New Screenshots

[dysonraf 37]

I love this game so far but have to agree. Looks horrific and shouldnt be in a tile as small as they are atm.

[Dutsy 9]

I expect the extra runways are modules.

Yes, I think so. But they could make taxiways between runways...... (note the hangar modules)

I love this game so far but have to agree. Looks horrific and shouldnt be in a tile as small as they are atm.

I love it too but like the roads/streets in beta, if you don't managed/planned it very well, it came absolutely ugly...

[Guibanez_ 177]

@StephenAtHome @ColbertReport Tune in, turn on, and zone for residential use! pic.twitter.com/PNjEAHBk

— Maxis Scott (@MaxisScott)

February 4, 2013

[DmainEvent 195]

The game really does look nice.

If only they didn't make that calculation early on, that having static cities next to each other was not the way to go. Sigh. I am really sad at how how this could have turned out vs how it turned out.

[Vorret 49]

https://twitter.com/...495700776398848

Another SShot that makes ZERO freaking sense.

Why is that a 4 lane street? Traffic in SC5 is stupid, that's why.

[burghermaster 8]

https://twitter.com/...495700776398848

Funny that slobber dropping from the tongue... ^^

(still wondering how this bug happened)

Why is that a 4 lane street?

It's just for the fun of the picture... don't take it seriously

[Guibanez_ 177]

[RoseCityAlive 9]

Looks bigger then the tile in the beta. Possibly experimenting with bigger tiles?

[LillySatou 117]

Looks bigger then the tile in the beta. Possibly experimenting with bigger tiles?

it's just another typically deceiving screenshot. they're just cutting it off so you don't see the unnatural square border that's very close to the edges of this screenshot i'm sure.

[RoseCityAlive 9]

Looks bigger then the tile in the beta. Possibly experimenting with bigger tiles?

it's just another typically deceiving screenshot. they're just cutting it off so you don't see the unnatural square border that's very close to the edges of this screenshot i'm sure.

Ya your probably right though I did read a tweet from Ocean today that said he would like to make he city tiles take up the entire region. Hopefully in the coming months and years it can be done.

[cirugo 1,889]

Looks bigger then the tile in the beta. Possibly experimenting with bigger tiles?

it's just another typically deceiving screenshot. they're just cutting it off so you don't see the unnatural square border that's very close to the edges of this screenshot i'm sure.

Ya your probably right though I did read a tweet from Ocean today that said he would like to make he city tiles take up the entire region. Hopefully in the coming months and years it can be done.

they'd have to cut back on their simulation...which, if you believe them, would remove the need to have part of the game on a server.

[LillySatou 117]

Looks bigger then the tile in the beta. Possibly experimenting with bigger tiles?

it's just another typically deceiving screenshot. they're just cutting it off so you don't see the unnatural square border that's very close to the edges of this screenshot i'm sure.

Ya your probably right though I did read a tweet from Ocean today that said he would like to make he city tiles take up the entire region. Hopefully in the coming months and years it can be done.

they'd have to cut back on their simulation...which, if you believe them, would remove the need to have part of the game on a server.

i just don't buy it. either their optimization is that horrible, or they are just straight up lying. a modern gaming machine should be able to run a simulation of that caliber without a hitch.

[Ma8thew 77]

 

Looks bigger then the tile in the beta. Possibly experimenting with bigger tiles?

it's just another typically deceiving screenshot. they're just cutting it off so you don't see the unnatural square border that's very close to the edges of this screenshot i'm sure.

Ya your probably right https://community.simtropolis.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/15.gif though I did read a tweet from Ocean today that said he would like to make he city tiles take up the entire region. Hopefully in the coming months and years it can be done.

they'd have to cut back on their simulation...which, if you believe them, would remove the need to have part of the game on a server.

i just don't buy it. either their optimization is that horrible, or they are just straight up lying. a modern gaming machine should be able to run a simulation of that caliber without a hitch.  

Gaming machines do not necessarily have the kind of computational power in abundance for this simulation. Gaming computers have powerful floating point processors, but the SimCity simulation runs on the CPU. When increase a city from 2x2 to 4x4 you are not doubling the number of agents that can fit on it, but quadrupling it. And as the number of agents increase, the number of interactions between agents will grow at a higher asymptotic rate. You are massively increasing the computational requirements for what seems like a modest increase in city size. This is completely unavoidable in an agent-based simulation, and is not a matter of optimisation.

Another reason I've read is that the number of objects in a larger city would not be able to fit in the memory available on 32 bit computers, which SimCity will still support. A SimCity city requires many more objects in memory than a Simcity 4 city of equal size.

