city size limited by CPU speed and RAM

[GoaSkin 2]

When a city reaches a specific size, the simulation speed becomes slow. Furthermore, you can optimize anything on the city and it does not grow furthermore. 

One time, I added another 512MB RAM in the hope to get simcity faster (because the game was swapping much on the HD). The result: Some cities grew up very quickly for a few 100.000 habitants but the game speed was the same. 

Is there a city-size limit based on the system performance?

[Charles Rodulfo 0]

um, yes there is... I have a 512 mb ram, 1.25 ghz single core processor 64 mb vid card and a new laptop that has 512 mb ram, 1.66 dual core processor and 128 vid card... well, it's not functioning right in the laptop but... when I use SC4 in my laptop, my biggest city, Azalea City had it's population spasm xP and the population went up to 400,000-500,000 in a large city tile with a gigs worth of dat.packed plugins folder. um, I guess Processors help a little but it all depends on how much of a plugin you have, the capacity of your ram and the size of the city... I suggest using medium sized tiles for those people who have a memory lower than 512 mb and stick to the necessity plugins like the NAM, some trees, don't use HSRP and RHW, it slows game speed a lot... and some Parks... Um, have you played RA2 lately, doesn't the game seem too fast when you play it on a good machine then logs when you get tank-happy and build hundreds and thousands of tanks... well that's what's happening in SC4... in the beginning, you're not using much ram because you're not using a lot of custom buildings yet but when you get to about a 100,000 sims, your city/town would prolly have about 50-60% custom content in your city... yep, it piles up, by double the original ram required by SC4... I've had experiences with memory then the game crashes and it goes back to the desktop and stuff... Yep, in short... (xP) yes, the limit of development of the towns and cities in SC4 depends on system performance

Take Care,

Charles

[catsmallboring 0]

i used to have problems running on 512 mb but now i have a gig and its running alot smoother

[Goldfish4209 9]

Maybe the game needs a ton of RAM to handle large populations. My cities get stuck at 30k and take years to develop new zones. That was when I had 512Mb, I don't know how well it handles 30k with a gig.

[chocolate_city 93]

with a gig of mem and 256mb nvidia video card , 1.8ghz processor, i have made many cities with tons of plug-ins, up to and over 3,000,000 population and have played for hours without a crash... but on the same system a made a small city and had instant crashes ... its really hard to pinpoint just what could be the problem ... I just suggest SAVE SAVE and then SAVE again... and live with it..

[herbigharo32 5]

About 350,000 peeps is about the limits for my system. Keep in mind that my plugins folder is 2.5 gb in size. Tons of custom contents and MODS. System specs are AMD 3200+, 2 GB RAM, 512 Nvidia video, 400 FSB, Win XP SP2. My faster rig has 3 GB RAM and dual core CPU runnings Windows Vista. However, due to lack of service packs on SC4, the game does not work on my faster rig. If you cut down on the plugins, having more peeps is plausable. Personally, I think having more than 400,000 peeps makes the city look VERY UGLY! I max out at 300,000 and have the rest in commercial.

[waway625 72]

im running on an e6300 overclocked to e6700, 2gigs of Low latency RAM and an 8800GTS..and pop increase wasnt noted as opposed to my old A64 3800+ rig with a 1024mb of RAM and 7600GT

point is, whatever rig youre running, it will grow if conditions are met..the faster rigs only help in giving you a smoother gameplay and better graphics

[jabezscratch 159]

Originally posted by: waway625 im running on an e6300 overclocked to e6700, 2gigs of Low latency RAM and an 8800GTS..and pop increase wasnt noted as opposed to my old A64 3800+ rig with a 1024mb of RAM and 7600GT

point is, whatever rig youre running, it will grow if conditions are met..the faster rigs only help in giving you a smoother gameplay and better graphicsquote>

 

Exactly -- the games doesn't impose limits on growth based on your computer specs.  From a practical standpoint, the game will become virtually unplayable or less playable from a performance standpoint when certain conditions, particularly higher populations, are met with weaker comp specs.