Crash to Desktop? Look here first.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I don't mean civil garbage, but computer program garbage like left over queue entries and such that should be cleaned up by the programming but often is not.  When you request a save, it seems that the garbage collector in the program is activated before the save so that the save files are as small as possible.

 

You see, the program uses temporary space within the read/write memory, and things can get a little cluttered.  Often when there is a pool of temporary space like this, if the program does a request for allocation out of it and there is none available it will crash.  Generally speaking a Pentium of the 2000's is too slow for this to happen, but today's processors are very much faster and the mechanisms seem to get overrun.

 

Memory management in the 2000's time frame was not nearly as sophisticated as it is now, and virtual memory was not so heavily used.  I have yet to see SC4 use any of my 20 GB of swap space and I have run my system monitor frequently when running SC4.  Can't run the debugger/profiler because the game detects it and quits as part of its security programming.

 

A program like SC4, a stochastic simulation, is very much like a miniature operating system.  I've worked with operating software my whole career, and understand more than somewhat what is necessary.  Programming a microcomputer is no different from programming the main frames I have used in the past, and the rules for the guts of a program for a Von Neuman machine haven't changed.  Just the window dressing.  Strangely enough, this old box of tricks I am using today is more powerful than a lot of main frames I used in the past, and it is about seven years old, and therefore two or three generations out of date with respect to capability.  It will probably be my last machine.  It sure is better than my original TRS-80.

[Hotwheeler 409]

Ahh okay,almost thought it has nothing to do with the civil garbage.It seems that i`m a little closer to what does this crashing issue.I used the CFF Tool to enable SC4 to use more RAM than just 2 GB.While playing the RAM usage was up to 3,5 GB (including Firefox running in the background with a few Tabs open...) and what kinda concerns me is that the one Core i assigned SC4 to was used lmost 100 Percent because the overall usage said 25 percent,and i have a Quadcore.

Also after i enabled the game to use more RAM i started it again.The weird lines are still there and i played the game for a few minutes and after a quicksave "Mother Nature" called and forced me to leave the computer alone for a while.

I already thought "Eh! What gives,until i arrive again at my desk the game must have already crashed.So you can guess i was pretty surprised that the game was running on normal ingame speed without any hiccups.Some lots grew and the all time favorite "we need an airport blabla" appeared.

I was still suspicious and so i thought "i bet when i move the mouse or do something else the game will immediatly shut down.But nothing happened.I played for half an hour without any trouble.I saved several times and the game still runs like it always has.

So maybe the problem was fixed or it fixed itself...i`m still careful with what i`m saying,i don`t want to play careless for two hours,developing half a city tile and then a sudden crash destroys everything.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Truth to tell, it is often the loose nut holding the keyboard.  There are several pitfalls for the unwary, especially if you are using "puzzle pieces".

[Nevermore2797 112]

I don't know about this, but when my population is near to 1000000, and when I save the game, it CTD without any messages. I still have no possible fix for this $%&^!. Therefore. it causes that Phantom Slider bug and can crash the game as I progress that I can't finish my city.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you have the Phantom Slider bug, you have a faulty plugin which can be found.  First you must have the Opera House Fix which is a primary cure for this problem.

 

If you have added content with a slider that is out of band with the service controlled, it either has to be fixed with the reader or abandoned.

[Nevermore2797 112]

If you have the Phantom Slider bug, you have a faulty plugin which can be found.  First you must have the Opera House Fix which is a primary cure for this problem.

 

If you have added content with a slider that is out of band with the service controlled, it either has to be fixed with the reader or abandoned.

I don't understand.... I think I already have this Opera House fix.

 

Still no solution ----- don't ever use that CPUCount thingy.. I think it won't help. :|

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you don't know what you have in your plugins, you need to take the time to organize them so that you can more easily do maintenance.  Only you can find this kind of problem because everyone has a different set of plugins.  Plugin maintenance is very important as is testing of new plugins before using them in your main cities.  You should have a sandbox region where you can test things.

 

Bear in mind that if you decide to delete a plugin, you must first bulldoze all instances of it in your cities before you do that.  Otherwise you may wind up with an inaccessible city.

 

I have developed a method of maintenance that probably echoes my early systems experience.

