ctd after saving?

[timmie 988]

Hi all,

I've got this strange problem in sc4: in one particular city, when I choose 'return to region and save' the game crashes after saving. The saving seems successful and the city thumbnail (the picture in region view, I don't know how you call it?) is updated too. It only does that in this one city! (Ordinary saving doesn't seem to cause a ctd.)

I was also experiencing random ctd's: after running the city on triple speed for some time (10-15 minutes, I think) the game just ctd'ed. (When it's paused, there is no ctd.) It's definitely not because I have a quad-core, because the affinity is set to one core and it happens in only one city. I ran the game again and again the ctd occured! Then I ran the game at double speed (not minimizing it - I play windowed), bulldozing developing buildings (I don't know if growing buildings can cause a ctd?) and I didn't have a ctd (but now I have the problem with the saving).

I don't think I downloaded something special, only a building from Jasoncw (his modern walk-ups).

I don't know what extra information I could give?

I hope someone will be able to help me

Thanks in advance!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Hi all,

I've got this strange problem in sc4: in one particular city, when I choose 'return to region and save' the game crashes after saving. The saving seems successful and the city thumbnail (the picture in region view, I don't know how you call it?) is updated too. It only does that in this one city! (Ordinary saving doesn't seem to cause a ctd.)

I was also experiencing random ctd's: after running the city on triple speed for some time (10-15 minutes, I think) the game just ctd'ed. (When it's paused, there is no ctd.) It's definitely not because I have a quad-core, because the affinity is set to one core and it happens in only one city. I ran the game again and again the ctd occured! Then I ran the game at double speed (not minimizing it - I play windowed), bulldozing developing buildings (I don't know if growing buildings can cause a ctd?) and I didn't have a ctd (but now I have the problem with the saving).

I don't think I downloaded something special, only a building from Jasoncw (his modern walk-ups).

I don't know what extra information I could give?

I hope someone will be able to help me

Thanks in advance!

What version of windows are you on? Do you get a ctd when you do an in-game save (CTRL+S)? Suggest running on turtle or rhino and enjoy the game and the animation. What's the rush? Running on high speed may exacerbate the known problem of dereferenced zero pointers.

[timmie 988]

...

What version of windows are you on? Do you get a ctd when you do an in-game save (CTRL+S)? Suggest running on turtle or rhino and enjoy the game and the animation. What's the rush? Running on high speed may exacerbate the known problem of dereferenced zero pointers.

I'm running Windows Vista, but I've never had issues before. It doesn't ctd with a 'normal' saving, neither with ctrl+s.

I sometimes run the game on 'cheetah' speed when I want neighbourhoods to develop. I don't know what your last sentence means, but it sounds problematic

  Edited March 29, 2011 by timmie  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

...

What version of windows are you on? Do you get a ctd when you do an in-game save (CTRL+S)? Suggest running on turtle or rhino and enjoy the game and the animation. What's the rush? Running on high speed may exacerbate the known problem of dereferenced zero pointers.

I'm running Windows Vista, but I've never had issues before. It doesn't ctd with a 'normal' saving, neither with ctrl+s.

I sometimes run the game on 'cheetah' speed when I want neighbourhoods to develop. I don't know what your last sentence means, but it sounds problematic

It is simple. Most ctd's are caused by a queuing error when a pointer for a routine to be used gets set to zero. All computers hate this as it is a memory violation, and down you come. The faster you run, the more likely you are to provoke one of these.

[timmie 988]

...

What version of windows are you on? Do you get a ctd when you do an in-game save (CTRL+S)? Suggest running on turtle or rhino and enjoy the game and the animation. What's the rush? Running on high speed may exacerbate the known problem of dereferenced zero pointers.

I'm running Windows Vista, but I've never had issues before. It doesn't ctd with a 'normal' saving, neither with ctrl+s.

I sometimes run the game on 'cheetah' speed when I want neighbourhoods to develop. I don't know what your last sentence means, but it sounds problematic

It is simple. Most ctd's are caused by a queuing error when a pointer for a routine to be used gets set to zero. All computers hate this as it is a memory violation, and down you come. The faster you run, the more likely you are to provoke one of these.

Okay, I think I can live with that, playing on rhino is not that bad.

So, at the moment, I don't have problems with saving, I just have ctd's after the 'return and save'-option in this one city. Could it be that this leads to other problems, later? Or should I stop worrying and just use the in-game save?

[antsel 841]

Hey Timmie, I've been experiencing the same problems as you have; 1) Spontaneous CTD with simulator at Cheetah speed, and 2) Save to Region, CTD after save.

