Simcity 4: Crashing to Desktop

[DarthWolffeRex56 9]

Hello simtropolis community,

 

Yes, yes I know there have been many posts about this. I will be honest I have not read every single post, but really, who would?

Anyway to the problem.

 

I recently began modding SC4. Note that this is background and could be part of the problem. Every so once in a while when I get an idea I go on an all out modding spree. Meaning: I download every mod incorporated with my idea from SC4Devotion and Simtropolis.

So far I have downloaded:

 

HBS Sets

LBT Sets

Most BSC Sets

MAPP Sets

NAM

BLS

CAL

CSX

There are more, but I can't name them all.

 

I did also recently download a "Quick Launcher" though it failed so I uninstalled it, thinking this may have been the root of the problem. Not much later I downloaded the save notification mod. When the first notification to save came up and I either saved or ignored it the game CTD not too longer after, losing all my hard work I had made within about 10-15 minutes. As a result I uninstalled this as well.

 

Before I left my PC for five days on a school trip, the game began randomly crashing to desktop again. I thought it may have been a recent plugin I installed(the name I can not remember). And as a result again I uninstalled the plugin.

 

This temporarily solved the problem until three days before I left, the game started CTD again. So I began saving my cities every 5 minutes or so when I played again.

I left on my trip. And so I returned to the problem still there.(Of course what am I thinking? It magically fixed it self?!)

I tried a method when I returned, I went into affinities and set the game to using one CPU. This is all I have done and yet the game still crashed.

 

I am using a Steam, bought version of SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition

PC: HP Windows 7, AMD Athlon II 220 Dual-Core Processor

4GB system memory, 500 GB hard drive

NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE integrated graphics

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

 

Please help me.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Welcome to the conversation.

 

You are too impetuous.  If something fails, rather than drop it, find out why.

 

First of all, the game running on modern equipment (later than a Pentium V) is prone to CTDs.  There are several work-arounds, none of them perfect.  Since you are on Windows 7, the best solution is to invoke the single core option by adding the following to the target line in your shortcut that starts the game, or to your program options if you are on Steam.

 

-CPUCount:1

 

Note that all command line options go after the complete path name's final quote and that all options are preceded by one space.  Here is a complete list of options.

 

There is nothing wrong with the save reminder.  However it is only a notice.  You should save when it pops up.  The internal save (CTRL+s) seems to do a garbage collect and prevents CTDs for a time.  Frequent saves are necessary.

 

Since you've been doing a lot of modding, one is forced to assume you have considerable computer programming experience.  Modding is, after all, a form of programming.  Knowingly or not you are creating lists of instructions for your machine and that is the definition of programming.  However, it would help if we knew more about your computer abilities.  Are you, in fact, a programmer in the sense that you solve problems with computer languages?  Have you used Visual Studio?  Other programming systems?  If not VS, which IDE do you prefer?

 

Good luck in your endeavours.  I hope you are aware of the limitations of the Lot Editor.  It will crash when loading if the Plugins suite is too large.