Lag, slowdown, etc...

[texico11 3]

i've been playing sim city 4 on...

XP SP2 - 32bit

1024mb RAM

100GB HDD

NvideaGeForce 6200 - 256mb

Pentium 4 - 3.2GHz

i usually play on the large tiles, and i've been experiencing alot of lag lately. the most iritating problem is it makes the Fast-Forward slow right down, and as i spend alot of time with the game usually on >> or >>>, it really bugs me. its also a night-mare scrolling across my citys.

whats worse is i dont have any plug-ins or even have rush-hour installed, and my PC appears to be more than the minimum specs for this game.

any ideas whats causing the lag?? my hard drive is extremerly fragmented, but im defragging as we speek.

[Things Go Better With Milk 0]

How many other games do you have loaded into your computer?

And try getting a better computer, with 2000mb of RAM. I have a computer with 2gb of RAM and i barely survive.

But the problem is mainly your RAM.

[Dukat 2]

It is most likely CPU and RAM that are causing the lag.

This game won't even run smooth with the fastest C2D.

The more citizens you got, the more lag you will have.

You gotta live with it.

[texico11 3]

I've seen screenys of some people with citys literally packed. and somehow there running smooth in similar videos.

[hawkpride147 1]

i'm running sc4 delux on an HP TX1000 tablet notebook

Specs:

AMD Turion 64x2 TL-60 Processor

2GB RAM

4GB readyboost RAM

250GB HDD

NVIDIA GeForce 6160

Yeah...not even that handles SC4 perfectly...SC4 just takes up alot of resources...

[texico11 3]

recon this PC would, if it exists :S

8800GTX - 512mb ram

Inter Core 2 Duo - 3ghz?

8GB DDR4 RAM

300GB HDD

Vista

[projectadam 0]

You can change your graphic settings of the game texico (clouds, shadows, cars, etc...)

[Hahayoudied 3]

    MY computer only uses from 600-800 RAM when I play Sim City 4 deluxe edition, yet my computer has 3 GB of RAM. Also the game uses 50% of the computer's CPU. 

    Try alt-ctrl-delete when you are running the game to open up the task manager. When it is opened, check how much CPU and RAM the computer is using. Remember, physical memory is RAM.

[Joetropian1 1]

I heard about a 4gig RAM, 750 gig HD computer, only 2000$!

I think that'd work!

JT1

[Spinmaster 75]

Your computer specs are fine, more than good enough to run SimCity 4 even with a good load of plugins (within reason). Not to say you couldn't benefit from some extra RAM though, yes 2 GB might help, particularly for large cities ... or a lot of plugins.

I'd start by looking for unnecessary programs running in the background. Start with the system tray - anything "always running" for no good reason? Fine examples, various media players when you're not actually using them... they can consume memory and CPU. Even if just a little, if you have many such "little things" running in the background, it can really take away from intense programs like SC4. Really shouldn't have anything more than a virus scanner "always running" (and even that, if you're savvy enough, you can disable - but disable your network connection first).

An on-demand virus scan wouldn't be a bad idea either, just to be sure.

Also, check the 1st and 3rd posts in the Bugs & Technical Issues forum. Some useful tips there which may help you.

Finally, note that with a large bustling city with lots and lots of people... you may just have to accept the game will slow down to some extent in any case, even if everything else is perfect.

[mrbisonm 1,620]

Your computer should be fine, I have the same. The real problem usually is the size of the pluginsfolder filled with thousands of files. If you have a lot of lots that need a lot of dependencies, you better start making a springclean of your folder. That helped enormously with my lag.

[texico11 3]

as it is, seeing as i got rush hour about an hour ago, my plugins folder contains the tree assortman mod by cycledog, NAM, nam update, Curve roads Nam update (not working yet) and the whole digging lots, and im about to download the swamp mod. after that, i might get a few here and there but nothing intense, seeing as i've got most of what i wanted for my plan'ed future city.

[texico11 3]

oh yeah, and i recently checked. my cpu is running at about 80% when playing sim city for, but about 10-12% when im not playing any games. i also noticed half my ram is beeing used as cache for some reason. im not fully sure what it is or does, but i dono if thats normal or not.

aside from that, i started MS config a while ago and turned off all my start-ups like msn. my current tray contains my 3 internet icons (i weird internet system), norton anti virus, norton internet secury, network icon that i can seem to remove, audio icon and windows security icon, which i also cant seem to remove...