Upgrading to Windows 7

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Windows 7 64 bit works great for me.

[tjh876 31]

Well, here is what I have to say regarding 7. I recently got a laptop (and its a good one too, Dell Studio with and i5 and dedicated graphics, 4gb of 1333mhz ram, and more) and I can play SC4, barely. The issue is that I can't get the game to open up, like its running, but I can't see the window. I can't get it to run in Windowed mode, even though I have the window mode target code included. Know what to expect when moving over to 7, but also, DON'T EVEN LOOK AT VISTA. For this one issue, I probably would have anywhere from 5-100 issues with Vista, or as I like to call it, Failista.

[tjh876 31]

Well, here is what I have to say regarding 7. I recently got a laptop (and its a good one too, Dell Studio with and i5 and dedicated graphics, 4gb of 1333mhz ram, and more) and I can play SC4, barely. The issue is that I can't get the game to open up, like its running, but I can't see the window. I can't get it to run in Windowed mode, even though I have the window mode target code included. Know what to expect when moving over to 7, but also, DON'T EVEN LOOK AT VISTA. For this one issue, I probably would have anywhere from 5-100 issues with Vista, or as I like to call it, Failista.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I upgraded from Vista so I think that it is a great deal. Vista barely worked for me and I had a virus so I did a clean install.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I upgraded from Vista so I think that it is a great deal. Vista barely worked for me and I had a virus so I did a clean install.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: Tommy7777

Well, here is what I have to say regarding 7. I recently got a laptop (and its a good one too, Dell Studio with and i5 and dedicated graphics, 4gb of 1333mhz ram, and more) and I can play SC4, barely. The issue is that I can't get the game to open up, like its running, but I can't see the window. I can't get it to run in Windowed mode, even though I have the window mode target code included. Know what to expect when moving over to 7, but also, DON'T EVEN LOOK AT VISTA. For this one issue, I probably would have anywhere from 5-100 issues with Vista, or as I like to call it, Failista.quote>

Tommy, you should probably go look at the B&TI threads here if you haven't already.  There is a lot of good stuff there and if you don't find an answer, you can start a new thread.

---

I got gmax running by creating a whole new environment for it.   My old set up was messed up beyond belief, and a clean start got it going.  I am testing, and finding things that don't work.  The materials editor can't handle the file system, so can't find canned textures.  This seems to be the only problem so far.

I am going to shot gun the BAT in over this, and see if this makes life worse or better.  I really would like to get back to BATting now that I have the time.

So good luck with W7 you guys.  That seems pretty tame compared to fighting with my emulator.  Got the final release of wine 1.2 today.  Much to test.

[joshriddle 29]

I am about to get the processor for it, then comes the chip and motherboard. Then after everything is all finished up, every component has been replaced with more modern, up to date, (better) ones, then, we put the W7 OS on it. I am going to start considering the $170 for an I5, which is 4 processors in, well, one. My tiny little thing can barely support running 2 programs at once. A motherboard I am not that concerned about though.

About our wireless internet network, we only have 3 people using it, of which we, I think are all in a homegroup as well, along with my aunt, if that has anything to do with it.

I think there is no particular need for a homegroup whatsoever. If I want to print something, I can do it on my printer. There is no point in connecting to other peoples computers when I have my own. Not to mention they are on theirs all the time, and they surely wont appreciate me messing around with that hubbababloo.

Like you said, there is now no point in encryption. However sometimes I wonder where my neighbors get their internet access...

But W7 seems like a really nice, smooth, OS. I get to fiddle around with it, the vast majority of my entire family has W7, me, and my aunts laptop are the only ones still stuck with that old WinXP. I look forward to putting it on there.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Everyone who goes to w7 seems to love it.  Maybe it is because of their experiences with wistful Vista.  If Microshaft have got it right, or nearly, this time, it has taken them a whole generation to do it (30 years).  Good luck to all.

