Crash problem skill testing questions....

[queetz 0]

Hi all,

Ok, here is a skill testing question(s).  I've been playing Simcity Rush Hour since it came out with a fairly new PC at that time, downloaded quite a few BATs, a few props, train skins but no major mods like NAM or transit stuff.  The game has been slowing down and whenever I close it, the PC always indicate low virtual memory or something.  It got to the point it is no longer playable because of the lags.

Now, I have a BRAND NEW PC which I bought from Best Buy.  Its one of the newest non-custom "gaming machines" out there as far as I know.   See the link below for the specs and as far as I know, video cards, direct X, memory, CPU speed, etc should more than compensate for Simcity's demanding way (and the original intent for this PC is for another  yet demanding graphic and memory hogging game, Star Wars Empire at War....among other things of course).

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10073101&catid=20217

So finally, I get to play Simcity like it was meant to be played.  Little lag issues, excellent graphics, etc.  And playing that U Drive it missions involving airplanes is a breeze!

But low and behold, it crashes from time to time.  I did download NAM but figured that was the cause so I removed it.  Its something that I can live without (despite really looking forward to building tramways so I just had to be creative....aka rely on "DMU"s for my ground rail).  Most of my BATs are NDEX or from really reputable BATTERs like Joerg or ONeil and I've cleaned up quite a few unused ones. 

I understand Simcity is a memory hog but if you start, exit, and restart the game over and over again, loading up the biggest city numerous times or do some memory hogging activities like numerous U-Drive it missions, would it eat up so much memory that it could be the cause of the crash despite the new PC? 

And if its memory for sure, perhaps would limiting the demanding actions that I put into the supposedly superior machine prevent the crashes? 

Or given the new PC, perhaps it shouldn't crash at all due to memory and it would really be something else,perhaps one of the BATs really have bugs(...which would suck big time since I have so many)?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

(MOD Edit: the system would not let me edit my own post again, DOH! so I am editing yours, lol

this issue is reported by ATI :

Sim City 4: Game runs extremely slowly with FSAA enabled

[bourneid 13]

graphics setting plays a major role with SC4...the higher the setting the more textures/ props and such get loaded...having higher ram and virtual memory helps in this area...

Plugins are great to have..but also tax your system considerably...

test this by taking all your plugins out and loading the game...comes right up...and everything is faster....now add your plugins...wham...slow as a booger sliding down a frozen window

I have found out though my own exsperiance that the systems processer though important, isnt as major a player as is generaly considered...I think that the system avalable ram plays a much bigger role...

My current system is a AMD64 3200+ BFG nvida7800GXT

I upgraded the system to 1 gig several months ago and notice an amazing boost in performance but considered it a processer related boost over my old system. the only problem was the fact that with the settings on their highest (1600x1200/ all details) I was getting a black boarder on my saved cities in regionview.....which up to now had been by most thought to be a fault of that resolution setting that was unfixable........ .A few weeks ago I again upgraded my ram with a twin set of corsair 1 gig pc3200 x400 moduas. Bringing me to a total of 3gigs

now with these states ( I know high end for most sc4 players) I am able to run the highest details...no gliches (boarder cause when the system runs low on ram during the save and render processes) and even fast responce to play and the loading of menues (before the responce to them loading was slow due to the almost 3gigs of plugins I have).

so my point...I think that is may be more important to look at your systems ram then anything else...if you have the money to put down of memory then that would be you best bet....the price per gig is running around $100USD. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The biggest factor in the equation is memory.  That is RAM + Virtual Memory.  The more real memory (RAM) the better, but please remember the process limit for XP is 2GB per process.

Now, your plugins take memory.  When the game starts, all the plugins are loaded into memory along with all the program tables to support the game.

When you load a region, it's image is in memory.  It is replaced by the city you call.  Cities can be quite small, but as they grow, each element and Sim in the city is added to the city table, which is also in memory.  If you don't have enough real memory to support the memory load, then the paging file is used to supply virtual memory up to a limit of 4GB for your process.

