Well, since I don't know of any place to place these other than emailing them, why not post what we find here and them one of us can compile and send an email to them or direct them here. Though we know some of the Firaxis peeps read these forums occasionly, so they might just direct the patch guys here too.

Cities and Towns:
-To test it out, I built a Steel Mill and Automobile Factory in the same town and right after each other, in that order. Either way though, this is a bug from the manuel's description. I haven't tried with other industries yet, because I needed to do some studying for class. :)

Tracks:
-Since the game is built around triple tracking, either don't allow more than three tracks to pass together at a terminal or modify the graphics in the town to allow it.

Pathing:
-On Hard, the AI doesn't necessary choose the best path for it on double and triple tracks. Tends to actually choose much better routes on medium and easy, which I find strange.

Graphical:
-Double and Triple tracked bridges and tunnel graphic overlays.
-Corn fields on hills don't move around the laying of tracks and tend to float over a chasm if dig out under it.

After the german scenario, that all that really popped out at me, I'll look a little closer next time through and post the results.

i have had engines randomly disappear but the trains keep on going and the smoke pouring out of nothing...when i reload they are fine though...happened a couple times so far...kinda strange

Tell me this: is there some rule in the game that doesn't allow you to let a train have two stops that are "too close" to each other? I tried to get a train to go from London to the next town to the west and it refused to let me link the two together. I've seen this happen in the Northeast scenario. I wouldn't mind if the game would at least say "too close" instead of just refusing to let me hit "OK" when I do that. :(

I'm getting crashes in the game - you haven't experienced any? Trying to punch in extra cross-over tracks to deal with path/routing problems is a common trigger. Once that starts happening I just avoid that stretch of track to avoid a CTD (crash to desktop).

As long as I avoid 'screwing around' with the tracks too much, the game is relatively stable.

In my second "full game" I bought out my 1 competitor on the England map - game slowed to a crawl whenever I then played with the rail network - perhaps my detail level is too high.

Fired off some additional first impressions here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4669325&postcount=2

I see many others are discussing the game on the Gamespot forums - cool. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/sidmeiersrailroads/forum.html?board_id=m-1-932338&pid=932338&page=1

Problem with gamespot is that it's loaded with foaming-at-the-mouth rabid fanboys who are assailing Firaxis for "destroying" this and that. Well, it's different, but you get over it and enjoy it if you're into that sort of thing.

Think I'll stay here out of convenience though. ;)

This site is incredibly mature, though: http://hawkdawg.com/Forum/index.php?showtopic=881

And that thread is really good for the quality of discussion of routing it's generating: the "hard" mode really does require you to lay out your tracks as if you're building a model railroad in your house.

It takes a moment (or a few hours or games!) to appreciate the fact that you can *no longer* just "throw 20 trains" at a section of track and let the game "magically" sort it all out for you. Once you realize that, you see that to play on "hard" you really do have to set up "designated" tracks and plan routes accordingly.

This could end up being really cool - but it was quite a shock to witness how it worked for starters!

I too am experiencing game slowdown. Especially when trying to lay track. Not at first, only after I have a fairly well developed track system in place. No crashes yet but the game will momentarily freeze then start back up.

I am having a blast, though, figuring out routing and consists.

The game crashes for me frequently. I run CivIV and Warlords on the same machines, so I'd say it's Railroads! and not something to do with the PC. I'd love to forward the crash dumps to Firaxis, but there doesn't seem to be any way to do so. They don't seem to be looking for bug reports via their website.

I haven't had it crash on me, but I set the texture quality to medium and the game ran alot more smoothly. The trains on the opening menu still don't go by smoothly though, tend to disappear after the first engine.

I haven't had a problem so far with cities being to close. I'll attempt Northeast scenario when I get home and take a look around.

In the Scenarios, it's possible to start with 0 AIs, however the scenarios won't let you _win_ any objective that is 'conquer X of X opponents'. Not a huge deal, but I feel there should at least be a warning going into it

Back on the forum after setting up a fun little Tabletop version of the MidWest map. While adding yet more track - boom, CTD! :(

I think I'm going to put the game on hold now and play some Company of Heroes until the patches (inevitably) come out - to their credit, the game loads really fast on my machine, but crashes really do get annoying. :(

Having complained about "game" crashes - it really would be cool if they would bring back RRT-style crashes (where the engineers jump out at the last minute - such a cool animation! Oh man...). RRT2/3 crashes were lame - just a random event with minimal carnage.

BTW, the gamespot forums are being posted in by game producer Dan Magaha - perhaps he's lurking here too? If so, welcome - you've got quite a few bugs to fix - good luck!

