When you reinstalled, did you copy all your RCT3 files aside in a safe place then replace them after RCT3 reinstall or was everything deleted and freshly reinstalled after the RCT3 reinstall?

At the same time you reinstalled RCT3 did you reinstall anything else?

Also, did you do only an RCT3 reinstall or did you reformat your drive. I ask because it sounds like some of the settings somewhere on your system have changed in some way. After you reinstalled RCT3 you returned to out-of-the-box default settings and you need to reset the game settings to where they were before reinstallation. Without more details we’d just be guessing.

Thanks for reading my post? yes I did reformat, I have windows 8 and it has a built in recovery windows 7, this computer is not even a yr old ? even when I installed rtc3 I had problems putting rides in the game? I never was able to use my billboards tried to make a my pics folder , it didn't work and still doesn't ! now since I reinstalled rtc3 I thought i could make the same folders as before ,but it won't work ? some of the themes don't work? the screen freezes? I installed the PNP food/drinks billboards and they are in the right spot but I freezing screens or I get no handler for scenery items in overlay? wow I hope I didn't screw up my game??? maybe you might have an answer? thanks for any help????

O.K. After you reformatted and you reinstalled RCT3 did you run the game once prior to installing anything custom? How did the game run as a fresh install with nothing added? There is nothing elaborate needed for running the game once after a fresh install. One need only launch the game and open a sandbox. If the sandbox opens as regular then you’re home free.

If you didn’t try this before adding anything custom, while it might not be what you want to hear I’d recommend uninstalling the RCT3 again, reinstalling it and running it at least once before adding anything custom. If you had already done this before, did RCT3 run better or more efficiently with less trouble and then you found you had problems after you added the custom stuff?

If what I’ve just written above didn’t (or doesn’t) make any difference the next step might be to consider if you use Windows Easy Transfer. This is an application that will save everything Windows whether documents, tweaks or settings (everything you select for saving) so you can easily move it over to another system. I have it in Vista and I imagine it’s standard in every Vista and every Windows after. If you did and that Transfer file is saved somewhere it’s possible your old RCT3 settings are inside the transfer file. From what you’ve written RCT3 was better for you before the reformat so you might consider restoring the old RCT3 settings to your new install.

If you thought to back-up your system registry prior to reformat you could consider merging the old RCT3 registry entries with the current RCT3 registry entries.

Also, everybody who has Windows7 has problems with billboards. There’s a workaround to fix the billboard problem in Windows 7 and a Google search will set you up with the solution to a Windows7 billboard fix. To the best of my knowledge it’s not possible to have RCT3 billboards in Windows 8.

It’s being assumed that because you have Windows8 that you have a recent, more high-end machine. However if you have a laptop instead of PC, particularly if you received the laptop as part of an ISP or phone provider deal, you can consider your machine to be a medium to low-end model - some of the promo laptops have trouble installing a printer or scanning a single page A4 document. On a low-end or promo machine sometimes getting better results for RCT3 is as easy as disabling your sound device while playing the game so you might wish to try that.

If nothing written previous to this works out satisfactorily then I’d suggest you provide us with the specs of your system. That means sharing with us details of:

CPU
RAM
graphics card, including capacity of the card’s on-board memory
root drive capacity, including how much space is now available
CD/DVD drive (if the game was installed off disk)

Most of us don’t know this information to hand so use Windows System Information to find.

And let us know if you have RCT3 Vanilla, RCT3 Soaked! or RCT3 Wild! and if you installed it off disk or if it’s a download.

O.K. After you reformatted and you reinstalled RCT3 did you run the game once prior to installing anything custom? How did the game run as a fresh install with nothing added? There is nothing elaborate needed for running the game once after a fresh install. One need only launch the game and open a sandbox. If the sandbox opens as regular then you’re home free.

If you didn’t try this before adding anything custom, while it might not be what you want to hear I’d recommend uninstalling the RCT3 again, reinstalling it and running it at least once before adding anything custom. If you had already done this before, did RCT3 run better or more efficiently with less trouble and then you found you had problems after you added the custom stuff?

If what I’ve just written above didn’t (or doesn’t) make any difference the next step might be to consider if you use Windows Easy Transfer. This is an application that will save everything Windows whether documents, tweaks or settings (everything you select for saving) so you can easily move it over to another system. I have it in Vista and I imagine it’s standard in every Vista and every Windows after. If you did and that Transfer file is saved somewhere it’s possible your old RCT3 settings are inside the transfer file. From what you’ve written RCT3 was better for you before the reformat so you might consider restoring the old RCT3 settings to your new install.

If you thought to back-up your system registry prior to reformat you could consider merging the old RCT3 registry entries with the current RCT3 registry entries.

Also, everybody who has Windows7 has problems with billboards. There’s a workaround to fix the billboard problem in Windows 7 and a Google search will set you up with the solution to a Windows7 billboard fix. To the best of my knowledge it’s not possible to have RCT3 billboards in Windows 8.

