I'm getting sick of sid errors. This game has no error trapping whatsoever. It sees something it doesn't like and it shuts down like your wife when she gives you that "I'm not talking to you until you apologize for doing that thing you did and don't know you did and I'm not going to tell you what it was" silent treatment.

I know you're supposed to put in CS a few at a time and try them all out but I have over 800 items and I'm not about to spend the rest of my life (I'm already 62) making sure this game runs efficiently.
Didn't the programmers of this game realize that you can do something like this:

If CS has bad sid,
Then print,"you can't use this piece, it sucks and I don't like it, try something else."
Else, whatever the CS does.
Instead, it says. "You're trying to use a piece I don't like, it offends me. Bye"

And it's not like they didn't know there would be Custom Content. This is the third version of this game and the first two both had custom content.

Of course you can ask why a 62 year old man is playing video games. Well, it's a heck of a lot cheaper than golf! Of course when you have spend upwards of $1500 every couple of years on a new system to stay up to date, that may not be so true either. LOL.

Just remember to save your game often so you wont lose as much of your work. Write down what crashed the game as it happens and go fix it before you start playing again. It can be as simple as the CS being in one additional folder that it needs moved out of.

.....
And it's not like they didn't know there would be Custom Content. This is the third version of this game and the first two both had custom content.
.....

Yup, that pretty much says it all. The game was clearly created by individuals who came up with their own file extension (the .ovl) and so thoroughly convoluted the design and workings of this file type they believed their result pre-empted any possibility that there would ever be scenery used in it that was not created by Atari – or so they thought. Unfortunately as a result of the Atari RCT3 design team’s arrogance and presumption in this regard the game engine just plain doesn’t know what to do when it comes across such an error so it simply shuts down.

I’d like to believe there is someone out there right now working on a fix or patch that would enable the game to pop up a message that says what you wrote just there, that the game can’t use the selected file after which message the game will not crash but will actually allow us to pick something else and continue.

If I were in your situation I believe I would use the fresh RCT3 install on my XP disk, put aside somewhere safe any files that would cause the game to take a long time loading (custom peeps, slide show images, the default themed folders, contents of the coasters and flat rides folders) and then I’d try my CS files on that installation. With the game so thoroughly stripped down like this if the game crashes it will come up quickly with so little to load at the beginning. I would only try this on the disk where I actually play my game if I had already done a thorough backup of all RCT3 related files.

After each unsuccessful trial of CS while the game is crashed I’d remove those files from Themed and put them aside in a folder marked ‘successful’ and do something similar in moving aside the unsuccessful trials (the unsuccessful ones would be the latest ones I tried in the Themed folder that made the game crash). This way if I’ve worked through 100 CS files, because I have moved them aside the game is not loading them as resources each time it launches. Also if I try ten CS files and the game crashes I’d simply put them all in the unsuccessful folder and move on to the next 10. You’re probably already doing all your CS testing with a blank sandbox which is just how I would do it because that would be quicker than opening an existing park each time.

This point is a matter of personal choice but I would work through all the files 10 at a time separating the successful batches from the unsuccessfuls. When I had gone through all my files I’d then go through the unsuccessful folder, maybe 5 CS files at a time. FrankedJ makes a good suggestion that the folder structure should be checked so before trialing the unsuccessfuls I’d check the directory structure of each unsuccessful item to be sure, like he suggests, that there’s no extra folders.

You’ve already won half the battle, you’ve got all this CS already found and downloaded. You’ll only ever have to check all your files like this just this once. Then when your RCT3 installation is sleek and smooth you’ll keep it that way with back-ups and this nightmare will become a thing of the past.

I wouldn’t ask anyone of any age why they’re playing video games when there are so many more negative and unsuitable things to be hooked on. I’m glad all I’m addicted to is RCT3.

I found a lot of folders that had other folders imbedded in them somehow. I have no clue how that happened, but I've gone through every one of Style/Themed folders and I'm pretty sure the right folders are where they belong. As I posted above, I discovered the issue with the Invisible Doodads which really bugged me because I thought they were installed properly.

