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Kitty Wrote:
The sequence in the fireplace used to be different and longer. Now that it's shorter, you get to that scene too early, and the lights and sound are off sync. It's most noticeable when the snake snaps at you. You also see the red lights on the side and see behind the screen before you get there.

You described the issue very well! That actually bothers me probably more than the toned down motion. They don't even play the music in the fireplace anymore. Now it just makes the park look bad, because it looks like they were on a roll with designing the ride, and suddenly stopped. People don't understand why you're all of a sudden in a completely dark room with no sound. It looks cheap, that's why I compare it to Europe in the Air. I sometimes wish I could be the director of a full-on renovation of the ride. I have other small issues with the ride, but I think these need to be fixed first.
The issue with the ride being off sync wouldn't be so bad if the screens continuously played some kind of animation on a loop. However, you always see them resetting. Take the first scene for example: You often can see the screen reset out of the corner of your eye, when you're looking toward the trees. The only reason you notice this, is because snow doesn't magically appear in midair. If they could keep the snow on the screens looping, I think that would fix a lot of problems. However, I think we might have to wait a while to get better technology upgrades, because last time I checked, most of the ride system was still running on Windows 2000. It might've even been Windows 98. There is no excuse for a park like Busch Gardens to be using something so outdated, on what's supposed to be a very high tech ride. I would be interested to see if the ride ran on new professional Macs, would that improve it significantly? All I really know, is that this ride needs some love!
 
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sorry :hijacked:
 
Whether it's a Mac or "PC", you have to admit, it's embarrassing that they're still using Windows 2000 at least. I could've sworn that I literally saw some Windows icons on one of the screens once, when the ride broke down. Does anyone know if the "sleighs" are still programmed to have the doors face towards an exit, if possible, when the ride breaks down?
 
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It is definitely strange COS. But to be fair, Win2K was a rock solid OS. And just 'cause it's old doesn't necessarily mean it's outlived its usefulness. I mean, look at my Dad. He's like 68 years old and still being a playa'. I have seen multiple banks still running some of their software on Win 3.1. Why? Because it works, and there has been no reason to upgrade and/or whatever the software is that is being used does not have a suitable or compatible version for XP or other newer versions of Windows. Hopefully whatever is going on with Darkastle is not related to computer power or whatever. That being said, I very much enjoy riding the golden sleds anytime!

BTW, for like the first time in two years, I saw the line for this thing out near the wolf statues in the courtyard one day last week. On a week day! Wow!!
 
As long as those computers are not connected to the Internet to represent a security risk, one major issue in continuing to use Windows 2000 is hardware compatibility should they experience some type of hardware failure.

Brand new Pentium III era hardware isn't exactly easy to come by. I suppose they could virtualize but then you have additional layers of hardware compatibility to account for, particularly if there is custom hardware with custom drivers that connect to physical ride controls.
 
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Yup. And if it is running Win2K, I would like to know why. I mean, this thing opened in 2005; Probably conceived and coded, I don't know, 2-3 years before opening right? XP would have been available with SP1 for sure, possibly with or near release of SP2. Anyway, can someone tell us for sure what OS is up in there? Computer geeks wanna know!
 
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Oh dear...

CastleOSullivan said:
However, I think we might have to wait a while to get better technology upgrades, because last time I checked, most of the ride system was still running on Windows 2000. It might've even been Windows 98.

Whatever it is, hopefully it is NOT Millenium Edition!!
Well, there's your problem. :p
 
Industrial systems (embedded systems in particular) do not (well, rarely) upgrade operating systems. There is literally no point in doing so. Upgrading such a computer is not the simple pop in a DVD like for a consumer machine. It requires 1) serious amounts of testing 2) drivers for whatever random piece of hardware you and 2 other companies in the world use. Windows 3.1 was shipped on new computers (not PCs) until 2008!

Also, coming up short of XP may make sense as XP was a huge difference from earlier versions in terms of drivers as it ran on the NT (new technology) kernel vs the MS-DOS kernel. It could be that some power <insert random device from http://ab.rockwellautomation.com/> on the ride is not compatible with newer operating systems.

You'd have to tell me more details, but having some ancient operating system is neither weird nor surprising for this sort of thing.
 
Had an interesting ride on DK this evening. First of all, I am super-proud of my baby girl for watching the entire ride without hiding her face once for the first time!! Now she just has to wear the 3D glasses. :cool:




Who dropped the ball with the 3D glasses tonight? Both tubs of them were soaking wet as it was our turn to pick them up. NEVER happened before. Asked the lady ride operator about it just for giggles, she said "Just shake them off. They will still work just fine."
 

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They were soaking wet as they were probably washed sometime that day. The dryers they have in the glasses wash room work terribly.
 
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So I know I may be out on a limb here, but I really like this ride, I always ride it when I go to the park. Even in its tuned down state I still ride it every time I go to the park. Now I know the park will probably not do this, but I've come up with a way to solve this "tune it up" or "tune it down" problem.

Darkastle had a state of the art dual loading zone. Earlier this year Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin debuted with two different experiences. One "Mild," and another "Wild." So my proposal is Darkastle's dual loading Zones should be split up into one Mild and one Wild. Now how can they do this if they don't have the type of wireless computer connection that Antarctica has? Well we all know Darkastle's computer system is up for an update. So when they update the computer, they should reprogram the ride Carriages to be Wild or Mild each time they go around. So here's how it works. When you get your glasses there will be a separation in the path, one side will be the "wild" side, and the other will be the "mild" side. Then once you get to the dual loading zone there will be an Employee who will put you in the correct line based on how many are in your group. Then the carriage pulls up and the computer system tells the carriage depending on what loading zone it gets to. And basically the computer tells the carriage wether or not it will be wild or mild this time around. And then it goes around and will either perform intense, or not so intense maneuvers.

Now I'm not in any way good with computers or rides, so if someone who knows more about me on this stuff wants to touch this idea. By all means do it, because it needs it. Also, if you want to suggest something about this idea of your own feel free because this is just a rough draft.
 
BGW Family said:
Take a look at this area now the next time you go by there.

Sorry this is so dark, but this is the only one I have found so far at this spot (April, 2013).

 

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