Why do cars constantly appear and disappear?

[GeneralEtrius 78]

You see this all the time on city streets. Cars will constantly appear, drive for a few seconds, and then disappear when they reach a change in the road, such as an intersection. It looks the worst on freeways, with cars always disppearing after two seconds or when the drive onto an interchange.

The only time I've seen cars that don't disappear is when they're tagged with a mission.

Why do cars do this?

[pipelad 6]

well with out being 100% sure, but i thinks that is the way the game works, no specific reason

[CptStrategy 0]

It's like a ping packet.  Each car has a Time To Live based on its destination.  If you go to the original SimCity site: simcity.ea.com/about/inside_scoop/automata1.php  it talks about the automata feature in the engine.  It also mentions about the time of day having a factor on the trip.  So you can watch early morning traffic going to work, and when they disappear, they have reached their destination or time to live.  It wouldn't do well to have a car, travel accross the entire map unless you are driving it. 

Right now I have a Sim who is complaining there is no commute routes for him.  However, there are streets and a road near by.  Why he complains I have no idea, but that is the challenge I face.  Now I'm going to watch his route during the morning and see if he does leave.  If not, I'll move him to another house. 

I hope this helps a bit.

[thingfishs 416]

it USED to drive me nuts as well. However now there is this: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=23362

[z1 566]

Originally posted by: CptStrategy

It's like a ping packet.  Each car has a Time To Live based on its destination.  If you go to the original SimCity site: simcity.ea.com/about/inside_scoop/automata1.php  it talks about the automata feature in the engine.  It also mentions about the time of day having a factor on the trip.  So you can watch early morning traffic going to work, and when they disappear, they have reached their destination or time to live.quote>

I just read that article (great reference!), but there is no mention of time to live.  Instead, in addition to the time of day that you mention, it simply takes a lot more resources to show vehicles going for long distances, and this can slow the game down noticeably.  For those willing to make such a tradeoff, the various automata mods exist, but it's important to know that that tradeoff is there.  The amount of any slowdown is affected by a whole range of factors, including the components used in your computer and the size of your city.

[thingfishs 416]

my understanding was that it didn't cause slowdown at all, that the amount of automata visible at one time is still the same. Certainly I haven''t any issues using it in a city of 500,000 and the difference it's made to the believability of my cities is huge.

[z1 566]

The mod you use has much less effect on performance than the radical automata mods, which I've found slow down the game considerably. I think if you actually benchmarked your games performance with and without that mod, you'd actually see a small hit, although it very easily could be small enough not to be noticeable. I think I may do some benchmarking with that mod myself...

[GeneralEtrius 78]

What are some of the other automata mods? I gave the one posted a try, and it helps a bit.

The cars always disappear when entering freeway intersections. They always disappear when hitting a certain point.

[CptStrategy 0]

Time to live was my reference so I can compare it to ping.  You have a point; it would reduce performance if we were to watch cars going across the map especially in large cities.  SimCity may not be a 3D monster but its meat is in the simulation algorithms which take up a lot of CPU cycles.

Also, unless you have a very solid video card, I would recommend software emulation.  I have an Intel Mobile Graphics, does well at the lower resolutions but it can't handle the updates fast enough.  Software emulation does well even at 1366x768x32 (native resolution).  I have full cars/sims and high res on everything, but my depth is only at 16.  I think 32 is not necessary unless your going to print your city out.

Cpt

[z1 566]

Originally posted by: GeneralEtrius

What are some of the other automata mods? I gave the one posted a try, and it helps a bit.quote>

They are described in complete detail in Chapter 10B of the NAM documentation, which is (not surprisingly) in the Documentation subfolder of your NAM folder.

The cars always disappear when entering freeway intersections. They always disappear when hitting a certain point.quote>

I also noticed that the posted mod does not stop automata from disappearing.  I'm sure it helps somewhat, but not in the situations I saw.  I also noticed that in Zoom 3, automata don't disappear even in the standard controller.

Originally posted by: CptStrategy

Also, unless you have a very solid video card, I would recommend software emulation.  I have an Intel Mobile Graphics, does well at the lower resolutions but it can't handle the updates fast enough.  Software emulation does well even at 1366x768x32 (native resolution).  I have full cars/sims and high res on everything, but my depth is only at 16.  I think 32 is not necessary unless your going to print your city out.

quote>

It's true that integrated graphics typically are not designed for games, and in those case you may very well be better off with software emulation.  But just about any add-on video card from the past half dozen years (and a large number of the ones before that) can handle SC4 quite easily, and in those cases, you're better off with hardware emulation.  The color depth of 16 is reasonable, but many people find a big difference with 32; again, with a modern video card, there's no noticeable additional stress on the system.

