EA has really outdone itself

[ViolentBreed 0]

i should have known buying simcity it would be prone to crashing, just like command and conquer.. I will be playing sc4 for about half an hour to and hour and then BAM, crash straight to desktop, there goes my entire city ive been building for an entire hour, what a waste of time and money

[crazyyaya 4]

There's no need to say that when I'm sure it's not even the game itself. If it has a bad performance it may be your computer's fault, if not check if something is wrong with your disk. This game has worked well for thousands of people. Considering you now have two games you say that crash alot, I'd say it is liekly your computer.

[Godzillaman 21]

I'm getting tired of these threads...

[ViolentBreed 0]

play command and conquer 3 online and when someone leaves the game it freezes, not just on me but everybody, because you can still type in game and everything. and as far as sim city goes, I have all my drivers properly installed, it worked fine when i installed simcity4 with no plugins, bats or anything like that. matter of a fact, as soon as i installed NAM, its when it started crashing, because i reinstalled last night and everything and have no plugins, only thing I have are NAM and the sc4 patch/update or whatever, and if you dont like the threads godzilla, why do u reply to them?

[dadyrghluv 8]

i will bet money on it u are doing the infamous CTD when using the nam. its a bug in it. dont hover over transit enabled lots when using the NAM. otherwise CTD happens.

[ViolentBreed 0]

what is CTD?

[pepsi71ocean 2]

crash 2 desktop

[existenz 2]

Crash To Desktop.(CTD)  Also NAM is only for Rush Hour not vanilla SC4 if that helps. Datpacker will help if you have crashes while zooming in and out. Datpacker can be found at

[Landwalker 0]

Actually, I get the occasional CTD as well, and I haven't even gotten to the point in my current city where I'm using transit-enabled lots in the first place (so it isn't the NAM problem), and also have all the proper video and sound drivers. I got a new sound card to replace the one that came with my computer, and after getting that set up and properly drivered, the CTDs were mostly (but not entirely) eliminated. If your computer's sound skips a lot when playing SC 4, that may be part of the problem.

Cheers.

[ViolentBreed 0]

i am not sure what  transit enabled lot is, but ill install that patch on sc4 devotion, thank you for that. I only play simcity 4, not rush hour, but doesnt rush hour come with sc4 deluxe or is it still separate? i have 3 ghz, 2 gigs of ram, 256 mb vid card, and xtrememusic sound card, so my computer isnt that bad.. i was getting frustrated.. ill download that patch and hopefully that will help, as far as my sound skipping, it doesnt really do that, but sometimes my computer will freeze for a split second or two when zooming in and out, but that is few and far between, and it doesnt happen then, it usually happens after I plop something while zooming in and out... hmmmm

[existenz 2]

Actually Datpacker, NAM etc only work with RH or Deluxe ( Deluxe combines SC4 and Rush Hour together, RH is an addon to SimCity 4) Without RH or Deluxe you wont be able to use NAM and is probably the cause of the crashes as it wasn't designed to be used without Rush Hour. I suggest you buy RH or Deluxe - they only cost approx 10 - 15 USD and add so much to the game. Also nearly all custom content is for RH or Deluxe, there's hardly any thing for SC4 vanilla.

[WackoJak 0]

Rush hour can be bought seperately, but it's quite hard to find I hear. eBay'll have it, NZ trademe does. And you really do need it if you're going to get anything at this site.

[Glenni 1,444]

Maybe it wasn't the greatest idea to install NAM for SC4 without rush hour....

[Bluebeard 0]

NAM is greatest thing since slice bread even with the CTD but if your careful you can avoid a CTD.

[Blackadar 4]

Originally posted by: Bluebeard NAM is greatest thing since slice bread even with the CTD but if your careful you can avoid a CTD.quote>

I think the point kinda is that NAM isn't meant to be installed without the deluxe/Rush Hour version of SC4.  So it appears the crashes are your own doing and, as such, you won't find much sympathy about crashes in SC4 that you appear to be directly causing.

[Landwalker 0]

As unpleasant as the original poster is, we don't know that the crashes are his fault (his comment about Rush Hour and Deluxe is a little vague, so it's hard to tell whether he has SimCity 4, or SC4 Deluxe). I have SC4 Deluxe, and, as I said, I'd been getting some intermittent crashes throughout my ownership of the game (including well before I found this site and NAM). Because of my skipping sound, I guessed that a bad sound card and drivers might have had something to do with it, and after replacing the card and getting its latest drivers, the problem seems partly (but not fully) remedied. Perhaps my dual-core processor has some trouble with the game and is contributing to instability (because the game still "hangs up" quite a bit and seems to be using one of the 2.66 GHz cores to capacity most of the time), perhaps it's a video card problem, or perhaps the game is just not that stable. Although, if there are people out there running the game with no problems and no crashes, I would love to hear what sort of configuration you're using.

I guess that's a long-winded way of saying, "ViolentBreed is obnoxious, but as of right now we can't be sure the crashes are all his fault."

Cheers.

[MichOrion 0]

I can't remember the last time mine crashed.

[ViolentBreed 0]

wow, nothing like being talked down to online (Landwalker), I have sc4 deluxe and I have installed the patch from the simcity site, the NAM and everything. None of my other games ever crash so everything is installed right, I just zoom around and plop stuff and it crashes... oh well, and as far as being "obnoxious", thats a great comment to be said by someone who thinks they are just that much better than everybody else, I wonder how you feel after spending a half hour to an hour working on your city only to crash to desktop, I bet your attitude is less than kind.. Thanks for the input on the sc4datpacker, I'll try this and see how it works

[Landwalker 0]

Well, given that I learn from experience and so quick-save every ten or so minutes, it stopped being anything more than a minor annoyance. Once I actually took some steps to try to figure out what the problem was and resolve it (in my case, the sound card seemed to be the primary culprit), everything went much more smoothly. I certainly didn't go spewing vitriol and rage about on a public forum. But, I suppose since you found some useful information in the Datpacker suggestion (perhaps I'll look into it myself, although zooming has never seemed to cause problems for me), your reactions are unlikely to change.

Cheers.

[____----____ 37]

my game has crashed about 4 times in 4 years fwiw.

[ViolentBreed 0]

yup

[existenz 2]

Sorry I wasn't sure if you had Deluxe or not.

One thing that might help although you probably know this - there is a certain order the NAM files have to be installed in. I think it goes

1) NAM June 07

2) NAM Essentials

3) NAM Update Jan 08

4) the other additional files such as additional bridges, the Side street addon (SAM), RHW etc

If you install in any other order the newer files may be replaced by older files and that might be contributing to your crashes.

The Cleanitol program ( by Wouganaine on SC4 Devotion) will look up old files and back them up out of your plugin folders and should be used in conjunction with installing the NAM. Hope this helps. The order of the plugins  i.e. conflicting mods etc can cause crashes so is a good idea to find out about the loading order of your files. There is a post here I think on the Omnibus called Plugin mania which is very useful to read before adding in any custom content. Good luck, its a great game and would be a pity if you can't fix the crashes.

Edit: Also I found Daeley's save alarm mod useful as it puts a message in your SC4 messages box reminding you to....wait for it...save your city. I found the updated one on SC4 Devotion - search for it under 'creator' (Daeley).

[tommyvercetti7 0]

mine used to always crash but thats because i was allways using the GLR then aciddentally passing over a bus stop or something which i had later found out was likely to lead to a crash