landscape Textures’ will help significantly on some cards.

So we suggest setting your system to:

• 800 x 600 resolution
• Un-check the ‘Reflective Water’ box.
• Select no anti-aliasing
• Un-check the ‘bloom’ box
• Un-check the ‘Shadows’ box (Or select none or static shadows if you have Wild or Update 3 installed)
• Check the ‘Simple Landscape Textures’ box

..and seeing how that runs and looks. Then you can experiment with the effects and consequences of each feature one at a time to assess what is the right compromise between graphical effects and performance for you and your system.

Update 1 adds a ‘Graphical detail level’ icon (depicting ‘tools’) to the Game Options > Graphic Settings window which allows you to switch between the game’s five ‘standard’ settings of Low, Medium, High, Very High & Extreme and suggests to you via the option it initially presents what it believes your system should be (it performs its auto-sensing again) – in effect a ‘restore factory default’ facility.

TIP for those with lower-end systems – to see what your parks look like with a higher level of settings, you can set these higher just before you start a coaster-cam video recording session. When the recording is finished, restore the settings. The video is produced with the higher settings at a standard high framerate so you can see what your park looks like in the video with the higher settings.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Why does my game suffer from framerate slowdown / lags, graphical glitches, crashes?

There are a number of possible reasons for this:

1) As well as our own code, the game relies on software provided by Microsoft called Direct X, and device driver software provided by graphics card manufacturers (e.g. ATI and NVidia) for their cards, as well as software drivers for other component parts of your PC such as sound cards. During development a number of bugs were found in the drivers provided by both ATI and NVidia – in general; on ATI cards these driver bugs were related to older cards, and on NVidia cards the driver bugs were related to newer cards...! If you are seeing graphical glitches (such as grey polygons) or crashes and / or periodic frame rate slowdown these are very likely to be either bugs caused by the problems with the drivers or the results of our attempts to work around the problems. ATI and NVidia told us they would release new versions of their drivers to coincide roughly with the release of the game and provided us with early versions of them to test, and so we were able to code the game (using the graphics.fix file) such that when and if newer versions of the drivers are available on your PC then the game will try to operate as intended rather than using the workaround.

So checking for and upgrading to these newer drivers for both ATI and NVidia cards will help the vast majority of people who may experience problems, please ensure you do this as a first step towards resolving any problems.

You can check the device drivers in your system by running the program DxDiag:

Click on the Windows ‘Start’ button
Click ‘Run’
Type dxdiag
Press Return/Enter
Then click the "Save all information" button at the bottom of the window that appears.
Double-click the saved file to open it in a text editor, and look through to find the driver information.

The correct drivers and where to get them from are:

ATI Radeon cards:

Known good driver version: Catalyst 5.7 Latest driver version: Catalyst 5.8 Available now via http://www.ati.com/.

NVIdia GeForce cards:

For Windows XP, Windows 2000:

Known good driver version: ForceWare 77.72 Latest driver version: ForceWare 77.72 Available now via http://www.nvidia.com/.

For Windows 98 and Windows ME:

Known good driver version: ForceWare 56.72 Latest driver version: ForceWare 61.76 (known BAD). Please check http://www.nvidia.com/ for beta and full driver updates for these operating systems.

For other cards please contact your hardware vendor for the latest drivers, your game manual contains contact details for several manufacturers.

Note: Newer drivers are now available for both ATI and NVidia, it is worth downloading the latest drivers. If you encounter any problems with the newest drivers then use the versions as indicated above.

In addition, UPDATE 1 & 2 address a small number of further compatibility issues which could cause instability in the retail version in some circumstances, so as well as ensuring you have known good device drivers you should install the latest available update (see the ‘Updates’ section above).

