NAM General Support

[Handyman 765]

@dogabone I use Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 and 16.04 with wine 1.8, however I use the disk install.

It seems you are doing everything correctly to that point.

Maybe try using the custom install and un-check  anything to do with CanAM and see if it gets you past the hang up.

You could try running the NAM Installer from the commandline and see if there are any useful error messages.

 

[rsc204 21,808]

Looks like it's just the installer glitching, most likely a linux compatibility issue, I don't think it's the file especially that's the cause.

If it's working on a Windows 8.1 system, use that to run the installer, then copy over the Network Addon Mod and z___NAM folders manually.

[dogabone 4]

Thanks Handyman and rsc204 for your answers.

For Handyman: I tried two ways of installing NAM (for each wine prefix), first from the command line and next by using wine control + add/remove programs. Both ways ended with the same glitch. From the command line I got some errors about rich editor or something like that. To fix this I installed the riched20 package from winetricks, the error messages disappeared but the NAM glitch persisted.

As for the custom option, I tried it after reading your advice, but I was unable to find the CanAM option. After some tries with the custom option, I gave up on it. For some of the tries I observed that the installer stuck with other messages (not with the CanAM file), but as mentioned by rsc204, the file itself may have nothing to do with the glitch, unfortunately.

By the way, nice to meet another Linux SC4 player here.

For rsc204: since the installer was at least successful in patching the executable and creating entries in the windows registry, just copying these folders will be enough to have the complete install? If so, I will keep my windows install of SC4 just to be able to upgrade NAM in the future. The registry key was "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Network Addon Mod" with 4 values. Should I check those from my windows install, just to be on the safe side (maybe export them from Windows to the WINE registry)?

Thanks again for the answers, both of you.

[Handyman 765]

58 minutes ago, dogabone said:

By the way, nice to meet another Linux SC4 player here.

Me too.

[APSMS 1,892]

5 hours ago, dogabone said:

For rsc204: since the installer was at least successful in patching the executable and creating entries in the windows registry, just copying these folders will be enough to have the complete install?

You can patch the executable on your own, and the registry entries are mostly used to tell the NAM installer what you already have installed. They are not, in themselves, critical to the operation of the NAM, though they do usually make the installer more intelligent and that helps keep down installer-related support requests (the more frivolous ones, anyways).

Since the actual working components of the NAM are really just the controller file and whatever DAT files correspond to the options you selected, as long as the installer ran successfully and the compiler successfully created a custom controller file (not super necessary--if it fails the installer just sticks a full copy of the controller in your plugins but a trimmed controller can sometimes make the game run faster if you didn't install a lot of stuff), then you can safely move NAM installations in and across computers without worry.

It's my understanding that when testing NAM files that's basically what a lot of the NAM developers did: just move files in and out as needed, and then rerun the compiler script to make sure the controller was up to date (if the controller isn't updated, then the new stuff won't be recognized by the game and won't function).

Since you say that the installer ran properly, then the controller was likely properly installed as well. Keep in mind the controller file is just a .DAT file; the patch to the SC4.exe is a one-time thing and just ensures that the game has enough RAM to run on 64-bit systems without crashing. When you transfer or move the files over, the Controller is just part of the files that the NAM installs, and so will be moved over as well.

[dogabone 4]

Thanks for the thorough explanation. I copied the files yesterday and have been enjoying my cities ever since.

[OverlordRhode 0]

Greetings everyone!
So I've recently dived back into the world of SimCity, and obviously this is the mod I knew I had to go back to (and man it's been charged up over the years.)

Anyways, after going through the documentation, tens of forum threads, and a week of trying to figure it out, I figure I might as well as my problem to the pile.


First off; It seems that the RHW's that I build are not functioning properly, though, it is weird that I made a residential district, and then an industrial district across the loaded map, and it said that they have jobs filled. (Yet not traffic in or out of that area)

Example: Screenshot

In the above screenshot, the left side is residential and commercial. The little section on the right is dirty industrial. When checked, jobs are filled. However, the route query shows no traffic in or out. 

Also in that above screenshot, though harder to see, is the RHW connected to the edge of the screen. I know there's a lot of complication of getting commuters to use it, but freight isn't even touching it. So this is leading me to believe this isn't a connection issue anymore (as I first thought) but a conflict of them being able to even use the highway.

To confirm this, I did a second test.

Example: Screenshot 2

I think that picture says more than I need to explain.
While I have the right puzzle pieces, something is going wrong.  I thought "maybe they can't get on the highway". So I thought "Can they even touch these pieces?" and it appears not.
The overpass avenue doesn't even connect to the rest of the avenue.
The last screenshot will be a closeup of the area in question.

Screenshot 3

Edit: It dawned on me the above screenshot does show a truck; It is a moving truck, which to my knowledge and query tool, is simply aesthetic to new houses being build. It is not actually being used in the simulation. 

Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.  If this is an obvious thing that I've missed, please tell me that as well. I'd rather feel stupid and be able to play more SimCity than feel confused and not be playing it at all.

