NAM General Support

[Tarkus 6,932]

@Dutchdragon, it sounds like the 4GB Patch was not properly applied in your case.  Try opening the 4gb_patch.exe file again, and select the SimCity 4.exe file in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps.  You can check to see if it's been applied properly after by going to that folder, and noting the date/time on the SimCity 4.exe file, as well as the presence of a SimCity 4.exe.Backup file.  If you have the "Backup" file, and the "date modified" for SimCity 4.exe is from right when you ran the patch, it should be working.

@Pemberley, it's a similar issue in your case, though given that you're on 32-bit Windows with only 2GB RAM, your system may simply not have the memory (or memory access) in order to handle it, even with the patch.  I'll also note, "unofficial" executables are not really supported.

The Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool will do nothing for any of you with regards to this issue, as it handles the settings for the Traffic Simulator, not the NAM Controller.  The tool you'd want to use to shrink the NAM Controller would be the Controller Compiler.

-Tarkus

 

 

[rsc204 21,808]

On 24/10/2020 at 11:04 PM, Pemberley said:

I have exactly the same problem Dutchdragon mentioned. I have installed NAM38. It has run a few times but far more often it does a crash-to-desktop after seeing the region and taking a while to load the city. The city never comes up but the ctd occurs in at least 9 of 10 loads. I believe I have properly patched the exe file... I dragged it over the 4gb patch and it said it was patched. I have not found a solution.

If I remove the NAM controller DAT file I get the city to load and I can see NAM pieces but I cannot build anything.

I should disclose that I am running Windows 7, 32 bit, with 2 GB, with a SC4 Delux+Rushhour install and my exe is sc4_v1.1.640_NoCD. I have the cd, but my computer's cd drive is old. I would think the no-cd was the problem except that the games loads a city once a week if i keep trying and restarting.

Is my computer just too old and slow?

You can not patch an application on a 32-bit version of Windows with the 4GB Patch, the Large Address Aware flag it sets for the OS to read, doesn't exist outside of 64-bit OSes. Since it's purpose is to re-jig the additional memory on 64-bit systems, so that the OS reserved memory does not come from the same 2GB 'pool' which is by default shared between a running App and the Windows system itself. In short it's designed specifically to improve performance/RAM availability of 32-Bit applications running on 64-Bit systems, with sufficient Memory, i.e. 4GB or more, hence it's name. This is commonly confused as meaning it gives a 32-bit App access to 4GB memory, which would be impossible. Now of course, the patcher itself may not have code to tell you this, it just sets the flag for the .exe, which either doesn't work or is simply ignored by the OS.

This problem comes from the very large default controller installed with NAM, for versions 37 onwards. The solution is either to reduce the RAM requirements, by creating a more compact Custom Controller or otherwise use NAM 36 or earlier/upgrade your PC.

The NAM team neither distribute nor support older releases of the NAM, so your ability to go back, would be dependant on you having at least a copy of the old installer or backup of your NAM folders from an earlier version.

You'd need a system that supports more RAM, plus a new copy of (64-Bit) Windows to use it, which also would include a fresh install of Windows, there is no upgrade path between 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Practically speaking, it's easier to just get another computer, since it'll likely work out cheaper too. Suitable machines for SC4 run less than 100 ($/£/€) second hand and would be much more suited to playing modded SC4.

If you don't use RealHighway (RHW), the simplest solution is to manually create a custom controller file, removing RHW from it. This will lead to a controller with millions of lines less code, which should dramatically reduce the resource requirements for SC4. At which point, you should find it runs on a system with 2GB RAM. Just bear in mind, Windows is probably using at least 512MB (1/4) of that before you start, any background process you have will also be using RAM too. Open the Task Manager and look at how much "Physical Memory" your system uses after a fresh boot, being doing anything. This will show how much actual Memory is left before even trying to run SC4. Note that opening other Applications whilst trying to run games on a such a system, is a very bad idea and should be avoided, to prevent the system from using something called Virtual Memory. This runs from your Hard Drive, so theoretically can increase the amount of Memory your system can access. Practically speaking though, it's too slow to really work and leads to CTDs and other general instability, especially in the context of games.

See the link in my signature to my NAM 37+ Installer guide on YouTube. It covers how to make a custom controller, which I'm sure is your best solution. But perhaps if you can afford to, consider if you'd be better off with a more capable system. Unless SC4 ever sees an update to a true 64-bit app, a system with 4GB RAM will always remain sufficient for SC4, since we'll eventually reach a point where we can add no more RUL code, because of these limitations.

[Busta -CASE- 140]

Hello, fellow players, I was wondering in which category of the HW menu could I find those pieces. I was using this pic as reference but never thought I wouldn't find those transitions in particular, there's only a 180 and a similar piece but with the same height. I have NAM 37. Thanks in advance 

[FireSka 20]

Hey Team!  Still loving NAM.  Thank you for all of your work on it.  I wanted to report a pathfinding bug.  See the attached screenshot.  When using the Avenue/RHW ramps, cars prioritize the ramps rather than the avenue overpass.  They would rather wait at the traffic light than bypass it, haha.  Could this bug be fixed in a future release?  See attached screenshot.

