Synekism - A New City Simulation Game

[knighthawk75 56]

Checked out the February build with a 1.5m city nice, performance is great on my gaming rig. posted in google groups with other comments.

So far I really like where this is headed, insane amount of work still ahead for you guys but I like the progress, hopefully it can be sustained

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I built a linear city (1-3 blocks wide and reached along most of the prebuilt road). It is pretty fun and I find it funny that the smallest lots become skyscrapers (pencil towers) under the right conditions (instead of being the size of the rest of the buildings).

I started being silly so I made a block of commercial near the industrial district that was small on one side and absolutely tiny (the smallest size allowed) on the other side and I managed to crash Synekism.

[Yelmond 19]

So did Windows ever find a solution? I'd love to hear it.

Ya...the small buildings being large is of no coincidence. It's because they are give the same "consideration" in terms of demand as larger lots but because their area is so tiny the same amount of people per lot end up needed a lot of floors. This logic will mature over time of course so enjoy it while it lasts.

And of course, if you can reproduce that crash don't hesitate to let us know how so we can fix it. You did save right?

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I was just playing around and getting the hang of the program but no, windows did not find a solution to the problem. It was probably caused the the tiny lot starting development.

[Wiecher 192]

 Yes, I had the same crash Ilikeseattle had. It's caused by zoning a too small lot, I think.

I've tried to make a city too.

[Yelmond 19]

Lol, turns out the crash you guys experienced is actually a division by zero and is completely related to tiny lots. Expect a new download to fix this by the end of the weekend. In the mean time, try not to build the very smallest lot possible (only that one causes this issue). Well, you can built it but don't tell the simulator about it...

And that's an awesome looking city btw!

[Synekism 19]

We're no longer trying to divide by zero; just released a patched version with this and another minor fix. Once again, you only need to re-download if you like building extremely tiny lots.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Maybe you could institute density in the near future so that we can get small lots with short buildings? I would recommend either 2, 3, or 4 densities (light/dense, low/med/high, or low/med/high/unlimited).

Low density would have a small cube in the middle of the lot (to stand in for a house), medium density would have short polyhedrons (like what most buildings are like in the game), high density would have tall polyhedrons as the maximum (like the taller buildings currently in the game), and unlimited would have really tall polyhedrons (like the tallest 3 buildings in the above screen shot). This is just a suggestion. If we had unlimited density zones, then (without the fix you just made), it could be possible to have divide by zero errors (unless you implement floats) for any size lot.

[Yelmond 19]

Density classifications is the next thing we're working on actually which is why we didn't try too hard to fix these issues. We'll have the 3 densities as you described which will dictate building height as expected. The highest density class will serve as the unlimited one but giant 1km buildings will become rarer and rarer as we mature the simulator (as it should be). So all these issues are temporary.

[Sniper296 83]

Found a slight issue with the current installer on Vista When the installer tries to run GPU-Z it returns the error "Could not install the driver: Access is denied." It appears that NSIS fails to run GPU-Z as admin even when the installer is run as admin, for now I was able to work around this by running an administrative CMD window and running this when the Access denied window appears:

CD C:\Program Files\Synekism\

GPU-Z.0.5.1.exe /S -dump gpuz.xml

Once done click OK on the Access denied window.

[Yelmond 19]

Ya, we'll see if we can fix this by next release. If not, we'll simply proceed with the install if GPU-Z fails to run and install the DX9 version by default.

[Sniper296 83]

You could use this to detect DX version:

Function .onInit

ReadRegStr $0 HKLM "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectX" "Version"

StrCpy $1 $0 4 3

FunctionEnd

So $1 would contain the DX version.

[Yelmond 19]

I believe that location in the registry only shows DirectX versions for pre-DirectX10. I've looked at it for DX9 capable computers, as well as DX10 and DX11 and they all show the same version in there. I believe DX10 and above use another key which I can't find at the moment. In any case, these only indicate installed versions of DX and not what the hardware actually supports. We still have no idea how to check for Shader Model support ourselves.

But thank you.

[knighthawk75 56]

44 million and climbing ~ 1/4th the space used.

http://img233.imageshack.us/i/synekismalphabuild2140a.jpg/

Looking forward to the next build.