Thanks!

 

[Tarkus 6,932]

I think part of the issue may be the way you've connected your RHWs into your Avenues . . . with the "short" diagonal T-intersections, rather than allowing full access, and what looks to be reliance on U-turns off the Avenue to get traffic onto the other side.  Rather than ending at T-intersections, I'd recommend instead curving back to an orthogonal/straight stretch with the ramp, right before reaching the Avenue, and dragging the MIS right through to make a full +-intersection, which will make the connection much simpler for your commuters, and potentially fix the issue. 

The other possibility, if that still doesn't work, is that you have inadvertently installed sort of incompatible traffic simulator plugin after installing the NAM, which blocks RHW usage.  The old Traffic Fix/Traffic Supplement files from 2003-2004, hailman's Variable Route Buses, and the SPAM Traffic Plugin all include traffic simulator exemplars that specify an RHW speed of 0, which prevents traffic from using the network.

Hope that helps!

-Tarkus

[Tarkus 6,932]

One of the more daunting tasks I'm currently undertaking is (finally) updating and revamping the NAM documentation.  As you may know if you've followed the saga, the documentation has laid mostly untouched since the NAM 31.x releases (over 4 years ago), in large part because of the sheer difficulty in working with the source files for the new PDF documentation introduced back then.

The new documentation marks a return to the old HTML format that the team used in NAM 30 and earlier, based on Andreas' tried-and-true templates, but with some modern touches on the HTML side (like replacing the old table layout with divs and spans, and using CSS formatting).  Here's the work-in-progress start page:

And here's a peek at some of the things I'm looking to do with the feature guides--this is a table out of the NWM section:

-Tarkus

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Oh no! My TLA-5s transition to paired Maxis OWRs all over my region! I followed some guy's tutorial for dragging OWRs into and out of my TLA-5 (depending on direction of travel). Does that mean I can't upgrade my region past NAM 35? Or do I need to rebuild all of my FLUP connections to TLA-5s?

[matias93 7,535]

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

Oh no! My TLA-5s transition to paired Maxis OWRs all over my region! I followed some guy's tutorial for dragging OWRs into and out of my TLA-5 (depending on direction of travel). Does that mean I can't upgrade my region past NAM 35? Or do I need to rebuild all of my FLUP connections to TLA-5s?

or just to insert an one-tile long avenue stretch to bridge the connection

[Tarkus 6,932]

7 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

Oh no! My TLA-5s transition to paired Maxis OWRs all over my region! I followed some guy's tutorial for dragging OWRs into and out of my TLA-5 (depending on direction of travel). Does that mean I can't upgrade my region past NAM 35? Or do I need to rebuild all of my FLUP connections to TLA-5s?

There's never been a clean, direct TLA-5-to-OWR connection, and attempting to build one with any past or present NAM release will just result in the TLA-5 reverting to Road at the transition point.  A lot of folks out there (myself included) have done the TLA-5-to-Avenue-to-OWR method that @matias93 suggested, which does work and looks pretty nice.

With respect to code and even textures, however, I can't imagine it would be too difficult to actually rig up a true TLA-5-to-OWR transition.  I'll take a look at that one.

-Tarkus

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

17 hours ago, matias93 said:

just to insert an one-tile long avenue stretch to bridge the connection

Aha. Maybe I should just use avenue FLUPs then? I think I tried OWRs for capacity, but that won't matter much if an avenue chokes the entrance.

 

11 hours ago, Tarkus said:

There's never been a clean, direct TLA-5-to-OWR connection, and attempting to build one with any past or present NAM release will just result in the TLA-5 reverting to Road at the transition point.

Oh, is that what I'm looking at? That's probably not good for throughput.

 

[SimCity4Forever 5]

Hi Guys,

 

I'm trying to get NAM to work on a new computer. I had it installed on an older machine, but it's fallen into disuse, and I want to put it onto a newer Windows 7, i5 (if that matters, I was reading NAM was processor fussy), computer and having issues with cities loading. I can start SC4 easily, get into the city view, but as soon as I click on a square to open/start a city, it freezes in the loading screen, the one with the nonsensical phrases "estimating police donut consumption", etc... I have no other mods but NAM 35, and disabling NAM makes the problem disappear. What am I doing wrong? 

[Tarkus 6,932]

The processor fussiness went away once we started including a patch that turned the Large Access Aware flag to "on" for the game's executable (the so-called "4GB Patch"), back in mid-2013.  The most common outcome of those issues was usually a crash or freeze upon saving a city tile, not trying to open one.

How long is it staying on the loading screen?  Are you opening blank city tiles, or ones that have been built upon?

I'd recommend re-installing the NAM as your first step.

-Tarkus

[SimCity4Forever 5]

I'll try a complete reinstall. I've reinstalled NAM once, but not the base game, and perhaps my old discs aren't quite up to standard, so I'll see if a new fresh install will do the trick, thanks for your help!

