Crash on Startup

[bigskyboiler 0]

I just purchased and installed the Sim City 4 Deluxe package and was having a good time playing for two days.  On day 3, the game stopped working for seemingly no reason.  It gets to the part where the EA Games logo pops up, and freezes before it rotates from horizontal to vertical and gives their slogan.  The only thing I downloaded for the game thus far was the SKU 1 patch.  The game worked before and immediately after installation of the patch, so I do not suspect its installation as the cause of my issue.  I have a pretty old computer; 1.4 GHz P4 with 640 MB of RAM.  I run Windows XP Professional.  I don't think the graphics or sound cards are problematic, as I had no problems running the program before today.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

[bigskyboiler 0]

Additionally, I have reinstalled the game twice to see it that would help. Unsurprisingly, it did not. Could a registry change have taken place somehow that would compromise the stability of the game? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[bigskyboiler 0]

As a last resort, I tried an older restore point.  Unbelievably, it worked.  I have no idea what caused the registry change, but everything is working.  If you have the same problem, try an older restore point. 

[tchaos713 5]

My guess is spyware or something of the like. If you don't have them already, I find the combo of Windows Defender (yeah, I know, but it's actually an effective program), Spybot Search and Destroy and Adaware seems to keep spyware and adware at bay with a fair amount of ease. It's also possible that an updated driver wiped out some important registry key (or a recently installed program did that).

Anyway, if you can think of it, please let us know what you installed recently...

Also, feel free to take advantage of the "Edit" button rather than making three separate posts.

And by the way, welcome to Simtropolis!

[Tolomar 5]

• check your game see if theres any sort of exception report....this may contain your problem...if you have problems understanding  it...copy and paste it to the thread and one of the other more technical member maybe able to look it over and find the problem.
•  could be the either sound or graphic issues as that when the games first sounds appear...and the game switches to the in game graphics, might wanna list you particular cards in both...specially the graphic cards as there been major issues with some older ATI ones and you may have hit a particular  driver update that was the issue , and it may happen again if you update it

1.4  Ghz and 640 mb of Ram you might have issues with playing the game period...as the box really under estimates the amount needed in both to play the game effectively...Simcity4 is  a big resource hog...specially with the addition of custom content ,...more you add...more possible issues you will have, specially with large population cities or using the high graphic settings...with those stats...I suggest you keep your plugins to minium, be very picky

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Since no one has mentioned this, I will.  Your Virtual Memory should be set to a minimum of 3 x RAM size with a maximum of double that or 4095MB whichever is less.  Not only is the game a memory hog, but as additional content comes in, it is stored in memory.

I play in 640MB because my integrated graphics device takes 128MB off my main.  I actually have 768MB, which is what I expect you also have.  So get out your calculator and base the calculations on 768MB.  This program really needs a lot of paging file.