 

1.  I organize my downloads for SC4 by author or group author.  And I keep them.

 

2.  My Plugin folder reflects the downloads folder as far as possible.  This is not always possible, but close.

 

Sample:

Downloads:

 

Downloads/SC4RelatedDownloads
├── AaronGraham
├── airman15
├── Andisart
├── Andreas Roth
├── A Nonny Moose
├── benno2005
├── boisemetro
├── Bombardiere
├── Brenda_xne
 

Plugins:

 

SimCity 4/Plugins
├── Aaron Graham
├── Airman15
├── Andisart
├── Andreas Roth
├── A Nonny Moose
├── benno2005
├── Boisemetro
├── Bombardiere
├── Brenda_xne

[Angry_Bubble 52]

Guys, I have a few cities that I zoning, pass a street or building anything else the game closes. This happens in specific regions of each city, and once I had a city that was beginning, I very angry and decided to reset and make the ground all over again. But now I have a very big city and did not want to start from scratch again = (anyone have idea what it is?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Insufficient information.  Please tell us:

 

1.  What machine you are running

2.  What operating system

3.  What build of the game you have

 

There are so many combinations of the items above that we can't even guess where your problem might lie.  It could be a simple as a missing patch.

[Angry_Bubble 52]

1.  What machine you are running

Phenom II x4 b60 (x2 unlocked), 4gb ram, gtx 650 ti

 

2.  What operating system

 

Windows 8.1 (this also happened in Win 7) x64

 

3.  What build of the game you have

 

Deluxe update to SKU2_TO_P1_B638

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

OK.  Thanks.

 

Now, as a check, take a look at the header of the last crash dump (it's in the Exception Reports folder) with Notepad and make sure your update really did work and you have been updated to 638.  There is a line in the dump that notes your program version.  Sorry, I can't show you this, but I currently don't have any dumps saved.

 

Did you delete any plugins before this started happening?

 

Can you open the game with a sandbox region with nothing in the Plugins folder?  The quick way to do this is to rename your existing Plugins folder to Plugins.old and start the game, creating a new region called sandbox.  The game will create an empty Plugin folder.  If this works the chances are you have a plugin conflict.

 

Please report results.

 

{Just a note: My personal preference for memory is 2GB per core.  You have four cores, so ...}

[Angry_Bubble 52]

Already advance that I went to check if it was a conflict of plugins, and it was not. So, my problem's with either city ONLY, else works normal. Before I lost my temper, I zeroed the ground and did another. But now to with a good city, did not want to delete it =(

Look this picture:

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Thanks. 

 

You have all the patches and are running either from the play disk or a virtual copy of it on NT6.2 (Windows 8 ). 

 

The crash dump shows the usual "I give up" typical of programming in that era.  Effectively, it dereferences a zero pointer which is illegal.  The cause could be almost anything including an off-by-one queueing error.  This program has several unresolved problems that would be handled today by a responsible programmer using the C++ try ... catch structure which didn't exist then, I believe.  You could say that the developers, being pushed to get the product out the door, did as best as they could.  The program needs some asbestos abatement.

 

Unfortunately, we don't have access to the debug tables, the load map, nor the source so we can only make educated guesses at what happened.  Best we can give you is an avoidance technique.  The game running on a modern  machine which is many times faster than the original Pentium 5 which was the original target generates a lot of programming garbage which is not collected often enough.  Experience has shown that an internal save (CTRL+s) forces a garbage collect and resets the program so that the inevitable crash is put off for 10 to 15 minutes.  Frequent saves can avoid this for as long as you care to play.

 

About saves:  The game cannot tolerate loss of focus during any save.  The result could be as little as the loss of the region snapshot of the city presenting what appears to be a blank city, or a data corruption of the city that is unrecoverable.  Therefore, do not ever move away (ALT+TAB for example) from the game before completion of the save.  This little foible is yet another programming error, but we are stuck with it. 

 

The usual result of a corrupted city is a hole in the region, but could simply be a crash on attempt to open.  As I said, this is unrecoverable.  The only solution is to render the map under another name then replace the bad city tile.  Everything in the old city will be lost but you can recover the terraforming.

 

Cheer up, my distraught friend.  Playing legacy games is a challenge that must be changed into an opportunity.  This game is too good to let a few obstacles stop us from enjoying it.

[Angry_Bubble 52]

Wow much useful information! Thank you!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You are welcome.  How about putting a smile on that avatar?

[Angry_Bubble 52]

I am a mobile game, live angry! kkkkkkkk

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Every minute you indulge yourself in anger is 60 seconds of happiness you've missed.

[Angry_Bubble 52]

[poshbakerloo 186]

I fixed my endless CTD about a year ago. I ran Dat Packer, and messed things up at first, but once I sorted it the game ran great and hadn't crashed since!

But now the endless CTDs are back

It all started with that awful update Microsoft brought out which makes the name unable to load. I have fixed that but in the process CTDs have suddenly restarted and I really can't think why! It only seemed to happen if i built in 1 corner of a specific map, and in other ones it would just randomly happen

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I think we need to review your situation since we can't be present with your machine.  So, if you please:

• Operating system and version.  Does in include all current updates except the run from CD killer?
• Game build version
• Processor
• Amount of RAM (32 or 64-bit decor?)
• GPU details
• DirectX version

Those are the main determining factors.  And have you added any new plugins lately?  If so, what happens if you move them to a different folder outside the game then run the program?