The game also relies upon the DirectX software from Microsoft – this is re-distributed with the game and should have been installed if needed when the game was installed. If for some reason you don’t have Direct X 9.0c on your system you can get it as a free download from Microsoft at www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.aspx

Other drivers. If you are STILL experiencing problems, please also consider checking that the drivers for the rest of your system are up-to-date, for example soundcard drivers. Its good practice to make sure these are up-to-date periodically in any case. You will be able to discover what soundcard (and other components) and related driver version you have in your PC from the dxdiag file (see above for instructions on how to obtain this), and look on the vendors’ website for the latest drivers to check you are up-to-date.

2) If you have changed some graphical settings you need to be aware that the game will not run at maximum performance and maximum graphical detail on any but the most powerful current PCs and graphics cards in combination, and it may be that you have chosen some settings which are not suitable / appropriate for your PC. For your convenience we’ve repeated below the performance tweaking section of this FAQ’s ‘How can I tweak <RCT3> to run at its best on my PC?’ topic:

The speed of your PC’s CPU, the amount of memory it has and the capability of the graphics card you have in your PC each have a big effect on how the game runs on your PC. The two main things they effect are the framerate achievable (how many screen updates the game can draw per second) and the amount of graphical detail that can be drawn per update.

RCT3 does a large amount of sophisticated graphical and other processing. To tailor the game to your PC, the game automatically detects your system configuration the first time it is launched, chooses one of the five presets that is best suited for your computer, and then saves this a configuration file that is loaded each time you launch the game. We called these presets Low, Medium, High, Very High and Extreme. You may adjust any of the graphical parameters to fine tune the efficiency of game's performance on your particular computer after this initial configuration.

There is a temptation (understandable!) to experiment with these settings and to push them up to their maximum levels. But be aware, the game will not run optimally using the highest graphical settings on any PC except those with the highest CPU speeds equipped with the latest graphics cards and large amounts of memory. You'll enjoy the game at its best by choosing the "right" settings for your PC system rather than the maximum ones.

In particular, the following settings can have a big effect on performance:

• Screen Resolution: a 1600 x 1200 screen has four times as many pixels to be calculated for as an 800 x 600 screen, so an 800 x 600 resolution setting will be much faster than a 1600 x 1200 one if your graphics card is the limiting factor in your system.
• Water Reflections: the water effect is achieved by drawing the relevant portions of the scene twice, the second time upside down for the reflection, and then applying the ‘ripple’ effect mathematically using a proportion of the available CPU time.
• Anti-Aliasing: this is applied to reduce the ‘jagged edges’ that can be seen on diagonal lines drawn on computer displays, it does this by using techniques which consume a proportion of the available graphics performance.
• Bloom: this lighting effect again uses a significant a proportion of the available graphics performance.
• Shadows: the game calculates shadowing based on the position of the ‘sun’ in the game, which can impact performance on some systems.
• Landscape Textures: the colouration and detail of the landscape also has a big effect on some graphics cards (systems that are ‘fill-rate’ limited). Selecting ‘Simple Landscape Textures’ will help significantly on some cards.

So we suggest setting your system (via the game options menu, visual settings (eye icon) and landscape (land icon) options):

• 800 x 600 resolution
• Un-check the ‘Reflective Water’ box.
• Set anti-aliasing to ‘none’
• Un-check the ‘bloom’ box
• Un-check the ‘Shadows’ box (Or select static or none if you have Wild or Update 3 installed)
• Check the ‘Simple Landscape Textures’ box

..and seeing how that runs and looks – on the great majority of systems this should produce an acceptable performance. Then you can experiment with the effects and consequences of each feature one at a time to assess what is the right compromise between graphical effects and performance for you and your system.

Update 1 adds a ‘Graphical detail level’ icon (depicting ‘tools’) to the Game Options > Graphic Settings window which allows you to switch between the game’s five ‘standard’ settings of Low, Medium, High, Very High & Extreme and suggests to you via the option it initially presents what it believes your system should be (it performs its auto-sensing again) – in effect a ‘restore factory default’ facility.

