Really bad response time (lag) when using transporation menu with subways.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

http://My configuration running wine-1.5.20 on Ubuntu 12.10 (GNU/Linux 3.5.0-21-generic x86_64) with the GNOME Classic desktop.

This has been annoying the daylights out of me for quite a while. As soon as one enters the menu to do something with either the subway line or with any of the stations, even the Maxis one, the system seems to go cataleptic. It takes forever for the necessary menu to open, and for the redraw to happen.

Does this also happen on Windoze? How about the MAC version?

Any thoughts?

[Figit 0]

I've seen this before. No it doesn't happen on Windows unless you have an iCore 1 (or Atom) system, anything above that will run the game very smoothly. Macs, however will run the game smoothly IF you have

OS X (10) or higher. However Linux, which is a different system, is not completely compatible with Simcity 4, due to some different themes and graphics. One it can be that your system is low preformance or it's the game. If it's the game, do Ctrl-Alt-Delete, then go to task manager, then end the task Simcity 4. After that just unplug your computer or take out the battery, that will completely 'refresh' your computer and it should stop lagging at the subway menu. If it's your computer's processor, then I can't help but to tell you to buy a better one. Hope this helps.

[jason leo 485]

I use Windows 7 and the lag during when using subways already become my daily patience exam (sometimes, a bit frustrating)

I think that is caused by objects that should be re-rendered by the game when the layer is back to the surface from underground. I don't really know though about the way to solve it, this thing really test my patience.

I've seen this before. No it doesn't happen on Windows unless you have an iCore 1 (or Atom) system, anything above that will run the game very smoothly. Macs, however will run the game smoothly IF you have

OS X (10) or higher. However Linux, which is a different system, is not completely compatible with Simcity 4, due to some different themes and graphics. One it can be that your system is low preformance or it's the game. If it's the game, do Ctrl-Alt-Delete, then go to task manager, then end the task Simcity 4. After that just unplug your computer or take out the battery, that will completely 'refresh' your computer and it should stop lagging at the subway menu. If it's your computer's processor, then I can't help but to tell you to buy a better one. Hope this helps.

My computer is more advanced than Atom, do you have any thought about what happened with my game ? Is it just a normal lag or a problem ?

[SilverCyric 130]

Mine does the same too, I have an I7 Alienware with 8 GB ram, and 2 GB VRAM, but it only does in on city tiles that I've filled at least half of it completely. Especially if I have a lot of thick forests to re-render, its no different when I use the Zone data view... I think Jason Leo is correct, at least in our situations...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Because of the way wine works, there are buffer switching problems, but this can't account for the slowness on the redraw. I don't think the physical plant has anything to do with it, which is why I posted my configuration. The game runs fine with this one exception.

My biggest city has now climbed over 200,000 Sims and putting subways in for them has been a real pain, but it is done now. I have the game running on another desktop (Linux has multiple desktops, and they don't seem to be a problem at all). {silly me, I left it with the save dialogue response open and it wasn't running. Could have developed some more properties while I was on here.}

It is running now and is only using around 94% of CPU-0. If I ever feel that I need more oomph, I will probably invest in a new mobo, but I rather like the one I currently have. After all, it is only three years old, which I suppose makes it a hoary old man.

I suspect the problem, now that I think about it, is that the entire image is dumped when you go to underground mode, and a whole new render is done in each direction. But I don't see why switching from one type of subway station in the same menu takes so damned long.

[Gurning_Chimp 398]

Because of the way wine works, there are buffer switching problems, but this can't account for the slowness on the redraw. I don't think the physical plant has anything to do with it, which is why I posted my configuration. The game runs fine with this one exception.

My biggest city has now climbed over 200,000 Sims and putting subways in for them has been a real pain, but it is done now. I have the game running on another desktop (Linux has multiple desktops, and they don't seem to be a problem at all). {silly me, I left it with the save dialogue response open and it wasn't running. Could have developed some more properties while I was on here.}

It is running now and is only using around 94% of CPU-0. If I ever feel that I need more oomph, I will probably invest in a new mobo, but I rather like the one I currently have. After all, it is only three years old, which I suppose makes it a hoary old man.

I suspect the problem, now that I think about it, is that the entire image is dumped when you go to underground mode, and a whole new render is done in each direction. But I don't see why switching from one type of subway station in the same menu takes so damned long.

I have a city of 2 million and it takes ten minutes to open the subway menus. This is on Windows 7.

[mastorofpuppetz 199]

Because of the way wine works, there are buffer switching problems, but this can't account for the slowness on the redraw. I don't think the physical plant has anything to do with it, which is why I posted my configuration. The game runs fine with this one exception.

My biggest city has now climbed over 200,000 Sims and putting subways in for them has been a real pain, but it is done now. I have the game running on another desktop (Linux has multiple desktops, and they don't seem to be a problem at all). {silly me, I left it with the save dialogue response open and it wasn't running. Could have developed some more properties while I was on here.}

It is running now and is only using around 94% of CPU-0. If I ever feel that I need more oomph, I will probably invest in a new mobo, but I rather like the one I currently have. After all, it is only three years old, which I suppose makes it a hoary old man.

