Zookeeper's Lounge

Hello,

I am new to all this. I have been happily installing new items and then suddenly my game wouldn't load. Now I'm trying to learn to combine everything and am looking for combined dll files, etc. Any help would be appreciated.

My 2nd question is: Is there a problem with downloading items from a foreign site, such as Emma's? I see the link advertised often and they have some pretty things, but when I click on the read me, it is often in German. Could that be what messed up my game? Can my CC "read" the other languages, or if there is no dll included, only a ztd, does it matter?

Totally confused,

rightcross

I have some things from Emma's and also ABC and also ZT.nl that I use in my zoos at various times. As long as you don't mind that they are not in english I have found to have not many problems with them.
Most big sites have combined dll files and where possible you should use them as the limit for dll files is very low.
There are several tutorials around the sites about combining ztd files.
Dlls are only required for things the guests and animals interact with like buildings and shelters and a few other things. Rocks, foliage and scenery (statues etc) are ztd files that do not require dll files. Most files that require a dll will include the dll in the file or instruct you to get the combined dll from that site.

Another thing to consider is that when you have many items downloaded, there can be conflicts which are hard to identify. Sometimes two random items will conflict with each other, but you don't know which ones they are. I have found it is best to add a few items in at a time, then restart the game and be sure all the maps are available. If so, close the game and add some more. It is time consuming, but it saves the frustration.

Welcome to the Lounge, rightcross.

This will confirm what fern has said, but provide a little more detail.

In the top section of this Technical Support forum, there is a "Zoo Tycoon 1 Limits And Suggested Solutions" topic. The first 2 LIMITs in there are what you probably want to read. They concern the limit on ".ztd" files and the limit on ".dll" files. They say what the limits are, the symptoms they cause, and suggestions on how to avoid the limit. If your game would not load at all, it is probably the ".dll" limit. If the game got to the first menu, it is probably the ".ztd" limit.

In order to get your game working again, you do not have to combine ".ztd" files or use combined ".dll" files. You can do that later. To get the game working again, you can move enough user ".ztd" files and user ".dll" files out of your Zoo Tycoon folders until it starts working again. Once it is working again, you can start getting combined ".dll" files and combining ".ztd" files.

This site has a combined ".dll" file in the Object Downloads section. It combined many ".dll" files from here and many ".dll" files from other sites. The Object Downloads section says which ".dll" files you can move out of your Zoo Tycoon folder when you use this one. Two other sites with large combined ".dll" files are Zoo Admin and Zoo Tek. They each have several combined ".dll" files.

Just like fern, I also have a number of downloads from Emma's site and many other non-English sites. Those downloads will work without any problem. Some will have messages in another language. Some even have English messages inside them.

As fern pointed out, many types of user creations do not need ".dll" files. But even those that do have ".dll" files will not hurt your game if you do not have the ".dll" file. All that would happen is that item would not show messages inside Zoo Tycoon. It would still work, just no messages.

Finally, some downloads include Patch programs or Setup programs or ".dll" files bigger than 1.8 mb. All of these can also cause problems. So I recommend that people do not use them. If you have run a Patch or Setup program, you would want to copy the lang0.dll from your Zoo Tycoon CD-ROM into your Zoo Tycoon main folder. If you have any user ".dll" files bigger than 1.8 mb in your Zoo Tycoon main folder, you would want to move them out, but do not move Zoo Tycoon's lang0.dll, lang100.dll, lang200.dll, or lang300.dll.

I hope you get your game working again very soon. Then I hope you have much fun Zoo Tycooning.

Thank you for the quick replies. I have printed everything I can find about the dlls and ztds etc. I have uninstalled my game and am doing a clean install and will try to incorporate everything I've read into re-installing user items. I'm sure I was over the limit, so now I'm trying to piece together which combined dll files I can download and what they will help eliminate. I will also try to do the ztd combining thing that I printed from www.lunamanar.com/zklounge/index.php?showtopic=164. I know that I had a couple of items that used a patch - Baskin Robbins, Hardees, the pay phone... I would really like to use these items, I'm just not sure what to do instead of the patch. Haven't found a newer version. We tried ZT2, but didn't care for it, so I hope the updates will continue for ZT1.

Thanks again for your help. Glad to know I can still use the pretty items from Emma's.

rightcross

As mentioned in the "Zoo Tycoon 1 Limits And Suggested Solutions" topic, the following topic might help with combining ztd files, depending on your system: viewtopic.php?t=846

The ZKL combined ".dll" file includes the messages for the Baskin Robbins pack. The Hardees stand has some other configuration problems in addition to the Patch programs. So it should not be used until it is updated. I assume you mean Telephone Booth that is here. That should be updated for newer versions of Zoo Tycoon. So for those two, you would have to wait for updates.