I am going to stay with Linux.  Linux is a lineal descendent of UNIX which is descended from Multics, devised by Dr. F. J. Corbato at M.I.T. in the middle 1950's.  Project MAC produced an interesting marriage of hardware and software, but was far too pricey, even for Bell Labs who pulled out of the project leaving only GE, DEC and MIT.  The whole works kind of ran down from there.  The guys at Bell missed their desktop computing system that was part of Multics, and, in the skunk works, invented UNIX, which is a play on words.  Multiplexed Computing System (Multics) became UNIX with Uniplexed X as the excuse.  Those of us still in the Multics world called it Eunuchs.  However, in the computing world, small and cheap, and pretty good, wins over big, expensive, complex, and extremely good.  If the U.S. Justice department hadn't messed with Bell, the copyright would probably have not gone to Novell, who tried to make real bucks out of it.  Enter Torvalds who recoded the whole works and called it Linux.  Having made the source free for anyone, the free editions of Linux took off, and now, here I am on one developed in cooperation with the University of Washington (GNU), the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and other projects including OpenOffice.org.  There are some open licenses involved, but they are without charge.

Now that, my friends, is software the way it should be.  The marching morons at Microshaft can never equal the efforts of the millions of people working on Linux systems on the Internet.  Even Bill Gates couldn't afford the payroll.  For some people waving an EULA with $ attached is like waving a red cape in front of a bull, except we don't get stabbed.

[joshriddle 29]

Vista was a lousy operating system to most. Another concern arises, I do like just sticking a bunch (I mean a bunch) of freeware on my machine. Would something like this support it more than mine? It tends to slow it down some.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: joshriddle

Vista was a lousy operating system to most. Another concern arises, I do like just sticking a bunch (I mean a bunch) of freeware on my machine. Would something like this support it more than mine? It tends to slow it down some.quote>

You need to be more specific.  What freeware did you have in mind?  If it is something like OpenOffice.org you have support.  If you are talking about a free version of Linux like SUSE or UBUNTU, support is also provided.  I fail to see your point.

Freeware, in general, tends to be smaller and faster than Microshaft's bloated code.  So I think you need to be much more specific.  Have you had a bad experience with "freeware"?

[simfreak90 3]

Question- Which OS actually works better for SimCity 4? I have XP and that's fine, but since my computer is newer and could run Windows 7 with some inexpensive upgrades, and since XP is almost 9 years old, is 7 and SimCity 4 compatible without many glitches?

[joshriddle 29]

Originally posted by: simfreak90

Question- Which OS actually works better for SimCity 4? I have XP and that's fine, but since my computer is newer and could run Windows 7 with some inexpensive upgrades, and since XP is almost 9 years old, is 7 and SimCity 4 compatible without many glitches?quote>

XP

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

You need to be more specific. What freeware did you have in mond? If it is something like OpenOffice.org you have support. If you are talking about a free version of Linux like SUSE or UBUNTU, support is also provided. I fail to see your point.

Freeware, in general, tends to be smaller and faster than Microshaft's bloated code. So I think you need to be much more specific. Have you had a bad experience with "freeware"?quote>

I have tons of freeware like OpenOffice, Gimp, VLC Media Player, Firefox, Registry Mechanic, sorts of stuff like that. And I am thinking, ever since I started coming across this stuff that caught my eye, then the performance, not necessairly the speed, just started going down. Registry Mechanic calculates performance over the time it takes to boot successfully on starting up, which, to me, doesn't really calculate performance. It is booting faster, slower, faster, slower. One second slower means my performance decreased when I can perhaps tell it has gone up. I think it is overloading the RAM, just like my plugins for my game. You get overloaded with them, the game slows down. Same with freeware.

And the stuff I get, I don't know if this would be considered big or small, but some of it, including Java and OpenOffice, they are very high. OpenOffice I found is 360 MB. Java is 100. But for the most part it tends to stay around 15-20 MB of pieces of software freeware.