1a) I think I have found a solution for the CTD while running the game at Cheetah speed. I used to the problem where SC4 would CTD almost regularly while running at Cheetah speed. I followed a tutorial from the Omnibus that was supposed to be a fix for both Windows Vista and Windows 7 (I have Windows 7, but I hear both 7 and Vista have the same problems with this). I haven't been able to find the tutorial I followed, but I will give you the link as soon as I do.

1b) I also noticed that some tiles along the region border are prone to causing a CTD when developed. If I have a certain tile zoned, and it develops, I get a CTD. This may not have anything to do with the problem you are describing, but with this, even plopping a building in the problem tile will case a CTD. By trial-and-error I have been able to identify these problem tiles and simply leave them unzoned and undeveloped. If you notice you're experiencing a CTD with development along the region boundary, it might be related to this.

2) I have the same problem with a few cities in which they CTD after I "save to region". The city is saved and even updates the region view, but for some reason it crashes to desktop. I've noticed though that the same city doesn't always do it, and that cities that never did it before are starting to after some changes/increased development. I hypothesized that it is a plugin that's causing this, but I haven't been able the isolate the problem/

I know I didn't really offer any new help, but I find it's nice knowing you aren't the only person with a specific problem.

[timmie 988]

Hey Timmie, I've been experiencing the same problems as you have; 1) Spontaneous CTD with simulator at Cheetah speed, and 2) Save to Region, CTD after save.

1a) I think I have found a solution for the CTD while running the game at Cheetah speed. I used to the problem where SC4 would CTD almost regularly while running at Cheetah speed. I followed a tutorial from the Omnibus that was supposed to be a fix for both Windows Vista and Windows 7 (I have Windows 7, but I hear both 7 and Vista have the same problems with this). I haven't been able to find the tutorial I followed, but I will give you the link as soon as I do.

1b) I also noticed that some tiles along the region border are prone to causing a CTD when developed. If I have a certain tile zoned, and it develops, I get a CTD. This may not have anything to do with the problem you are describing, but with this, even plopping a building in the problem tile will case a CTD. By trial-and-error I have been able to identify these problem tiles and simply leave them unzoned and undeveloped. If you notice you're experiencing a CTD with development along the region boundary, it might be related to this.

2) I have the same problem with a few cities in which they CTD after I "save to region". The city is saved and even updates the region view, but for some reason it crashes to desktop. I've noticed though that the same city doesn't always do it, and that cities that never did it before are starting to after some changes/increased development. I hypothesized that it is a plugin that's causing this, but I haven't been able the isolate the problem/

I know I didn't really offer any new help, but I find it's nice knowing you aren't the only person with a specific problem.

Good to see that I'm not the only one with this problem, but that's not gonna help us, is it?

I've never had the other problem you're describing, it sounds very strange. With tile, do you mean the whole city, or do you mean some specific tiles in a city itself?

I'm curious for that tutorial!

As long as the ctd after save doesn't kill my cities, I can live with it. And yeah, it's always nice to know you're not alone

[jrm541992 17]

I've had the CTD's when I used the Save to Region function, usually these were from my older computers w/ not-so-much RAM. What are your specs BTW?

[timmie 988]

Lack of RAM shouldn't be the problem:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200, 2.33GHz

motherboard: MSI MS-7502

GPU: nVidia GeForce 9600 GT

RAM: 4GB

Hard drive: 1TB, only 5400 rpm

Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit (yes, I'm one of those loonies who still use it)

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Hi timmie. What size is your swap file?

Did you separately test each plugin as you put then in? You might have a set that don't get along with each other.

[timmie 988]

Swap file, that's virtual memory, am I right?

I think Windows automatically decides what the size should be, now it says it's 3625 MB

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Swap file, that's virtual memory, am I right?

I think Windows automatically decides what the size should be, now it says it's 3625 MB

Only the brave trust windows to allocate any files at all. The wise take control of their own fate and stop windows diddling with things as much as possible. As windows monkeys with your swap file, it becomes fragmented with the usual increase in overhead. For most people using computers it doesn't matter, but for us, who may be using a lot of swapping because we have a big memory chewer, it is necessary to get a better handle on it. Page table processing only slightly alleviates this, because the extent management is still there.

Since I don't use windows, and haven't for about four years now, I am surprised that they still use the file system to allocate the swap space. My operating system (Linux) uses one or more partitions on the disk, which can be allocated any size. My swap space at the moment is 16.5GB, being the space left over after I repartitioned my disk on the weekend. Both of my operating partitions are on the order of 240GB, and the two copies of the operating system both use the same swap area (since they don't run simultaneously).

With NTFS, the windows jumped up version of FAT32, small files may even be kept in the FAT to save access time, but what a kluge this is. Smacks of desperation in the handling of very large disks. NTFS has just about run its course, and they really need to go to something like the publicly available i-node system used by UNIX. It has the advantage of not creating extents, and background clean up running all the time.