In 'RRT_Cities_*' XML file of game scenario files, the <bIsStartLocation> tag does not work as it has to.
The Cities markead as 'false' are selected as start location regardless of the tag value.
For example, in US NorthWest sceanrios, the city of Seattle is marked as "<bIsStartLocation>false</bIsStartLocation>".
But some times Seattle is selected as player start city.
Modifying bIsStartLocation flags of the other cities from 'true' to 'false' also does not work.

I didn't make mistake on file; When I changed <Type>Town</Type> of Seattle in the same file to 'Village', it worked. i.e. Seattle become small village, not town.

<szDefaultTrackSide> does not seems to work. it doe not make any difference on track side of start city.
To change side, I have to change City <Rotation> parameter. I think that this is not what desiner intended.

While we're piling on, two quick things:

1. Buying a stock and then immediately selling it gives you profit.

2. I have had numerous crashes, which seem to be caused by the unorthodox way I add crossings to segments of double- or triple-railed track (I still haven't found the right way to do it). Under the right set of circumstances which I do not yet understand, I can confuse the computer into believing two cities are not connected when they clearly are. When in this state, if I delete a segment of track, the game crashes. Presumably, it is trying to adjust the "what city is linked by what piece of track" master list and hits a null pointer.

i tried the demo and the biggest problem is the train cannot stop (always keep 6km/h) and release goods at stations!:(

another is extending rails don't remove end of rail block. that's not big problem when rails are in rural area, but you cannot remove block when the rail is near the city...:mad:

If you click on the block so that it lights up, you can often 'delete it' while the track stays intact.

falconer, what i mean is hard to choose the block when the rail is located closed to the city area... often city is highlighted instead of block or rail...

Found a small issue - When you have a depot and a competitors depot in the same resource producer (eg coal) if you have your train to "wait for full load" if will leave the station when it reaches half load- and then stop periodically on the way to its destination and "pick up" more cargo out of the ether....

Very odd.

It might have something to do with the way it doles the cargo out 1 to you and the next to the competitor....

I've been taking a break from Civ4 and running Railroads since it came out, and have had numerous crash errors. Civ4 does not crash on either of the systems I use, yet Railroads crashes on both of them. I get about 1 crash a day.

Less frequently, when I put the CD in for the first time in a few days, it softboots the entire system and Windows reports a system recovery from a fatal crash.

There are also numerous graphic rendering bugs - the missing train mentioned above is something I've seen - if you click on the *locate* to centre the camera on the train, I've sometimes seen it off in no-mans-land (some blank space), moving along at what looks to be warp speed. I've had resource buildings (such as oilfields and grainarys) appear hundreds of feet up in the air. Tunnels that are close to each other often render smushed-up together in a way that no tunnel could ever look in the real world.

The manual was about 2 steps more useful than the tutorial. I mean come on, I buy a game so I can see that the back half of the manual is chucked full of thinks like rail baron biographies and engines of the era? Where is the strategy discussion - the detail on the best way to plan paths for trains, etc...?

On a whole, I love this game because I'm a Railroad fan, but honestly, I feel like a ripped-off customer who just paid Firaxis for the honor of being a beta-tester for them. And I have to wonder why someone like Sid Meier put his name to this release.

/Thef

I saved a game earlier today. If I try to load it the game crashes.

Yeah I've had the tunnels problems too...also had crashes in multiplayer...and sometimes the trains in a city don't move no matter what you do with the tracks...that means restart unfortunately.
I can only assume that firaxis wanted to bring it out before the christmas rush begins in about 2 weeks...unfortunately that meant they had to cut short on the quality control.
I love the principles of this game, it's great to play, but so far 2 out of three times I've had to restart a game...
:sad:

I have had two Crash To Desktop...

This two crash have surprised me

The second crash has occured when i was making a deal to buy an industry in a city where nothing was onwned by me !

I also have crashes to the desktop, but I'm looking forward to the patch they are releasing any moment. You can read more about it at a forumpost in gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/sidmeiersrailroads/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-31380847&pid=932338)

I really have a problem with Car factories in 1830 scenario. I uninstalled the game until the patch AND until someone mods some more sensible industries

I've pretty much given up playing the game it crashes so often. Looking forward to the patch (thanks for the link Iznogood).

After I instal the game I get a error message saying Missing file Dll /G or something like that. I can launch the game and play fine. Kinda strange. This is the retail version not the demo. Win XP Pro SP2 Geforce 7800GS CO Audigy 4 2 gigs of XMS Ram. Video drivers 9.47 win xp pro updated. No fire walls. No Norton. Tried to reinstal got the same error. Thanks

i have found two types of crashes in my game.

1. in the first scenario one of the winning condition is building a steel mill in new york and delivering 100 car loads from there. while new york already had an automobile factory. so when i purchased a new train delivering coal to the steel mill in new york(i first built the steel mill there), the game crashed. same thing happened in second scenario only the city was different.

