Very strange Problem - Avenue causes huge lag

[nox0r 0]

Ok, its quite odd.

I have my city connected with it's neighbor city. There are several subway, monorail, roads, railways and avenues connections (like 5 avenues).

One day i suddenly noticed HUGE lag Problems on my city (ONLY on this one !). I could barely move my mouse and it took like 5 minutes to pass a month on fastest speed.

After many hours of having no idea why that lag happens i finally found that ONE avenue that connects the city to its neighbor causes this lag. if i kill the avenue, lag is completly gone! if i rebuild its there again . It's not like the avenue is in high commute use. just like ~10ppl do even use it.

I had EXACTLY the same problem on another REGION! 2 citys connected with several roads/avenues and exactly ONE avenue (which isnt even used alot) causes INSANE lag on one of my cities.

 I use SC4 Deluxe Edition last patch, got an high-end PC (usually it can easy take cities up to 1million citizens), and few Plugins(NAM). Problem remains if i delete the plugins so i dont think its relevant to list them.

Maybe someone has experienced the same and can tell me why this happens. Whats the special thing about those avenues and how can i fix them ?

 

TXH alot

(Screenshot shows the "lag avenue")

[SimCity4IE 203]

 That's very odd, did you try reinstalling the game?

[CaptCity 4,952]

At ltmes, I've seen pathing or texture issues cause the lag. Are you able to use the "Drawpaths" cheat and see if the paths appear normal? Also, you might try creating the connection with no plugins (just don't save the game) to see if something may be causing it. And something else... Try demolishing the road-avenue intersection before making the connection (again, don't save the game)

[nox0r 0]

1. The Problem also occurs with a completly empty plugin folder. If i recreate it wiht no plugins it still causes lag.

I spent alot of time (like 2 hours lol) of finding out what this is about. As i said i have 2 cities in 2 different regions that actually have this problem. I did not yet find out a real pattern, but its really seems like some pathing problem.

I also imported the city to a completly new region - Problem still there so it has nothing to do with the kind of neighbor cities!

I made this thread cuz i hoped someone else had noticed that problem before (-> One SPECIFIC connection between two cities causes and instant and insane lag of the game) and could tell me whats the trigger for that.

I will record a video and upload it in a few days.

If anyone is intressted, i will send him the saved City and you can try this on any region...im sure you will have that insane lags too, till you destroy that bugged avenue ...!!jsut let me know

 

 

 

[slystone2 20]

"There are several subway, monorail, roads, railways and avenues connections (like 5 avenues)."

it might be that the lag is caused by having too many connections to the neighboring city, and the game is having trouble calculating all of the effects of commuting?

There really is no need to make as many connections as possible, you just need to connect what is needed by your sims and put them at strategic locations. It sounds you're saying the usage of the avenue is so low that it is insignificent, so there really isn't a problem with just sticking with the connections you have and leaving out any new ones.

Remember, sometimes less is more - why deal with a headache when you don't need to?

[CaptCity 4,952]

Originally posted by: slystone2

It might be that the lag is caused by having too many connections to the neighboring city, and the game is having trouble calculating all of the effects of commuting?quote>

 

Originally posted by: nox0r

I have my city connected with it's neighbor city. There are several subway, monorail, roads, railways and avenues connections (like 5 avenues).quote>

 

How many total connections are there? I know I've had at least a half-dozen various connections on each side and never experienced this.

And, noxOr, see my PM.

[marsrpg 0]

Hi, I'm also experiencing the same problem that your having to nox0r.

Last time I played Sim City 4 was in December; no problems. I installed some landmark/park/street plug-ins last week. Tested them out, worked fine; no crashing. Started a new city. Had some rail ,road, and avenue connections to my sister city. All was fine until I started developing medium wealth residence and commercial in the city. After a couple of months of growing my avenue's started flashing between commercial and residential constantly.

Two things I thought of was One: I have three plug-ins called "No palms,Sidewalk Texture Mod, and Uni-Density Streets" that I DL before. Two: I have a GRL track between my avenue's in my city. Its not a GRL puzzle avenue, but more like “ full avenue;GRL; full avenue” I took out "No palms,Sidewalk Texture Mod, and Uni-Density Streets" No luck. I even took out all plug-ins that I D/L last week; no luck. I tried the city with no plug-ins. It works some, but the Avenue's still flash; not as much though. I don't have to many connections to the sister city, around 7. But I've had a city with way more connections in the past without the flashing avenue's.

