crashes when zoom

[tito_golden 0]

i have a problem, i´ve reinstalled sim city  4 deluxe, and all its plugins, they are a lot, so i´ve installed all of them and then i´ve run cleanitol to check out all readmes. i hope thats the way to run simcity without crashes, but no way, it crashes mostly when i "zoom out" or "zoom in", some times when i´m saving city. it is horrible, every 2, 3, or 5 minutes it crashes and i have to save every movement, im near to desperate, xD, its my favourite game... someone can help me????

[JakeMD 107]

The biggest thing I can think of is your system specs. Is your computer high-end? Or is it old and has a slower processor and RAM?

[De Ja Vu 117]

Well the main reason for this is the building draw speed (<-- Idk)...and combine that with a lot of plugins and your "zooming out" and your game is going to crash for sure. But don't worry...you're not alone. It happens to me and probably to everyone else with a lot of custom content. The best thing to do is: go to the edge of your map (up as far as it goes, and then right as far as it goes). At that point you'll see the blue griddy background from Maxis. When you have your screen there you can zoom out or zoom in as long as you want .

It works for me and it will probably work for you...at least I hope it will.

-Dejavu

[tito_golden 0]

2Gb Ram, Nvidia Gforce 8500, 2ghz processor, i think thats ok, isnt it?

[tito_golden 0]

i´ll try, lot of thanks

[tito_golden 0]

that way runs sometimes, but not always. 

some other ideas?????

[JakeMD 107]

You could also save before zooming, to ensure you don't lose much.

[tito_golden 0]

that is what im doing now but it takes lot of time saving every time i want to zoom in or out, im constantly using zoom.... its a solution, why not, but it takes much time and when i dont remember.... crash!! xD

[JakeMD 107]

Another solution would be to use one zoom, say zoom 3, since it is kind of in the middle. There should be a fix though, someone should come along with the answer :thumbs;

[Jezus53 18]

You can try lowering the quality of buildings and textures, removing clouds, lowering the amount of shadows, and try switching from hardware to software or vice versa. Try and find a happy medium where you have good quality, but also functionality. I think I run with most of my settings at medium except for the Sims/cars and clouds, which is off completely because it's an unnecessary process.

I hope this helps!

[north country dude 207]

Originally posted by: tito_golden 2Gb Ram, Nvidia Gforce 8500, 2ghz processor, i think thats ok, isnt it?quote>

Without more data about your system, it's kind of hard to diagnose the problem,...but I will try.

It sounds as if you have either a dual core processor, or possibly a quad core, in any event, I will go on the assumption that it is a multi core processor based system.

One of the main problems people have had with multi-core processor has been, "CTD while zooming in or out." Discussions and possible solutions can be found here,  here and here.

Don't let the discussions about graphics cards throw you, there is a lot of data and links to getting your system to work with SimCity 4.

I don't know if you are running a multi-core system with Windows Vista, but if you are, you can try this: Vista, Dual Core & SimCity 4: How to make them cooperate

[diamon 0]

I'll just add my (new-found) advice, as I've experienced something similar.

Use DatPacker on your Plugins folder. It's made all the difference to me.

I was experiencing CTD's about every 15 minutes (not when zooming though - mostly clicking the menu button which expands the bottom UI).

Since packing I've had NO CTD's - so I conclude that DatPacker works (for me at least)

Give it a go, as well as the advice about processor affinity.

Good luck

[tito_golden 0]

dual core proccesor, running winXP.

whats the difference about using hardware or software rendering?

im going to switch off clouds and cars/sims, medium visual effects, building draw speed, texture quality (32bits) and city detail. lets go!!

i´ll comment here what happens.

[north country dude 207]

Originally posted by: tito_golden dual core proccesor, running winXP.

whats the difference about using hardware or software rendering?

im going to switch off clouds and cars/sims, medium visual effects, building draw speed, texture quality (32bits) and city detail. lets go!!

i´ll comment here what happens.quote>

Discussions about Hardware or Software rendering are here. Your video card should easily handle SimCity 4 graphics on 'high' settings in Hardware mode, with the possible exception being 'shadows',...the jury is still out on that one.

So, the solutions to try for avoiding CTD while zooming are:

1) Get the Dat packer and compress your Plugins folders.

2) Set your systems processor affinity to use one of the processors.

[leanser 0]

And to add to what north country dude said:

3) go to the Windows Task Manager (ctrl + shift + esc) and shut down any process running in the background (antiviruses, any adobe software, Google toolbar, task scheduler engine, etc).

Since I started doing all these 3 things, crashes happen rarely when zooming in or out, and I don't have to save the game as often as before.