My game keeps crashing

[BBUUBBBBLLEESS 0]

When I'm playing Sim City 4 the game will crash when its at the regional view. I know its because of Xfire running, it seems to have a problem with the xfire box popping up to say 'xfire enabled'. But, if I'm quick enough to get it off from the regional view before it pops up, it works fine...

any ideas?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Couple of things that would help us find your problem:

1. Describe your machine
2. Describe your software, particularly
   1. Why are you running Xfire with this?
   2. How much virtual memory do you have set up?
   3. What version of SC4 are you running?
   4. What else is running?

P.S.  This belongs in Bugs and Technical Difficulties.

[BBUUBBBBLLEESS 0]

erm...

what do you want to know about the computer?

erm...

its intel 2 duo core E6300

its either a 512 MB or 1gb 9600gt Nvidia (cant remember which, sorry)

2Gb Ram

I use Xfire to take the screen shots, rather than pressing Print Screen, Alt Tab, paste, Print Screen (its nicer to use Xfire, its just a button and done)

Erm... Virtual Memory? Whats that (sorry, Im not a computer whizz)

I use Sim City Duluxe, I dont think I have any patches, how do I find out if I do (I cant remember if I've downloaded them, my memory isnt exactly brilliant, well, im a goldfish almost)

I almost always have Itunes running.

I know about changing the music files over, but, not only would that mean more space being used, i like to hear the whole song, rather than it cuts when im changing between region and citys...

I'll post this in the Bugs and Technical Difficulties as well then...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

That's more useful, thanks.

Virtual memory is the amount of memory that is simulated by the operating system on disk.  It extends the real memory and is used to keep the pieces of memory that are not currently needed by your program.  This is controlled by a process in the memory manager that keeps the most recently hit parts of the program in real memoy and the other parts out of the way so other programs can get some memory to work in.  The pages of memory, usually 1024 words at a time, are mapped onto the disk using a small table in memory called the page table.

I am not current on the requirements of microshaft's operating systems after XP, because I don't use their systems any more, but if I were you, I would get my local compter geek to help you set your virtual memory space to at least 4GB.  SC4's p-rogrammers were writing in an era where any program got the whole machine, so there is no provision for sharing memory with another program like Xfire (which you don't need, by the way).  If you want a shot of your city, use the in-game photo shot subsystem.  Try reading this up in the manual.  There is a hot key for this, but I don't remember what it is.

With the machine you are running, I don't see why you should have a problem except you don't specify the size of your plugins.  All plugins are loaded into memory with the game, used or not.  If they are not used, they eventually wind up on the virtual memory file (swap file) but this can't happen until the program has run long enough for the memory manager to figure out what should be in memory and what should be swapped.  Microshaft doesn't do a very good job at this.

If you have a lot of unused plugins that you have because they are "nice to have", put them somewhere else.  Set up a folder away for the game and move them there until you need them.

When you become more experienced, you will discover that there is a way to take an animated shot of your game, but this requires rather a lot of disk, and some thought and experience with graphics.  The background shot for my signature was done this way.

Please excuse any typeos or misspellings as my vision is very poor today.  I hope this helps you.

[BBUUBBBBLLEESS 0]

Thanks

I'll just use the ingame snaps, I dont really want to try and mess about with the computer (and I dont really have the money to take it to the shop), so that seems the safest option

Thanks for the help

[SC4BOY 20]

LOL.. that would have been my suggestion.. if it doesn't work, stop doing it..