Does anyone know exactly..

[DocRorlach 25]

When you load a city tile, empty or stuffed, SC4 takes its own sweet time depending on the size & quantity of your plugins folder, and displays some arcane tag line atop the screen.

My question is two-fold:

What is the exact order in which plug-ins are loaded (assuming Maxis\Plugins contains nothing but the background images)?

The messages change, and I am presuming SC4 does different loading functions after the tag line changes: so does anyone know exactly what it does behind each line?

Thanks in advance..

[catty-cb 4,381]

As far as I know the messages are random, but the load order for your plugins can be found here

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=10542.0

the topic is called SC4 Folder and File Loading Order

[DocRorlach 25]

Thanks, Cathy, but in order to see that one needs to log in at SC4D. And I am personae non grata at that site (its a long story).

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

After the program files plugins (they are first), then its alphabetic.  That is why a lot of them have Z_ or ZZ_ etc. as a tag at the beginning of the name.  It will find the extracheats.dll and load it before any plugins.

[DocRorlach 25]

Thanks, Master Moose, but I need to know more: When the city tile is loaded and fails (CTD) it is invariably during the display of the first tag line - the one staying on-screen the longest. SC4 does several operations after that tag line disappears and other lines appear. The content of the tag lines is whimsical and of no importance. But the operations going on while they are shown are: and I need to find out preceisely what SC does during their display.

[z1 566]

To elaborate on what A Nonny Moose said, after the main data files (SimCIty_1.dat, etc.) are loaded, then the files in your system Plugins folder are loaded (the one where you installed SC4), and finally the files in your personal Plugins folder. Within each Plugins folder, first the files directly in the folder are loaded in alphabetical order, then the files in each subfolder and its subfolders are loaded, again in alphabetical order.

I would recommend removing any suspicious plugins and try loading; if that doesn't work, remove half your plugins at a time, and when you find the half that doesn't work, remove half of those, etc., until you find the guilty plugin.

[tungston 19]

I think by the time you start to load a city the plugins have already been loaded into memory, and the city file is then being loaded into memory.  So if it is crashing then, it must be something in the city's file that is causing the error.

[z1 566]

Originally posted by: tungston

I think by the time you start to load a city the plugins have already been loaded into memory, and the city file is then being loaded into memory.quote>

This is correct.  However, one of the things that happens when the city file is loaded is that its contents are matched up with the plugins.  A bad plugin can cause a crash here.  But by the time this happens, the plugin loading order is irrelevant.

[DocRorlach 25]

SInce it happens on empty tiles of a brand new region, there is nothing in the city that could cause the crash. Not even a tree.

And it is not the plugins load order I am after (we know that one to be super-alphabetic), but what else happens and in which order.

[DocRorlach 25]

SInce it happens on empty tiles of a brand new region, there is nothing in the city that could cause the crash. Not even a tree.

And it is not the plugins load order I am after (we know that one to be super-alphabetic), but what else happens and in which order.

[SC4BOY 20]

Improperly installed or removed terrain mods will cause that behavior

[SC4BOY 20]

Improperly installed or removed terrain mods will cause that behavior

[DocRorlach 25]

This could well be. So the solution would be to remove all terrain mods, load a new map, and start from scratch? Would it be necessary to remove regions which used the now deleted terrain mods, too?

What is odd to me is that with the same plugins folder, with no new installations, SC4 ran fine under Vista 32bit, albeit using the ImageCfg solution I recommended.

Now, under Windows 7, 64bit, all manner of problems appear, even when setting compatibility to XP SP2 or SP3.

I also wonder if a custom resolution could be at fault: mine is set to 1920 x 1080, on machine with 8GB RAM, 1024 VRAM (nVidia GTX 260) and Intel i5 CPU)

[DocRorlach 25]

This could well be. So the solution would be to remove all terrain mods, load a new map, and start from scratch? Would it be necessary to remove regions which used the now deleted terrain mods, too?

What is odd to me is that with the same plugins folder, with no new installations, SC4 ran fine under Vista 32bit, albeit using the ImageCfg solution I recommended.

Now, under Windows 7, 64bit, all manner of problems appear, even when setting compatibility to XP SP2 or SP3.

I also wonder if a custom resolution could be at fault: mine is set to 1920 x 1080, on machine with 8GB RAM, 1024 VRAM (nVidia GTX 260) and Intel i5 CPU)