SimCity 4 Deluxe with newest update and NAM crash after speeding up game time on a city with STR.

[simcity1999 34]

I've just laid some Single Track Railways (STR) in my city, and after I do Udriveit, I try to speed up the game time, and after one second, the game freezes, and ultimately crashed. Does the STR caused problem, or a simple reloading the game will fix that? If not both, which mod can cause that (before I laid STR tracks, the game works fine without any lag/freeze/crash at all)?

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

An interesting etiology, but we don't have enough information.  Since you successfully installed NAM 31.2 you have the correct version of the game, but we'd like to have a look at the details of your machine, and your Operating system.  A quick way to do this is to run the program DXDIAG, take a screenshot of the first panel it presents and post it here.

 

Also, what parameters do you have on the command line (target of the short cut)?

[simcity1999 34]

My PC specs:

Intel i5 3570 (3.4 GHz Quad Core 6MB Cache)

HIS (AMD) Radeon HD 7850

Intel DH67CL Motherboard

4GB DDR3 RAM

500GB SATA3 HDD (53,4GB free on drive C:)

Sony DVD Drive

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

SimCity 4 Deluxe version 1.1.638.0 EP1 running using only 1 cores and software rendering

And does the GLR on Avenue make SC4D crash? And oh ya, the game does crash at date 15 ingame (month I forgot). And I will remove all STR tracks first , then come back here if problem still persists.

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

Only two things raise flags in those specs.  #1 is somewhat unimportant: you don't have the BAT night light update; I'm sure you've noticed you don't see lights on downloaded buildings.  The patch is over at SC4D--should update you to 1.1.640.

 

#2 is that you use software rendering.  Hardware rendering is always preferred, but I know that you don't really have a choice with some graphics cards.  Also I somehow doubt that would be causing all your problems.

 

Are you absolutely sure you have the latest version of the NAM (31.2)?

[simcity1999 34]

1. I installed the nightlight BAT update, (the version number is, I wrote wrong, because I copy it from the EP1 update), and I see nightlights on downloaded buildings.

2. Yes, I use software rendering, but hardware rendering makes the game near-unp;ayable.

And yes, I download NAM less than 1 months ago.

[Tarkus 6,934]

From where did you download it?

 

-Tarkus

[Turjan 1,048]

2. Yes, I use software rendering, but hardware rendering makes the game near-unp;ayable.

 

As you have an ATI card, the game will ignore your graphics settings and strangle your performance. You need to edit the

[z1 566]

As you have an ATI card, the game will ignore your graphics settings and strangle your performance. You need to edit the

 

I have an ATI card, and the game works fine for me; I didn't notice any change after editing the Graphics Rules.

[simcity1999 34]

Finally, the problem is fixed, not because of any of above solutions, but because I try to remove part of the city, and if crashes, remove some other part again, and repeat it until the game continues. I spent approximately an hour doing that, but, although I lose some parts of the city and I don't know the exact problem, I can continue my city again, and STR tracks are not the problem, so I can use STR safely in my cities, hooray!!!

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Are you aware that when you employ puzzle pieces and cross a transit enabled lot with a piece loaded on your cursor that the game will crash (not fixable).  When placing puzzle pieces, use POV 5 or 6, and save frequently.

[Turjan 1,048]

 

As you have an ATI card, the game will ignore your graphics settings and strangle your performance. You need to edit the

 

I have an ATI card, and the game works fine for me; I didn't notice any change after editing the Graphics Rules.

 

 

Of course, if you use software mode or have one of the few ATI cards that are listed as fine and use hardware mode, that won't disturb you. Otherwise, the graphics rules are pretty clear on the following:

 

# The Radeon series has a very slow path for partial

   # depth buffer copies. This has apparently been

   # fixed for 9500 and later models in the latest drivers,

   # but cannot be fixed on previous Radeons because of

   # hardware limitations.

   # NOTE: disabling this rule unnecessarily may lead to

   # very poor graphics performance.

   partialRule "Radeon"

      stringMatch cardIdentity "*Radeon*"

      

      partialRule "SlowSubrectDepthCopy" -any

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*7?00*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*8?00*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*9000*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*9100*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*9200*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*9300*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*9400*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI, Radeon"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI, Radeon VE"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI, Radeon Mobility"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI, Radeon FireGL"

          

         #results in special low-impact scrolling mode.

         #property noPartialBackingStoreCopies true

         

         # try to reduce the number of dirty rects.

         #property dirtyRectMergeFrames 8

         

         # use black and white cursors. The Radeons seem

         # to work with colour for a while, but in low

         # memory situations revert to flickering.

         #option $Cursor $CursorBW

      #end

   end

 

Unfortunately, the strings specified up there were reused in newer Radeon cards, which leads to false positives for this rule. It caught my card even though its number isn't listed up there, "Radeon" and absence from the "good performer" list seemed to have been sufficient.

 

I had checked all the highest settings in the ingame options. However, performance was choppy and the loading upon scrolling issue was very noticeable.  Adding my ATI card to the Rules file brought the following changes:

 

1. It fixed the bad resolution in zoom 6.

2. The reload problem during scrolling was gone (pretty much completely if you don't fill the map with too many props via plugins).

3. The game rendered more street scenes and lot props. Before that, I had hardly any people in the streets, and lots looked comparatively empty.

4. The game ran generally more smoothly.

 

Even if your experience differs, it's generally a good rule to at least try this measure to fix game performance, especially with ATI cards. And lastly, as the OP specifically mentioned bad graphics performance in hardware mode, this seems like the obvious thing to try.