Aspyr's SimCity Release(s)

[TEG24601 32]

As many of you may know, I've been running the Disk version of SC4 Deluxe on my Macs for years.  I have even been able to get it to work on Mavericks.  I avoided the App Store release, as I was not happy with the Sandboxing requirements forced on Aspyr by Apple.  The Steam version was released, and I avoided it, mainly due to costs.  Today, there was a sale on SC4 on Steam, $9.99 instead of $19.99.  So I jumped at it.  It was well worth it.

 

The Steam version actually pulls my regions and plugins from my Documents folder, meaning everything works correctly.  All cities and regions are loading correctly, and I while the Grid still shows on some textures, but that was expected.  The buildings that lit before, still lit, and nothing is crashing to the desktop.  I haven't tried moving the NAM plugins that I removed, backed into the plugins folder, but so far, this was well worth the $10.28, to me.

[north_coaster 0]

So far I've had more or less the same experience, save a few key differences.

 

I've been CTD'ing quite often randomly (to be expected) but more often due to different mods/plugins I've been adding to my Plugins folder. I've narrowed it down to some texture/prop files and any files that change the core game. (This includes water mods, money/cheat mods, [although the ExtraPlugins.dll doesn't crash the game, but doesn't work for me at all] and the NAM)

 

Several dozen files/folders that I had in my library from when I played SC4 flawlessly on my old Windows laptop do not operate on this new release, and I'm not exactly sure why. I first thought it was due to them being "installed" by .exe installers back on my windows that somehow don't translate well to OS X or path strangely, but I have prop and texture packs that work just fine that I had installed from my old laptop.

 

The worst is how inoperable the NAM is at this point. There was/is a post on ST here that the OP had demonstrated which folders/files crashed his SC4 game, and supposedly posted ones that he found worked well; I haven't tried this out, and unfortunately there isn't any more high-level support for the latest OS X release from the NAM team, only the Mac download on the mod site.

 

All in all, I completely agree that SC4 is worth it, and I bought the full-priced $19.99 from Steam version.

[TEG24601 32]

I have no issues with NAM, but don't use some of the components.  The only file you can't use on a Mac while the game is not paused is NetworkAddonMod_Bridges_Plugin_Controller.dat.  Once you realize that it takes some work to use the custom bridges, it is easy to handle.  I'd be happy to share my NAM folder's contents if that helps you get going with NAM32.

 

Unfortunately, .dll files won't work on a Mac because .dll is specifically a Windows Libraries.

[north_coaster 0]

Yeah if you would be able to share that, I hope it would help and I'd really appreciate it.

 

I used the advice from but so far it has not worked. Somehow, I was able to use it straight out of the compressed folder when I first got SC4 working, but somewhere along the lines of adding plugins it started to break.

 

The thing is, when I load my game on a bad plugins folder, the game skips the video intro and goes straight to a blank region with no words anywhere. Menus, city tiles, region info, all blank. At this point if I try to load a city tile it crashes. It may be worth mentioning that since this has started happening, I've noticed that there are dozens of "timbuktu (x)" regions, (where x = some linear number starting from 1 going up) as well as regions just labeled "(x)."

[TEG24601 32]

Those without extensions are folders.  Check out my stickied post about running on an Intel Machine for further information.

 

Additional Bridges

Canal Addon Mod

Cosmetic Addons

Custom Menu Icon Layouts

Diagonal Streets

El Rail

Elevated Road Networks

Flexible Underpasses

Fractionally Angled Networks

Ground Light Rail

High Elevated Monorail

Hole Diggers and Ground Raisers

Locale Files

NAM logo.ico

Network Widening Mod

NetworkAddonMod_Automata_Plugin_Radical.dat

NetworkAddonMod_BaseContent.dat

NetworkAddonMod_BridgeHeightMod.dat

NetworkAddonMod_BridgeSupport.dat

NetworkAddonMod_Controller.dat

NetworkAddonMod_HighwayInterchanges.dat

NetworkAddonMod_IndividualNetworkRULs.dat

NetworkAddonMod_PedMalls.dat

NetworkAddonMod_Props.dat

NetworkAddonMod_Traffic_Plugin_Z_High.dat

NetworkAddonMod_UI.dat

NetworkAddonMod_Volume_Data_View_Z_High.dat

NetworkAddonMod_Zone_Data_View.dat

NetworkAddonMod_a_Controller_Marker.dat

Rail

Real Highway Mod

Roundabouts

Rural Roads Plugin

SC4Devotion.url

Simtropolis.url

Street Addon Mod

Turning Lanes

Wide Radius Curves

install.log

uninst.exe

[jschissel82 0]

I was able to keep bridge controller in my NAM folder, but it required removing a couple of "additional" bridges.  I think it may have been a street bridge and maybe something else, but I forget exactly.  I've never missed them.  I had been using the old version from aspyr on my computer with several tweaks, and so far, I am not sure there is a whole lot of difference in performance.  I'm still playing with it, tho, as I just found out about the new aspyr release.  I also learned about dat packing and dat packed everything, including NAM even tho I read where some people say do not do it.  I use my computer on trains without internet, tho, and without dat packing NAM, no internet connection meant a crash.  Not sure why.  Everything seems to be working, tho.  I am missing a couple of buildings that worked on the old aspyr version, but they are in the plugins, so not sure what's going on there.

 

Edit: there is definitely a performance improvement

[unclesahm 32]

Will nightlighting work for those of us who didn't hack the game on the Mac?