[Dutchdragon 74]

@Tarkus Thanks for the reply. I know for sure that the 4GB patch was done succesfully the first time, since I already saw there was a new backup version of the sc4 exe and a changed date. My PC is also 64 bit and the previous version of NAM worked just fine.

[Flann 1,709]

4 minutes ago, FireSka said:

Hey Team!  Still loving NAM.  Thank you for all of your work on it.  I wanted to report a pathfinding bug.  See the attached screenshot.  When using the Avenue/RHW ramps, cars prioritize the ramps rather than the avenue overpass.  They would rather wait at the traffic light than bypass it, haha.  Could this bug be fixed in a future release?  See attached screenshot.

I'm no expert but I suspect that this has to do with the fact that the RHW network is faster than the avenue network, though you would think that traffic lights would offset that.  I don't know enough about how that works to answer.  However, if you had a little more space you could convert the overpass to RHW and that would even out the speeds in theory.

[rsc204 21,808]

1 hour ago, b9117w said:

Hello, fellow players, I was wondering in which category of the HW menu could I find those pieces. I was using this pic as reference but never thought I wouldn't find those transitions in particular, there's only a 180 and a similar piece but with the same height. I have NAM 37. Thanks in advance 

These are most likely the ‘legacy’ NAM Curves/Height Transitions, these are optional features that do not get installed by default. But I believe are still in the NAM installer, so remove your Network Addon Mod folder and install the NAM again with the legacy options selected under RHW, if you don’t have these options in your menu. 

25 minutes ago, FireSka said:

Hey Team!  Still loving NAM.  Thank you for all of your work on it.  I wanted to report a pathfinding bug.  See the attached screenshot.  When using the Avenue/RHW ramps, cars prioritize the ramps rather than the avenue overpass.  They would rather wait at the traffic light than bypass it, haha.  Could this bug be fixed in a future release?  See attached screenshot.

21 minutes ago, Flann said:

I'm no expert but I suspect that this has to do with the fact that the RHW network is faster than the avenue network, though you would think that traffic lights would offset that.  I don't know enough about how that works to answer.  However, if you had a little more space you could convert the overpass to RHW and that would even out the speeds in theory

Indeed, the avenue is not as fast as the slip lanes, so through traffic takes the faster route. There is no easy way to slow down such traffic, unless you can make the main route quicker. You could use MHY/MHO for the elevated section and ramps, both transition cleanly to Avenue. Otherwise use RHW itself for the through section.

This situation will be better when the REW project is expanded, allowing for OWR ramps and transitions, all of which, per tile, will be the same speed.

[FireSka 20]

On 10/26/2020 at 4:12 PM, rsc204 said:

These are most likely the ‘legacy’ NAM Curves/Height Transitions, these are optional features that do not get installed by default. But I believe are still in the NAM installer, so remove your Network Addon Mod folder and install the NAM again with the legacy options selected under RHW, if you don’t have these options in your menu. 

Indeed, the avenue is not as fast as the slip lanes, so through traffic takes the faster route. There is no easy way to slow down such traffic, unless you can make the main route quicker. You could use MHY/MHO for the elevated section and ramps, both transition cleanly to Avenue. Otherwise use RHW itself for the through section.

This situation will be better when the REW project is expanded, allowing for OWR ramps and transitions, all of which, per tile, will be the same speed.

The problem with using the MHO is that it is 6 lanes, while the avenue is 4.  It looks odd transitioning to 6 lanes just for the overpass and then back to 4 for the avenue.  I could definitely try RHW itself, but the issue with that is it then creates 2 bridges for each side of the road, rather than one bridge for the avenue which is how most overpasses are designed.  I think that the pathfinding should take into account traffic lights personally, and cars should take routes that aren't slowed by traffic lights as priority.  Or perhaps the ramps themselves shouldn't be included as priority in pathfinding, only the roads.  The latter would likely solve the issue.  People are going to prioritize the ramps anyway if they are connecting two RHWs or something of that nature.  So, I don't think there's a need to apply actual priority to the ramp pieces themselves.

[Flann 1,709]

1 hour ago, FireSka said:

The problem with using the MHO is that it is 6 lanes, while the avenue is 4.  It looks odd transitioning to 6 lanes just for the overpass and then back to 4 for the avenue.  I could definitely try RHW itself, but the issue with that is it then creates 2 bridges for each side of the road, rather than one bridge for the avenue which is how most overpasses are designed.  I think that the pathfinding should take into account traffic lights personally, and cars should take routes that aren't slowed by traffic lights as priority.  Or perhaps the ramps themselves shouldn't be included as priority in pathfinding, only the roads.  The latter would likely solve the issue.  People are going to prioritize the ramps anyway if they are connecting two RHWs or something of that nature.  So, I don't think there's a need to apply actual priority to the ramp pieces themselves.