Of course, a recent computer will most likely be able to handle larger cities. But how does this interact with multiplayer? You would end up with regions where some cities would be unplayable to some players. This would be confusing. It is clear why Maxis have taken the route that any player who meets the minimum requirements must be able to play any city.

What possible reason would Maxis have to lie about this matter?

[Steelsmasher 8]

 

i just don't buy it. either their optimization is that horrible, or they are just straight up lying. a modern gaming machine should be able to run a simulation of that caliber without a hitch.

[DmainEvent 195]

 

 

i just don't buy it. either their optimization is that horrible, or they are just straight up lying. a modern gaming machine should be able to run a simulation of that caliber without a hitch.

 

How can you possibly know?

Raising the tilesize even in the slightest, not only means more agents to simulate. It also means the available area to pathfind also has to increase for each agent. And also the more agents mean more interactions with each agent.

Thus raising the system requirements exponentially.

Not to say I support what maxis is going for. But I honestly wonder if there are seriously that many fans who want to play simcity on their high powered alienware laptop ..on a train ..yet still fail to get a half decent connection half the time.

[nhgriffith 179]

Only drawing graphics for what's in the user's fov is fine. In this regard, what the user can't see doesn't matter. You can't simulate the simulation though. What is happening in other parts of your city still impact the part you are looking at. If I wanted cars just randomly showing up on my streets to emulate heavy traffic, I'd keep playing sc4. Sc2013 gives each car a start and end point to their destination.

[RyanMorgan95 144]

Perhaps there should be an option to reduce the number of agents. Halving this number for example, would roughly half the processing power required. It would mean roads are almost never congested, and buildings won't always be powered/watered, so you compensate by halving the capacity of roads and doubling the time it takes buildings to use up power and water agents. 

 

Although, it's probably not as straightforward as that! 

[strokesboy21 11]

don't even think my laptop (less than 2 years old) could handle a bigger tile size as the beta alone caused the blue screen of death 

[DmainEvent 195]

Only drawing graphics for what's in the user's fov is fine. In this regard, what the user can't see doesn't matter. You can't simulate the simulation though. What is happening in other parts of your city still impact the part you are looking at. If I wanted cars just randomly showing up on my streets to emulate heavy traffic, I'd keep playing sc4. Sc2013 gives each car a start and end point to their destination.

 

If you were to read my posts you would understand that I solved this issue by taking the simcity 4 region concept and expanding it.  You have "focuses".  Per focus you have different levels of simulation.  Once you are in a level of focus, you simulate to that level, in that focus you rely on state from the other focus.  The easiest way to think of this is to have 3 focuses.  The lowest level would be district, then city, and then region (You really could get to as many as 5 focuses... but this example is just for simplicity).  When in the district "focus" glassbox runs at full capacity, simulate every agent, so on and so forth.  At the district focus, The simulation simulates as many as 4 districts in parallel (4 districts would cover about the current tile size).  When you are at the district focus, you can load other districts from other cities that are contiguously connected to your city so long as only 4 districts are being simulated (imagine just moving your view over another city-that would load the district from that city into memory and off you go).  At the city level, only agents that are important to simulation of the city are simulated by glassbox.  I guess fire-engine, police-functions and other city level simulation agents would be simulated.  At this level, you would just have a statistical simulation of traffic for the cars (at this level, you wouldn't want to follow around individual sims, you are really focusing on city level functionality).  At the region level, very little simulation would be going on.  At this point you are really just enjoying your creation.  Maybe some global trading is occuring or something like that.  

 

The idea is to write the simulation so that there are agents that simulate at every focus.  So important simulation occurs at each level, and so that you are able to seamlessly move between focuses and still have a deep rewarding simulation.  

 

You would really have to get down into the nuts and bolts of the code to really optimize this, but with a little proper planning you could really have something on your hands hear.  

[nhgriffith 179]

Then you're playing sim district. I don't think the simulation between cities in a region (in either game) is nearly as good as you think it is.

Also, the plural of focus is foci. It's Greek or Latin or something.

[DmainEvent 195]

Then you're playing sim district. I don't think the simulation between cities in a region (in either game) is nearly as good as you think it is.

Also, the plural of focus is foci. It's Greek or Latin or something.

 

What?  Did you even read my post?  The idea was to have appropriate simulation levels for each foci (thanks for the help with my Greek) so as to have a seamless simulation of large Metropolises with minimal system requirements.  As with most problems you need to break down the important areas of concern and focus on one thing at a time.  