TIP for those with lower-end systems – to see what your parks look like with a higher level of settings, you can set these higher just before you start a coaster-cam video recording session. When the recording is finished, restore the settings. The video is produced with the higher settings at a standard high framerate so you can see what your park looks like in the video with the higher graphical settings.

3) Some sound cards perform a great deal of processing on the PC’s CPU, rather than on the card itself. This can cause significant framerate slowdown, and the sound can also take on a metallic, echoing character. In these cases, navigate to the:

C:\Documents and Settings\[YOUR USERNAME]\Application Data\Atari\<RCT3> folder, open the options.txt file with a text editor and reduce the MaxSound and MaxMusic parameters from their default values of 100 and 4 to MaxSound 25 and MaxMusic 2, then save your changes and re-run the game. This will significantly reduce the sound processing your CPU is doing and therefore help framerate. You can also experiment with these values to tweak performance. In addition, for cards such as SoundBlaster Live!, you should also try turning off echo and other processing effects that are computed on your PC’s CPU. (For SoundBlaster Live! go to "Creative" >"SB Live" > "Audio HQ", open the "EAX Control Panel" and select "No Effects".)

 

[Michael Brookes]

4) The Scenery Visibility toggle makes all scenery and rides see-through. This can have a substantial effect on framerate so remember to switch it off when you've finished using it.

In the case where you have used the alpha value that is controlled in the options window to make everything solid, UPDATE 1 & later versions automatically switch it off after use when this alpha value is above a certain threshold.

5) It has been noted in some instances that if RCT3 is launched via the Windows ‘Start’ menu rather than waiting for the menu that is AutoRun from the game CD then you can get both the game and the AutoRun.exe running together, and in this case the AutoRun.exe process consumes an increasingly significant amount of CPU time (up to 20% or 25%), resulting in reduced performance of the game. To work around this, in the first instance you can check to see if the Autorun.exe process is running and if necessary shut it down using normal Windows procedures and then always launch the game via the AutoRun menu from CD rather than using Windows’ Start menu. In Update 1 & later versions RCT3 automatically checks to see if the AutoRun.exe process is running unnecessarily and if so terminate it, to defend against this situation.

6)Some sound cards, especially ones that are onboard your motherboard can cause compatibility issues. If you have an onboard sound card and are experiencing 'random' crashes, try setting the hardware acceleration for the card to 'none'. You can do this from within the dxdiag utility:

Click on the Windows ‘Start’ button
Click ‘Run’
Type dxdiag
Press Return/Enter

Then click on the Sound tab at the top of the window. When the Sound tab is opened, there is a slider to the left of the window. Move that slider all the way to the left. Then click Ok to confirm your change.

 

[Michael Brookes]

How can I restore my screen resolution after changing it to an unsupported setting?

If the game won’t run properly because you selected the wrong screen resolution, navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\[YOUR USERNAME]\Application Data\Atari\RCT3 and delete the options.txt file. It will then start up again. You must ensure that you have View hidden files and folders enabled in your Windows folders options to see this file and folder.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Why don’t peeps get on my rides?

RCT3 has new features and so does not play exactly the same as RCT 1 or 2, so you should not assume that strategies you have used successfully in the past will work as well in this new game. We have examined several save-games from players who are seeing that peeps don’t get on their rides. In only one, rare, circumstance was this due to a bug, which is fixed in UPDATE 1a. In all other cases we found that the parks did not provide the basics for their guests, with the use of ‘fast-forward’ speeding up the on-set of the problem – for example peeps were hungry but had no food stalls, or had no cash but had no ATMs to get more. In response we have made some balancing changes in UPDATE 1a to make it more likely in several circumstances that peeps will queue for and get on rides compared to the retail game, with the net result that the game is a little more forgiving with UPDATE 1a applied. However you MUST still make sure you have the basics (food, drink, money, toilets and benches) provided for your peeps so they continue to enjoy spending their money in your park..

