Painfully Slow city loading and game play

[dahawk 0]

Alright so I've been playing Sim City 4 for some time now and a couple months ago I found this site and downloaded a ton of bats and mods, etc etc. They worked well at first but then my comptuer crashed, I don't know if it wasone of the bats and mods but it's likely since downloading them and playing sim city were all i was doing on the computer at the time. Anyways when it crashed, the screen just went blank, it was on but it was acting like it wasn't. Eventually the desktop did come up and I was able to wipe the computer clean using the recovery disk. I avoided sim city for a while but i recently installed it again and have downloaded a few selectivley bats and mods (like the nam, and some cool towers, and the dig tools). However I'm trying to terraform the landscape for a region and everytime I load a new city tile, it takes between 6 and 10 minutes. Game play is actually decent but I know the minute i start putting cities and roads on those tiles, loading will take even longer and game play will slow drastically. 

anyways...
I'm using a Compaq Presario with windows XP vers. 2002. It has a Pentium III, 128 MB of RAM, and 700 min, 700 max Virtual Memory. Everything on the computer is the same as when I bought it with the exception of a GeForce Graphics Acellerator I purchased a year or two ago. Also It's Sim City 4 Rush Hour, not vanilla SC4

Is there anyways I can get the game to play and load faster without buying a new computer?

[BarbyW 40]

Simply stated, no. 128MB of RAM is nowhere near enough for using some of the BATs and mods. I know EA say it is a min configuration but many of us here have 1 or 2 GB of RAM and are still having problems. Basically you can play slowly but with the minimum of custom content.

[SC4BOY 20]

Your RAM is really just not adequate for SC4.. I have played it on 384Meg with a P4 1.5Gig, but recommended is AT LEAST 512Meg... Plus a PIII is marginal too.. in short you are just on the hairy edge of being able to run at all, much less with mods.. Good luck. At least be sure to set your virtual memory to as large as you can get away with.. I'd try 1024Meg, but even that may not help much.. I believe there is a thread somewhere recently on "running with minimal computer" somewhere with tips on things to try.. I don't recall it's link, but you might give a search on "performance" or "minimum" or whatever

[Nardo69 51]

If you have 512mb RAM  or less you should try to use old win98 - it just doesn't waste that much RAM as XP.

IMHO win2000 is also better than xp if you have  less than 1 gig.

And your proc should be at least 1,5 GHz - my (right now not running) pc has a 2,6 p4 with 1,5 GB RAM and still lags due to my 1,7 GB plugin folder (well, a little bit due to my old geforce2 mx400, too...)

But with 128mb, boy I tried to run SC4 on a laptop with 256 mb and win2k and it was frustrating ...

Bernhard

[bourneid 13]

vanilla SC4/RH can run on 128mb ram....but it will not be pretty....512 will run better....1gig your simms will act like your pumping jolt with though the water pipes

also the city tile size effects performance too....you might consider not using large tiles if you do.

Things change when you start adding custom content.....those take resorces....

with the age of your system and specs...you are pretty limited performance wise...

[prince_of_sims 0]

the 128MB RAM requirement is for Windows 98/ME/NT. as soon as you switch to XP, the minimum switches to 256MB. this is because XP is so much more memory intensive than previous versions of windows. that's not to say SC4 won't run, the minimum requirement is after all 128MB. but the gameplay will be EXTREMELY slow and buggy, and be prepared to experience a lot of crashes.

[Skyfire2275 23]

Definitely use Windows98 if you have it. Keep you plugins to a minimum... or use none at all, and set your virtual memory (page file) higher. Also, like everyone else said, use only small city tiles.... And don't let them get heavily populated. Also, turn all graphics settings to low. Furthermore, disable all background tasks like anti-virus programs, MSN messenger, etc...

If you don't want to buy a new computer, just upgrade your RAM. It is cheaper, and will help a lot.... However, your computer is so old that it may be worth the money to get a new one... Or at least newer one. You cold possibly find a used computer in a local computer shop that is newer than the one you currently have, but much better... just an idea.

Hope some of this is helpful!

[Pheonix Rising 2]

I can sell you a new computer for $350. P4 w/ 512mb ram. Only downside is onboard video. I run a computer shop and have a lot of parts/systems.

[XL 19]

128MB of RAM isn't gonna cut it in SC4-RH, as pretty much everyone pointed out. Your first step to faster gameplay would be to upgrade the RAM. 512MB should do the trick.

What kind of video are you working with? Onboard or dedicated? An upgrade in video might help, also.

[dahawk 0]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I guess i'm gonna try and see if I can get the 512 GB if not more RAM, that pretty much seems to be the consensus.

I actually have a new computer on the way, but I'm taking that to college and i'm not putting any games or junk on it, espeically how sim city 4 and the plug ins crashed my computer for no apparent reason last time.

If i get thinks working I'll let yall know, I have some great city ideas and was really hoping to put out a cj before i left for college, we'll just have to see how things turn out with the performance, once again though, thanks for the advice