Time keeps getting stuck

[ekaia 0]

I'm running Delux version on kinda old computer, only 64 mb videocard with Windows Vista 32 bit. When I first started playing I had no problems, but recently I've been having major problems with time not passing in the game. What I mean is that I will set the speed to Cheetah and the date stays the same...then maybe moves a bunch real fast, then stops again for a long time. Going back to region and re-entering a city tends to reset it, but then it keeps happening. I can tell nothign is happening, because buildings under construction will simply sit there half-built until the time decides to start working again.

I have alot of plugins installed, including one darknight one, which I got rid of thinking it might have caused an issue, but didn't help. Is my computer just too slow to handle a large city, or is this a plugin/bug related issue? Any ideas would be helpful....

Ekaia

[simplybatman 1]

This happens to me too sometimes. Its like the game is thinking about a bunch of stuff,normally its about to grow a whole stack of buildings,or massive popilation growth and the video card cant keep up or something. It runs faster on Rhino or even normal speed when it does that. Just click on a slower speed for a bit and then try cheetah again. Its probably not because of plugins,just the way the game is at times.

[Silur 3,308]

I have the same problems sometimes without any objects in my Plugins ...

[grstudios 188]

I once encountered this and posted about it somewhere here, and I understand that sometimes the game actually 'pauses' to make hundreds of calculations at the same time. There is no way to avoid it if your tile is full with development, even with half of it.

Nevertheless I found that if you hover your mouse over the cheetah button it does run quite as you expect. I know it's a weird solution and it might be not much, but you can try and reply if it works for you as well.

Hope it's fixed!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Actually, there is not enough information in the original post to give a good answer to this. However, some thoughts:

Running in Cheetah is a bad idea. The simulation will definitely get behind. Gear down. Cheetah is for quick spurts of specific development.

The city is getting quite large and has enough objects in it so that you have hit the knee of the exponential curve of response time. Nothing to do here but be patient or get a bigger, faster machine.

[jacksunny 741]

Also close any unnecessary programs as they also take up resources.

[ekaia 0]

Well thanks for replies! Looks like I'll just have to be content on Turtle speed most of the time

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well thanks for replies! Looks like I'll just have to be content on Turtle speed most of the time

Actually, you can probably run on Rhino if you like. Running at a lower speed gives you two advantages:

1. Time to think.
2. Time to leisurely enjoy the animation.

This is a leisure time activity after all. There is no rush. If you don't get finished, just save it, and close. Come back later. Rushing along in Cheetah mode fails to be relaxing nor exciting after a while. Besides you paid money to see the animations.

[memedoug85 36]

This happens to me alot when I'm planting trees over the top of developed zones. The best way I've found to overcome this is to right click just off centre. When the map moves slightly it sort of smacks the game around - tell it who's boss

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

This happens to me alot when I'm planting trees over the top of developed zones. The best way I've found to overcome this is to right click just off centre. When the map moves slightly it sort of smacks the game around - tell it who's boss

If you want to force a redraw hit the G key. Causes a switch to display the grid. Hit it twice and you come back to where you were. The game is a thing, and always does what you say.

[trek186 0]

I have run Sc4 + Rush Hour on several computers with 1ghz+ processors, awesome video cards, and 2gb + of memory and they have all had this issue. The best explanation I have seen is that cheetah bogs down with micro-simulations (ie traffic patterns) and it takes it a few seconds to respond. Have not tried rhino mode though.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I have run Sc4 + Rush Hour on several computers with 1ghz+ processors, awesome video cards, and 2gb + of memory and they have all had this issue. The best explanation I have seen is that cheetah bogs down with micro-simulations (ie traffic patterns) and it takes it a few seconds to respond. Have not tried rhino mode though.

This is typical of trying to run in cheetah when the simulation is so large that it will use up 100%+ of your CPU. This legacy program is monothreaded and can only use one core. The effect is the one you noted. There are not enough cycles to keep the simulation going and the graphics updated. If you slow down the refresh rate to Rhino, things may be better. I've been running mostly on turtle lately.

What's the rush? This is supposed to be a leisure time game. It teaches some interesting lessons in problem solving, and patience.

[poshbakerloo 186]

I get this when I play SC4.

Its the CPU that SC4 drains. I have a 2.2Ghz Dual Core from 2008 which is hugely powerful compared to anything that was around in 2003 so you would think that time would just fly by, but no, it won't! This is because SC4 was written before dual cores were invented for main stream use. It will only use one core! So the same will slow down. You are better playing SC4 on a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz than a slower multicore processor. The best thing to do, which is what I do is to layout the city as much as you can, save it, put it on full speed then minimise it. Come back later and you will see that game has been playing fast whilst you have been doing something else.

Also, I find that keep the imagine still works well, stop scrolling around and the time will start to pass by.

Its not your GPU, if it was then reducing the graphics would be enough to speed it up. And I know its also not because back in 2003 I played SC4 with a 4Mb Intel graphics!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

This is a common problem when the number of objects in a city gets large. The simulation curve is exponential and once you go around the knee of the curve, it just gets worse and worse. This is exacerbated by playing at high-speed (cheetah) because the CPU gets behind updating the frame buffers. If you are running on cheetah, try dropping down at least one level.

This legacy game does not use more than a single core. Multiple core machines didn't exist in 2000.