Transit enabled lots freeze

[bitsaul 9]

Greetings all,

I have been playing SC4 for a few months and have downloaded hundreds of BATs/lots by now and one common problem I seem to encounter is with any user-created BATs/Lots that are transit enabled.  Typically, transit enabled lots freeze my game and I have to force quit the SC4 application.  I have the latest version of the NAM installed that was just released for Mac and it seems to be one part of the source of error as some (but not all) of the transit enabled lots that freeze my computer with NAM installed do not freeze the game when NAM is removed. (edit: Upon further rigorous troubleshooting the NAM apparently has no effect on this transit-lot-freeze glitch)

I can place all the problem lots with no difficulty as long as the simulation is paused.  As soon as I run the simulation the game will freeze.  All lots display correctly and with all props and such, they simply freeze when sims attempt to interact with them.  Surprisingly, this happens more frequently with lots that list no dependencies versus those with many.  I could use some advice on what to do or what the conflict might be.  Thanks in advance.

EDIT:  It seems this occurs even with a completely new install and no plugins or mods of any sort running which leads me to believe it may be a patching issue because I have a 1.0 version of the aspyr agent game.

[TEG24601 32]

Odd.  I have not encountered any issues with TE lots, unless I hover over them with other TE lots, which is common regardless of platform.  Some examples may be of use to try to track down the issues.

[bitsaul 9]

For example, two of the newest lots on the st/exchange freeze my computer: the MM_Underground_Parking and the RHW 4s and 6s toll booths.  It happens immediately as soon as I click the plop button.  I'm working on a proper list of what doesn't work for me currently.

[Compdude787 916]

For example, two of the newest lots on the st/exchange freeze my computer: the MM_Underground_Parking and the RHW 4s and 6s toll booths.  It happens immediately as soon as I click the plop button.  I'm working on a proper list of what doesn't work for me currently.

Perhaps this is an exemplar encoding issue? This is something that affected parts of the NAM which caused it to crash the game before the NAM team fixed it. I would contact memo on the NAM team and ask him about this; I cannot give you any additional help on this.

[bitsaul 9]

After some more troubleshooting and research I've found that Macs apparently do not get along with a host of transit enabled pieces.  I first read this in a post (I think by a NAM team member) concerning High Monorail pieces vs OS 10.7.xx or higher and that many people were experiencing game crashes with these pieces.  I had the same crashes but was able to cheat the problem.

If my simulation is running these problem pieces/lots will crash the game.  However, if I PAUSE the game I can lay the pieces/lots with no crashes.  Save what I have built and exit to the region view (sometimes I have to exit the game and restart it).  When I reload my city everything works perfectly!  So my solution has been to do any construction with problem pieces in PAUSE mode and then save the progress and restarting the game (only a two minute process usually for me) and run the simulation while I do work with pieces and lots that I know do not give me problems.

I'm certainly no expert on this stuff but the fact that these pieces do not freeze my game if I save and restart the city seems to indicate that the game is not loading some of the files in the correct order when I'm playing with the simulation on, but apparently it does find and load those files properly after restarting.  I've read that this game loads files alphabetically and the importance of ZZZ___ folders, so now I'm starting to think my problem lies somewhere in that direction.  For now though, I'm happily building in PAUSE 

[TEG24601 32]

After some more troubleshooting and research I've found that Macs apparently do not get along with a host of transit enabled pieces.  I first read this in a post (I think by a NAM team member) concerning High Monorail pieces vs OS 10.7.xx or higher and that many people were experiencing game crashes with these pieces.  I had the same crashes but was able to cheat the problem.

If my simulation is running these problem pieces/lots will crash the game.  However, if I PAUSE the game I can lay the pieces/lots with no crashes.  Save what I have built and exit to the region view (sometimes I have to exit the game and restart it).  When I reload my city everything works perfectly!  So my solution has been to do any construction with problem pieces in PAUSE mode and then save the progress and restarting the game (only a two minute process usually for me) and run the simulation while I do work with pieces and lots that I know do not give me problems.

I'm certainly no expert on this stuff but the fact that these pieces do not freeze my game if I save and restart the city seems to indicate that the game is not loading some of the files in the correct order when I'm playing with the simulation on, but apparently it does find and load those files properly after restarting.  I've read that this game loads files alphabetically and the importance of ZZZ___ folders, so now I'm starting to think my problem lies somewhere in that direction.  For now though, I'm happily building in PAUSE 

 

There used to be an issue with elevated routes/TE Lots in the NAM, but those were largely fixed with NAM 30 and 31.  There are issues, regardless of platform, with TE Lots (like stations) and plopable networks (GLR and their stations).  I haven't tried the new Toll Booths, but have downloaded them, and will try and report back.

 

BTW - Did you install your version through Steam or the App Store?