2. now there was this one train taking cattle from one place to another lets say from A(cattle ranch) to B(factory). now when i did this, the train was already loaded from A and had just started moving towards B. at that time i went to the change consist option. deleted B, and i put in a new stop C(which also had a factory) and changed the consist a little bit and added another stop taking the food from C to another place.. when i pressed ok the game crashed.

Game crashes really are very irritating. after you ave built a gr8 empire. and theres no autosave......

moreover i hate it that we cannot connect our rail lines to other players rail lines. i think that shud be allowed.....

I now see why auto save was put into this :p

its awkward to see my train flying across the screen faster than all the other trains and hover over one stations tracks and then slowly get back on it and give me my money...any one else see these flying trains before? last time I checked 500 tons of steel can't fly

Only one crash for me in about 6 hours play.

One problem I found was when I made a track that looped into a large circuit. This was in the France scenario.

Tried to route a train from A to B. When it got about half way, it decided it didn't like that idea and turned itself around. It went back a little way and then turned itself around again. It kept on doing that ad nauseum.

Now I know better than to do make tracks that loop.

Really the looping problem is so annoying. I was playing the Britain scenario. Go lots of gold from arms when suddenly the income dropped to zero for a few years!! When I checked, the trains are looping and looping the whole years trying to get to the station. I really hope AI should be improved further. My last resort is to scrap all trains and start a new fleet!

I do get a few crash. Before it was hard crash when I was forced to restart. Lately, CTDs happen sometimes. Lagging also happen sometimes

I have XP Home, dual core 2.8 G and 6600 Nvidia card.

My trains will stop at a station and just stay there.

It will even happen to me and the Computer when I'm playing against 1, 2, or 3 computer AI's.

Hey there,

I must be doing something wrong here. If I lay a track between 2 cities for, say, passengers and stick a train on it, most of the time the train just sits there at the station losing money. Sometimes it'll load up, offload passengers, return and just sit there again. Also, sometimes, if I put more than one carriage, the 1st will load but not the next. I haven't checked "wait for full load" either.
Any help you could give would be great as I cannot do anything here.
Terrible, terrible game.
Cheers,
Mark

Thats one of those glorious Bugs. It's happened to me a few times. Some times just closing the game, rebooting do the trick, other times I've uninstalled and reinstalled (twice now).

It's extreamly aggrivating and horrible that this game is like that. It's a huge dissapointment.

Besides the normal crashes that usually occur when changing consist on routes, or heaven forbid, adding new depots to existing routes, I got a C++ illegal shutdown error after merging an AI in a pretty complex (5000+ miles of track) game.
Can you imagine? They wrote this game in c++??? The way it plays I figured VB6 tops..:)

I read a post somewhere asking if the is a bug when you reach 250,000,000. Answer is yes..:(

I've played for hours with no crash on patch1.01 but then all of a sudden (poof) then crashes might happen within minutes.
I changed video cards from a Nvidia 7600gs to an ATI 850XT and after serveral hours no crash. Most would occur while changing routes are connecting new track or doubling/tripling.

Check your Taskmanager after shutdown, I've found SMRailroads.exe still running and will not kill.

I have a problem with my mouse cursor only appearing when I move it around.

I have a Logitech MX518 mouse with the latest drivers, my graphics card is an Nvidia Geforce 6800 GS which should be freshly updated aswell.

Can anyone point me to the right tree as to how I can fix this? I'm aching to try out this game since I was an ardent fan of the original some time back, and just watching the intro made me all antsy to start playing.

I had several problems ranging from graphics glitches to CTDs when I first got the game a few weeks back. My video card is an old Nvidia 5200 (barely in spec) so I turned the graphics way down. Didn't help, still crashed often and the scrolling was awful, spastic and uneven.

I shelved the game until the patch came out. Installed it and that addressed a lot of the graphics errors but the game still crashes to the desktop with depressing regularity.

Some examples of gameplay that result in CTDs:

1) Merging in another railroad is usually the end of life. Every time I try to change the consist on one of the newly acquired trains, the game crashes.

2) Had a game crash when I upgraded from a depot to a station on a newly-acquired line from a former competitor.

3) The graphic overload in the late game is maddening. Tracks disappear from sight as do trains and I can't make hide nor hair of what's going on. The game is glitchy at that point and even common actions like modifying consists cause a CTD.

4) I had another CTD in the UK scenario while trying to add a third spur in London to handle additional traffic from Birmingham and Manchester. Just a simple doubletrack for the spur and add a connection to the mainline caused the CTD.

In some cases, saved games cannot be reloaded successfully because they fault soon after beginning the load sequence. The save file is either corrupted or the game itself is buggy or both.