I suspect the problem, now that I think about it, is that the entire image is dumped when you go to underground mode, and a whole new render is done in each direction. But I don't see why switching from one type of subway station in the same menu takes so damned long.

I have a city of 2 million and it takes ten minutes to open the subway menus. This is on Windows 7.

How do you make a city of 2 million? Even on biggets maps with a good transport system, top mayor ratings, all high tech and sky scrapers much more then 300,000 seems impossible. Am I missing sometihng?

I've seen this before. No it doesn't happen on Windows unless you have an iCore 1 (or Atom) system, anything above that will run the game very smoothly. Macs, however will run the game smoothly IF you have

OS X (10) or higher. However Linux, which is a different system, is not completely compatible with Simcity 4, due to some different themes and graphics. One it can be that your system is low preformance or it's the game. If it's the game, do Ctrl-Alt-Delete, then go to task manager, then end the task Simcity 4. After that just unplug your computer or take out the battery, that will completely 'refresh' your computer and it should stop lagging at the subway menu. If it's your computer's processor, then I can't help but to tell you to buy a better one. Hope this helps.

Talk about spreading mis-information. Everything you said is BS. The game is simply old and not designed to take advantage of the latest cpu's and PC hardware. Even top nothc systems with Core i7's this game does not perform well. Its an engine issue.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I have refrained from saying that Linux is a better operating system than Windoze by about ten thousand rows of Christmas trees.

[jlt122 46]

Well I have mine on Windows 7 64 bit 6 gb ddr2 mem and to be honest I have played this game since 2004 and always there was a problem with the subway menu even on older computer systems I had. I have a city with 1.6 million and I can tell you with what I have now, the problem started showing up once I hit 500,000. So, what I do is stop the game, then go into the subway menu. I never have it running when I go into it. Otherwise not only does your computer have to redraw everything, it's still trying to make calculations for everything else that's moving down below. Once I figured that out, the reloading time was considerably alot less. Takes my computer at least 1 to 2 mins instead of 5 to 7 mins. My core processor is AMD athlon 2 x2 250u Dual processor and with all the memory that I have I still experience crashes with the game. Always has it been like this from my experience.

[Gurning_Chimp 398]

Because of the way wine works, there are buffer switching problems, but this can't account for the slowness on the redraw. I don't think the physical plant has anything to do with it, which is why I posted my configuration. The game runs fine with this one exception.

My biggest city has now climbed over 200,000 Sims and putting subways in for them has been a real pain, but it is done now. I have the game running on another desktop (Linux has multiple desktops, and they don't seem to be a problem at all). {silly me, I left it with the save dialogue response open and it wasn't running. Could have developed some more properties while I was on here.}

It is running now and is only using around 94% of CPU-0. If I ever feel that I need more oomph, I will probably invest in a new mobo, but I rather like the one I currently have. After all, it is only three years old, which I suppose makes it a hoary old man.

I suspect the problem, now that I think about it, is that the entire image is dumped when you go to underground mode, and a whole new render is done in each direction. But I don't see why switching from one type of subway station in the same menu takes so damned long.

I have a city of 2 million and it takes ten minutes to open the subway menus. This is on Windows 7.

How do you make a city of 2 million? Even on biggets maps with a good transport system, top mayor ratings, all high tech and sky scrapers much more then 300,000 seems impossible. Am I missing sometihng?

Possibly, I have had no problem getting over 300,000 sims. What I did for this one is have all my industry in surrounding towns and just having a massive CBD, with high density housing and commercial areas mixed randomly all over the place, I also had a massive park in the middle. I did use some mods (no population though, only buildings, NAM and RHW) but it can't be that as at one point I made a 1.7million populated city using Maxis stuff (I lost that when my hard drive packed up). I will warn you, around 1.8 million my mayor rating dropped like a stone and riots occurred on a regular basis in the south of the city, I managed to get it under control but every now and then the south-east will burst into random rioting (I don't even know why it does so!)

  Edited January 5, 2013 by Gurning_Chimp  

[longtimepcgamer 227]

I guessing you downloaded and are using NAM with the game. One of the new features is a new "subway" view mode. This makes all the buildings invisible except existing bus/subway stations so that they are easier to locate and so that you can place new ones without all the clutter. It does help but unfortunately the time it takes to drew/re-draw all the buildings and props each time you enter this mode can take foooorrrreeevvveeerrr. Heres what you need to do.....download the "Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool" off either the Stex or Lex. This tool will allow you to turn this feature off so when you go to build a subway or plop a station the buildings/props will remain visible.

The option you want to change is down on the bottom of the Traffic Simulator screen under "Data View". When the options are un-checked the game behave's the way it did originally (leaving buildings visible).

Hope this helps......I hated that long lag time as well.

Kevin

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Interesting. I have the TSCT, and getting out of that "enhanced" view might be worth a try. I've been having a problem running TSCT as it seems to want a particular JRE suite. I'll work on it some more.

I'll also try pausing the game when working on subway stuff. That is surely the easier thing to test.