I don't ever get stuff from Microsoft though. The only thing is updates. The only thing was .NET Framework, but I trashed that when we put in the new hard disk. I think it is still on the slave drive, (E), but not on C. My computer doesn't barely look at the E drive, which was my old damaged one anymore, so I don't think it makes much of a difference.

I have a lot of software and some of it I have removed cause you can do the same thing with paint or IE or Firefox.

Not to mention there are quite a lot of programs installed that like enhance SC4 gameplay, including Mapper, Region Census, City Counter, Landscape Designer, BAT, Lot Editor, Plugin Manager, and all that hubbababloo.

I guess when I get a bigger processor and more RAM then maybe the effects of all this software may go down temporarily, or just leave the room forever. I am about to get the processor so that is going to be good.

With me I have to replace the mobo before I get the new processor. So here real soon I will have gotten a new computer. I will more than likely just wind up keeping my old shell down there. Save a few bucks. And I don't ever look at it so what difference does it make anyway?

Now I conclude this big long reply!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  Items like Registry Mechanic don't interest me.  The only way to really measure performance is a hardware monitor, which runs on a separate box.  This means knowing enough about the box you are measuring that you can attach probes to it.  With an IC MOBO this can be really tricky.  You get into Heisenberg troubles, especially with the faster machines.

I do run recognized benchmarks occasionally when I think things are not right.  I also have a program that can run the self-test on my disks, and report.  This only works if the disk manufacturer complied with the self-test spec.

[joshriddle 29]

Registry Mechanic, what it does is you can perform a scan, it will look over all the keys of the registry and each and every file/folder stored on your drive and look for errors, then it repairs them. Now how it repairs the keys of the registry I have no idea, I run a scan every day and each day some of the exact same errors come up. These errors can also be things like Add/Remove programs stuff, where an error occurred there. It can also compact the registry, which, to be honest, have no idea what it does.

Windows has a hard disk error check built into it. Those errors will more then likely be, with me at lease, bad sector errors. I can never find any other errors with hard disks but that.

Then of course there is the disk defragmenter, it rewrites data more towards the front of the disk to make programs run faster. You also have the disk cleanup, which rids your machine of temporary files, offline webpages, temporary internet files, recycle bin files, and stuff like that. I went a week without the defragmenter and the machine was as slow as a turtle pulling stuff up, I went in the analyze the disk and all the data was just everywhere. It has a chart that shows where data is stored where. Running a ten minute defragment made my machine quicker to a noticeable degree. Now that I am doing it every day now, on this new hard disk that I am only using 4% of the storage on, half of it being my operating system and the registry keys, it finishes in around a couple minutes. So in my opinion defragmenting it is around the best thing you can do for your hard drive.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Josh, we live in different computing worlds.  My system has no registry, but it does have a list of what is supposed to be on the system and the checksums.  If something breaks you get told.

The disk diagnostics I run are the ones built-in by the manufacturers when they obey the standards.  These effectively run off-line and test the disk very strenuously.  The one for my biggest disk takes over an hour.  Also, these disks keep tables of failures, the reason for failures, the number of skip tracks, and all kinds of other statistics that tell you if your disk is in good shape or whether it is getting marginal and/or dying of old age.

This system is based on the Debian implementation on Linux and uses Debian's distribution system (very trusted), and tools to keep the software current, and running.  When I boot right now I get a choice of seven different kernels on two different versions of the operating system.  This is because I am doing some Operating System testing, and I like fooling around with different things.

Right now, I am trying to get gmax fully functional under version 1.2 of wine.  This is the very latest release, and gmax has some problems.  We are trying to see if we can unlock them, or whether we are missing some component it needs.  wine can load any piece of windows operating software it needs.  It is amazing what you can get from MS support if you know how.

You see, I need gmax because I want to use the BAT.  I was pretty good at that about five years ago, and want to recover that skill set.