Here are a few possible reasons / things to try if you find peeps are ignoring on or more of your rides, either generally or after a period of time. See if any of the following apply to your park:

1. Hunger / Thirst / Toilet / Tiredness needs of Peeps. If many of your peeps are allowed to get hungry they will go in search of food, etc. – if you haven’t got adequate provision for them your park can experience problems - they will start to want to eat rather than ride, and the same goes for the other ‘basics’. Sample the status of a few of the peeps who are walking by your ride entrances or use the guest thoughts summary window - if they are hungry and / or have low energy, thirsty, need the toilet or are tired and you don’t have any / many of the correct facilities in your park your peeps will start to suffer at the expense of going on rides. Note that facilities can only serve peeps at a certain maximum rate, if you have more than around 30 peeps who all need a particular facility at any one time you should seriously consider providing more capacity
2. Peeps’ Cash. After a time, peeps who stay in your park run out of cash and therefore can’t afford your rides. Sample the status of a few of the peeps who are walking by your ride entrances – if they don’t have any cash and you don’t have any / many ATM’s in your park, add some.
3. Intensity of Ride. Your ride (especially custom designed coasters) may be rated as having very high intensity values, which will put off all but the most courageous peeps. If so, you need to change your ride to be less intense (for example use banks to minimize lateral G forces, brakes to slow it down etc.).
4. Price of Ride. The price you are charging for your ride may be too high.
5. Peeps re-visiting rides. In the retail game, peeps can enjoy a ride and have the thought that they want to ride it again, but not do so immediately. This is by design, and is a piece of defensive coding to prevent loops occurring. There was a consensus of early feedback that this behavior should be altered, so UPDATE 1a contains code to make peeps more likely (N.B. not 100% of the time) to revisit rides that they enjoyed before going on other rides.
6. Queue path placement. Try and connect your queue to a busy path in the park.
7. Maps. Depending on where your ride is in your park, peeps may take a long time to ‘discover’ your ride. By selling maps you can make all those peeps who buy maps immediately aware of all the rides in the park. Otherwise, as in a real park, peeps will only know of the rides in their immediate vicinity. UPDATE 1a contains code that increases the distance over which peeps who don’t have maps will be aware of rides, and so makes them discover rides quicker compared to the retail game.
8. Queue path arrangement. In the retail game if there are two or more queues connected to the same grid square, peeps will only go down the first queue they see, so only one of the rides connected to the grid square will get any traffic. In UPDATE 1a this is fixed so if there are two or more queues connected to the same tile, people will make an informed decision as to which ride to queue for, rather than going down the first queue they see.
9. Queue path terrain. If you have modified the terrain under your queue path, there is a possibility that it has become ‘broken’ with adjacent tiles not being correctly butted up to each other. This can be fixed in the retail game using the terrain smoothing tools. Additionally in UPDATE 1a we have disallowed the editing of terrain under queue paths to eliminate this problem.
10. Testing a Ride. If you have not tested your ride, it has not yet been rated and information on it is not available to the peeps. This means that all but the most courageous peeps will not want to ride it until it is tested and rated.
11. Distribution of rides through the park. RCT3 peeps respond pretty well to park layouts where the big ‘star’ rides of the park are further into it, with gentler rides near the entrance.

 

[Michael Brookes]

How should I lay out my park to get best distribution of peeps round all the rides?

Here are some suggestions and tips to ensure your peeps flow through your park and visit all your rides & attractions:

