This author could not bring himself to publish a piece on Park CleanUp without first identifying it as a Wonder Utility because that’s truly what it is. Just like the automobile, the microwave oven, the home PC, and Windows 64-bit: after we’ve got it it’s one of those things we don’t know how we ever got by without. It is only fitting that Park CleanUp takes pride of place as the inaugural attraction in our Hall Of Fame.

In The Beginning

While playing RCT3 we eventually reach the point where our park is huge, it’s busy, and it won’t take much more of what we want to throw at it. Then the inevitable happens: the park has grown too big to open and we can’t do any more work in it.

When this happens, sometimes we opt to go back a few iterations to a previous park save that will open and then make deletions or reductions of one sort or another from there. If we haven’t saved frequently enough, sometimes all but our most previous iterations will take us back too far and we will undo too much by going back more than a few saves.

If one chooses to go back to a previous park save, when deleting or reducing a park in this way we should save the park after every few deletions so if our park still crashes while we’re trying to reduce it, each time we re-load it we're that much further along with the deletions.

Before Park CleanUp we’d have no choice but to try and delete & reduce in this time-consuming and unreliable manner, or to abandon our park and move on to a new one.

Why Do We Need Park CleanUp?

Those of us who have ended up with unworkable park files and opted to make deletions in a previous park save usually noticed that no matter how much we deleted and saved we couldn’t shake the feeling that we hadn’t made any difference to the laggy, crashy performance of our park. Let's explore the reasons behind that:

A

While launching, RCT3 will create references to every resource (every track, each flat ride, all scenery objects, the stalls, the in-game people, every path type, right down to each particle effect) that we have installed in the Program Files folder, and also in some of the other folders we’ve set up as accessible to RCT3 (e.g., My Documents/RCT3, Music/RCT3).

B

When loading a specific park, RCT3 checks the references as previously saved by it in our park file with the resources it has referenced while loading the current gaming session. For example, if the park save file we want to open includes references for Ubuntu’s Safari Plains Vegetation Set and we’ve since saving that park uninstalled that set, RCT3 will often crash while loading that park because it cannot match the references it's written into our park file with the set that we've uninstalled. If we had Safari Plains Vegetation Set installed when we saved our park, even if we did not place any items in our park from that vegetation set before uninstalling it, RCT3 has referenced that set in our park save and still expects to find that set inside our Themed folder when re-opening that park.

C

When saving our parks RCT3 will save everything in A into our park file as references, will save references to everything that is in our park, and save references to every item we scrolled our mouse wheel over in every menu that we browsed while we were enjoying our park. Some of us have doubtlessly observed that many times when our parks crash it is while we are rolling our mouse through the in-game menus.

This situation with references is compounded if we delete something from our parks, because the references created by the object that is now deleted will remain listed in our park file, yet the new item we’ve placed will bring with it its own set of references. If we’ve worked on the same park for six months, theoretically our park can contain about the same MB amount of park content in month 6 that it had during month 4, but between month 4 and 6 while we’ve fine tuned our park and have deleted/replaced some of the park’s content, the references added to our park file by month 6 have bloated our park’s filesize by several MB. Although an annoyance to us, while most of the references created by RCT3 serve a useful purpose, an excess of references reduces the stability of our game and increases park load times.

Joey’s Park CleanUp Enters the Picture

Park CleanUp will get us around this by stripping all these references from our park file. Reference-glutted parks that won’t load before Park CleanUp will load after using it. After using Park CleanUp you’ll open your game and feel as if a gust of fresh air has breathed a new lease on life into your park.

How To Get Park CleanUp

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To be sure you have the latest version, download from the link at the bottom of this webpage.

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There are no other files needed. Joey’s compiled everything his utility needs into one download.

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After extracting Park CleanUp you can put it where convenient. It doesn’t have to be anywhere in particular. For clarity let’s create a new folder.

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So you can see exactly what’s going on, move your new compressed Park CleanUp download into the new folder you just created.