So go on with your windows environment.  This one is probably all too programmer-like for the kinds of things you want to do.  I have a penchant for breaking software, and it makes me a good quality assuror.  I've gotten to the point now where I can break SC4 at will.  You just have to know what the bugs are.

[joshriddle 29]

Well, my system somewhat does what I want it to do, only to a certain degree, other than that it runs fine. I am getting this new machine to support multiple things opening at once. Also my computer can't seem to support what I am doing with it. I am just pushing it and pushing it constantly, all the time, leave it on at night.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

When you get the I5 you'll have a quad processor.  My understanding is that it runs like a scalded cat, so life should be a lot better.  I would think about how big to make the swap space.  With lots of memory (RAM) you should be fine, but when paging is needed, try an make it up to 4GB for each processor if the Operating System will support that.  You are going to need lots of RAM space for paging tables.

If you add up your SC4 plugins plus the .exe size you have the base load.  Then you have to add table space for your region (small) and whatever city you are running, which can be very big because there is a table entry for each grid tile you put something in.  That includes trees on undeveloped land. too, plus any animals in your forest (animated).  This is why the game is such a memory hog.  When it runs out of allocated RAM, the operating system will page it.  SC4 knows nothing about this, and if there is anything in the paging system that causes a hiccup, you get a crash to the desktop with the old ACCESS VIOLATION excuse,as the game has been trained to say.

So be prepared for a quantum leap in performance, and have fun.

[joshriddle 29]

ACCESS VIOLATION: Maxis should have just created their Exception Reports to where the game wouldn't lie.

Also must hurry and finish this project up, got the Blue Screen Of Death Today...

It said a file was corrupted.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Someone I was talking to got one of those on windows 7.  That means I'll have to wait for Windows 8 before I could possibly tolerate them again.

BTW, doesn't ACCESS VIOLATION sound like some kind of rape?

[joshriddle 29]

It does. And believe me. ACCESS VIOLATION is a thing where it sounds like we did it. We violated some sort of imaginary access rules or code.I can't still believe Maxis pulled that off with people. It is the lousiest excuse I have ever heard of. I may have to work a bug in there and create a so called ACCESS VIOLATION to see what it looks like.

And even on a so called Win8 I would bet that the crashes and ACCESS VIOLATIONS would still happen. The game is just downright bugged.

Figured out my BSOD predicament. It was where I had my computer monitor turned off, and my screensaver is supposed to come on after 2 minutes of being idle, well, with that monitor turned off, and that computer trying to send that monitor a message, therefore, that message goes nowhere, and the registry doesn't know what to do, therefore sparking a computer crash.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: joshriddle

Figured out my BSOD predicament. It was where I had my computer monitor turned off, and my screensaver is supposed to come on after 2 minutes of being idle, well, with that monitor turned off, and that computer trying to send that monitor a message, therefore, that message goes nowhere, and the registry doesn't know what to do, therefore sparking a computer crash.quote>

This is the kind of arrant stupidity on the part of Microsoft's marching morons that I simply will not tolerate.  The monitor is off, and they can sense that.  Instead, they give you a BSOD which has nowhere to display.  Brilliant!  What a clever piece of programming (?).  This is called the "I give up" syndrome, and is a symptom of utter doltishness on the part of the programmers.  Why not just put a message on the speakers that says "Your monitor is turned off"?  Too many programmers, not enough communication between them, and not enough direction by management.  Quality?  Hah!  User friendly?  Why?

Sometimes, when I am typing a password, the machine reminds me that my caps lock is on.  Thoughtfull, eh?

As for crashes in SimCity; it was built by very good programmers in Wright's group at Maxis who had to deal with machines as they then were.  Poor thing, if it had been written two years later it would have been so much better and safer.  However, them's the breaks.

[joshriddle 29]

Eh. Sometimes some of the programming in Windows is pointless in my opinion as well as yours.

