Graphical Error Causing Freezes and Crashes

[Superbacon 380]

One of my suburban cities, Mitouto, has crashed or frozen on me FIVE TIMES in the last hour or so of gameplay. And I am at my limits as far as patience goes before I start breaking things. I can not do anything what so ever in this city tile before something like this in the image below happens. Once it does, the game will crash or freeze. 

 

 

I don't know why this is happening. And I want to know how I can fix it.

 

Specs: 

AMD A8 3850 Quad-core 2.9Ghz (Normal clock speed)

1TB HDD

Nvidia GeForce GTX 550Ti (Normal clock speed)

8GB RAM

 

I am running the most recent version SC4 Launcher by Logic_Bomb. I have the Launcher set to run on one core, which tends to help most of the time.

Also running NAM 31.1, SPAM and a wide variety of Japanese mods.

 

This has happened before in the much larger city of Chidou to the north, but the circumstances were different and far less obvious and I was able to prevent it there. Note that this has not happened before the NAM 31. I tend to keep my FARR networks and FLEX curves to a minimum since they still have stability issues.

This happening here so frequently now of all times has made me concerned about some of the mods I'm running.

 

For the first occurrence I loaded up the city and immediately went to finish off some roads over a couple of avenue connections and EL-Rail connections I made from Chidou. After that I moved towards the center of the tile where I was going to build over some farms and continue expanding the low-density neighborhoods outward. I got the streets laid out when a similar issue in the image started popping up. Except it was more triangular and stretching out across the screen. At this point I knew I was doomed. Shortly after, the game froze and I had to force-close it.

 

Second time I came straight back in, redid the roads from before and went to try and build that neighborhood development again. Same graphical shindig happened. Tried to save my progress. Game crashed in the middle of the save. 

 

Third time I went back in and immediately went for the neighborhood development. Got the streets laid out. Same problem. Game crashed when I tried to save.

 

Fourth time I decided to forget the housing projects. I redid the roads again and expanded the avenue further into the city. Moved a library back one tile for it. Nothing was happening so far. So I went around town to place some bus stops. The NAM Certified re-worked Maxis bus stops with the higher capacity. Threw several down without a problem. Went to place the last one next to one of the large Japanese elementary schools on what was an open grass area next to a road. Soon as I placed that bus stop the graphics had another cow. Tried to save. Game crashed again.

 

Fifth time I came right back in and redid the roads again. Saved and that worked. Decided to try and continue to expand the city from the area you see in the image. The graphics convulsed again and didn't get better when I started laying down streets. Didn't even spare me the dignity of trying to save. It simply froze. 

 

Help.

[z1 566]

Do you have the 4 GB patch installed?

[Superbacon 380]

4GB patch?

[z1 566]

4GB patch?

 

Yes, the one that fixes freezes and crashes in NAM 31 and NAM 31.1.  It's mentioned in the first bullet point of the NAM 31.1 announcement, but I'll save you some searching and give you the link here.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

If that doesn't work, lose the launcher and use the command line.

[Superbacon 380]

Z1, thanks. I downloaded it and installed it in what is hopefully the right location. Gameplay is going more smoothly now. No graphical cows like before. Although loading a city still takes an eternity. And switching back from subway view takes an age to pass. But the game is using more RAM than it used to, so I guess that's good. Thanks.

[z1 566]

Although loading a city still takes an eternity. And switching back from subway view takes an age to pass.

 

Use the DatPacker to get rid of most of these delays.  Just don't DatPack the NAM (and RTMT, if you have it installed).

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Switching between the underground display and the surface is quicker if you pause the game.

[Prophet42 1,503]

Thanks z1 for the link to the 4GB patch!!  I too started experiencing crash, freezes and graphical errors after installing NAM 31.  I was getting very frustrated with the game, because with this new computer and the previous version of NAM, SC4 was extremely stable.  Then, suddenly after installing NAM 31, I started having these issues.  Hopefully this patch will fix it.  Was the patch mentioned in the NAM 31 documentation?  I have not installed NAM 31.1 yet.

[z1 566]

Was the patch mentioned in the NAM 31 documentation?

 

Yes; for NAM 31.1, it's mentioned near the end of the first bullet point in the release announcement.  Unfortunately, most people don't seem to see it.  The patch is being built into the installer for NAM 31.2.

[Prophet42 1,503]

Yeah, I admit, I'm guilty.  I totally missed it in the documentation.  I did install the patch, and now SC4 is as stable as it was before.  Thanks again z1 for tip.