Sim City 4 keeps shutting down... why?

[iamcanadian031 0]

Hi there,

Ill be building my city and all of a sudden the game just shuts down.  I keep losing all my progress.  Its getting really annoying.  Anyone know why this might be happening?  Any help is appreciated.  Thanx.

Im runnning Sc4 Deluxe.  Im running a Gateway GT5064 Pentium D CPU 2.80 Ghz .99 GB of RAM.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Welcome to our conversation.

There can be a lot of reasons for a crash to desktop.  One of the most common is improper use of puzzle pieces in the NAM.  If that is the case, please read the documentation and save often (CTRL+S).

Another reason could be a bad sound or graphics driver.  Make sure all your drivers including your CPU driver are up to date.

Do you have very many plugins?  Sometimes a conflict here may crash your game.

Are you crashing to the desktop or is your computer restarting?

[iamcanadian031 0]

Hey,  Thanks for responding.  The games crashes back to the desktop.  Im not using any plugins or add ons what soever.  Its just right out of the box.  It wasnt crashing when I first started but now that I have a larger city it does it.  The game play for the zoom in and out and scrolling can get really slow at times. 

[hawkpride147 1]

you don't appear to have any problems with your computer's capabilities. are you trying to zoom with a scroll wheel? there is a bug with that that causes a crash. details on what you are doing in sc4 when it crashes would be very helpful.

[cyber_panda 0]

You have hi-jacked this thread.  Your problem is not relevant to this discussion.  Please copy it and start a new thread of your own for your problem.  N_O_Bndy.

I wanted to say that this was my first time my Sim City 4 Crash to my desktop and it involve using one piece of the NAM that i used before and made it crash the one piece i knew had some sort of instability and it was the GLR tram pieces that when i used one that involve intersection of a railroad BOOM! just like that the game stop i couldnt even do anythng.

Ive used the game to its max and never quit, ive navigate to the point where it freezes but never crashed it just slowed down but kept going, i know theres related crashes where its cuz of the graphics, sound or just because of a certain plugin, but to men this was cuz of the NAM and same before and i dont know why but i guess they couldnt fix the bugs out of the TRAM issues.

Another reason why your Game quites by itself its cuz it may not be the graphics card or driver, or sound or anything to do with a bad driver, if you updated everything and still does that, it could be the hardware's configuration in the BIOS, to me that was the case, and that was my X factor to all my computer's uexpected crashes, Photoshop Crashing, The Sims 2 Quitting, it was all a Memory Problem and the way my CPU Processor was configure in the BIOS, after i did that small change it stop doing the random crashes in the Sims 2 and my computer stopped Giving bluescreens.

The Solution is to go to the Bios and set the Processor's speed to its Original and also make sure that the Mhz acceleration of your RAM is not set on a higher or lower # than what its supposed to be, for example.

My CPU is an AMD Athlon XP 2600+ with its original speed of 1.83Ghz and a Ram of 1.00GB with 166Mhz

My custom settings since my brother built it was a frequency of 190 (in the Bios for the CPU) and my CPU's speed was running at 2.09Ghz and the Virtual Ram's speed was at 152Mhz somehow around November since Last year it started giving me so many crashes and couldnt run Sim City 4 anymore and i started to mess around with my PC till just a few weeks ago i resolved the problem when i came across the BIOS and set the CPU speed to 166 which ironicly the Virtual Ram set it self to that same # only at 166Mhz which was its right speed, since then my PC has been running great and no more crashes have occur, oh yeah i think my BIOs version is a Phoenix Awards something i need to read more about that but im sure all the BIOS programs have something related when it comes to setting the Hardware's configuration.

Also i should put there that i Reinstalled Windows XP 3 Times and it still crashed, it did good after a few days to trick me but then it started with the same problems worst cuz it was WIndows XP Home Edition with SP2 even with Windows XP Pro with SP1 it gave me the same problems and it all turn out to be a simple hardware configuration problem in the BIOS.

NOTE to all of those that knew this crap already plz ignore this >> im just a ***** that manage to get things fixed on its own and im only wishing to help those that were like me in the beginning when no one else can help them i want to make a change there.

[njdevi66 12]

You have hi-jacked this thread.  Your problem is not relevant to this discussion.  Please copy it and start a new thread of your own for your problem.  N_O_Bndy.

