CTD: Long Awaited Fix

[ryanspringer2294 0]

 Hi

As everyone knows one of the most annoying problems in SC4 is CTDs. After 7 years, it is quite clear that EA/Maxis is going to do nothing about it, so someone else should.

I originally had SC4 with the rush hour ep, and that kept ctding so then i bought SC4 Deluxe

CTDs still happened

Now before anyone says it is a problem with the os

i am running this on 2 different pcs. 

I don't know the exact specs but this is what i do know,

Operating System: Windows XP with SP3

Any help would be greatly appreciated

We all know how good it would be to be able to play without it freezing and bringing us back to our desktop.

Please reply ASAP

Thanks for helping

[halicem 16]

Personally, the -CPUCount:X worked like a charm for me. This was on a win7, core i7 940, 6gb ram and gtx260. I used -CPUCount:8 if anyone's interested. Prior to that, I thought it was a plugin- I just installed 500mb worth of plugins when it it started happening. Most common was when I tried to scroll right after zooming(especially when laying networks). After that, didn't have a CTD again.

[4Finger 7]

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=24&threadid=119087&enterthread=y

You may want to check this one out

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

You won't get a good solution to CTDs for several reasons but the main one is the market churning attitude of the operating system suppliers.  Every version of every operating system running today is obsolete the moment you get it.  People are already working on "advanced" stuff to match up with new hardware and support new apps of ever greater resource demand.

Bloat ware is the order of the day, so you know that in a couple of years or less your fancy new quad processor will be obsolete as mechanical calculators.  The 64-bit PC, newly arrived on the scene, will soon be replaced by the 128-bit machines.  Heavens, the Power-PC's that ran AIX ten years ago were 128-bit, so even this is nothing new.  As bandwidth and bus frequencies increase, there will eventually be a physical limit determined by available materials, but don't count on that anytime soon.  The next big item will be non-rotating storage, which is available now.  Expect really big, cheap boxes of fast non--volatile memory soon.  When your non-executable storage is a set of chips on your mother board, the day of rotating storage will end.  CD's and DVD's will go the way of the floppy, and be replaced by devices holding memory chips.  That too, is available now.  It only takes an industry shift to stop producing this junk, and get on with something new.

Then there is the possibility of abandoning the bus architecture altogether.  Many machines I have used were not bus dependent but radially connected to the memory by multiple buses, and the actual control of the computer was in the memory controller.  This is a very successful architecture, but when the first PC's were made, was very expensive.  Advances in circuitry should have made this possible by now, so don't bet on what you know about bus architecture to be the last word.

SC4 is a Windows '95/98 legacy program, and one day, you simply won't be able to run it on new hardware, and that's when you will get no more CTD's.

[chocolate_city 93]

dAMN... aNONNYMOUS... Tha's called telling it LIKE it is... Ouch... I felt that all the way over here in San Diego...

[Loney 22]

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

You won't get a good solution to CTDs for several reasons but the main one is the market churning attitude of the operating system suppliers.  Every version of every operating system running today is obsolete the moment you get it.  People are already working on "advanced" stuff to match up with new hardware and support new apps of ever greater resource demand.

Bloat ware is the order of the day, so you know that in a couple of years or less your fancy new quad processor will be obsolete as mechanical calculators.  The 64-bit PC, newly arrived on the scene, will soon be replaced by the 128-bit machines.  Heavens, the Power-PC's that ran AIX ten years ago were 128-bit, so even this is nothing new.  As bandwidth and bus frequencies increase, there will eventually be a physical limit determined by available materials, but don't count on that anytime soon.  The next big item will be non-rotating storage, which is available now.  Expect really big, cheap boxes of fast non--volatile memory soon.  When your non-executable storage is a set of chips on your mother board, the day of rotating storage will end.  CD's and DVD's will go the way of the floppy, and be replaced by devices holding memory chips.  That too, is available now.  It only takes an industry shift to stop producing this junk, and get on with something new.

Then there is the possibility of abandoning the bus architecture altogether.  Many machines I have used were not bus dependent but radially connected to the memory by multiple buses, and the actual control of the computer was in the memory controller.  This is a very successful architecture, but when the first PC's were made, was very expensive.  Advances in circuitry should have made this possible by now, so don't bet on what you know about bus architecture to be the last word.

SC4 is a Windows '95/98 legacy program, and one day, you simply won't be able to run it on new hardware, and that's when you will get no more CTD's.

quote>

Would it be possible to program an emulator for SC4?

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Originally posted by: Loney

Would it be possible to program an emulator for SC4?quote>

When the time comes, you may have to find an emulator for XP.  Emulators are, generally, slow as they usually have to interpret the machine instructions of the program byte by byte.  I think the best thing would be to ask EA to please recompile the program for newer hardware.  It is a C++ program, and I don't expect C++ compilers to be unavailable.  At that point, it would be in EA's interest, if they were still in business, to do this with all their legacy programs.

[Follarch 327]

I'm sure EA games is very capable of revamping SC4 and reselling it to the vast masses that still play the game today. If they managed to make it look better, add more stuff to it such as better transit networks, and made it run seamlessly on the latest OS's, then many of use would buy it again. lol We really would do anything to get rid of the crashes and freezing.

However about the crashing now, I run SC4 on a Toshiba Satellite laptop with an Athlon Core 2 Dua processor and 3 gigs of Ram. All i have to do is switch the affinity over to just one processor, and then play the game without being erratic with the camera (panning, zooming) and it never crashes. However plopping something next to a transit network still causes it to crash. I think it was a Ped mall next to a transit network glitch.

[Loney 22]

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

Originally posted by: Loney

Would it be possible to program an emulator for SC4?quote>

When the time comes, you may have to find an emulator for XP.  Emulators are, generally, slow as they usually have to interpret the machine instructions of the program byte by byte.  I think the best thing would be to ask EA to please recompile the program for newer hardware.  It is a C++ program, and I don't expect C++ compilers to be unavailable.  At that point, it would be in EA's interest, if they were still in business, to do this with all their legacy programs.

quote>

But I think they would be more interested in using the time and money on new software.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Originally posted by: Loney

But I think they would be more interested in using the time and money on new software.

quote>

Like all outfits, they are income driven.  A new update with some bug fixes would renew interest with little marketing costs and very little programming cost.  The program has been wrung out and most, if not all, the the problems are documented.  So a little encouragement by the customer pool might do it.  You'll notice what a collossal failure they've had with successors.