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

2 hours ago, SimCity4Forever said:

it freezes in the loading screen, the one with the nonsensical phrases "estimating police donut consumption", etc...

Define "freezes". How long did you wait?

With a large plugins folder (and NAM alone can be quite bulky), your first city-load after starting the program can take minutes, like 5-15 minutes depending on CPU speed, disk seek time etc. Go fetch a beer and a snack from your kitchen; the game might be ready by the time you return with your food and drink.

This load-time can me mitigated by "packing", i.e putting a collection of several plugins files into a single bulk-loading DAT file. This can be done for several collections, reducing your plugins to a handful of files.

Some collections of mods are ideal for that, and some are not. I think that NAM is not recommended. However, if your NAM installation and settings are stable, then you might still be able to treat some of its subfolders as collections for packing.

Hunt down the discussions of dat-packing to learn the details.

[SimCity4Forever 5]

I left it and had lunch (maybe 10-15 minutes?), but perhaps my computer was running slowly. In any case a clean install, and a redo, and it worked. Now to discover how much NAM has changed since I last used it! Thanks for your help everyone. 

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

I have a FLUP problem: The avenue roundabout has an underpass under the fountain, but not under the circle itself. How do I connect to it? I can put a road (or OWR) ramp up to the outside of the traffic circle, but I can't convince any of the underground routes to go under the circle itself.

I've examined the entire structure using the query tools. The prefab routes are inside the circle, under the fountain. My ramps are on the outside. The ring sits between them inert, mocking me.

What's the secret sauce to penetrate an avenue traffic circle to connect ramps outside to the routes inside?

[rsc204 21,808]

There is no real secret, the pathing is setup to work correctly for FLUPs to pass under the outer ring, even if it's not obvious they are there. Bear in mind the pathing is limited to a straight route under the roundabout, the orientation of the default fountain prop marks the line where the paths work. I.e. if this has the straight edge from North to South, that's the part you can use with FLUPs. If that's how you have things setup, most likely sims just don't want to make use of the underpass.

[Tarkus 6,932]

Finally reached this stage . . .

The documentation revamp also hit a milestone, as the hardest part of the whole process--the RHW Feature Guide--is more or less complete for this release.  Due to just how many components there are, and the fact that we're starting from scratch with much of this (particularly as some components had little/no documentation at all), I don't know that we'll get full coverage for NAM 36, but we're in a lot better shape than we have been in awhile, thanks to switching back to HTML.

-Tarkus

[AsimPika3172 1,136]

Countdown to NAM 36 will beginning!!!!

[SIMplemente 41]

[matias93 7,535]

You installed the Maxis highway override (MHO) that replaces the traditional highways with an RHW compatible version that is better scaled.

If you want to keep your old highways as they were, reinstall the NAM and uncheck the MHO option.

Otherwise, you can replace the ramps and interchanges with the newer ones, that are bigger but more realistic.

[Evanjs 602]

I'm happen problems downloading any help please?

[rsc204 21,808]

2 hours ago, Evanjs said:

I'm happen problems downloading any help please?

Can you elaborate on this? For example where are you trying to download it from, what error messages appear? Note the NAM can be downloaded from either Simtropolis, SC4D's LEX or ModDB. The NAM team are not responsible for these exchanges directly, so if the problem comes from them, all we can do is refer you to the site in question.

[Evanjs 602]

4 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Can you elaborate on this? For example where are you trying to download it from, what error messages appear? Note the NAM can be downloaded from either Simtropolis, SC4D's LEX or ModDB. The NAM team are not responsible for these exchanges directly, so if the problem comes from them, all we can do is refer you to the site in question.

I'm downloading off simtropolis. My problem is it want me to update my game witch I do and have befor but it still will not work I've tryed many times befor over and over again. 

[Tarkus 6,932]

That isn't a download problem, but an installation problem.  Check the read-first-nam36.html document included in the download, and also happens to be attached to the release announcement thread. 

The NAM installer includes two update prompts--one for the Version 1.1.638 patch (AKA EP1 Update 1), and another for Version 1.1.640 (AKA the BAT Nightlight Patch).  The 1.1.640 patch can be ignored (though it's recommended to get full enjoyment out of a lot of custom content out there), but the 1.1.638 patch is required.

If your copy was purchased off Origin, or you're running an "unofficial" executable file, the patcher will not recognize the checksum of the executable, and will fail (albeit it may initially look like it went through).

-Tarkus

[Evanjs 602]

I have had this problem befor but got around it befor. But it's been a long time Ived downloaded it. My is the now is the origin version. I used to have the CD but my PC don't take them anymore, so I had to buy the download version of Origin.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

2 hours ago, Evanjs said:

My is the now is the origin version. I used to have the CD

The Origin retail version is crap; you should ask for a full refund.

If you still possess your CD, then you might be able to claim a fully patched digital version of the game (if the offer is still open). Search for threads about that redemption.