It’s being assumed that because you have Windows8 that you have a recent, more high-end machine. However if you have a laptop instead of PC, particularly if you received the laptop as part of an ISP or phone provider deal, you can consider your machine to be a medium to low-end model - some of the promo laptops have trouble installing a printer or scanning a single page A4 document. On a low-end or promo machine sometimes getting better results for RCT3 is as easy as disabling your sound device while playing the game so you might wish to try that.

If nothing written previous to this works out satisfactorily then I’d suggest you provide us with the specs of your system. That means sharing with us details of:

CPU
RAM
graphics card, including capacity of the card’s on-board memory
root drive capacity, including how much space is now available
CD/DVD drive (if the game was installed off disk)

Most of us don’t know this information to hand so use Windows System Information to find.

And let us know if you have RCT3 Vanilla, RCT3 Soaked! or RCT3 Wild! and if you installed it off disk or if it’s a download.

Ok ? my computer is a H p laptop with windows 8 , it has a AMD-300with Radeon HD graphics card / I have 4G of ram and 4G on the hard drive. Just so you know. This computer was costly >the rct3 game worked great before and seam to work for the most part, it's some rides and csos ,billboards in this game I thought their was a place for settings but can't remember where to find it ? this computer has the ability to set it to different windows versions like XP,vista,7 or 8 windows 8 is basically an overlay? I did have a picture on my Billboards once but couldn't put any more in? my game also worked great on the reinstall? then I installed music then rides and csos? I appreciate your time and input I will go back and check my settings , maybe I set the game for windows 7. I hope I don't have to reinstall? I took a lot of time downloading the music and rides then putting them in ? one more question? there s a popup in my game that just recently started popping up? it look like a recording program it made my screen go fast or to slow why and what's it for ? Thank you, Darin ps. you seem to have so real knowledge of this game can I ask? how old?

That’s a nice amount of RAM.

Do you mean Radeon 3000? When you open control panel or System Information what does the information in there call your graphics card?

Do you mean you have 4GB available on the hard drive? When you got the computer from the shop how many GB capacity did it have at that time before you put anything on it? Also you indicated you had a picture on your billboards once and couldn’t put any more in. Also you’ve written you spent lots of time downloading music. Your disk is either incredibly full or incredibly fragmented. I’d recommend before you go to bed tonight you open the Windows Defragmenter and defragment your disk. Once started, don’t sit there and wait for it. With 4GB of space left on your disk it will take hours. It should be done by the time you wake up. If you get a message that there’s insufficient space on the disk for an efficient defragment you could either go ahead (in which case it could take 8 or 12 hours) or you could copy 10 or 20 GB of files one set to external drive and one set to DVD, or copy two sets to DVD, and then delete the backed-up copied files off your system.

You almost certainly will find you have more disk capacity after defragmenting than you did before. Also RCT3 won’t run as well as it could with a very fragmented disk so after defrag you’ll probably find your game runs better. You may even find you have enough space on your disk after defrag to set up a page file although with 4GB of RAM this isn’t entirely necessary.

That’s an interesting concept that a system could be one platform with several overlays. If you’re particularly interested in billboards I’d recommend the Vista overlay because although there is an RCT3 billboard workaround for Windows7 it’s difficult to set up and one would be fortunate to get it to work. In Vista all you need to do is put a My Pictures folder in My Documents and there’s that problem solved.

Yes, you can ask, RCT3 is nine years old.

That’s a nice amount of RAM.

Do you mean Radeon 3000? When you open control panel or System Information what does the information in there call your graphics card?

Do you mean you have 4GB available on the hard drive? When you got the computer from the shop how many GB capacity did it have at that time before you put anything on it? Also you indicated you had a picture on your billboards once and couldn’t put any more in. Also you’ve written you spent lots of time downloading music. Your disk is either incredibly full or incredibly fragmented. I’d recommend before you go to bed tonight you open the Windows Defragmenter and defragment your disk. Once started, don’t sit there and wait for it. With 4GB of space left on your disk it will take hours. It should be done by the time you wake up. If you get a message that there’s insufficient space on the disk for an efficient defragment you could either go ahead (in which case it could take 8 or 12 hours) or you could copy 10 or 20 GB of files one set to external drive and one set to DVD, or copy two sets to DVD, and then delete the backed-up copied files off your system.

You almost certainly will find you have more disk capacity after defragmenting than you did before. Also RCT3 won’t run as well as it could with a very fragmented disk so after defrag you’ll probably find your game runs better. You may even find you have enough space on your disk after defrag to set up a page file although with 4GB of RAM this isn’t entirely necessary.

