An Obseration on the Frequency of CTDs

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I have a new 24" monitor running at 1920 x 1080 and I am getting more CTD's than ever. I haven't make any other changes except to change my command line to:

"C:/Program Files/Maxis/SimCity 4/Apps/SimCity 4.exe" -intro:off -d:software -f

Since I am running Linux, the screen parameters are being handled by wine's virtual desktop.

I guess I'll add the -EH:off parameter and see if this fixes it. If it does, I will report further.

[Jazzmaster 716]

I have a new 24" monitor running at 1920 x 1080 and I am getting more CTD's than ever. I haven't make any other changes except to change my command line to:

"C:/Program Files/Maxis/SimCity 4/Apps/SimCity 4.exe" -intro:off -d:software -f

Since I am running Linux, the screen parameters are being handled by wine's virtual desktop.

I guess I'll add the -EH:off parameter and see if this fixes it. If it does, I will report further.

That's an interesting theory. I always figured the enormity of a new dedicated GPU could cause a CTD, but never the screen itself..

[Mister Giggles 310]

It may be due to the fact you're forcing the game to use a resolution is was not designed for.

[z1 566]

It may be due to the fact you're forcing the game to use a resolution is was not designed for.

I don't think so; the game wasn't designed for any particular resolution. I've been running SC4 at 1920x1200 with no crashes for years. My guess would be that the graphics driver (and/or wine) is having problems with SC4 at that resolution.

  Edited October 17, 2011 by z1  

[PBGV103 729]

At first glance I'd guess it's because the game's cpu based graphics driver can't support that resolution. I run 1920x1080 in hardware mode all the time and have never had a CTD since I've been playing the game on my laptop. I know you said there were wine/gpu conflict issues, which makes me think, if you want to run the game in that resolution, it may be time to upgrade your gpu as well. My laptop has a 9600m gt, which wasn't top end when it was produced about 2 years ago, but the specs about match the specs of high end gpus when this game was made. Even in 1920x1080 and 32-bit color the game utilizes 8% of the gpu's power at maximum, usually around 3%. So if you're only using the computer for this game I'd say go out and buy a low end, newer gpu.

  Edited October 17, 2011 by PBGV103  

[z1 566]

My first graphics card for my current 1920x1200 monitor was an ATI 9600GT, which was the cheapest card that would drive this monitor at all. Yet it had no problems with SC4. So I don't think Moose needs a new graphics card. As the problem he's experiencing is not common, and running SC4 on that size monitor with wine under Linux is also not common, I think the software is definitely the most likely culprit.

[PBGV103 729]

My point wasn't that his gpu isn't powerful enough. I'm sure it's fine in that respect, but it may be too old for current wine drivers. In my experience companies tend to drop support for products that are more than 4-5 years old, an once they stop updating those drivers you'll start to have compatibility issues with other new hardware. My thought is that if he gets a newer gpu, the display driver won't have the compatibility problem with wine. That will allow him to run the game in hardware mode, which may eliminate the CTD problem.

  Edited October 17, 2011 by PBGV103  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

My GPU is an ATI 760G (ATI 3000) chipset on the mobo, and was new in the fall of 2010. There have been some problems with fglrx, the driver, that won't run properly in hardware mode with this version. I have the new driver on my Ubuntu 11.10 partition, but haven't given that a full test, which I will do. The problem is currently in the LinuxMint decor, which I prefer. If this updated driver does not fill the bill, I have the AMD driver on Ubuntu 11.10 as well and could give it a whirl. Apparently AMD purchased ATI, so things will probably get better.

I don't see that the CPU is a problem (Athlon II X2 at 0.8 GHz). Interestingly this chip is made by Hyundai (Hynix Semiconductor).

Of my 4GB, the 760G takes out half a gigabyte, leaving me the 3.5 GB active RAM. My virtual space is 16 GB (a separate partition).

Will post if there is anything new from my Ubuntu test runs.

For about a year now, I've been seriously hunting this CTD snark. I'll get it, too!

EDIT: 12;29

The revised driver on Ubuntu is, if anything, worse. I think I am all done with that environment. Back on Mint, fooling around with various options got me into real trouble. The city I was working on was corrupted by a save, and I am now re-rendering my region.

Oh, and the -EH:off didn't make any difference.

  Edited October 17, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Mister Giggles 310]

I hope you get your white whale eventually. <_<

What does -EH:off do, anyway?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I hope you get your white whale eventually. <_<

What does -EH:off do, anyway?

Turns off the program's internal exception handler.

I don't think I'll ever get this bounder unless I can get my hands on the source. I am pretty sure it is a common programmer goof called and "off by one". Sometimes programmers forget that an array of n starts at 0 and ends at n-1 in C. They were rushed to get UDI in before the release, and stopped doing QA on large environments.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

More on this. The newly rendered region has lost its propensity to crash. I think something is corrupting the saves little by little.

[PBGV103 729]

HDDs develop bad sectors as they age and they attempt to move all the information from the bad sector when this happens; however, it isn't a perfect system and sometimes files get corrupted in the way you described. Of course there's probably a dozen other explanations.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

HDDs develop bad sectors as they age and they attempt to move all the information from the bad sector when this happens; however, it isn't a perfect system and sometimes files get corrupted in the way you described. Of course there's probably a dozen other explanations.

Yes, I expect the software is having problems. The disk's SMART tracker is showing no errors at all for this relatively new disk drive. My operating system issues tracking warnings if things are getting out of hand. This is why I bought this new drive, my old one was dying of old age.

Recently, other cases of "disappearing city tiles" have been reported. This is often due to switching context during a save, but I don't do that.