Mar 28, 2013, 08:52 AM
I have RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. This is a compilation of all the information I’ve saved since gaining an interest in the game, information now assembled into one document. It’s relevant to Windows XP but most of it’s the same for Vista. I can’t speak for Windows 7 or Windows 8.
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The following use more system resources than we might think:
* Lots of us aren't aware the desktop background is much of a problem, after all it’s only one image and it’s just there, right? Wrong. It’s a problem. If it’s not a .bmp image, that’s it getting worse. Stretched desktop pictures use even more resources and if you have a wallpaper changer running while playing RCT3 then you’re asking for it.
* Disable custom desktop themes and pimped up cursors. A pimped up cursor is the main cause of a laggy cursor that winks into and out of existence on RCT3. Right click “My Computer,†select “Properties,†then the “Advanced†tab, “System Performance†then “Visual Effects.†Select for “Best Performance.†This will make your system look like Windows did 15 years ago but do you really need a GUI that looks great while playing RCT3?
* Reduce the number of items on your desktop to about four or five. If you have more than this then sort them into other folders and keep those on your desktop.
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* Most people are not aware that Windows uses virtual memory. This is a portion of your hard drive that’s set aside for Windows to use as if it were RAM. After finding out how much RAM you have, right click “My Computer,†select “Properties,†then the “Advanced†tab and the “Settings†box under the heading “Performance.†Then choose the “Advanced†tab and go to the bottom and click on “Change.â€
Ideally you would set your minimum amount to one quarter your RAM and your maximum amount to one half your RAM. If you set your minimum pagefile-size at too high an amount, you will have a laggy Windows-startup after which Windows could continue running slower while it’s constantly filling up all that real estate in the pagefile.
However, many applications prefer a stable amount of virtual memory so you could get around this by setting your minimum and maximum pagefile sizes to the same amount.
* Make sure your system is free of viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, all variations of those nasties. There are several free applications out there to choose from, should you not have any installed. The one that comes with Windows is rubbish. I’d recommend you get a third-party application. Spybot Search & Destroy (free) comes highly recommended from me with the highest number of true positives and the ability to pre-immunize your system from some of the nasties. You may also want to consider SpywareBlaster (free) which doesn’t scan but will still protect your machine and Super AntiSpyware (free). I don’t recall A Squared Anti-Virus ever finding anything except false positives and updating it always required enormous downloads of information.
* When you’re ready to play RCT3, use CTRL, ALT and Delete to open Task Manager. End the process of any task that you know for sure is not necessary. Unnecessary tasks running in the background will reduce your RCT3 gaming experience. For example if you’re not going to be printing, listening to music, watching videos, editing images, running a scan, creating .pdf documents while playing RCT3 (get the idea) you can safely shut down these processes should they still be running. However, having written this, only shut down the process of something you’re absolutely sure you don’t need.
Here are a few examples of something you won’t ever shut down:
csrss.exe - manages most graphical commands in Windows
svchost.exe - a controller file which handles processes executed from .dll’s
rundll32.exe - this is used to run a .dll as a Windows application
explorer.exe - everything you see in Windows except your desktop image
lsass.exe - deals with local security and login policies
services.exe – this manages the starting and stopping of services
smss.exe - responsible for handling sessions on your system
winlogon.exe - handles logins and logouts
Hopefully you’ve already identified all the processes that routinely run on your machine, have saved your observations somewhere in that application and know what most of these processes are at a glance. Anti-Spy.info (not free) and A Squared Hijack Free (free) are good ones to choose. If you don’t have these applications and you’re not sure what a process is you can look it up on www.processlibaray.com. If you have bought a copy of WinPatrol that application has a direct link to Scotty's own library of file/process information.
* An on-board sound card could be a performance bottle-neck. Right click "My Computer," select "Properties," click the "Hardware" tab, click "Device Manager," find your soundcard on the list, right-click it and choose "Disable." If you see a huge increase in performance after this it’s a sure sign you would do better with a new sound card. I myself seldom run RCT3 with sound as I don’t think it necessary.
* If you are overclocking your machine remember RCT3 doesn’t like overclocked graphics-cards and/or CPUs. At overclocking’s ugliest you will get video fallout (whether zoomed in or out), graphical glitches (usually while zooming), and even spontaneous reboots.
* Make sure you have the latest version of DirectX.
* Ensure your system is always defragmented.
* If you have more than 2GB of RAM get a copy of the application Large Address Aware. This will enable the RCT3 .exe file to use more than the 2GB it uses by default.
* Graphics Card
Make sure you have the latest drivers for your graphics card. The technology between NVIDIA and other graphics cards is completely different and I specifically recommend that if you have an NVIDIA card you only let a trained IT technician update the drivers for it. From what I hear neither Microsoft (through Microsoft Update) or NVIDIA (regardless what specifications you type in) seem to know when you’re downloading an invalid update and, even worse, your system will not identify the update as invalid until the update installer has problems completing the install. At this point not even a system restore will help you and if your system won’t come up after this the only thing to do is take it to the shop for repair. If you really want your NVIDIA graphics card updated then take your system to your IT person.
