Time stops...

[ijsblokske 0]

Hello,

I am new to this forum and I have a problem. When I play the game my game time just grinds to a halt (no matter what speed it is running at) during some time (+/- 2min) after which times start to run at normal speed again (also +/-2min). This seems to happen in intervals. This is very annoying as I can play during the time the game time stops (I can lay down roads, tracks, I can zone, ...) but you notice that buildings who are under construction stop growing during these intervals. So I just sit there while nothing happens.

The weird thing is, that it is not my system lagging (or not much atleast) because during the time that the 'game time' stops, I can scroll fairly easily, cars move around quite fluently, and as I mentionned before I can build roads for example.

I play Simcity 4 Deluxe on my notebook (from Cybercom, actually Medion):

-Intel Pentium4 2,6GHz

-512MB RAM

-NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 GO with 64MB

I must also say that when I play the game, the air coming out of my notebook is fairly hotter than otherwise. Could possible overheating cause this problem? I must admit this has happend before with other games but they run smoothly, since I maid an effort recently to clean the air inlets from dust, although they are not as demanding as Simcity

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that this only happens when I am running a city with more than 40.000 people

So, is this a problem that other people experience or am I the only one and is it caused because of my notebook overheating? Then I am afraid cooling my notebook down is the only solution. Any tips on that?

Greetings

[coolotter88 2]

Its the RAM, you need more ram than 512 MB to run the game effectively. Now someone will soon come and tell you to go buy more RAM.

Really, do you think EA like got a deal with the chipmakers

"well, we'll make a semi popular game that will comsume an infinite amount of ram that will require people to buy more ram from you"

I mean the first thing that everyone complains about is their game is slow...go buy more RAM.

[ijsblokske 0]

Is it possible to expand the RAM on a notebook? I bought my notebook at a hypermarket, so I don't think you just can go up there and ask to install some more RAM. Could it be done in a simple computer store?

BTW, I am from Belgium. Anyone with such an experience in my region?

[coolotter88 2]

its a little trickieer than installing ram for a desktop but it can be done.

[crazychickensc12 84]

i have this happen on my major cities about 250-300K but it will stop for maybe 10-20 seconds and then pics right up..you can try pausing then hitting the cheetah speed and sometimes that works..good luck!!

[DOXXP29 5]

Possibly you've laid your fentanyl transdermal patch on your computer? j/k : ) While 512mb isn't a lot of RAM, it should be enough to adequately run a city of 40,000. What I'm wondering is your amount of VIDEO RAM. 64mb seems kinda small for a decent video card. I've used 512mb of RAM on an older, slower system than what you have and didn't have the kind of slowdown that you're experiencing. I did, however, have at least 128mb of video RAM. (I was using an nVidea 5500oc at the time). Possibly that coupled with the fact that the hotter the computer, the slower the game will run is what's causing your slowdown. Also, RAM is pretty much generic. All computers, no matter who makes them, use one of a few types of RAM. As long as you know what RAM fits your computer, go out and buy some and put it in or have your local shop do it. The local shop can also tell you what kind to use if you can't find out anywhere else. (Or, you can go to a site like crucialmemory and they have boxes where you enter your computer make and specs and it will tell you the type of RAM your computer uses. They'll also be glad to sell it to you if you so desire.)

[coolotter88 2]

the video card doesn't actually matter, i have a computer with a video card one model lower, there is no problem with running the game.

[simzebu 20]

RAM makes SUCH a big difference. I went from 512 MB to 1GB about a month ago, and I'm still amazed at how much faster it goes.

[ijsblokske 0]

Thanks guys and/or girls for all your help!

I'll have to think it over if I'm going to get some more RAM installed. Especially the financial side of it. For the moment I don't have any idea how much it costs to double my RAM to 1GB. I'll have to see if it's worth because I was thinking on buying a new notebook next year. This one I have now is more than two years old which is quite "old" for a computer (especially because it wasn't state of the art hardware anymore when I bought my notebook as it was the best I could or wanted to afford).

Greetings

[ACEfanatic 7]

Just to point it out: it's not neccessarily a RAM issue.

When you move the screen or build something, the simulator pauses to assimilate the change. On a small city, this only takes a few miliseconds, but on larger, more populated cities, it takes a few seconds to get back to normal. So try keeping the view steady and wait a few cycles to see if it picks up again.

-ACE

[DOXXP29 5]

What Ace says is very true! Since you mentioned that it happens when you zone, lay tracks, etc, it very well may just be the normal lag while the simulator figures everything out relating to these new changes. It happens all the time to me and is more noticable as the population and complexity of the city increases. If it stops for a bit, then starts back up running at the usual speed until you do something else such as scroll, build something or zone, then there probably isn't anything wrong. It's just the game crunching numbers. Keep in mind SC4 is VERY CPU intensive!