I seem to have some crashing problems as well, when i click on the zoom in button all the way to where i can see the cars and sims, it will crash on me. I agree it is very annoying and makes it very difficult when playing SC4. Ive tried to DL and install some mods that would change my flora, and or landscape and when the game loads and you pick the city you want to play and as that loads, the game will crash to desktop as well. It really does make it so hard to want to play when it keeps crashing when you try to do things. I just cant believe that i am being forced to save after every single thing i do in fear i might crash and lose the work i did. So many great mods and packs id love to have and i dont DL b/c it will make me crash or the game wont even startup.

And what boggles me is i have 4gigs of ram, 6800 nvidia video card with 256ram, 2.99mhz processor and i did what was said about the raising the virtual memory. So this crashing has me frustrated.

[Uumke 0]

don't forget to shut down all your virus scanners, MSN, internet connection etc.

[lucashp 1]

What happend to me was that usaully, Plugins keeped clashing into eachother. (Something is trying to make commerical bar go up, but then another plugin is trying to make it go down) The NAM, is one of them also. And try looking throughout your plugins folder deleting things you dont need. After i did that, it never shuts down anymore, and its a lot faster then before i had 1 gb of plugins.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Originally posted by: iamcanadian031 Hey,  Thanks for responding.  The games crashes back to the desktop.  Im not using any plugins or add ons what soever.  Its just right out of the box.  It wasnt crashing when I first started but now that I have a larger city it does it.  The game play for the zoom in and out and scrolling can get really slow at times. quote>

Sorry, your thread has been hi-jacked by some me too's.  People should start their own threads for errors.

Now returning to your problem:  "Right out of the box"?  Did you get the updates from Simcity.com?  If not, you need Update 1 desperately.

[ethereal155 0]

I know this post is a bit later than the rest on this forum and someone else may have figured it out by now. Anyway, I was having chronic crashes to desktop after downloading many mods/lots etc. I found a quick way to find the culprit files in my plugins folder:

Backup a copy of your current plugins folder. View the active plugins folder in Windows as a list. Delete a chunk of files from the plugins folder. Start Sim City 4. If it crashes, delete another chunk of files from the plugins folder. Start Sim City 4 again. If it crashes, repeat. If it doesn't crash, then the last chunk you deleted contained a file(s) that makes the game crash. You can now narrow it down to the specific file in the chunk by doing the same thing, just deleting single files(or smaller chunks) instead of chunks. After you find them, remember to put all the good files you deleted back in the plugins folder.

Anyway, did this and found some files that DEFINITELY make the game crash:

Any file containing the language: Vanderaap - Utrecht, Oude Daalstraat

in the filename will crash Sim City 4

There's about 10-15 (not in front of me now) that contain that name in some form. Delete them and see if it works.

My SC4 was crashing after 2 min on fastest speed gameplay, now, after deleting the Vanderaap - Utrecht, Oude Daalstraat

files, it never crashes (tried running a city overnight on the fastest gameplay speed, NO CRASH, Horray)

[CaptCity 4,915]

ethereal155...

See the response to your other post...

[Juju 1]

Hi

I'm very interested in what you say, because my game seems to CTD exactly when I scroll out or zoom in. What's the problem with that ?

[CaptCity 4,915]

Juju...

For the crash-while-scrolling isue, you might want to check this thread. Don't know if there is one definitive answer.

Hope it helps...

[compwhiz 0]

I have noticed that this only happens when the network addon mod is installed, i have takin out sc4 like 5 times and put back all my d/l files back in, and the network addin mod, and the update to it, so dont let anyone up and say get the update, now i just put back in the network addin mod after redoing sc4 and runin the hell out of it for like 2 days no problem but not 5 mins after puttin in the network mod and the update along with rual and street add on mod, it crashes, go figure

[tungston 19]

Please address the issue with the NAM in the Modding Transit Networks forum.

Topic closed.

[ryanrunt 0]

This happens to me as well. But I now know what's wrong. I have at least 50-60 plugins, so, now I know what's wrong.(I know thanks to A Nonny Moose.)

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

This happens to me as well. But I now know what's wrong. I have at least 50-60 plugins, so, now I know what's wrong.(I know thanks to A Nonny Moose.)

I decline the nomination. I am only making an educated guess based on my long experience in the industry and 10 years of playing this game..

[CaptCity 4,915]

This was a locked thread that "re-opened" with the site upgrade. We'll close it again since there's more recent threads dealing with game crashes. Thanks...