[warrior 169]

Wow I'd love to live a city with that many skyscrapers, and organized like that. Obviously not 4 colours of buildings

[knighthawk75 56]

Yeah, right now I've mandated that only the blind and color blind may move into the city.

[Chptrk 86]

I've been playing Synekism since the January update of it, and I must say, it's been really great!

One thing though, with this latest update, I've finally been able to save my game. (Couldn't before) However, it only lets me save on the same city slot once. The first time I save a game is the last time it will let me save a city. I can click the save buttons (they both do the same thing) but the next time I load the game, it will just be my city at the first save.

[knighthawk75 56]

chptrk -   I've not run across that problem having saved many times.  What platform are you on?   Does Ctrl-S work to save it without using the menu?

[Chptrk 86]

I'm on Windows 7 Home Premium. Ctrl-S , just like the menu buttons, will tell me the game was saved, however it doesn't actually save the city for me.

Trying to start a new city (on a new file slot), it seems the game wont save at all for me.

[knighthawk75 56]

Probably doesn't matter but x32 or x64?

Sounds like the save routine is returning ok when in fact an error of some kind happened in the write or pre-write process. Does the file\modified timestamp change on the city1.syci file?

You got me curious, I'll take a couple stabs at trying to reproduce it.

Probably tried this but figured I'll ask anyway, have you tried removing 40\40a and then a clean re-install of 40a?

[Yelmond 19]

Not that I'm happy our game fails at times but seeing people discuss our game in this detail is invigorating. Anyway, our save/load code will do absolutely nothing if there is a file access error. Since a single save/load works there's no problem with saving and loading in general which is why I think its a file access error. My first guess would be that files (our save files) are created with read-only permissions, so the creation works fine but when it tries to update the file it fails. Please check the file properties (right-click on file and select properties), in Program Files/Synekism/Saves. If they are read-only, turn that setting off and try again. If this works...well, I'm not sure why the files are created that way at the moment.

Now, if that's not the issue then we would need more information and I think for that it would be more appropriate to start an email conversation instead of posting here. So if you're still having problems please email us at support@synekism.com.

In any case, we'll add some better messages on save/load so that if theres problems it won't just pretend everything is fine.

Also sorry for the late reply. Is there a way to get email notifications on post updates without having to log in every time after someone posts?

[knighthawk75 56]

Read only would certainly explain it.   doh!

btw saw this and thought I'd pass it along though can't say if it tests the card, but it supposedly does query the card.

http://nsis.sourceforge.net/PixelShaderCheck

Also related. 

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2008/06/05/8576818.aspx

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/582616-checking-version-of-directx-supported-by-graphics-card/

[Yelmond 19]

Thank you. I'll look into those links.

[Cob92 360]

Synekism looks like it has a lot of potential ahead of it. It looks like it's already going to combine what we like about Cities XL (freeform building) with the best of SC4 (living cities) with freeform zoning so that you can actually use all those diagonal areas. Also love how big the map area is; I hate how a lot of existing city builders limit you with tiny plots of land that get filled in no time.

[Synekism 19]

March 2011 update implements a new Camera system and expands the Lot Tool, along with some house cleaning.

[knighthawk75 56]

March 2011 update implements a new Camera system and expands the Lot Tool, along with some house cleaning.

Sweet, thanks for another monthly snapshot, looking forward to trying out the changes.

[Aktof 2]

Please let us know how intuitive you find the new "click and drag" camera system, overview, and rotate functions.

Aktof

  Edited March 3, 2011 by Aktof  

[Cob92 360]

The LotTool is awesome; having to build my city 1 block at a time was annoying, and this is so much faster. As for the view controls, the changes are nice, but I don't like that arrow scrolling was removed. Sometimes, like when I'm placing zones and roads, I don't want to have to left-click and drag to move my view.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I will play your simulator this weekend, I am too busy today.

[Yelmond 19]

The LotTool is awesome; having to build my city 1 block at a time was annoying, and this is so much faster. As for the view controls, the changes are nice, but I don't like that arrow scrolling was removed. Sometimes, like when I'm placing zones and roads, I don't want to have to left-click and drag to move my view.

We never used the arrows for movement. Do you mean ASDW? These should still work in the new version, the same way as previously.