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Zoo Tycoon

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Zoo Tycoon
Zoo Tycoon cover
Developers
Blue Fang Games
Mac OS (Classic) Westlake Interactive
macOS (OS X) Westlake Interactive
Publishers
Microsoft Game Studios
Mac OS, macOS (OS X) Aspyr Media
Release dates
Windows October 17, 2001
Mac OS (Classic) July 21, 2003
macOS (OS X) July 21, 2003
Reception
Metacritic 68
IGDB 68
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls Point and select
Genres Building, Educational, Simulation
Themes Contemporary
Series Zoo Tycoon
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Zoo Tycoon on HowLongToBeat
Zoo Tycoon on IGDB
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Zoo Tycoon guide on StrategyWiki
Zoo Tycoon on MobyGames
Zoo Tycoon on Wikipedia
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Icon overlay.png
Zoo Tycoon
Zoo Tycoon 2001
Zoo Tycoon 2 2004
Zoo Tycoon Friends 2014
Zoo Tycoon: Ultimate Animal Collection 2017

Warnings

SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see Availability for affected versions).

Zoo Tycoon is a singleplayer bird's-eye view and isometric building, educational and simulation game in the Zoo Tycoon series.

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
 SafeDisc DRM[Note 1]
Windows
Mac OS
macOS (OS X)
SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
Free demos are available from Archive.org: original, expansions.

Version differences

The Complete Collection contains both retail expansion packs and the exclusive Endangered Species expansion pack unavailable separately.

Monetization

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Dinosaur Digs
Windows
Mac OS
macOS (OS X)
Marine Mania Includes the content of Dinosaur Digs.
Windows
Mac OS
macOS (OS X)
Endangered Species Exclusive to the Complete Collection.
Windows
Mac OS
macOS (OS X)

Essential improvements

Patches

Skip intro videos

Delete or rename video files
  1. Go to <path-to-game> and delete or rename BFLOGO.AVI, BFLOGO.WMV, MSLOGO.AVI, and MSLOGO.WMV
Edit configuration file
  1. Go to the configuration files location.
  2. Open zoo.ini.
  3. Find the [UI] section in the file.
  4. Find the following lines
playMovie=1
playSecondMovie=1

5. Change values to: 

playMovie=0
playSecondMovie=0

Zookini Launcher

A fanmade launcher that modifies the .ini with options not available in game such as higher screen resolutions, smoother graphics, amount of startup cash, and more.
Unstable, doesn't always apply settings and an account is required to download.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\zoo.ini[Note 2]
Mac OS (Classic)

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Saved Games\[Note 2]
Mac OS (Classic)
Scenario progress is saved in zoo.ini under [scenario]

Video

Video and Audio Settings
Video and Audio Settings
Advanced video settings
Advanced video settings
Tooltip settings
Tooltip settings

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
 
 See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor
 
Ultra-widescreen
 
4K Ultra HD
 
 See Widescreen resolution. Higher resolutions result in a smaller HUD.
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Alt+↵ Enter toggles.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS
120+ FPS
See High frame rate.

Widescreen resolution

Set a custom resolution[3]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open zoo.ini.
  3. Find the [user] section in the file.
  4. Find the following lines
screenwidth=800
screenheight=600

5. Replace them with desired resolution

High frame rate

Set a custom frame rate limit[citation needed]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open zoo.ini.
  3. Find the [user] section in the file.
  4. Find the line that begins with DrawRate.
  5. Change the number after the equals sign to the frame rate you want to lock the game at.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Main volume and menu music
Surround sound
Subtitles
No speech.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Brazilian Portuguese
Spanish
Swedish

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Software renderer
Uses GDI
ExecutablePPC16-bit 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Mac OS (Classic)

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95 98, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium MMX 233 MHz Intel Pentium II 300 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB 128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 250 MB 1.4 GB
Video card (GPU) 4 MB of VRAM
DirectX 8.0a compatible
Mac OS
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 9.2
Processor (CPU) PowerPC G3 233 MHz
System memory (RAM) 128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 600 MB
Video card (GPU) 16 MB of VRAM
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.1
Processor (CPU) PowerPC G3 233 MHz
System memory (RAM) 128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 600 MB
Video card (GPU) 16 MB of VRAM


Notes

  1. ↑ SafeDisc retail DRM does not work on Windows 10[1] or Windows 11 and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[2]
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References