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Ok well i know a lot of people are really computer literate here so i figured id ask. Anyways im trying to get a game to work on my computer(Roller Coaster Tycoon 3) and it use to work fine. I had virus issues on my computer and had to restore it back to when i got i got it about a year ago. This wiped RCT3 off of my computer. I reinstalled it and now whenever i try to get to the start screen i get this error message: http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8103/rtc0nc.jpg

any one have any ideas how to fix this? Thanks in advance!!

Check that the graphic and sound drivers are up to date, and it would probably be a good idea to reinstall directx. Those would be my first steps.

unfortunatly im not extremly computer knowledgeable, so how would i find if the graphics and sound drivers are up to date?

EDIT: I dont know if this is the sound and graphics but it says my graphics card is a nVidia GeForce MX 440 and the sound is Realtek AC97 Audio. Again i dont know if this is what you were talking about. Also i reinstalled the latest DirectX and now when is try and start it up i get a different error message.: http://img327.imageshack.us/img327/3623/3d5xn.png

I searched the text of your first error and found one other person who experienced the same error - but no answers. I'm guessing that 'Failed to allocate memory' could relate to any number of things - a lack of free hard drive space, too many other programs loaded into memory (or something specific that is conflicting with your game). Who knows. Since the error looks specific to the game I'd suggest searching RCT3 sites for possible info (RCT3 errors, RCT3 faq, etc.).

As for the second error, I suspect your game was confused by the change to your system. If you can get into the game setup and choose your graphics options again it might help. Or delete the settings file if there is one. You might also just uninstall the game then reinstall it again to re-initialize all settings, that might clear the registry and everything.

These errors are logged in 'debug.log' which I'd assume is in your game folder, looking at this log may provide further clues and details (g8tor-aid).

I have no experience with these system restore things and how much they truly purge from your system. If you can be sure that all trace of RCT3 is removed before reinstalling it again you may be in a better place.

Yes, those things are what I was talking about. Nvidia has a pretty good web site. You click on "support" or "downloads" or "drivers" or something like that, and follow the prompts to get the correct drivers. I don't know about realtek but the ac97 is pretty standard stuff. Maybe try the windows update site and see what they say. One last thing, where did you get directx? The microsoft site has a standalone download that works much better than windows update.

http://microsoft.com/directx/

But I have to say I haven't been to that site in a while. That validation junk is a big turn off for me.

I got it straight from that site there Phin. Also when i get the Play Uninstall screen for Flatout below play it says install directx 9.0 and it says it is already installed.
Also now i tried another game Flatout and i installed that AFTER the system restore and it worked fine. Now that wont work at all. Whenever i try to run that program a message comes up that says

Cannot Open Display Mode

Now im starting to wonder if its something with my computer and not the game.

Monster Truck Madness 2 runs fine and my sister has games like Barbie magic of pegasus and barbie horse adventure that work fine. Right now im trying to totally uninstall RCT3 and reinstall it and see what happens. Delete all folders and everything. Dunno what good it will do but cant hurt.

Ok well bad news. I searched the errors that i was getting and found this page http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18457.html
i ran the DxDiag and found hte page the guy was talking about. I went to test it out and i got this:


http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/8209/dx4vc.png

The DirectDraw Acceleration test went quickly and smoothly. In the white rectangle at the bottom you can see the results for the 3 tests with the Direct3D Acceleration. So now i know its not the game but the Direct3D

while looking at the screen again it says 128.00 MB of approx. total memory. it says the requirment is 256 MB RAM for windows XP. If this is the problem how do i create more memory?? I have plenty of hard drive space and all that.

THat's your video memory, not your system memory, and both video and system memory are not carved in stone anyways. Video memory can use the AGP apature on your system memory. and system memory can drop down to swap file. If it is infact memory that is the issue, windows XP shows a ballon in your taskbar saying your memory is low and that it either cant increase it automatically, or it is increasing it automatically.

To do this manually, either install more ram or

open system properties (right click my computer and choose properties)
CHoose the advanced tab
in the performance group click settings
click the advanced tab on the new window
at the bottom of the window in the virtual memory group, click change

Now select the drive that you want the swap file on. and check if it says
custom size
system managed size
no paging file

I recommend choosing system managed size, for custom though, try this formula

paging file size = Physical memory * 1.5

click set and click Ok, it will ask you to restart.

That should solve any out of memory errors.

direct X problems are usually fairly bad and hard to resolve, so good luck.

> and my sister has games like . . .

How many people use the computer, and do you share the log in or have separate logins? When making system changes you MUST use an admin login or you will run into all sorts of problems.

me, my sister, and my mom use it. the only login is Owner and we all just use that

Thanks a bunch to everyone!!! I finally got it figured out. Slayer thanks that did the trick. Somehow the memory had been set to 0 for the C drive. I changed it to make it automatically set by the computer and it works great. I dont know how it got changed i didnt even know about all of that until slayer brought it up. Thanks again everybody! I owe all yall.

Glad to hear it worked out.

Good job, Slayer.

Ok well sorry to bother everyone again but later that day that i got this fixed i started getting messages that the space on my D drive was down to 1%. The day before i was around 15-20%. I hadnt installed anynew programs or anything like that. I cant find anything in the D drive that looks like i can def. delete it, i dont want to mess anything up. Anyone know stuff that i should defintly not delete or other ways to fix this? Or how this problem occured? Thanks in advance. BTW im just posting this now because we are undergoing house renovations and my computer has been unplugged for a good part of the time.

Here's the probable culprit.

>> pagefile.sys

Windows will eat up every ounce of memory and hdd space if you allow it.

am i allowed to delete that file?

i found it a HUGE 785636 KB, just dunno if it can be deleted or not

I don't think windows will let you. Go into the system properties again and disable the swap file for all drives except drive c. Then reboot. Then find that file on all drives except c and delete them.

thanks a bunch phin! file is gone, back up to 15%. dunno what would happen if yall werent here