[longtimepcgamer 227]

Have you downloaded the file "Java Runtime Environment" as it is listed as a dependency in order to use the TSCT. There is a link for it on the LEX. Choose NAM under Catagory search and then find the NAM Traffic Subsystem.

Kev

[Jim14409 448]

Sometime around August I was having similar lag problems. When I checked Task Manager I would always find a program running that was not normally there. For the life of me I am unable to recall the name! Anyway it (the strange program) shuts down shortly after opening the Task Manager even though SC4 was still running in the taskbar. A Google search said something about it had something to do with an error in a program and was attempting to avert a crash of the program. (?)

Everytime my game went slow this program was running in the Task Manager. Whether I was fast enough to shut it down or let it close on its own made no difference. It came back. After a few weeks I was fed up so I uninstalled SC4 and cleaned the registry and everything else that hinted at the program except my plugins. Also did full security scans but found nothing. I re-installed SC4, altered my command line and for several months now no problems.

Sorry I cannot name the program that popped up in TM but anyone who is familiar with what is running on their system will recognize it to be new.

Hope this helps someone.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Have you downloaded the file "Java Runtime Environment" as it is listed as a dependency in order to use the TSCT. There is a link for it on the LEX. Choose NAM under Catagory search and then find the NAM Traffic Subsystem.

Kev

Of course. I have a couple of them. One for my windows environment (wine) and one for Linux. As I said, there is something funny about the wine interface that is supposed to run the TSCT. I suspect I am missing a component, and am running the debugger to find out. We old computer hacks usually don't miss anything so obvious.

I tried the trick with pausing the game while playing with subway layouts. Seems to help quite a bit with the display suspended. I am not sure that this actually suspends the simulation, or at least, not all of it. If it was all suspended you wouldn't get any power or water zots while zoning in pause.

@Jim14409: Hope so. I don't have a task manager as windows does. Instead I have an app called System Monitor which can give you all kinds of information and lets you monkey with the tasks from upping their priority to kill them outright in various ways. The number of kill signals fills up a page in the manual system. If you need a dump, you can force one, etc. Generally, I use the console command ps (process status) to find Sc4 when it is misbehaving and kill it using its task number. The idea of a task in Linux is not quite the same as in Windoze.

[Max4k 721]

On 1/5/2013 at 3:50 PM, longtimepcgamer said:

I guessing you downloaded and are using NAM with the game. One of the new features is a new "subway" view mode. This makes all the buildings invisible except existing bus/subway stations so that they are easier to locate and so that you can place new ones without all the clutter. It does help but unfortunately the time it takes to drew/re-draw all the buildings and props each time you enter this mode can take foooorrrreeevvveeerrr. Heres what you need to do.....download the "Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool" off either the STEX or LEX. This tool will allow you to turn this feature off so when you go to build a subway or plop a station the buildings/props will remain visible.

 

The option you want to change is down on the bottom of the Traffic Simulator screen under "Data View". When the options are un-checked the game behave's the way it did originally (leaving buildings visible).

 

 

Hope this helps......I hated that long lag time as well.

 

Kevin

 

Which options do you uncheck ? I have horrible lag when using the Ninja Kiosk and whenever I use Bus menu again, it thinks Im using it again and have option to exit Underground mode

[rsc204 21,808]

 Note the TSCT is included within the NAM Installer Archive, the option you are looking for is "Use new Subway View" / "Use new Subway Building View".

[Max4k 721]

It does not seem to be working and tried every combination of check boxes.

It saves settings in TSCT when I launch it again.

This thread mentions similar issues.  Should I use that Subway Station - No Underground View.dat  file that is mentioned in this thread ?

 

 

[rsc204 21,808]

If this is happening, then Java for whatever reason, doesn't have sufficient access rights to alter the files in that location. That could be Windows protecting files or a general permissions issue with Java itself.

Do bear in mind this is also an option within the NAM installer, you don't have to use the TSCT tool, just unselect "Zone Data View", under 5_DataView Options, during NAM installation.

21 hours ago, Max4k said:

Should I use that Subway Station - No Underground View.dat  file that is mentioned in this thread ?

Well it will prevent the basic Maxis Subway from switching to Underground View, but it's intended as an example to show you how to modify other stations. If you wanted this to work with all the various subway stations you use, you'd need to edit each one manually. So unless you have no Custom Subway stations, which of course as I've noticed, includes any Station with Subway Functionality, this isn't a ready to use solution.

[Max4k 721]

I started a whole new Region map all over again and it seems 98% faster now, lol.  It seems I could have installed a plug-in that altered my already existing Bus/Subway system into progression of the map and there are conflicts somewhere.  As things are now, pretty sure I have enough Mods and stuff and don't need anything else to finally complete this map.

Been re-doing it about 10+ times now with reloading the software and stuff, but got the learning curve now and been improving things how I layout the map.  Once I start doing other maps and mess around with High Speed rails and stuff, I'll have multiple backup versions of everything in different Mod configs.   hehe, if we are up to 16TB drive storage now, the different types of backups are unlimited.