The idea was to smoothly move between all focus levels and program the simulation to work within that context.  Think of the region concept in simcity 4, but with a more even and alive simulation.

 

In simcity 4's region "focus" very little was being simulated.  All you could see was all the cities you built and your traffic networks.  In my mind, in this updated version, more would be simulated, and loading your cities would be smoother and districts would be smoother.  In fact, you could even hide the details about your smaller "foci" from the user, so it is even more seamless.  I hate hiding details from users however, and I consider most users savy enough to appreciate a good programming abstraction that increases usability of their program.  

 

Don't knock it until you disprove its technical feasibility.  Which is entirely possible as I am not on the ground floor with the code or I don't have a system architecture in front of me.  But I think it could be possible.

[CaptCity 4,752]

We are wandering away from what is a "screen shot" topic...

[RyanMorgan95 144]

Here's several screenshots (the more interesting ones at least) from imgur, via Ocean's Twitter:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dewm 177]

Thanks for the screens Ryan!

 

...But to be honest they look horrible! Never in real life would half of those roads be built. And I'm not talking about how they swoop around in circles, (I know that's just for the screenshot)

 

But like the one going "down the steep cliff".. they would cut into the cliff or do switchbacks long before they would ever build that crazy sloped bridge thing..

[Catchin22 299]

Welcome to Sims City. Posted by SimCity on FB today.

 

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/812563_10151442307414866_1711437317_o.jpg

[Catchin22 299]

Yup. Look at all the repeating models. I noticed this in the Beta too. It's truely sad what they have done with this game. I expect to see DLC every 6 months in the form of $40 expansions for stuff that should have been included from the start in a $60 game. Total waste. I've tried my best to convince myself of liking this game but its a $15-20 game, not $60.

 

So much potential, so many things that could have been done. I think it's time this community puts together a real dev team and builds its own City Simulator.

[Ma8thew 77]

Thanks for the screens Ryan!

 

...But to be honest they look horrible! Never in real life would half of those roads be built. And I'm not talking about how they swoop around in circles, (I know that's just for the screenshot)

 

But like the one going "down the steep cliff".. they would cut into the cliff or do switchbacks long before they would ever build that crazy sloped bridge thing..

 

I've definitely travelled along sloped bridges like that. One in particular that I can remember is on an autoroute in the French Alps, and is a long sloping bridge leading up to a tunnel. The advantage of this approach is obviously increased speed, but at a high cost in engineering. SimCity will give you the choice to build a road like this or with hairpin bends.

[StoNe220022 159]

Then you're playing sim district. I don't think the simulation between cities in a region (in either game) is nearly as good as you think it is.

Also, the plural of focus is foci. It's Greek or Latin or something.

 

What?  Did you even read my post?  The idea was to have appropriate simulation levels for each foci (thanks for the help with my Greek) so as to have a seamless simulation of large Metropolises with minimal system requirements.  As with most problems you need to break down the important areas of concern and focus on one thing at a time.  

The idea was to smoothly move between all focus levels and program the simulation to work within that context.  Think of the region concept in simcity 4, but with a more even and alive simulation.

 

 

This is getting off topic in regards to Screenshots but I find it facinating all the same and an interesting concept; I once made a post about the levels of simulation to basically 'devolve' as the city grew.

 

Basically suggesting that in a small town the game has such attention to detail (moval vans, garbage trucks, Sims hobbies etc...) but in a large city this very same level of detail is exactly what prevents your town from ever becoming a city.  If you hold a connection to every Sim living in your city, you'll always maintain a town community feel to it.

 

So in a way...the simulation aspect of SC2013 is preventing it from becoming a city simulation.

[Chuck Juice 2]

Marketing at its finest.  The success of the sims has been huge.  Of course they would try to bridge the two games and draw in some of that crowd, they would be fools not to.  Releasing a game that only appeals to the hardcore fans does not a profit make.      

[Dewm 177]

Thanks for the screens Ryan!

 

...But to be honest they look horrible! Never in real life would half of those roads be built. And I'm not talking about how they swoop around in circles, (I know that's just for the screenshot)

 

But like the one going "down the steep cliff".. they would cut into the cliff or do switchbacks long before they would ever build that crazy sloped bridge thing..

 

I've definitely travelled along sloped bridges like that. One in particular that I can remember is on an autoroute in the French Alps, and is a long sloping bridge leading up to a tunnel. The advantage of this approach is obviously increased speed, but at a high cost in engineering. SimCity will give you the choice to build a road like this or with hairpin bends.

Thanks for the info!

 

I know here in the U.S. it would be built into the cliff.