Fast writes allow the CPU to send data to the Graphics card without it having to go through RAM. Benchmarking and game-testing has shown that enabling fast writes doesn't give all that much of a boost. In RCT3 it can actually decrease performance and create instability.
However, some graphics cards can’t get by without fast writes enabled. I would only recommend you disable fast writes if your game is laggy and if it’s laggy regardless of whether you are in a huge busy park or if you have just opened a small new sandbox and if you’ve found you already have fast writes enabled,
If for a brief moment your screen seems to be showing some of one frame, while still showing part of the previously rendered frame or if you see horizontal lines rolling up and/or down your screen, make sure the refresh rates are matched up throughout all the menus/tabs in your graphics card console. This will ensure your graphics card aligns the game-rendered frames in RCT3 to your screen's refresh rate, thus giving you a smoother gaming experience. Also, make sure your 3-D refresh rate override matches the same refresh rate as your desktop refresh rate, especially important for when you play RCT3 in full screen – which I’m sure most of us do almost all of the time.
As a side note, you’d also want to enable VPU Recover (I have an ATI card) so the display driver can reset the graphics processor in the event it stops responding to commands from the display driver. This will enable the display driver to reset the graphics processor without requiring a system restart.
Oh, and set your graphics card drivers to use application settings for anti-aliasing.
* BIOS
If you don’t already know how to get into your BIOS then skip this information. If you really know what you’re doing (notice the structure of the sentence and the underlining) you can try going to your system BIOS and disabling these options (while writing down or photographing all the before’s and after’s, or otherwise being prepared to switch everything back to default should something not go as anticipated):
DAC snoop,
VGA palette snoop,
hidden refresh, and
shadowing options, like video BIOS shadowing or VGA shadowing.
You might try adjusting your "Video Memory Caching Mode" to UC (uncacheable) rather than UCSW (uncacheable speculative write-combining.
If you’re really good at tecchie stuff you could consider updating your BIOS. However, I’m not going to recommend it or give any clues as to what to do because if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing you can completely and irretrievably fry your BIOS. And if you do know what you’re doing and the power fails during BIOS updating you can just as thoroughly fry your BIOS. If you really want your BIOS updated get someone who really knows what they’re doing to do it (who has an uninterruptable power supply to plug your machine into while doing it), or take your system in to your IT person.
______________________________________________________
The following use more system resources than we might think:
* Lots of us aren't aware the desktop background is much of a problem, after all it’s only one image and it’s just there, right? Wrong. It’s a problem. If it’s not a .bmp image, that’s it getting worse. Stretched desktop pictures use even more resources and if you have a wallpaper changer running while playing RCT3 then you’re asking for it.
* Disable custom desktop themes and pimped up cursors. A pimped up cursor is the main cause of a laggy cursor that winks into and out of existence on RCT3. Right click “My Computer,†select “Properties,†then the “Advanced†tab, “System Performance†then “Visual Effects.†Select for “Best Performance.†This will make your system look like Windows did 15 years ago but do you really need a GUI that looks great while playing RCT3?
* Reduce the number of items on your desktop to about four or five. If you have more than this then sort them into other folders and keep those on your desktop.
_______________________________________________________
* Most people are not aware that Windows uses virtual memory. This is a portion of your hard drive that’s set aside for Windows to use as if it were RAM. After finding out how much RAM you have, right click “My Computer,†select “Properties,†then the “Advanced†tab and the “Settings†box under the heading “Performance.†Then choose the “Advanced†tab and go to the bottom and click on “Change.â€
Ideally you would set your minimum amount to one quarter your RAM and your maximum amount to one half your RAM. If you set your minimum pagefile-size at too high an amount, you will have a laggy Windows-startup after which Windows could continue running slower while it’s constantly filling up all that real estate in the pagefile.
However, many applications prefer a stable amount of virtual memory so you could get around this by setting your minimum and maximum pagefile sizes to the same amount.
* Make sure your system is free of viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, all variations of those nasties. There are several free applications out there to choose from, should you not have any installed. The one that comes with Windows is rubbish. I’d recommend you get a third-party application. Spybot Search & Destroy (free) comes highly recommended from me with the highest number of true positives and the ability to pre-immunize your system from some of the nasties. You may also want to consider SpywareBlaster (free) which doesn’t scan but will still protect your machine and Super AntiSpyware (free). I don’t recall A Squared Anti-Virus ever finding anything except false positives and updating it always required enormous downloads of information.