1. Paths. Try and make sure the design of your paths leads the peeps through the park using main arteries, like in a real theme park.
2. Queue path arrangement. In the retail game if there are two or more queues connected to the same grid square, peeps will only go down the first queue they see, so only one of the rides connected to the grid square will get any traffic. In UPDATE 1a this is fixed so if there are two or more queues connected to the same tile, people will make an informed decision as to which ride to queue for, rather than going down the first queue they see.
3. Maps. Depending on the layout of your park, peeps may not know your rides are there. By selling maps you can make all those peeps who buy maps aware of all the rides in the park. Otherwise, as in a real park, peeps will only know about the rides in their immediate vicinity. UPDATE 1a contains code that increases the distance over which peeps who don’t have maps will be aware of rides.
4. ‘Chain’ your rides. Try and make the exit from one ride deliver peeps into the vicinity of the entrance to another.
5. Transport Rides. Its always a good idea to give your peeps a choice between paths and transport rides rather than relying on transport rides alone.
6. Prices. Make sure they are not too high and put peeps off.
7. Distribution of rides through the park. RCT3 peeps respond pretty well to park layouts where the big ‘star’ rides of the park are further into it, with gentler rides near the entrance.
8. You can manage the flow of peeps through your park using ‘No Entry’ signs – select a sign from the Scenery > Path Extras menu and when the sign is placed click on it, and on the view port that opens up check the ‘No entry’ tick box under the ‘Sign options’ icon. This can be useful for example to prevent peeps spending wasted time walking up a long exit path to one of your rides.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Why do peeps who need the toilet, are hungry, thirsty or tired not use facilities?

There may be a couple of reasons for this being observed:

1. When a Peep (or group of Peeps) decides it is time to leave the park, their decision is made and will not change. They will then head for the exit, and will no longer look for rides, stalls, benches etc. Thus if, for example, a group decides to leave because there are no food stalls, then even if the player places food stalls in their path, they will ignore them. This behavior is the same as for RCT1 & 2.
2. When a Peep (or group of Peeps) decides on a destination they will press on until they achieve that destination, even if they become hungry / thirsty / tired / in need of a toilet during the journey. Once their objective has been achieved they will re-assess their needs and decide what to do accordingly.
3. There may not be enough capacity for the facility, to alleviate this, it is best to provide facilities in clusters of three or more.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Why do some lights flicker at night?

The game has a limited number of dynamic lights (4) that can act on a grid square at any one time for performance reasons, so in scenes where there are many lights the culling of the number of lights to 4 manifests itself as flickering of the lights.

UPDATE 1 contains code which improves this behaviour when cars stops at stations (for example, chairlift and go-karts), whereby stations now have their own light and when a car enters its own lights are switched off.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Why can't I build paths or scenery or rides in some areas of the park?

In some cases, trees must be removed before a pre-built coaster may be built in that area (or you may build a coaster over the trees by holding SHIFT while moving the mouse UP to raise the coaster above the foliage).

Also check the gradient of the land, if it is too steep people won’t be able to walk up or down paths.

In addition, not all the land allows for construction - some of the land may only have tracks or footbridges built over it. You can check the status for all the land in the scenario by opening the Park Operations button (found at the top of the Park Management buttons), and then click on the button to buy land or to lease easement rights. Land you own will be shown a blue grid and you may build in that area without restriction - if terrain editing is allowed in the scenario, you may also change the shape of the terrain of all the land you own. In the case of easements, this is land over which you may only build tracks and bridges; you may not edit the terrain, add buildings, place ride entrances and exits, or remove trees on leased land. Land that you have currently leased for easement is shown by a blue grid comprised of broken lines. The first instance of land easement occurs in the Broom Lake scenario.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Why don’t I see night-time in RCT3?

Not all scenarios have park hours set to include nighttime. None of the first 6 scenarios have night-time. One of the best scenarios that shows off day and night is Fright Night, where closing time is 2am. If you play in sandbox mode, you can instantly transition between day and night by clicking the sun / moon icons on the main control bar.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Can I adjust the park operating hours (when it opens and when it closes)?

No, park hours cannot be adjusted in the provided scenarios. This is one of the challenges of the scenario. However, in the Scenario Editor you can create your own scenarios and you have full control over the park opening times in your scenarios.

 

[Michael Brookes]

How can I call a mechanic to go a broken-down stall?

Broken rides and stalls will automatically send out calls for mechanics. They do this approximately every 15 seconds.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Why does my park’s financial information appear to be incorrect?