What I've been doing is when I get a SID error is: I make note of the file mentioned, and in DirOpus do a file search on the whole Themed folder for it to see if there are dupes. Invariably, I discover that the folder containing that particular ovl was somehow embedded in the wrong folder. That prompted me to go through every one of my 700+ folders checking to make sure everything was in the right place. That should fix the problems, If not, I'll just go through them as they show up.
I appreciate the advice, but I'm not about to clear out the Style/Themed folder and start re-installing CS five at a time and restarting the game every time. I'd say I would be doing that until I was eligible for Social Security, but I already get it so....

I'll just have to remember to save every ten minutes or so.

As for the programming aspects:

By 2004, most games had been back engineered and proprietary file systems decrypted so that there was custom content available. I was part of Team BG in the 90's that back engineered Baldur's Gate II and created custom objects, like a staff that could cast 12 separate spells. And we did it by manipulating the .exe using a hex editor. We made saved game editors, object creators, spell makers, character editors, you name it. I didn't do the back engineering, but I did create a number of custom objects. Now that was just by manipulating the properties of objects already in the game, not using blender or some other graphic program to make new ones.

But even as early as Sims 1, people were making custom objects so it stands to reason, that by 2004 any game creators, especially something like the Roller Coaster Tycoon franchise which already had a very active modding community, would be expected to prepare for heavy game modding along with the conflicts that can cause. That's why I said it was shoddy, lazy programming. And as you said, maybe a bit arrogant on their part creating a proprietary file type that they presumed couldn't be broken. As anyone knows, there is no lock an experience burglar can't defeat or get around.

I mean, really. The game has a scenario editor, a building creator, a peep creator. These guys didn't think people would want to make their own building sets? Programmers can be very arrogant. And game programmers especially. They want the player to do what THEY want him to do in their game, and often they'll try to control this with proprietary file types. They've yet to wake up to the fact that you cannot rein in the creativity of a player who wants to do what HE wants to do with a game. He'll find a way to make it happen...legally or otherwise. And no file type is unbreakable by experienced programmers. Just take a look at the Sims franchise. Everyone said back as far as Sims 1 that you couldn't create custom objects because of the Sims obj files. Now there are literally hundreds of Sims sites with custom furniture, cars, houses, clothes and every other kind of custom content for all the Sims games, including custom animations.


Trying to patch a situation like that FTA would require going through countless lines of code to find the right place to include the programming. And since Atari isn't supporting this game anymore, that's not about to happen. And despite the tenacity of people who create beautiful CS for this game, I doubt anyone is going to dig through thousands of lines of code just to fix an issue that can be fixed doing correct CS installs.

When I save I usually use the same file name for a few days then change the file name and keep right on going. This is especially useful if you are getting ready to make drastic changes. Save the original, do your radical modifications and save it as a new game so if you don't like what you did you can always go back to before you did it. This can also help save a park if a park file becomes corrupted.

Yeah, I do the same thing, just increment the number each time..v1 v2 v3 etc.
I just need to get into the habit of saving the park every 10 minutes or so. I've been used to having games with autosave
so I didn't need to do that. That would have been a very nice feature in this one.
I haven't played this since 2009 and just discovered a lot of new CS from some of my favs like Shy, Old Spice, Osendenny, etc. as well
a newer versions of older stuff. So, it looks like I'm going to have to go in an start trimming out some of the stuff I'll probably never use.
That's a really freaky avatar, Frankedj

I like Bean and the movie Avatar.

I wish RCT3 had autosave. I like to think I can actually remember to save every five minutes and most times I do but there are just those times I'm really into what I'm doing and suddenly fifteen/twenty minutes later this alarm would go off inside my head shouting SAVE SAVE and I do. Many is the time I have saved and right after that have tried something else in the game and it's crashed. At other times I completely forget to save and the game crashing reminds me I've lost ten/fifteen minutes work. Fortunately most of those times I've spent maybe ten of the fifteen minutes thinking about what needs to be done and perhaps five actually placing the scenery so but still, I'd rather the inconvenience of trying to remember all the time to save regularly than to re-do work I've just done and have been considering as progress made until the game crashes.

Yeh, that is a freaky avatar Frankedj. For some reason when I see it I keep thinking Lost in Space rather than Star Trek.