[thingfishs 416]

that's bizarre to me. For me it makes cars, instead of lasting about 3 seconds, generally last as long as you can be bothered looking at them (unless they reach their destination, or some other unusual obstacle). In other words, cars disappear rarely enough that you don't notice it.

[z1 566]

I certainly don't doubt your experience; there are a lot of variables involved here. I'd like to understand this a bit better myself. Which of the three mods were you using (Low, Medium, or High), what zoom level were you using, and what game speed were you running?

[thingfishs 416]

I have pm'ed this to z1, but FWIW I am using the previous version of that mod before there were low, medium & high versions. Game speed & zoom levels don't seem to make a difference.

[Jeiman2008 21]

There are several variables or values if you like.. in the automata exemplar which work together and may sometimes work against each other to determine the overall persistence of automata. The most simple explanation I can give you is that cars have a minimum and maximum distance that they are allowed to travel, dictated by the values in the automata exemplar(addon). The reason that the cars are disappearing so rapidly in NAM's automata mod is because of a value called spawn/recall for streets/roads/avenue..ect. NAM's automata mod spawns an awful lot of cars, but also it recalls just as many. Which means once a certain number of automata have spawned, the game looks to recall them so that it may continue to spawn more. This results in the automata doing some odd things like driving less than their minimum dictated distance, so you see them constantly fadiing in and out. As I said, there are other factors at play here, and I'd need a bit more time to fully explain them. To be honest I've made literally hundereds of tweaks to the Persistent Automata Mod, and I still have a lot to learn about them.

Also it's true the mod will incur a marginal decrease in performance compared to NAM's mod, although it is based off of NAM's automata mod. It really shouldn't be much of an issue to gameplay, especially at closer zoom levels, where the game doesn't draw as much automata.

[Jeiman2008 21]

Originally posted by: z1

Originally posted by: CptStrategy

It's like a ping packet.  Each car has a Time To Live based on its destination.  If you go to the original SimCity site: simcity.ea.com/about/inside_scoop/automata1.php  it talks about the automata feature in the engine.  It also mentions about the time of day having a factor on the trip.  So you can watch early morning traffic going to work, and when they disappear, they have reached their destination or time to live.quote>

I just read that article (great reference!), but there is no mention of time to live.  Instead, in addition to the time of day that you mention, it simply takes a lot more resources to show vehicles going for long distances, and this can slow the game down noticeably.  For those willing to make such a tradeoff, the various automata mods exist, but it's important to know that that tradeoff is there.  The amount of any slowdown is affected by a whole range of factors, including the components used in your computer and the size of your city.

quote>

I just wanted to shed some light on the time of day factor in play.  There are two types of commuter spawns going on here.  One is called occupant trip, the other is commuter.  NAM's radical addon uses the commute clock to generate additional traffic at certain times of the day.  The occupant trip clock has essentially the same function, and can be equated to housewives taking lesiurly trips to the mall in the middle of the day.

Example:

Say you want to have your peak traffic hours begin at 9AM.  You could set the commute clock to a value of 1.00000 for 9AM, which will esentially double the baseline spawn.

If you set the same value as -1.000000, you would see a reverse commute happen, and a lot of cars going in the opposite direction.

Having the occupant trip clock may seem reduntant, but it definately has it's uses.  In the Persistent Automata Mod, I use the occupant trip clock to generate a small reverse commute so that it looks more realistic.  In reality you'd never see an increase in traffic only going in one direction.

z1 is absolutely right about the performance tradeoff.  I think this is one the reasons NAM's automata addons behave the way they do.  You may not notice it on a high end gaming rig, but on a five year old computer you'll definatly notice a slowdown of the game.

One last thing, I kinda went over in my last reply, is that the "time to live" is trumped by the spawn/recall value.  It doesn't matter if you give the automata a minimum distance of 10000, they will still be recalled by the engine because of this value.

[GeneralEtrius 78]

Okay, back to this discussion. On a Vanilla SC4 game, the automata last a LOT longer before disappearing than a game with the NAM running. So, i guess it is the NAM's fault (I had the standard Automata plugin running.)

[Jeiman2008 21]

Originally posted by: GeneralEtrius

Okay, back to this discussion. On a Vanilla SC4 game, the automata last a LOT longer before disappearing than a game with the NAM running. So, i guess it is the NAM's fault (I had the standard Automata plugin running.)quote>

I'm pretty sure the Rush Hour expansion started the automata behaving like they do because of UDI.  The disappearing cars help you get around in UDI missions.  Uninstall NAM and you'll find the cars still disappear.  NAM didn't create this behavoir, they work with the automata to suit their traffic simulators.