 

Any Suggestions?, Arigato

[tungston 19]

If you use NAM, and the turning lanes, and use a lot of avenue intersections, it will lag the best of computers.

[slystone2 20]

Are you using PEG's Avenue Medians?

I don't think there's anything wrong with the plugin, but it has all those trees with lights, and in my experience the more and more avenues you use, the more it taxes your computer. I used to get crashes when i used that plugin as my trans. networks expanded, and when i took it out they stopped.

Don't know if that's the answer to your problem, but it's at least worth a try

[marsrpg 0]

As a matter of fact slystone2, I just checked, I have three of them, "PEG-UT_IND_AveMedian_MOD_102, PEG-UT_RC-AvenueMod_105, PEG-UT_SP-AvenueMod_100."

I pulled them out and restarted the game. My avenue's defaulted to plan sidewalk's. I re-applied the avenues and they reverted back to the standard maxis avenue's, but there not flashing anymore.

So far this helped, but I'm still wondering why I never had the problem before. It must be a conflict with on of the plug-ins I recently installed last week. For now, I'll be playing the game like this.

[poshbakerloo 186]

Its had loads of issues with Avenues. This is very bad if you have them set out in a grid with them joined up. The central bit in the middle keeps on changing, and when it changes it caused very bad lag, to the point where it is unplayable! urgh!

[pckiller 1]

I am getting the very same lag. What I did was to remove the NAM folder, and it still lagged, so on my PC that was not it. I do have allot of DLed building and mega packs, maybe that could be it? Anyone have any ideas what is causing this lag?

[CaptCity 4,952]

I have seen this lag and noticed that the it seems to occur when the game re-draws the avenue medians to different wealth levels, and because of the way avenues work, all the medians are re-drawn. At times, they did seem to switch often, thus causing the lag.

This was raised in this thread, and Blue Lightning's reply matches what I have observed. I saw that creating even a simple intersection on the avenue somewhere along it stopped the lagging issue. For example...

 

I placed this simple intersection at another location on the avenue and the median switching stopped. I don't know if this is being caused by a particular lot, or if it's just something the game is doing due to current conditions. Just a thought...

[SC4BOY 21]

Do you know if only avenue x avenue intersections are required? or any intersection... ? Or even rail crossings? Or rail-in-avenue (since they don't have medians).. I've never seen the problem, so I'm just curious.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Since this is related to the predominant wealth and density level along the avenue, my guess is that the problem can be alleviated with everything that actually divides an avenue into different sections that are categorized differently. As far as I remember, this applies to all intersections, i.e. road x avenue should work as well.

You can test this quite easily:

1) Draw a long avenue

2) Place anything next to it that will change its median/sidewalk (an agricultural zone, a park, whatever). Place this object near one end of the avenue.

3) Go towards the middle of the avenue and try what will split the avenue in two halves. The half with the object next to it should remain the same, whereas the other half will change its state. If this happens, you know that what you did works as a separation.

One method I know, for example, is to bulldoze one tile of a straight avenue (orthogonal or diagonal, doesn't matter) and re-fill the gap with one-way roads. This doesn't add an intersection you might not want there, it doesn't extend beyond the footprint of the avenue, and it should do the trick.

[pckiller 1]

I have noticed the meduim changing all the time in my cities that have the lag. But the problem for me just started. I thought that maaybe it was with something I DLed.
 

PS
 

I just checked out my very large city with 1.3 million people in it, and before I DLed and installed NAM. There is no lag what so ever. Plus, there are allot ofd Aves. in the city as well. Am not try to place blame on anyone, just sharing what I am seeing in game.

[SimmsCity 22]

O.K. here is my problem, whenever I build avenues in the median there seems to be flashing going on all the time where it is constantly changing over and over and it's making the game slow down to a crawl. I am just wondering if its something to do with what i have installed in the NAM folder, or is it just a glitch the NAM comes with that's unavoidable. Any insight would be much help.

Edited - Moved from another thread.

-CaptCity

[SimmsCity 22]

In answering SC4Boy, yes it only happens with avenues and not necessarily at intersections. Just at the straight part of the avenue, where if you build R$$ and Co$$ along with R$$$ and Co$$$ the avenue can't seem to decide if it wants to stay at one wealth level, so the median in the avenue changes constantly to the point of making everything impossible to do. But this is only my opinion, I think it has to do with a texture or overlay conflict just makes the median in the avenue go bonkers when it decides to start building.