124 replies to this topic

[riven3d]

since that computer isnt net connected, that part of testing will have to wait till i can burn stuff on disc and install it. If you wanna Pm me with a list of bugs that you have heard of and I will work on seeing if they are truth or not.

I might mention this computer was bought only for my daughters benefit, so my time on it is very limited.

[wabigbear]

Not a problem at all, and thank you for all the imput you've given so far riven3d...much appreciated!

I did hear that someone with the german version of RCT3 was able to create a new folder called "My Pictures" and the billboards he has in there are usable. This makes sense since us non-english version users (I play the portuguese version) had to create the very same folder when billboards first came out...for some reason Frontier just assumed that every language on earth says "My Pictures" the exact same way as they do.

Most of the problems so far with the game itself (and not problems with things like Video cards) seem to center around downloaded files (billboards, parks, scenarios, fireworks, structures and music files) having a different path in Vista, and RCT wants to find it where XP had it.

[BreakAway]

I have Vista installed on my laptop (upgraded) and I've had no problems running RCT2. Everything is fine about it.

[ekimmel]

Most of the problems so far with the game itself (and not problems with things like Video cards) seem to center around downloaded files (billboards, parks, scenarios, fireworks, structures and music files) having a different path in Vista, and RCT wants to find it where XP had it.

The real problem here is that Microsoft keeps moving/renaming the documents folders so that applications have to keep figuring out where to find them. They were different between Win2000 and XP and now Vista is different again. It almost seems like MS wants to break other applications.

I refuse to buy Vista just like I refused to buy XP. Neither one does anything additional that I want and I can't afford to spend $500 to upgrade 3 computers for a bunch of CPU and memory wasting eye candy effects. Good luck to everyone who has it. You'll need it.

[EastBayDre]

It occurs to me... If you have Vista, can't you create the "old" directories as symbolic links pointing at the "new" directories? That might work around the problems with hard-coded path names.

Check the documentation for the MKLINK command. I think a "directory join" is what they call symlinks to directories - I'll bet it's the answer (or at least, a quick-and-dirty solution).

[wabigbear]

Good suggestion EastBayDre. I was just at the Atari Forums and someone suggested the exact same idea last night and they were able to access the billboards. Once a couple more people confirm the process and it seems stable we can post it here.

[RCTtom]

Hi there I was just wondering if its worth upgrading to Vista because at the moment I've tested all the RCT games on my new gaming XP computer and I haven't noticed any faults. The problem I've got though is running pc games in the future. I might be able to run all of them fine now but I've heard that some games don't install or work properly in Vista, particulary old games like RCT1. Is it really worth upgrading or taking the risk at this very time? Should I wait later? Will it improve gaming performance?

[Sambo]

It will not improve your performance.

The reason is that Vista has a much higher resource/hardware requirement than XP. Much higher. You need faster processing, more memory (one GB minimum), and your existing hardware including motherboard must support Vista.

The biggest reason to wait isn't because of the system upgrade needed, it is because not all the existing device dirvers are Vista compatible. If you purchase a new system or a laptop where everything is installed and tested with Vista - you are good to go. Upgrading isn't recommended until SP1 at least. And don't forget your system will need upgrading as well - Vista is a beast.

[rcthelp]

I have bought a Vista PC, and a Boot Manager! An extra £15 (US$30) to be able to boot the PC into XP when I need it, was a great investment.

I'm not using Vista unless the software requires it, and so far, that's nothing, so I'm booting into XP all the time.

Here's my spec.

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6700 Dual Core Processor(2.67GHz,4MB Cache,1066MHz)
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium Edition
Midi-Tower ATX Case +550W PSU -Black/Silver
EVGA nForce 680i SLI(C55XE) Mainboard - Core 2 Duo/Quad-Core - ATX
2048MB DDR2 900MHz Memory -( 2x 1024MB Kit)
640GB (2x 320GB Serial ATA Hard Drives)
Super Format SONY 18x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW/RAM
Super Format SONY 18x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW/RAM
640MB nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
22" Widescreen Digital & Multi Media TFT Display (Iiyama E2200WS, 5ms)
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card (oem)
Creative Labs Inspire T7900 - 7.1 Surround with Subwoofer
Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Cordless Optical Mouse
Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem)
6x USB 2.0 Ports (8x possible on motherboard)
2x IEEE1394 Firewire (onboard)
1x Gigabit LAN (onboard)
Advantage Warranty - 2 Years On-Site + 1 Year BTB-T&C

Even with that, it's still impossible to record movies in RCT3. But Company of Heroes and Half Life 2 are dreamy at 1680*1050, generating over 100fps!

Generally, the same game under Vista runs more slowly than under XP (on the same hardware). The games do not seem to like either the new graphic card drivers, or DirectX 10 (which is standard on VISTA).

I am beginning to remember why I didn't buy my XP PC until SP1 was released......

[rcthelp]

I have now tried to install and run RCT1 and RCT2 on VISTA. These are my results.

• RCT1 installed and ran in a Window! Saving a game worked. However, the Load Game dialog never showed up. When I went into the folder and double-clicked the saved game, RCT did not start up, I had to tell VISTA to use RCT. It did this, but still did not load the saved game. Every time I closed the game I got the famous error trapper message.
• The LL installer crashed at the end. RCT+LL would not start up. The error trapper message.
• I tried various compatability settings to fix the problem, none of which worked.
• Uninstalling appeared to work, all the game files were deleted, but there did seem to be an awful lot of mess left behind in the registry.
• While poking around in there, I noticed that there is a massive list of old games, presumably some compatability settings if people try to install and use them. rct.exe and rct2.exe were not in the list. However, rct3.exe was.
• RCT2 installed fine, but crashed with the error trapper message. I didn't try any compatability settings, or any expansion packs.