I've yet to successfully complete a scenario because the late game gameplay is too buggy. That irritates me as I've been a fan of Railroad Tycoon and its successors for years. My advice to the stout of heart is: if you see disappearing rails and weird graphics problems, save and then retire because, if my experience is any measure, a CTD is heading your way.

I guess I'll put the game back on the shelf and hope for another patch to address these issues and the others mentioned in this thread.

Good luck and happy railroading.

One 'possible' reason for 'some' CTDs may be programs in the background. Now I did not say 'all'. My play smoothed out alot when I shut down Zone Alarm and another part of a program I never thought of...my Nero was running 4 things in the background, one was to see if I was watching any movie I had downloaded so it could ask if I wanted to record it:rolleyes: . Look at your Windows Task Manager under Processes. Also run Adaware, Spybot and AVG (or programs like these) to see if there is any garbage in the background. You might try a blank HD with no others in the system, load Windows and any "needed" software and see if it runs any better. One morning around 5:30 I got kicked off 3 times in a row. I suddenly remembered that my anti-virus program was scheduled to run at 5:30 every morning:D .

:scan: NOTICE!:scan: This is NOT the answer to all problems and may not help solve any and all problems so please don't attack me. It DID work for me.

i had my first crash this evening ... the game had never crashed even once for me in the past. not sure what caused it but i rebooted and everything went fine for the rest of the evening

i saw one very blatant bug though which i've never seen before... the AI layed down track that directly crossed over one of my tracks without any bridge... i only saw it once but it was quite a thing to see... my track was flat and level with the ground, no tunnel or anything. he layed his right across mine... sort of like a plus sign intersection...

There is another patch out and a holiday senerio. I have never seen that bug.

ya i had never seen it before either but i saw it again tonight... although this time it went in my favor as it was MY tracks that overlapped one of the ai's.... i am running the latest patch... i took a screenshot for posterity::

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/106701/SMRailroads_0000_copy.jpg

There is another patch out and a holiday senerio. I have never seen that bug.

A new patch? Sweet - Merry Christmas to us, indeed! :)

Ah, here's the thread - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=197764

Quad tracks at terminals? YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

That'll make the game much more enjoyable.

Thanks for pointing out the patch exists. :)

ya i had never seen it before either but i saw it again tonight... although this time it went in my favor as it was MY tracks that overlapped one of the ai's.... i am running the latest patch... i took a screenshot for posterity::

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/106701/SMRailroads_0000_copy.jpg

Thats not a bug but a feature that I would want!:thumbsup:

Hey guys I got a problem I hope you can help me out with...

I was doing pretty good in Germany (random landscape/random cities) and then suddenly my station in Vienna ceased to function. Trains went there and just stood still. Their status was "unloading". I saved the game and reloaded, same thing. I then started to delete all the trains waiting (there were 4 or 5). I created a new train to bring beer from there to Prague and the train appears but doesn't do anything. Doesnt load the beer and bring it to Prague... Instead it's status just says "unlaoding". What's going on here?

savegame attached (edit: looks like it wont allow me to attach it :( )

Thats not a bug but a feature that I would want!:thumbsup:


ya its nice when it goes in your favor but bad when it doesn't... hehe... whatever its not a big issue cause it really doesn't happen very often

Thats not a bug but a feature that I would want!:thumbsup:

I have found a way to run my tracks through the AI's, without building a bridge or tunnel.

Unfortunately, I can't decide if i should post it or not, as perhaps the developer's will prevent it in the next patch..:lol:

Even after the second patch my game still has issues. I get random hard crashes, I might be able to play for a minute or it can be an hour. My comp is fine, and I don't have these problems with any other games.

I'm using a notebook (Toshiba Qosmio G30) that complies with (or is better then) the recommended configuration. Graphics are taken care of by a GeForce Go 7600.
After installation the game slowed down significantly in the later stages of scenario.
First I reduced the resolution from 1920*1200 to 1440*900 and reduced the detail of the picture. This didn't change a thing.
Upgrading to version 1.1.0.0 solved a few minor issues, but not the slowing down.
I then upgraded the driver of the GeForce, and this solved the slow down problem. However I now get very irregular graphics. It appears that different 'layers' are mixed up. Tracks disappear, water rises, and mountains grow immensely in height. It makes the game unplayable. Usually the game crashes anyhow shortly after these graphic problems start. Interestingly, some scenarios seem to suffer a lot less or not a all. Specially those with high terrain seem to have the problem.
I love the game, but I cannot recommend it to anyone using GeForce Go graphics.