I think the programmers at Maxis for SC4 could have worked some of the bugs out of that game, and thought up a way to try and make file sizes more compact. That whole program not including plugins I think now takes up around 1200 MB on my machine. Trust me it is worth it, but would have been worth more had they tried to think up ways to make them more compact.

I outta start thinking of ways to make them more compact.

One thing that has been bugging me is the constant lockups, which I have no idea why they do that. As a matter of fact, haven't run a Windows Defender virus scan in a long time. That may be why. Gotta go do that now.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: joshriddle

I think the programmers at Maxis for SC4 could have worked some of the bugs out of that game, and thought up a way to try and make file sizes more compact.

quote>

If you had been in the early conversatons you would know that EA had a deadline and wouldn't give them any more testing and debugging time.  The game was forced out on the market before it was ready.  Note that there are two EA supported fixes.

[joshriddle 29]

Found about that stupid infinate loop junk the NVIDIA drivers got stuck in. To me that reminds me of it will keep trying and trying to send that singal until the computer gets sick and tired of it and crashes...

I mean look at this report from the Windows Event Viewer Logs:

Event Type:    Error

Event Source:    nv

Event Category:    None

Event ID:    108

Date:        7/21/2010

Time:        3:26:01 PM

User:        N/A

Computer:    JOSH

Description:

The driver nv4_disp for the display device \Device\Video1 got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your hardware device vendor for any driver updates.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Data:

0000: 00 00 00 00 03 00 46 00   ......F.

0008: 00 00 00 00 6c 00 04 c0   ....l..À

0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

And then what seemed like about 4 or 5 minutes later:, was they system error log, which was recorded at the time of the BSOD...

Event Type:    Error

Event Source:    System Error

Event Category:    (102)

Event ID:    1003

Date:        7/21/2010

Time:        4:00:16 PM

User:        N/A

Computer:    JOSH

Description:

Error code 100000ea, parameter1 84fa1020, parameter2 85e48008, parameter3 f7afecb4, parameter4 00000001.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Data:

0000: 53 79 73 74 65 6d 20 45   System E

0008: 72 72 6f 72 20 20 45 72   rror  Er

0010: 72 6f 72 20 63 6f 64 65   ror code

0018: 20 31 30 30 30 30 30 65    100000e

0020: 61 20 20 50 61 72 61 6d   a  Param

0028: 65 74 65 72 73 20 38 34   eters 84

0030: 66 61 31 30 32 30 2c 20   fa1020,

0038: 38 35 65 34 38 30 30 38   85e48008

0040: 2c 20 66 37 61 66 65 63   , f7afec

0048: 62 34 2c 20 30 30 30 30   b4, 0000

0050: 30 30 30 31               0001  

Microsoft Windows programmed this machine so it will be dumb enough to instead of giving up, keeps on trying to get that stupid monitor to read that signal.

It said it shut itself down to protect itself, well, I don't think it was doing to good of a job protecting itself in the first place, nor the NVIDIA Drivers, or the graphics card hardware that is attached to my machine. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Check the NVIDIA web site.  Look for updated drivers for the Operating Stupidvisor, and for any Firmware updates for your card or chip.  Most things like GPU's can be updated with new firmware when trouble is found or new features can be added.

My NVIDIA chip is so old that I am using version 96 of the driver.  I seriously doubt they will be updating this old mare anytime, but yours is fairly new.

[joshriddle 29]

Foo! FF redirected me to my homepage before I could finish typing, stupid FF half the time!

I do have the latest drivers, and a rather powerful chipset, (NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS), so I am ok there. It is also completed with updates.

But to be honest I don't know what it was.

But I am about ready to consider getting my processor off of NewEgg.com. They have all sorts of computer parts. Cases, hard drives, hardware, motherboards, graphic chipsets, etc... I like the site. Except we always end up going to BestBuy to get my stuff. I can't wait for too long. But this time we will have to order the old quad intel off of Newegg. More than likely BestBuy won't carry it.