If you open a sandbox region (new) and city (new) does this still happen?

BTW, how big is your plugin load?

[poshbakerloo 186]

I think we need to review your situation since we can't be present with your machine.  So, if you please:

• Operating system and version.  Does in include all current updates except the run from CD killer?
• Game build version
• Processor
• Amount of RAM (32 or 64-bit decor?)
• GPU details
• DirectX version

Those are the main determining factors.  And have you added any new plugins lately?  If so, what happens if you move them to a different folder outside the game then run the program?

If you open a sandbox region (new) and city (new) does this still happen?

BTW, how big is your plugin load?

- Windows 7 pro 64bit. yes all updates just not the CD Killer!

- Erm not totally sure. Its SC4 Deluxe Edition so I'm guessing the most updated.

- AMD Turion TL 64 x2 2.2Ghz

- 4Gb (I have 64bit windows if thats what you mean?)

- GeForce 8400M GS

- DirextX 11

 

The only thing I did was reinstall the game, before I know it was windows update that messed it up. I ran the Dat Packer also which I think has caused the problem.

Plugins about 3.4Gb.

 

I haven't tried it on a new blank map although if its anything like before it will happen on any map.

[poshbakerloo 186]

^^^^ Also as an extra but of info...

 

I loaded a new region, loads a new city tile that was blank and tried to place trees...

I have that mod which makes the brush huge, a few trees placed fine but then after a while it suddenly CTD

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Sounds like plugin conflict.  Try removing your fancy terrain mod, and run in a sandbox to see.  Just move the mod to a folder on your desktop to hold on to it.

When you run Datpacker, remember to do it only on selected groups of plugins.  An all-in-together makes maintenance impossible.  You should not Datpack anything that may change frequently such as the NAM (two folders).  Also, anything that requires controlled loading order should be held out or named in such a way that the proper loading order is maintained.

Wouldn't hurt to run Rivit's SC4Datanode program.

[poshbakerloo 186]

Sounds like plugin conflict.  Try removing your fancy terrain mod, and run in a sandbox to see.  Just move the mod to a folder on your desktop to hold on to it.

When you run Datpacker, remember to do it only on selected groups of plugins.  An all-in-together makes maintenance impossible.  You should not Datpack anything that may change frequently such as the NAM (two folders).  Also, anything that requires controlled loading order should be held out or named in such a way that the proper loading order is maintained.

Wouldn't hurt to run Rivit's SC4Datanode program.

Right its not plugins at all. I just removed the plug in folder...loaded the a city, zoned a bit and it crashed!

[rsc204 21,836]

Have you added the target switch to make sure the game is only running on one core of your CPU? This is the #1 cause of SC4 CTDs.

Simply right click on the SC4 icon, usually on the desktop and select "Properties". This should open with the "Shortcut" tab. Find the box labelled "Target" and add the following to the end of the line "-CPUCount:1".

[poshbakerloo 186]

Have you added the target switch to make sure the game is only running on one core of your CPU? This is the #1 cause of SC4 CTDs.

Simply right click on the SC4 icon, usually on the desktop and select "Properties". This should open with the "Shortcut" tab. Find the box labelled "Target" and add the following to the end of the line "-CPUCount:1".

Yeah I have that. I use SC4 Launcher which sets that. 

I have however, installed the SC4 Deluxe update which I had before when it didn't crash but I had reinstalled the game recently but forgotten about that update.

Lets see if its fixed it!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There are two published updates.  While you are at it, put them both in.  If you don't have the second one to to the EA Support pages at SC4Devotion.

@rsc204: Please always remember when quoting options to include the leading space.  Most users these days don't understand POSIX.

[poshbakerloo 186]

There are two published updates.  While you are at it, put them both in.  If you don't have the second one to to the EA Support pages at SC4Devotion.

I've got the "Update 1 / 1.1.638.0." from there but I couldn't see any other update for SC4 Deluxe

[rsc204 21,836]

It's in the Building Architect Tool section, without it you won't be able to see nightlighting on custom models, to my knowledge though there are no other fixes in the update.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It's in the Building Architect Tool section, without it you won't be able to see nightlighting on custom models, to my knowledge though there are no other fixes in the update.

AFAIK this is true.  There are special textures for BATters to use for night lighting and this patch is what causes them to be lit when the nighttime mode is present.  Some BATters are unaware of this, so all custom content may not light at night even with this patch.  I recommend it.