I had similar issues. I've just had the game for a few days, and the patch helped performance significantly (although I do get significant slowdowns whenever routing is involved), it seems that the floodwaters have reached Salem:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/21222/highwater.jpg

This was followed by a CTD not too much later. :(

Hey there,

I must be doing something wrong here. If I lay a track between 2 cities for, say, passengers and stick a train on it, most of the time the train just sits there at the station losing money. Sometimes it'll load up, offload passengers, return and just sit there again. Also, sometimes, if I put more than one carriage, the 1st will load but not the next. I haven't checked "wait for full load" either.
Any help you could give would be great as I cannot do anything here.
Terrible, terrible game.
Cheers,
Mark

MY EMAIL JUST GOT RESPONSE FROM EUROSUPPORT AND WORK FOR ME

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for contacting Take 2 Technical Support.

Please follow the instructions below which should get the game working correctly for you :

Hold the Alt key down and press tab (the key above Caps lock on a standard keyboard layout)
This will minimise the game and show the windows desktop. Click on the Sid Meier's Railroads! button on the taskbar to enter the game again. This should start the train moving once again and prevent it from delaying its journeys any further

Kind Regards,
Take 2 Technical Support

My trains will stop at a station and just stay there.

It will even happen to me and the Computer when I'm playing against 1, 2, or 3 computer AI's.

MY EMAIL JUST GOT RESPONSE FROM EUROSUPPORT AND SOLVE THE SAME PROBLEM

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for contacting Take 2 Technical Support.

Please follow the instructions below which should get the game working correctly for you :

Hold the Alt key down and press tab (the key above Caps lock on a standard keyboard layout)
This will minimise the game and show the windows desktop. Click on the Sid Meier's Railroads! button on the taskbar to enter the game again. This should start the train moving once again and prevent it from delaying its journeys any further

Kind Regards,
Take 2 Technical Support

MY EMAIL JUST GOT RESPONSE FROM EUROSUPPORT AND SOLVE THE SAME PROBLEM

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for contacting Take 2 Technical Support.

Please follow the instructions below which should get the game working correctly for you :

Hold the Alt key down and press tab (the key above Caps lock on a standard keyboard layout)
This will minimise the game and show the windows desktop. Click on the Sid Meier's Railroads! button on the taskbar to enter the game again. This should start the train moving once again and prevent it from delaying its journeys any further

Kind Regards,
Take 2 Technical Support

((Note: My CPU is a Radeon 3000+ with 1Gb system RAM and a Visiontek Xtasy Radeon 9600 w/256M Video RAM))

I have noticed the graphics have been getting inconsistent late in a scenario (when I have a lot of things happening in the game), in particular, all the top layers disappear from the screen, leaving just the trains and landscape (no user interface). Other than that, the game handles fine for me - minor slowdown issues.

I discovered a couple of days ago that going out to the desktop and coming back in cleared the issue (and now this email confirms it). It does sometimes happen again after coming back in, I just keep going out to the desktop to clear it. Somewhat annoying it is. I hope it is something they can fix...

My graphics issue didn't stop by going to the desktop and back, but was fixed by closing and reopening the entire program. However, after I reloaded from a save and continued the same game in progress, it was only a few minutes before I had the same issue, and eventually the CTD.

Whenever I have a graphic issue, I simply open the 'new' train screen then cancel out, seems to fix it for the remainder of the scenario

Greetings - I've been playing the stand alone scenarios with AI competitors.
The auction block is apparently inactive - when it pops up (it doesn't matter whether I start the auction or the AI player or the 'patent'.) - I cannot raise the bid or close the window. Very frustrating.
Any suggestions?
-willie g.:confused:

Halfway through a game, trains started developing severe pathing problems. Trains that had been fine for years suddenly veered off course, into another city, then started looping back and forth over the same track.

The AI starts out halfway intelligent, then starts building flying bridges and flinging tracks 50 miles, crossing over yours just to get to a tiny city that has only one industry.

If I had not received this as a gift, I would be demanding Firaxis give me my money back!! The whole game is half-baked!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

I have a few problems with this game.

1. In the tutorial, building a rail on the green arrows and connecting it doesn't achieve the objective. You actually have to build a rail on the OPPOSITE side.

2. I'm not used to games where you start with a budget and have to earn more money. I used to LOVE Zoo Tycoon and SimSafari, but after playing Empire Earth 2, Age of Empires 3, and Civilization 4 for a while, I'm not used to that kind of game anymore.

3. To that end, I decided to play Train Table Mode, but then the game auto-exited.:mad: :mad: That happened in the Tutorial as well.

Greetings - I've been playing the stand alone scenarios with AI competitors.
The auction block is apparently inactive - when it pops up (it doesn't matter whether I start the auction or the AI player or the 'patent'.) - I cannot raise the bid or close the window. Very frustrating.
Any suggestions?
-willie g.:confused:

Did you have enough cash?

