Stupid RCT3 STUPID STUPID STUPID

I am experiencing a problem similar to yours, the reason your reseting is that when there is a driver conflict, such as sound, with the game, then Windows takes over and resets to prevent damage. There is a way to prevent this reseting so that you can see the written problem, before you manually reset. Want to know more?

Well, I've done some real upgrades in the past month plus, and it works pretty well now... Upgraded to 1gig RAM (from 256MB), ATI Radeon 9550 256MB 128bit graphics card (was onboard POS), 19" LCD monitor (formerly 14" bigass monitor)... Fun game, CoasterCam is a lot of fun. Just a couple questions now...

First, I get an error when I load certain coasters and certain parks. It says "Bad Header" but if I click "continue" like 10x, it loads but I can't use certain features. Should I uninstall and then reinstall RCT3? I'm pretty sure its a software problem and not a hardware issue.

Also, anyone else notice that if you put in a trim brake or block brake, if you set the brake speed higher than the train is going at that point, the brake accelerates the train? Fun in some instances, but it makes it hard to set up blocking without slowing trains down. I think I heard this was addressed in the first patch, which brings me to my next question...

When I got the game to finally work, I downloaded the second patch (I think) from Atari. Did this include the first patch in it? Or where can I find the first patch?

justkickinit- I'd like some more info on what you started above... Funny you mention that now, cuz now my computer actually tells me a driver is at fault when it restarts randomly. I think I fixed it when I updated my chipset/motherboard drivers and updated my ATI drivers...

Thanks again for all your help everyone, especially Gonch... I hope to be as big a coaster/computer geek as you someday;) Kinda like that Comedy Central game, Beat the Geeks... Good times...

The thing I know is you must install the game and update with retail patch #1 then retail patch #2, patch 1 is not included. I know I did notice the block brakes, there was a fix for that. I havn't gotten the error you have, but in any instance, hope my tidbit helps!

I have RCT3 and it is amazing. I am running an Nforce2 MB with an Athlon XP 2600+, a gig of RAM and a Geforce 6600 GT. After a few minutes of playing, my computer would reset. I found out that in the Properties menu of My Computer there is an option under the Advanced menu to stop the computer from reseting after system failure. I did this and I got a blue screen indicating numbers and words and also pointing to an Nvmcp.sys file. This is an Nvidia sound file. I also noticed that this only happend with certain rides, which narrowed it down, but unfortunately all the rollercoasters were on this list. Anyway, I have deleted all the Nvmcp.sys files, then unloaded ever single driver associated to Nvidia and reinstalled them. I played the game for about an hour, no hitches, this is when I discovered that it was likely the sound associated with the coasters was causing a problem. My first coaster and boom, a couple minutes later I got the blue screen. Anyway, went to Microsoft.com and read about the blue screen, but this was rather useless as Microsoft tends to be very vague. Found out that the system reports the error in a memory dump file, but this is written in Bianary and it needs a specialized program and a Microsoft tech to understand it so I moved on. I have searched high and low, but no working solution. I am suspecting that the software and my board are conflicting. My sound is integrated into the board, so I am searching Nvidia for a solution, but I have been having this prob for about 3 days now since I've owned the game. Anyone have any suggestions, let me know, if not I will keep looking.

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Jman said:
BTW...running on an AthlonXP 1700+, 512MB, Radeon 9600 Pro and it's smooth as silk.

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I think you have low standards for "smooth" because I have twice the machine you do and it's anything but smooth.

Ditto for me, Jeff. Perhaps he's only doing parks with three rides ond one coaster. He for sure as hell is not running one of Gonch's parks - or any park that has a lot of rides and theming.

I have a top of the line AMD64 4000+ PC with 2GB RAM and an BFGTech Nvidia 6800 GT 256MB OC and I end up getting single digit frame rates...see the FPS topic thread for details

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ShaneDenmark said:

Also, anyone else notice that if you put in a trim brake or block brake, if you set the brake speed higher than the train is going at that point, the brake accelerates the train? Fun in some instances, but it makes it hard to set up blocking without slowing trains down. I think I heard this was addressed in the first patch, which brings me to my next question...

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Ok, let's clear up the block brake thing. The behavior you descrbie is the fixed version.

The people who made this game seem to have NO concept of what block brakes do. Originally, they stopped the train no matter what - even if the next block was clear. That made zero sense, but they claimed it as a "feature" - I'll spare the details of that lie. They got bombared with complaints and 'fixed' it with the patch. Now they work exactly as you describe.

I don't see what's so hard about telling the game, "If the train is moving faster than the speed the brake is set at, slow it to the brake speed; otherwise do nothing" - seems like a simple programming thing to me.

I personally HATE that blocks can be used as boosters - I've seen way too many poor coaster designs use that as a fix.

It shouldn't be too hard to work around. If you want a midcourse brake run that doesn't really slow the train just make sure the final brake in the run (the block brake) is set as close to the speed of the train at that point as possible.

For example if you train hits your MCBR at 28mph, the two closest brake settings are 26.84 and 29.08 - both are close enough that the speed change won't be noticable. I personally always go with the slower speed. In this case my MCBR would be 5 trims set at (in order) 38.03, 35.79, 33.55, 31.32, 29.08 and then the block brake set at 26.84. This gives you a brake run that essentially doesn't effect the train, but if the ride would fail and a train would get stuck on that block it'll still be able to complete the course because when it continues the block brake will kick the train off at 26.84mph.

Of course, this design style wouldn't be fail/safe without the stupid 'boost' feature, but then we'd just go back to making coasters like in RCT2 where you have to build the second half of the layout assuming the train starts from zero. (almost like each block is it's own 'mini-coaster' - the way REAL coasters are designed)

At any rate, doing a MCBR that doesn't affect train speed should be super easy as long as you know generally how fast the train is moving when it hits the MCBR.

If all else fails, go download a couple of my rides from CB Games - I do exactly what I descibred on every coaster I've upoaded.

EDIT - That last statement isn't entirely true. I usually trim down the speed on the MCBR. But the concept is the same. Trim down the speed and set the block at the same speed as the last trim. You get a slight and gradual slowing with no boost.

I'm making it more confusing, aren't I?

*** Edited 2/2/2005 5:44:43 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***

RCT2 treated blocks correctly in terms of release at least, because it would roll a stopped train at 3 or 5 mph on release, and if you designed it like a real ride, that was enough to get you to the next drop.