In the retail version of the game and UPDATE 1 there are two sources of financial information for your park.

Clicking on the ride or shop and opening the finances panel will show a financial summary for that ride or shop. This information is presented in “real time” i.e. per real hour and will show the projected income, costs and profit over an hour of playing time. Note that this could equate to several months of game time, and if you have the game in ‘fast forward’ mode it will equate to even more game-time. It will also show the in-game profit or loss for the item over it's entire lifespan to date.

The finances window shows a monthly summary for the park as a whole. The information in this window is presented in game time and each column relates to that game-month only, there are no balances brought forward.

So you are not comparing like with like if you try and match up the ‘per real hour’ information from the ride or shop window with the game-monthly summary information from the finances window.

 

[Michael Brookes]

How do I import my RCT 1 and 2 coasters into RCT3?

To import tracks from previous RCT games click on the Import Tracks button in the rides menu (It is the bottom button). You then need to use drop down box to select the drive with your track designed on (This is usually C:\). Then click on the search button. RCT3 will then search that drive for any previous track designs. This can take some time depending on your machine specifications and the size of your hard drive. The great majority of tracks will work with no problems – there are some differences in the physics (e.g. friction values) between RCT3 and the previous games which may mean you have to tweak your designs in some rare cases. If you find you are having problems then there are a couple of cheats added to UPDATE 1 which could help you: Rename any peep ‘Andrew Thomas’ to reduce the friction in RCT3. Rename any peep ‘Andrew Gillett’ sets friction in RCT3 to zero. Like all cheats, they are operative for the current game session only.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Why does RCT3 crash when I try to save a game?

This problem has been reported with some graphics cards (for example Nvidia GeForce 2 or 3) that were purchased some years ago and still use the original software drivers. When RCT3 saves a game it creates a thumbnail image of the scene, and this can cause a crash with the version of the graphics drivers shipped with the graphics cards when purchased. If you are experiencing this problem then you should update your drivers to the latest version.

Further information on drivers and how to determine which version you have can be found in the “Why does my game suffer from framerate slowdown / lags, graphical glitches, crashes?” section of this F.A.Q.

Why does my game suffer from framerate slowdown / lags, graphical glitches, crashes?

 

[Michael Brookes]

How do I change numeric values quickly rather than clicking on the arrows repeatedly?

When you want to change any number that has an up and down arrow next to it, to change the value quickly you can click on the number, hold down the left mouse button and then move the mouse up or down (away from and towards you) to rapidly increase or decrease the ‘clicked’ number.

 

[Michael Brookes]

How do I get my VIP to visit my coasters and complete a scenario goal?

You need to ‘stage manage’ the VIP’s visit by creating a route for the VIP to follow, which takes in all the things that the scenario objective tells you that he or she wants to see. If you don’t do this, then the VIP will simply decide for themselves what areas of your park to visit, and may therefore miss spotting the scenario goals even if they are present and correct. Your manual explains how to create waypoints for a VIP visit via the ‘Setup Route’ button on the right of the VIP objectives in the Scenario Objectives dialog box. In order to get the VIP to visit any of your rides and attractions and hence complete the objectives, you need to CREATE A WAYPOINT ON THE TICKET / ENTRANCE BOOTH OF THAT ATTRACTION, nowhere else.

 

[Michael Brookes]

What are the effects of training staff?

Training staff members gives a number of benefits. Firstly, it increases their efficiency by causing staff to both walk faster and work faster, so they will be able to get more done for you in a given time. For example, a vendor will be able to serve more people in a shorter ****e of time. Secondly, for certain staff types, training gives additional benefits. Trained mechanics do a better job of repairing rides. Trained vendors can sometimes get people to pay slightly more than they otherwise would. Trained vendors at food or drink stalls can persuade people to buy items when they are less hungry or thirsty, and when they are feeling sick. Thirdly, it will help with employee retention – trained staff members are unlikely to quit their job.