...more than enough cash. After I posted, the problem went away...until yesterday. Same symptom, couldn't do anything with the auction window, even close it. It had worked fine during that same game; immediately prior to the problem I had been at the "Trains Report" screen...
-willie g

The AI is pretty poor for your own trains as it always takes the shortest route. So for example if you double track from station to station, the AI generally plonks any new train on a used track instead of the new track you've just created. Furthermore when you try and get a train to move to the new track by laying slip track, all the trains will jump track. If you do manage to get your new train onto the new track, it's quite difficult to remove the slip track wihout having to remove then replace a lot of track.

The game really slows right down to a crawl at times and gets very jerky making movement around the screen. I've seen it pause for several seconds in every game I've played. These are worrying as CTD sometimes happen when it starts long pauses.

Also the graphics start glitching when it gets busy with scenery disappearing. I've seen all the water turn white, and all scenery disappear entirely leaving an olive green background with just the tracks and engines.

A really silly glitch is when you double a track through a station and the station bridge either doesn't move to accomodate it or moves to thw wrong position leaving the end of the bridge on the track. It wouldn't be a big deal like the houses that do this when a city expands, but somehow trains that hit the bridge slowdown like an engine collision.

On some occasions you can cross your own track without it building a bridge! Trains will pass directly through each other but with no slowdown.

A real PITA is when you buy a new train and during the setup you tick the box for it to wait until it is full before departing, but then it just heads empty for the next station. You'll immediately check the train just to make sure you did tick the box, and guess what? You did! The train just went anyway.

You could write a book about all the shortcomings of Railroads! ;)

Ok, i ve been playing Computer Games for 20 years now and this is the 2nd most unstable game (1rst was Car Tycoon). Now here are my issues (got the 1.10 Update):

1. When there is too much track, when I want to add some more, the game freezes, i go eat a salat and when I come back it might be unstuck. The more the new track, the more the freezy thingy it is. It is not a performance problem, because i can play other games (battlefield, Wow, Lineage, Need for speed etc.) with no problem.

2. System crashes (fortunatelly there is autosave) veeery often. Sometimes I can reload the save and play, sometimesit automaticly crashes when I load it again. I think that changing the destination(s) (route) of a train causes the CTD. To be more precise it might happen when I deleted all the destinations of the route and added new. In order to prevent this I just scrap the old one and get an new one every time i want to change the route. Works fine for me and I dont get the crashes where you cant do anything, even after getting the safe.

3.When adding many tracks one next to the other with many crosschanges between them or when there is just to much stuff on the map the trains often get the problem, which I think is referred to as looping. My trains go forward and backward in an loop of sheer unending happiness of seeing the landscape, many times not letting other trains pass. I then scrape the train and get a new one. Problem is that if you want to do the same route again, the train will often get the same loop.

One of-the-topic issue: If you really cant play the game because of CDT etc, but you like it, I d say you go play Railroad Tycoon II. It's the same thing, the graphics are OK, it hasn't got the auctions and internet multiplayer (LAN multiplayer is possible) but everything else is there (I thing). RTII has better interfaces (you have to click less and get more information), no oversized citys and some other changes, which I personally prefer (as: you can get more than one factories/factories in one station if you pay for the big station, but factories arent limited to cities - which of course isnt historically correct until the 1960s), and better economical . After playing a little bit Sid meiers railroads I still prefer Railroad Tycoon II.

I loved RRT2 as well, the problem I found was it got too easy. The AI would not expand beyond a certain point.

I get totally crazy grafix. Just lines and stuff appearing. ussually followed by a crash. happens constantly-

Hi!

After i've played a while, and starting to build tracks outside the "starter area", like in the Southwest scenario when you start in Yuma, for example, and lay tracks to New York, the game crashes and a window comes up and it says that a problem made the game run incorrectly, and Windows would notify if it finds a solution. I just got Windows Vista so i thought it might have to with that, but i tried running the program as if it would be with Win XP or Win 2000, and it still doesnt work. I also tried reinstall the game, but it didnt help and i got patch 1.1. Anyone else who got a similar problem or
know how to fix it?

i emailed 2kgames and they say they have to test the game in vista and they are not sure when they get an answer for a good working railroads in vista..
the only solution i could make up for less crashing the game is to set all the details in the options to low that makes the game more playable ! good luck and hopefully soon an patch for an vista compatible game!!

nvidia gf 7600gt, amd x2 4200 2gb ram, windows vista 32bits

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Subject
vista and railroads?!

Discussion Thread
Response (Elaine Wake) 15/02/2007 02.11 AM
Unfortunately Windows Vista has not been officially tested to play the game

hmz good answer huh :(

First, Welcome to both of you!:clap: :dance: :dance: :band: [party] :rockon: :bounce:

Ok....
I have never seen this occur before in any of my games, but it may be caused by a seed to overlay placement inequality that would cause the game to slow down and then submit error information to the CPU.