[TEG24601 32]

I have some night lighting.  I know some BATs won't light up, but that is manly due to the missing code in the Mac version.

[unclesahm 32]

Does Dark Night work?

[Turrican2 2]

Does Dark Night work?

 

No, it doesnt. :-(

 

It was the last time I buy a game from Aspyr, it is not the first time there dont care for any kind of "after we got your money" feature request or support.

[Tarkus 6,933]

I was able to keep bridge controller in my NAM folder, but it required removing a couple of "additional" bridges.  I think it may have been a street bridge and maybe something else, but I forget exactly.  I've never missed them.  I had been using the old version from aspyr on my computer with several tweaks, and so far, I am not sure there is a whole lot of difference in performance.  I'm still playing with it, tho, as I just found out about the new aspyr release.  I also learned about dat packing and dat packed everything, including NAM even tho I read where some people say do not do it.  I use my computer on trains without internet, tho, and without dat packing NAM, no internet connection meant a crash.  Not sure why.  Everything seems to be working, tho.  I am missing a couple of buildings that worked on the old aspyr version, but they are in the plugins, so not sure what's going on there.

 

Edit: there is definitely a performance improvement

 

That fits with what we've found ourselves. The Bridge Controller isn't actually the cause of the CTDs--a number of the bridges themselves are, due to how their exemplars are encoded, and the presence of those bridges plus the Bridge Controller will cause the game to attempt to reference those exemplars once a city is opened.  The Bridge Controller does not misbehave if the problem bridges are removed, however, which does actually allow LHD path remapping, then.  Without the Bridge Controller, British and Japanese players (plus anyone else running an SKU2 game in English, or a SKU5 game) are essentially screwed.

 

As far as the crash without an internet connection, that's one of the new wrinkles with the Aspyr re-release.  The port actually has a limit on the number of plugin files you have installed, and that limit inexplicably drops to a ridiculously low level if you aren't connected to the internet.  It's not the file size that causes it, but rather, the actual number of files, and even completely empty subfolders count toward this limit.  Our one developer who is running the port found that the game starts to act funny with about 80 individual files/folders, and will definitely crash around 200 files.

 

For the current status of where we are with respect to having a proper Mac release again, see here, and the new addendum here.

 

-Tarkus

[dlci 0]

Hey guys! Newbie here, just had a few questions!

 

• Does having the re-release of SC4 allow me to put in community-made buildings/addons from this site? I know that the NAM has compatibility issues unfortunately and was wondering if the same thing applied to the STEX stuff. 
• Also, how difficult is the game without the NAM plugin?

Thanks so much for reading, I appreciate it!

[Xenocity 343]

FYI for those of you who already own the Windows version in Steam, you can download Mac version for free (I'm doing it now).

It will appear in your Steam library under Mac Games with an Install button.

[Compdude787 916]

Hey guys! Newbie here, just had a few questions!

 

• Does having the re-release of SC4 allow me to put in community-made buildings/addons from this site? I know that the NAM has compatibility issues unfortunately and was wondering if the same thing applied to the STEX stuff. 
• Also, how difficult is the game without the NAM plugin?

Thanks so much for reading, I appreciate it!

I don't have a Mac, so I can't really answer your first question. But I can say that if you download something that has an installer program inside it, the installer won't work on Mac unless you use this program called Keka to extract the contents of the installer. Also, with the re-release, there's a limit on the number files and folders you can have in your plugins folder, (regardless of the size of the contents) and for some inexplicable reason, this limit is lower when you're not connected to the internet. See for more info on this issue.

 

As for your second question, not having the NAM can make the game a bit more difficult, especially when it comes to trying to build a really big city. The traffic simulator in the vanilla game is set up to make Sims will always take the shortest route to work, ("shortest" in terms of distance) rather than the fastest route, even if the faster route would drastically reduce their commute time. The result of this is that Sims will be less likely to use higher-capacity roads or mass transit if it requires them to go out of their way to get to it. As a result, you will have a harder time creating a really big city without getting lots of abandonment issues due to long commutes, even if you have adequate high-capacity road networks and mass transit. The traffic simulator and the pathfinding in the unmodded game is basically really dumb and makes it so that Sims are too lazy to commute 2.5 miles to work (the distance across a large city tile). In real life this is considered a short commute!

 

So basically the NAM will make it easier to deal with traffic issues by making the pathfinding and traffic simulator be more realistic. Other than that, it adds more of a challenge to the game with all the extra stuff that comes with it. But all the extra stuff is worth it, though.

[TEG24601 32]

Hey guys! Newbie here, just had a few questions!

 

• Does having the re-release of SC4 allow me to put in community-made buildings/addons from this site? I know that the NAM has compatibility issues unfortunately and was wondering if the same thing applied to the STEX stuff. 
• Also, how difficult is the game without the NAM plugin?

Thanks so much for reading, I appreciate it!

NAM works just fine, save for few pieces (look at the stickied post for what doesn't work).  However, because it is in an EXE file, and not available separately, you MUST either use File Juicer or some form of Windows Environment to extract the components.  Wine/Wineskin are free ways to do this.

 

Same goes for files from STEX/LEX, if they are EXE's you need a Windows environment to extract or mess with Filejuicer, but with few exceptions, usually indicated on the download page itself, things from the STEX and LEX should work.  If they don't, they simply won't load, or the game will Crash to the Desktop, then you remove the plugin, and move on with your life.