That’s an interesting concept that a system could be one platform with several overlays. If you’re particularly interested in billboards I’d recommend the Vista overlay because although there is an RCT3 billboard workaround for Windows7 it’s difficult to set up and one would be fortunate to get it to work. In Vista all you need to do is put a My Pictures folder in My Documents and there’s that problem solved.

Yes, you can ask, RCT3 is nine years old.

Thank you for all the input, to answer some questions you asked me ? 1. 4GB of space for hard drive left? and my graphics card is an AMD 300-apu with R adeon ™HD graphics 1.30Ghz ,this computer has 3d graphics I am going to up grade to liquid cooled desk top for gaming and music/video with a terabyte of hard /memory a great system? a friend of mine got one ? he says it great for this game? "we'll see" ? I will try the defrag? maybe you might be right it's been some time since I did a defrag? not bad for an 40yr old ? I really want to get back to creating my parks? It' s these little things holding me up? I don't want to do anything new till I get these problems fixed ?I hope I'm not bothering you with all these questions? you seem to be setting me in the right direction? I'm thankful for your help I still have more questions to ask you but I will take care of this first ? I'll do the defrag tonight? thank you Darin.

I can’t find anything on AMD 300-apu with Radeon ™HD graphics 1.30Ghz except a comment written about a year ago that this graphics card was not good enough for SkyRim even with the game at lowest settings. I also don’t know anything about SkyRim so I have no idea what to tell you about your graphics card.

Let us know how the defrag goes.

I can’t find anything on AMD 300-apu with Radeon ™HD graphics 1.30Ghz except a comment written about a year ago that this graphics card was not good enough for SkyRim even with the game at lowest settings. I also don’t know anything about SkyRim so I have no idea what to tell you about your graphics card.

Let us know how the defrag goes.

HI how are you ? I forgot to put the E in the above^ AMD E-300apu with Radeon™ HD graphics 1.30Ghz it is written exactly like this in the specs. Now I defraged my computer it did great ? it took a while but still had the same issues ? even though I haven't had this computer a whole yr. yet I'm still learning windows 8 . when you down load something , it goes into many files . I've learned some thing new ? I was able to set my computer to run vista for the RCT3 program only and does not effect any other program. That is the advantages of windows 8, you can run earlier versions of windows if you or any on want to know how to change it I'll help and you can put it back any time, Rct3 will be able to accept any thing ? now that I got my game to vista how do i get pics on my Billboards ? do I have to make new folder? and how do I get the CFR/CFH'S TO WORK THAT ONCE WOKRED DO I need to rename the folders? any way you really helped alot . please let me know? what else I can do ,and if any one needs full instructions how to change the computer to fit the RCT3 game I'll write it out? God bless

You have plenty of graphics card on your laptop for RCT3.

---

When RCT3 is installed on Vista the installer puts a My Pictures folder in this location:

ROOT DIRECTORY:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\My Documents\My Pictures

This is not the standard location for pictures so make careful note of the exact location of this folder. This is where the RCT3 installer chooses to put it and this is where RCT3 goes, by default, to look for images for billboards. This is the way it is. Regardless where on your system you prefer to store images, if this folder is not in this place there is no way to navigate from there to the location where you prefer to have your billboard images. You must have this folder in this location. End of.

This is not a probem until the

My Pictures

folder is removed, for whatever reason, from

ROOT DIRECTORY:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\My Documents\

The simple solution is to replace the folder. I play the game on Vista and inadvertently removed the folder, which was empty at the time, during system maintenance. I replaced the folder and things work just fine now.

To fix the problem I simply browsed to

ROOT DIRECTORY:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\My Documents\

and created a folder called My Pictures and put a small test image inside it. End of.

After RCT3 has found this folder for the first time, if you prefer to store billboard images elsewhere and if they are already located in your preferred folder, now you can navigate through the RCT3 billboards menu through the folders on your system and set a new folder location in that way. However regardless where you prefer to store your billboard images, each time you launch RCT3 it will by default start at

ROOT DIRECTORY:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\My Documents\My Pictures

and you will have to navigate to your preferred location again.

If for whatever reason you can’t put a

My Pictures

folder in this location

ROOT DIRECTORY:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\My Documents\

there are lots of tutorials on the internet many of which involve command prompts typed directly into a DOS window. I’ve never had to use such a tutorial and have no idea what’s in them. I see no point in using command prompt instructions in DOS mode when there's a perfectly good UI in place.

---

You had 1.4GB of disk space before defrag. How much disk space did you have after defrag?

Have you set up a page file yet?

Are your instructions on how to get your computer changed to suit RCT3 only for Windows 8 with overlay capability, or for any system? If I can use this information on Vista I’d like to compare your notes with those I have to see if I’ve missed anything so yes I’d like to have that.

---

What are CFR/CFH’s?

You have plenty of graphics card on your laptop for RCT3.