* When you’re ready to play RCT3, use CTRL, ALT and Delete to open Task Manager. End the process of any task that you know for sure is not necessary. Unnecessary tasks running in the background will reduce your RCT3 gaming experience. For example if you’re not going to be printing, listening to music, watching videos, editing images, running a scan, creating .pdf documents while playing RCT3 (get the idea) you can safely shut down these processes should they still be running. However, having written this, only shut down the process of something you’re absolutely sure you don’t need.
Here are a few examples of something you won’t ever shut down:
csrss.exe - manages most graphical commands in Windows
svchost.exe - a controller file which handles processes executed from .dll’s
rundll32.exe - this is used to run a .dll as a Windows application
explorer.exe - everything you see in Windows except your desktop image
lsass.exe - deals with local security and login policies
services.exe – this manages the starting and stopping of services
smss.exe - responsible for handling sessions on your system
winlogon.exe - handles logins and logouts
Hopefully you’ve already identified all the processes that routinely run on your machine, have saved your observations somewhere in that application and know what most of these processes are at a glance. Anti-Spy.info (not free) and A Squared Hijack Free (free) are good ones to choose. If you don’t have these applications and you’re not sure what a process is you can look it up on www.processlibaray.com. If you have bought a copy of WinPatrol that application has a direct link to Scotty's own library of file/process information.
* An on-board sound card could be a performance bottle-neck. Right click "My Computer," select "Properties," click the "Hardware" tab, click "Device Manager," find your soundcard on the list, right-click it and choose "Disable." If you see a huge increase in performance after this it’s a sure sign you would do better with a new sound card. I myself seldom run RCT3 with sound as I don’t think it necessary.
* If you are overclocking your machine remember RCT3 doesn’t like overclocked graphics-cards and/or CPUs. At overclocking’s ugliest you will get video fallout (whether zoomed in or out), graphical glitches (usually while zooming), and even spontaneous reboots.
* Make sure you have the latest version of DirectX.
* Ensure your system is always defragmented.
* If you have more than 2GB of RAM get a copy of the application Large Address Aware. This will enable the RCT3 .exe file to use more than the 2GB it uses by default.
* Graphics Card
Make sure you have the latest drivers for your graphics card. The technology between NVIDIA and other graphics cards is completely different and I specifically recommend that if you have an NVIDIA card you only let a trained IT technician update the drivers for it. From what I hear neither Microsoft (through Microsoft Update) or NVIDIA (regardless what specifications you type in) seem to know when you’re downloading an invalid update and, even worse, your system will not identify the update as invalid until the update installer has problems completing the install. At this point not even a system restore will help you and if your system won’t come up after this the only thing to do is take it to the shop for repair. If you really want your NVIDIA graphics card updated then take your system to your IT person.
Fast writes allow the CPU to send data to the Graphics card without it having to go through RAM. Benchmarking and game-testing has shown that enabling fast writes doesn't give all that much of a boost. In RCT3 it can actually decrease performance and create instability.
However, some graphics cards can’t get by without fast writes enabled. I would only recommend you disable fast writes if your game is laggy and if it’s laggy regardless of whether you are in a huge busy park or if you have just opened a small new sandbox and if you’ve found you already have fast writes enabled,
If for a brief moment your screen seems to be showing some of one frame, while still showing part of the previously rendered frame or if you see horizontal lines rolling up and/or down your screen, make sure the refresh rates are matched up throughout all the menus/tabs in your graphics card console. This will ensure your graphics card aligns the game-rendered frames in RCT3 to your screen's refresh rate, thus giving you a smoother gaming experience. Also, make sure your 3-D refresh rate override matches the same refresh rate as your desktop refresh rate, especially important for when you play RCT3 in full screen – which I’m sure most of us do almost all of the time.
As a side note, you’d also want to enable VPU Recover (I have an ATI card) so the display driver can reset the graphics processor in the event it stops responding to commands from the display driver. This will enable the display driver to reset the graphics processor without requiring a system restart.
Oh, and set your graphics card drivers to use application settings for anti-aliasing.
* BIOS
If you don’t already know how to get into your BIOS then skip this information. If you really know what you’re doing (notice the structure of the sentence and the underlining) you can try going to your system BIOS and disabling these options (while writing down or photographing all the before’s and after’s, or otherwise being prepared to switch everything back to default should something not go as anticipated):
DAC snoop,
VGA palette snoop,
hidden refresh, and
shadowing options, like video BIOS shadowing or VGA shadowing.
You might try adjusting your "Video Memory Caching Mode" to UC (uncacheable) rather than UCSW (uncacheable speculative write-combining.
If you’re really good at tecchie stuff you could consider updating your BIOS. However, I’m not going to recommend it or give any clues as to what to do because if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing you can completely and irretrievably fry your BIOS. And if you do know what you’re doing and the power fails during BIOS updating you can just as thoroughly fry your BIOS. If you really want your BIOS updated get someone who really knows what they’re doing to do it (who has an uninterruptable power supply to plug your machine into while doing it), or take your system in to your IT person.
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