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Extract the download. Delete or store the .zip file.

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Start the .exe file.

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Go to the Settings tab and ensure Park CleanUp can find your RCT3plus.exe file.

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And there you are, Park CleanUp opened and ready to use. While this author has successfully updated previous versions of Park CleanUp Joey recommends we never update this version.

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If you wish to move Park CleanUp to another location on your computer do not move the .exe file, rather, move the entire Park CleanUp 2.1.0 folder and all the files inside it (those are the .exe resource files) to the location of your choice.

How To Use Today’s Park CleanUp, and Why

Before you can get Park CleanUp to do anything with a park you need to load a park first. After doing that you might be wondering what it is Park CleanUp could actually do for you.

Before Using Park CleanUp

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As an added precaution always copy your park files and work with the copy – just in case.

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Once the park file is opened in Park CleanUp, clean up your park file before starting anything else in this utility so there is no unnecessary data cluttering your Park CleanUp results.

After Park File Prep, Park CleanUp Will:

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Display a graph of the individual groupings it has made of the contents of our park file. These groupings are color coded and displayed in a bar chart format. The edges of the Park CleanUp display can be dragged out to make Park CleanUp a larger size in order to get a bigger view of the bar chart.

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Display a list of all the data that it’s found in our park. This list usually numbers in the tens of thousands of items, and as it’s possible to set Park CleanUp to automatically delete any unused items, except to individually see what these items are we’re not entirely sure what the purpose of this list is.

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Park CleanUp is handy for seeing what CS set we need to have installed for the successful loading of our park. What with all the great CS available and with the endless alterations we make to our Themed folders, before revisiting a park It’s a good idea to routinely check a copy of it in Park CleanUp to be sure that what needs to be installed is where it needs to be.

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Park CleanUp can create lists of missing content.

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Park CleanUp can create lists of required content.

The most thorough way to clean up a park is to move all the CS out of your Themed folder, clean up the park file, run a check for missing content, then replace the missing content into your Themed folder. After this:

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The park file references deleted by Park Cleanup will stay deleted for any custom content that you don't reinstall. This is handy for gamers who like to start a park with, say, 500 sets in Themed, who a month or two later when they know in what direction their park is headed, decide that they only need 100 of those sets in their Themed folder for that park.

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References will stay deleted that are listed in your park file as a result of excessively rolling your mouse through the menus to view content - until you again roll your mose over the items listed in the menus. Rolling your mouse over the menu scroll bars instead of over the items in the menus will minimize flooding our park file with references.

An Enhanced Gaming Experience

Having cleared out your Themed folder, cleaned up your park file, and made up a list of required CS for your park, one can then reinstall only that scenery that is necessary for that park. This will increase the performance of the park, minimize the number of references included with your parksave, and therefore streamline the park’s filesize.

Multi-Faceted With Many Features

For an in-depth evaluation of what Park CleanUp can do for you please view our article How To Use Park CleanUp.

The Future of Park CleanUp

Near the end of its development, suddenly in leaps and bounds it seemed Joey was making astounding progress on this indispensable utility and then, in the shape of a version 2, just as the phoenix was about to leap up from the ashes and show us there were no limitations to what this utility could do, I’m afraid MineCraft came along, caught Joey’s attention, and took him away from us.

Regrettably, Joey won't be returning to the RCT3 community and it is our understanding that he no longer has any of the source files from which he has developed this outstanding community contribution.

Hall of Fame Special Mention

We have the highest regard for Joey and Park CleanUp which is an excellent, unique, and indispensable tool. No RCT3 community member should be without it and everyone who’s used it believes it to be the shiniest tool in the box.

While the community will be eternally grateful for his contribution through this utility there are those of us who will always wonder how far Joey could have taken Park CleanUp had he remained with us.

We give a huge shout to you, Joey, for what we do have in this utility! We’re most pleased to be giving you and Park CleanUp pride of place in launching our Hall of Fame.