---

When RCT3 is installed on Vista the installer puts a My Pictures folder in this location:

ROOT DIRECTORY:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\My Documents\My Pictures

This is not the standard location for pictures so make careful note of the exact location of this folder. This is where the RCT3 installer chooses to put it and this is where RCT3 goes, by default, to look for images for billboards. This is the way it is. Regardless where on your system you prefer to store images, if this folder is not in this place there is no way to navigate from there to the location where you prefer to have your billboard images. You must have this folder in this location. End of.

This is not a probem until the

My Pictures

folder is removed, for whatever reason, from

ROOT DIRECTORY:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\My Documents\

The simple solution is to replace the folder. I play the game on Vista and inadvertently removed the folder, which was empty at the time, during system maintenance. I replaced the folder and things work just fine now.

To fix the problem I simply browsed to

ROOT DIRECTORY:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\My Documents\

and created a folder called My Pictures and put a small test image inside it. End of.

After RCT3 has found this folder for the first time, if you prefer to store billboard images elsewhere and if they are already located in your preferred folder, now you can navigate through the RCT3 billboards menu through the folders on your system and set a new folder location in that way. However regardless where you prefer to store your billboard images, each time you launch RCT3 it will by default start at

ROOT DIRECTORY:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\My Documents\My Pictures

and you will have to navigate to your preferred location again.

If for whatever reason you can’t put a

My Pictures

folder in this location

ROOT DIRECTORY:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\My Documents\

there are lots of tutorials on the internet many of which involve command prompts typed directly into a DOS window. I’ve never had to use such a tutorial and have no idea what’s in them. I see no point in using command prompt instructions in DOS mode when there's a perfectly good UI in place.

---

You had 1.4GB of disk space before defrag. How much disk space did you have after defrag?

Have you set up a page file yet?

Are your instructions on how to get your computer changed to suit RCT3 only for Windows 8 with overlay capability, or for any system? If I can use this information on Vista I’d like to compare your notes with those I have to see if I’ve missed anything so yes I’d like to have that.

---

What are CFR/CFH’s?

Thank you for the info. I will certainly give your advice a try? It can't hurt? As far as the amount of space on the disk after the defrag, It went up to 2.03GB quite a bit? question? what is a page file? Not sure , I'm still new to Rct3 about 10 months . To your question about windows 8 , The Instructions are instructions that I wrote. they are based on what I've learned? I have quite a bit about windows 8 over the yr. 1- windows 8 is an overlay of windows 7 ? your vista needs a boot disk. and 2 service packs to be current, 2- windows XP needs 3 service packs and a boot disk? vista was really never meant to be release for the desktop but was meant for the I-phone ,that's why their were so many problems with it . windows 7 requires no disk! In all computers built with windows 7 requires no boot disk? It is built into the processor chip known as the recovery 7 disk drive? witch gives computers today the ability to change and operate programs in earlier versions . 3- You also have the ability to test out each version to see if it works correctly? if not windows will find one . I thought I f any one needed to know how to do this for windows 8?, I would write it out ? maybe you can tell me how to write and upload it like pics to this sight? like I said i'm still new to this? but do have some computer knowledge? 4- As for what a CFR/CFH is ?, it is called custom flat rides both terms are basically the same but one is newer. The CFH has come out during this yr. ride that are made by people like Carlos Menezes , he makes rides like the Mixer , The RED Barron, ect. Their found on shy guys world for download? and I found a lot of cso on many other sights > I that you knew , play RCT3 for some . I still need to know if I need to rename the CFR/CFh's or make a new folder? thank you so much, I'm glade I met you . you've helped me to really do some real research on this game ? and hope to help others in the future? God Bless.

I’m not sure I’m understanding. You had 1.xxGB of disk space before defrag and 2.xxGB of disk space after defrag. I don’t know what to tell you about that.

If your disk really has only 2GB of space left that’s no space for anything to work properly on your system. You need to move some of the stuff you’ve put on your disk off that disk to another location.

I thought the instructions you had written were RCT3 instructions but if they’re Windows8 instructions I don’t need them because I have XP and Vista.

To date the CFR’s I have downloaded have gone here

RollerCoaster Tycoon 3\Style\Custom\

If there is no custom folder already you need to add it. Be sure you use an uppercase “C.”

CTR’s go in one, or in both these folders

RollerCoaster Tycoon 3\tracks\TrackedRides\
RollerCoaster Tycoon 3\Cars\TrackedRideCars\

If your CTR or CFR doesn’t come with any installation instructions then they can’t be installed because with no instructions it’s almost impossible to guess where to put the files.

And it’s never a good idea to change the names of custom files that have been downloaded. Changing custom file names is the quickest way to ensure they won’t work.

For help on what a page file is (also known as virtual memory), and other tips on streamlining your system to get the most out of your gaming experience take a look at this post

http://forums.rctgo.com/thread-7409-post...l#pid83757