Low performance on SC4 + Rush Hour

[Z-Bito 0]

Hi, i hope somebody can help me. My game has all the updates, i updated my video card with a recent driver(6/1/2006), and the problem persists. Let me explain: When i am playing in the largest city map avaliable, after my city gets a little big (about 500.000 pop) it begins to become slow, it takes about 1 minute to complete 1 year. Its like this: 3-4 months - lag(10s) - 3-4-months (lag), and its always this sequence. I don´t know what to do. I hope someone can me.

My PC:

P4 Prescott 2.4GHz

Intel D865GBF

2048MBs DDR400 Kingston

XFX 5700LE 256MBs @ 380/460

HD Samsung 56GBs 5400RPM

Obs - Virtual memory disabled

[Simcitytrainer 3]

Simcity doesn't like new cards.The game was made a couple years so it can't easily support new graphic cards.If possible uninstall the new updates for you graphic card.You might want to enable your virtual memory too if possible.

[dadyrghluv 8]

it sounds like your playing your game at warp speed, meaning the fastest time setting. DON'T! this will make lag on even the most powerful of machines. at best play llama speed, or whatever the midle setting speed is.

every 3 months(game time, not real time) the simulator calculates the number of ppl, versus the number of jobs, and then calculates the fastest route possible. this is where the lag is coming from. it's very cpu intensive, and to play it at the highest speed setting would only make it worse.

[Z-Bito 0]

Simcitytrainer, i've already tested 3 different drivers(Oct 2004, Sep 2005, and june 2006) but they didnt' solve the problem. I've tested too with Virtual memory enabled, without sucess. Anyway, thanks for the reply

dadyrghluv, you are correct, i'm playing the game at the fastest speed possible. If i change my CPU, it might gets better, don't you think? Like you said, it's very CPU intensive. But thanks for the answer.

Thank you guys for the answer. I'll wait more comments.

[High5flyier 7]

In my large cities I use thesein game graphic settings. Visual Effects-MEDIUM, #of cars/sims-MEDIUM,shadows-LOW,Clouds/Fog-OFF. This really speeds things up. Reset virtual memory. If you have ever looked at your task manager graph during game play,with no virtual memory your cpu graph line is go crazy. After reset it shows nornal. I hope this hepls.

[Z-Bito 0]

So... the CPU is the main hardware to play SC4 well, right? I thought with 2GBs of RAM, the game would play extremelly well, but i was wrong.

High5flyier, i'll try that too. Thanks

[dadyrghluv 8]

RAM is crucial to an extent. the more RAM the better, when it comes to loading city's and or larger regions. if u have a super-sized plugins folder(1gig or more) RAM helps here as well. along with scrolling and moving around your city's.

overall the game is dependent on CPU fisrt and foremost. it don't matter if u have a 1ghz or a 10 ghz(future) proc, this game will suck every bit of horespower it can get from your machine, and then ask for more. CPU is crucial for the pathfinding and routes and such. which is 9/10 of the simulator.

[Z-Bito 0]

So, if i have a lot of plugins, the game will become slow? I have almost 1 GBs of plugins. Loading a city, the large one, takes about 30s, and to start the game takes about 1 min. I think it's because of the plugins. Man, this makes me sad. My PC is not bad, but it's not incredible, but it should play SC4 well.

[DOXXP29 5]

Welcome to Simtropolis, Z-Bito! That's a lot of plug-ins! You have plenty of RAM, but the processor speed and the amount of plug-ins is probably what's slowing things down. I have a 2.0 gig processor and when I hit the 350mb mark for plug-ins, I noticed quite a bit of lag, especially on large city tiles. I don't know how much room you have left on your HD, but if it's getting close to being maxed ou, that can slow you down. N_O_Body and the tech experts recommend setting the VM and Paging Files to the max for windows. 4096 for VM and 4096 for Paging File. Your best bet would be to go through your plug-in folder and remove the plug-ins that you're not using. Save them in a folder away from SC4 for use later if you want to use them. The more you remove, the faster your game will run. I did this and noticed a huge improvement. It also made me aware of how much junk I had in there that I never use. The game reads them all, whether you're using them or not and that can take a lot of time. Good Luck! Hope this helps some.

[dadyrghluv 8]

i have a similiar setup as u do Z-BITO, and my game takes 5 minutes or more to load. and around 2-3 minutes a city tile to load, so ya the more plugins u have the slower the game gets. no matter the setup rig u have, it happens.

good thing to do to your pluginbs folder is to:

take out the readme's

delete all pics of the building/setup, etc.

only keep the files required/needed/wanted.

this will save u alot of space if u have a good sized plugin folder. it will also help a bit in load times perhaps(in theory). no one knows for sure if the game try's to load the readme's and pics also along with the files. so thats why i say in theory.

[Z-Bito 0]

Wow, thanks for the help. I'll clean my plugin folder. it probably has some things that i don't use anymore.

[dadyrghluv 8]

make sure u keep it WELL organized, or u will pay for it later. best thing i can tell ya is make folder's of all the BAT'ers and place items in the proper folder's.

EDIT: also keep in consideration the 2 gig rule. windows cannot process a program over 2 gigs in size. add the size values of the game + plugins+ saved files(citys) = no larger than 2 gigs. if it exceeds the limit there can and probaly will be very bad results. delete or remove any unused plugins from the folder and store it away for future use.

[Z-Bito 0]

I organize my plugins like this: For every bat, i create a folder. I have more than 300 folders. But now i am deleting all the .RAR/.ZIP files that i keep in the plugins folder

[dadyrghluv 8]

yea, i learned that lesson as well. but a tip for ya so u don't have to re-download everything if u ever have to re-install. save those .RAR and .ZIP files to a folder on your desktop, when u accumulate enough of them, u can burn them to a CD, to have back-ups.

[ILL Tonkso 1,236]

To summerise: Even high end systems struggle with SC4 with plugins installed. 1 Minute for 1 year isnt that bad for a 500k city on a large map.

- Lower game speed can increase performance.

- Removal of unnecessary plugins, i.e. things you never use can increase speed.

- Lowering the graphics settings can help, for example lose unnecessary additions such as clouds and shadows.

[Z-Bito 0]

I've cleaned up my plugin folder. It decreased from 800MBs to 500MBs. I've deleted a lot of .ZIP/.RAR files and a few BATs that i wasn't using. Let's see if the performance will become a little more acceptable