EDIT: Whoops wrong thread... delete this post..... I thought this was Civ 3....heh sorry mods:blush:

Im in the same boat as Gordi. I reciently bought a computer with Vista 32 bit version. I can play for about 30 minutes with no lag and things running nice and smooth on medium/high settings. Then the game tabs out and says Your program has stopped responding please hit ok to exit this program, or something to that effect or a message simular to what Gordi posted above. This is the typical problem report for the crash:

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: RailRoads.exe
Application Version: 1.1.0.0
Application Timestamp: 458836db
Fault Module Name: RailRoads.exe
Fault Module Version: 1.1.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 458836db
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 002af322
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.2
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 27b0
Additional Information 2: 29ac15ef863a89385fa7036e8bd5c3ed
Additional Information 3: 797f
Additional Information 4: 6c0a6e6748acfe25e473cbded4033635

After not playing this game for two months out of frustration, I tried again in the hope of getting somewhere, but alas it's the same old story.

The game starts goes into slowmo during every scenario after you either build a new train or a new class of train appears - the link here is the large 3D display of the train.

Next up. The US Midwest scenario always crashes at January 1960 with a loud screech requiring a hard reset.

The QA people behind this game should be fired.

I just got the game, and patched up to 1.1, and cannot make it through the tutorial. I get a crash to desktop everytime I click the "competition report" (this also happens if I click this button outside the tutorial). Is this a known issue?

I also have vista and about every 15 minutes it crashes. I emailed 2k games and i am trying to resolve the problem. if anyone found an answer to this problem please send me a message. This really is a good game but it just keeps crashing. Soon i am going to upgrade my computer to 2g ram hopefully that will help

I tried running this game (patched to 1.1) on two different machines. One is running XP (32 bit) with a Pentium D dual core, 512MB, and NVidia 8600GT graphics. The other is running Vista (64 bit) with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core, 4GB, and NVidia 8800 Ultra. Other games run fine on both machines.

Railroads seems to crash under roughly the same conditions on both machines (though it does bog down and run much slower on the XP machine). On both machines, it crashes with a memory access exception (0xC0000005) at seemingly random points in the game (though perhaps it seems to happen more often just after laying track or placing a building ... and more often on more complicated maps (with lots of stuff built up)).

It looks like the ver 1.1 patch is over a year old. Have they abandoned this game or are they still working on a new patch?

This would be a very fun game if it would just run without crashing. As is, I am disgusted that I spent money on a game that I can't use (class-action lawsuit, anyone?) How can they get away with releasing software that doesn't even run? Is there any combination of hardware and operating system that it does actually run on?

Also, a friend had the same experiences on his machine (we both bought the game with hopes of playing each other online). His machine is running Vista 32-bit, core duo, 4GB, 8800 ultra. He also tried the game on an older XP machine (I forgot the exact hardware config though) and had the same problem with crashes. AFAIK, this game simply doesn't work regardless of the hardware or OS.

This would be a very fun game if it would just run without crashing. As is, I am disgusted that I spent money on a game that I can't use (class-action lawsuit, anyone?) How can they get away with releasing software that doesn't even run? Is there any combination of hardware and operating system that it does actually run on?

Interesting. I have been making mods for this game for over a year now. I have made progress in getting super huge maps with tons of new content into the game and it runs fast and smooth. I run xp 32 with an Nvidia M/B with 4gigs of 800 ram, 3gig dual core, Nvidia 8800GT...runs great.

These maps have global lists inside them, this way I can tell the game what to load and run and not to load some of the games models and such that my maps don't use. These maps require allot of system ram to run, and so does the default game.

My maps are called CIC maps for clean install compatible maps. Place the single map folder inside the C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Railroads!\UserMaps folder. The custom assets folder needs to be empty and no other files can be left inside the usermaps folder...only the single map folder gets placed in the game. Florida Gold is one of my first maps, and there is an update coming that will even add more to the scenario. Made as a large single player scenario map.

If there were a Mod Maps thread at this forum, I could start posting my new work here. You should be able to run the game fine. You can try my Florida Gold map but it is a 20x20 sized map and will take allot of ram to run it when full. It will run on 2gigs of ram on XP but I have 4...I would guess with Vista needing 500megs you may need to stuff your mother board with 4gigs as well. Even though in Windows 32bit mode it will only see 3gigs. I do have smaller maps as well...Mud Skippers and Holidays In Ohio ToyTrains are size 15 and 16. I am almost complete with two more new maps and they will be ready for beta testing soon.