The graphics card doesn't matter much.  It offloads the CPU a little, but the simulator will load the CPU flat out most of the time.  The graphics in the game are pure eye-candy plus a little bit of GUI so you can see what you are doing with zoning, etc.  Basically, the simulator(s) operate the show.  Lots of memory in the frame buffer helps to reduce processor need however.  The game does not understand advanced graphics features such as anti-aliasing, so these can interfere, and should be turned off.

The NAM is partially beta.  If you read the documentation, it is possible to not load the beta parts, but only the stuff that is fairly stable.  For example, you don't want to fool with the puzzle pieces unless  you are prepared to save a lot.  There is a program bug in the executable such that if you drag a puzzle piece over a Transport Enabled lot (like a station), the game goes into a tight loop and crashes to the desktop with, I suspect, a stack overflow.

Unfortunately for you, the Ground Light Rail (tracks only) is part of the puzzle piece set.  You need to get trams and stations off the STEX.  I have found it is a matter of patience learning to live with the TE lot bug, and use the NAM.  For me, at least, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.  Once the GLR and the pedestrial malls are laid, they are no more problem, and a little caution with several saves, can get you a nice tram and walkway system.

So, about the only thing you can do to help the crashing situation, given that your new machine probably has a gig of real memory, is to make sure you have enough virtual.  I would set your (iinitial, maximum) VM to (4095, 4095).  This fixed size is the max for XP unless you are running XP64 (which really isn't ready for people) or, God save you, Vista.

Hope this gives you a little more insight.

[greyveil 37]

(EDIT::: doh! first thing I would ask is what version ATI drivers are you running? if you are running 4.x drivers there is a bug with them per ATI 

"Sim City 4: Game runs extremely slowly with FSAA (Full Scene Anti-Aliasing) enabled

(END EDIT::::

I only have a couple things to add to what bourneid and N_O_Body said, 

first we have seen a few issues with dual core processors, this can be alieved by locking the game to one processor as the following thread shows dual core fix , 

also be aware that although your machine has 2 gig of memory, the video is actually not a true video card but a chip set that shares system memory, I qoute "ATI Radeon Xpress 200 graphics with 256MB shared video memory" also this next info is from ATI   " 3D Gaming

The Radeon® Xpress 200 is the first chipset with a graphics processor that let you play the latest game titles on DirectX™ 9 and OpenGL™ technology. For serious gaming fun and competitive play, you can upgrade your performance with an additional ATI graphics card and give yourself the winning edge. " ,notice the part I underlined, ATI does recommend a pci express card upgrade for "serious gaming fun" , that aside, lets break down the numbers.....

2.0 gig of ddr mem - 256meg (max) shared video = 1.768 gig ram (roughly) now this amount of ram is still more than most sc4 players use, and I have 2 machines that run less than this and only lag with the biggest cities. 

the paging that occurs during "sharing memory" will cause a little lag on the larger cities (make sure your graphics driver has this share set to max 256 from the start so it does not page as much when adjusting share size), I have found that keeping the plugin folder about half the size of total ram will help this alot. also the trick about making the plugin folders and files  "read only" while you are playing is also a good way of speeding up loading.

with all this said, (other than double checking the plugins you already have installed for issues)

if you are looking to upgrade, I would go for the ati pci express upgrade first, and then more ram (although I think the amount you have now would be fine without the shared vid mem).

I know I am being winded but one more thing, even though sc4 was ahead of its time especially in the resources it can require "fully loaded" , it was not designed specifically for all the new hardware architectures we are using (as users of the brand new ATI video drivers will attest to)

so sometimes a "new machine" with all the bells and wistles will have issues running the game when older machines that are maxed out (video and memory wise) run the game like buttah!

(my current gaming machine is a P4 3.2G HT enabled, 2gig DDR 400mhz, ATI AIW X800 XT 256MB AGP, a little over 1gig in plugins including all of NDEX downloads and the NAM)  

[queetz 0]

WOW!!! Thanks guys!!! Your response are quite thorough, knowledgable and will really help me a lot! And given the level of detail, I'm sure others having the same questions and experiencing the same problem can also use this as a reference!

I suppose I was a bit shocked to see that the game would still crash despite having a brand new gaming machine. But I guess as games and PCs advance even more, you got to watch out for more things like these issues and not expect everything to necessarily run smoothly.