IE was giving me a pain in the neck. It would start being sluggish and then would hang, and then cause a fault bucket error. At first I was thinking the RAM sticks weren't seated properly, but after getting Firefox I found out, that Win IE is just a lousy piece of junk.\

Something is up with FF as well. The downloads are extremely slow all the sudden. And it begins to look like this when the page reloads.

Fault Bucket: When programs don't utilize RAM properly, and or RAM is improperly seated.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Your desktop is too busy.  Try putting a few of those apps in folders and using the folders as menus.  XP would do that, and I hate cluttered desktops.  You also have too much stuff in your FF Bookmarks Tool Bar.  All this has to be processed on every screen refresh.

Here is my desk with FF open:

I used a thumbnail so you could look at it in full screen on another tab.  You'll notice I don't have much lying about.  The drawer icon next to the double arrow contains icons to call out things I don't use much.  I don't keep everything in this panel.

[joshriddle 29]

It only does it occasionally to be honest. Oh and another freeware software. This time by it is a simple install wizard creator. It seems to be doing pretty good actually.

My uncle sent me and my dad this article below. I am going to read it. They do articles on cases, motherboards, etc...

I was talking to my dad about how my uncle said something about splitting a quad core intel's cores. Either came from his brain or this article.

http://www.computerpoweruser.com/

Just click on Digital Editions and read the articles. They had one on cooling and one on unlocking dormant cores on MSI motherboards.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

IMHO, this is a list of the best freeware:

OpenOffice is a drop-in replacement for Microsoft Office

the GIMP is a drop-in replacement for Adobe Photoshop including animation.  It has conversions for brush files, etc.

Firefox is the clear replacement of choice for Microsoft Internet Explorer (Exploder?).  Easy to customize completely.

Thunderbird replaces Microsoft Outlook Express and even Outlook.

All of these are free and supported.  What did you pay for your last Microsoft Licenses?

And no matter how you look at it, JAVA is a much better web programming language than Visual Basic.NET.  All browsers can run JAVA, but very few can handle the object files from VB.NET.  aspx?  You gotta be kidding.

[joshriddle 29]

I hated some of the Microsoft trash that is allready on your OS. Most of it is the biggest excuse for "user-friendly" I have ever seen. That includes programs of such,

Internet Exploder! (explorer)

Outlook Express (ESPECIALLY Outlook Express)

Microsoft tries to pass that nonsense off as user-friendly? Those two programs are the lousiest pieces of garbage I have ever seen. I am so surprised I waited as long as I did to get FF.

I haven't a single clue honestly.

Oh, and recently I go rummaging around in the system's folder (3 GB folder titled WINDOWS). Go in there to system32 and I see hundreds of DLLs, and then sometimes programs, such as mui, that haven't even been installed yet. Just a bunch of installers sitting in there. Another one in system32 was the file called "write" I at first thought another text program, but then since it was in system32, that was the typing database thing, of sorts. That allows you to type. But oh yes, saw all the games that were built in, and all that stuff in WINDOWS folder. As well as tons of notepad documents some of 40 KB big, raddling off a bunch of codes and stuff. Since they didn't have the little picture of the cog on it I figured out that they weren't config. settings files. Also found a bunch of bitmaps and some twain.32bit thunking server, one was 16, one was 32. I was afraid to open any of that stuff really.

I don't normally go rummaging around in the folders that keep the machine working properly. At first it said, it was hidden. So I had to unblock it and I found a world full of scripts, DLLs, programs installers I don't even know of, dl program files. I was just bored that day.

Oh and Microsoft programmed this box to do a "really good job" of hiding all that stuff. Look at this...

BTW, it says there are some 300 something things in there plus 52hidden, wonder what those are. You can unhide them you know. Honestly I don't see the point in hiding a folder if you can just open it up. Kind of like the warning you get when you try to open DATs and DLLs...