Give them a try and let me know. The link to the map files are below...

www.CrimsonSun.cc/Florida_Gold_400x.rar

#well seems like this is the end of my affiliation with Sid's products, I am too proud to let this one rest. Can't believe it, next to me are all Civ titles plus add-ons ever, I bought them all, plus the tycoons, and original colonization. I was going to buy "new" Colonization this week, but was worried I was going to be ripped off, so I decided to see if I could buy railroads via steam, but then decided to download it first to check it out, and wow that must be the most buggiest game ever, and I thought I would buy myself a classic here, as it is 2 years old. (1 patch??) But not a working version yet. Wow so glad I saved spending 25 bucks on it. Can't believe they sell this piece of crap. Thats the end of the line for me, no more money from me. well done!!!! bloody thieves :mad::mad::mad:

I'd like to compile this list. May I?

:confused:Hi guys, Happy holidays. I picked up this game really cheap and it's great but now im experiencing difficulties. After about 15 minutes in a scenario, If I begin to lay a lengthy stretch of track the game crashes and returrns to the desktop- saying that SMR has stopped responding. Patch v1.1 has not alleviated the problem. Somebody please help!!

Is this the default maps that came with the game? Or modded maps? Have you installed the SMRI update...if so don't. Use only the one update at the RailRoads! main site. Check your "running" programs, you might be using too much system resources and need more ram etc. or shut-down some running apps.

The modded maps have been totally rebuilt, as the old way of listing everything on the planet in the "global" xml files, was bogging down the game and brining it to a creep. I make my maps in a self-contained file style. The single file folder gets dropped into the user maps folder and then just fires up the mod scenario.

I also need to update the link I have above as much has changed...the game runs much smoother now.

Hello, I am new to this forum. I bought this game about a year ago, but because my old computer was too slow, I never really played it. Now, I have a brand new, lightning-fast computer. I love playing this game, but the same problem that everyone has been noting for the past two years has me really frustrated. About 15-20 minutes into playing a new game, it will suddenly crash, then as the game progresses, crashes occur with increasing frequency. I downloaded the 1.1 patch, but it seems to have done nothing to help. Has anyone found an acceptable solution to this problem? And because the last patch was released long ago, have the developers basically given up?

Vlaam, like Tommyp2409, you need at least two gig of ram...4 is better. This game needs lots of system resources. The Florida Gold mod map, uses around 1.3 to 1.5 gig of system ram to run when it gets full near the middle all the way to the end. If you have Vista, it uses 500meg or one half of a gig of ram. So with Vista and Florida Gold it uses All of your ram. None left for anti-virus of other programs to run.
The game uses more resources as the game goes on. Place 4gig of system ram on your system. If you have XP and are 32 bit, it will use about three and a half gig of it.

Are you guys trying to play the games default game maps or mod maps? That is a big differance. Mod maps need to be "self-contained" map files as if you keep adding new itemsa to the global files, you will bring the game to a hault because of too much content. The Florida Gold map I posted above some time ago, has been rebuilt as a self-contained map. I need to replace the post above so the correct files are available. Right now, my CIC self-contained maps can be found at HookedGamers.com. They never crash.

Expand the virtual memory on your system, and add more ram if you don't have four gig.

I've gone through the Tutorial and book. It states you can lay a straight track from one city to the next, look at demand and deliver goods from one city to the next. I must be missing something because the train will go to the first stop and just wait, no profit, and continuously loses maintenance cost. How do I get the train to unload and make a profit?

Example: LA has Passengers and Mail, I add 2 Passenger cars and 1 Mail and route it to San Diego. The train goes and stops and never does anything...

Sometimes towns have to grow before they want mail and passengers...you need to check what they want first. Did you place a station at the next town. You should also check Sid's site for the update as well.

Everyone who has had problems with crashes in Vista needs to check out the following thread... I installed this fix and now my game works perfectly! Well, aside from gameplay bugs =)
It certainly fixed all of my performance issues including frequent game crashes:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=306530

Hi, everyone. May I compile this list of issues and send it to Firaxis? Maybe 2K will look at it.

Hi, everyone. May I compile this list of issues and send it to Firaxis? Maybe 2K will look at it.

Second that, bought the game recently, was great to play for the first hour, got a good little railway going, now all it does is crash just after I load :mad:

System is:

Intel Q6600
4gigs ram
Windows XP pro 32bit

I am playing rr on a p4 3.0ghz pc. When i went from 512mb of ram to 4gb of ram all my problems disappeared. Especially the track laying lag. Just a little fyi. Game plays great and i'm getting better. Hope to play multiplayer soon. I'm not much of a challenge, but i love the game.

Oh my pc is a hp compaq dc5100 i got from geeks.com with windows xp pro. No other upgrades besides the ram.