Here's a solution to your problem.  Requires NAM 38 as I make use of the new REW features.  As you'll see I start with an identical setup as you with the same traffic routing problem.  I convert the avenue overpass to L1 using the draggable 7.5m elevated avenue FLEX pieces and convert the ramps from RHW to REW (Real Expressway) which is one way road based.

 

[FireSka 20]

Ooh nice!  I see what you did there.  That looks like it works great!!  Basically just not using those avenue RHW ramps and rather use REW for the ramps. Awesome, I will try this!  Thank you.

[Flann 1,709]

1 minute ago, FireSka said:

Ooh nice!  I see what you did there.  That looks like it works great!!  Basically just not using those avenue RHW ramps and rather use REW for the ramps. Awesome, I will try this!  Thank you.

Yes, although you'll need to convert the avenue to one way road for the portion where the REW ramps connect!

[FireSka 20]

Got it!  Do you know if anyone has made a mod to make the striping on the one-way roads look like the striping on the avenue (or vice-versa)?  Something I've been wondering for a while.

[rsc204 21,808]

13 hours ago, FireSka said:

The problem with using the MHO is that it is 6 lanes, while the avenue is 4.  It looks odd transitioning to 6 lanes just for the overpass and then back to 4 for the avenue.

Maxis Highway Override (MHO) is a NAM option that converts the MHY to look like a bi-directional RHW-4S network, i.e. it's also 4 lanes. Although if you are using the regular MHYs, I see your point.

The MHO is a more compatible, both visually and in terms of connectioning/transitioning to RHW networks, which includes a functioning highway tunnel too. The drawback is that all those prefab intersections (MHY + NAM) are no longer compatible, the idea being to make use of MIS and other RHW techniques to build intersections with it. Some special pieces are included for T-Intersections, Roundabout Intersections and Cloverleaf Intersections. If you are a big user of RHW, repurposing the MHY to make it useful and better looking works great. However, if you want easy to build highways, it's perhaps better avoided.

13 hours ago, FireSka said:

I think that the pathfinding should take into account traffic lights personally, and cars should take routes that aren't slowed by traffic lights as priority.  Or perhaps the ramps themselves shouldn't be included as priority in pathfinding, only the roads.  The latter would likely solve the issue.  People are going to prioritize the ramps anyway if they are connecting two RHWs or something of that nature.  So, I don't think there's a need to apply actual priority to the ramp pieces themselves.

Right, but what I was talking about is how things work in practise, the game simply doesn't allow for the kind of logic you reference from the real world to be calculated. Remember the key job of a simulator, is to use mathematical algorithms to give the appearance of a functioning world, based on your 'inputs' and giving 'outputs', i.e. visual and logged data, which represents what's going on. As a game made when computers didn't have a fraction of the power we have in our Phones today, the programmers needed to optimise the number of calculations made, by making them only as complex as they needed to be for a functioning product. The Traffic Simulator is already the biggest resource hog in SC4, because as populations grow, the number of complex calculations it needs to work grows exponentially.

We do have a few tricks employed in the NAM, which can be used to modify things, but that's still very limited in terms of how much control we have over this. Each network has a speed at which traffic travels, OWR is much faster than Streets, Roads or Avenues, necessary for SIMs to use actually them. Remember, without the NAM's Simulator Z, which always prefers the fastest route for commuting, Sims rarely use mass transit, highways and just in-general I'd say the original simulator is simply broken. We can add Distilled Intersection Paths (DIPs) to tiles, to add a 25% Capacity Boost to it, this can affect speed as it won't suffer from becoming congested (slower) so easily. These settings are possible, because they exist to improve capacity at intersections.

All people and vehicles in SC4 are just spawned as a visual representation of what is going on, to help players find problems. But the actual commutes and times they take do not take into account any of this. In other words, a car driver is not simulated as leaving his house, with all the potential delays along their route, such as stopping at traffic lights. As a result of all this, there simply doesn't exist any mechanism within the game that would enable things to work as you desire.

11 hours ago, FireSka said:

Got it!  Do you know if anyone has made a mod to make the striping on the one-way roads look like the striping on the avenue (or vice-versa)?  Something I've been wondering for a while.

I don't know of any cosmetic mods that affect the entire Avenue or OWR network, I assume you are talking about the Lane Markings used? Avenue is probably the least altered network in NAM, the basic texture have not been altered from the original game's files in most cases.

Such cosmetic mods are always possible to make, it just takes a lot of work and requires a grounding in image editing to pull off. But if those things aren't barriers, these days it's real easy to work with the game files at least, so the bulk of the work is just the editing part.

[Tarkus 6,932]

Regarding OWR striping, one of the earlier internal builds from 2017-2018 (early in NAM 37 development) of the REW did change the striping on the OWR network to be more Avenue-like. I've played around with doing the same with the NWM's OWRs.  It's definitely a possibility that something like that might be made, though it's on the backburner at the moment.

-Tarkus

[jakis 287]

Hello there! I got a problem with road/street 2x2 roundabout. After 38 version of NAM installed, I can't build them by way I used to: by dragging road/street to 2x2 circle. It worked on previous versions, but not this. By the way, I still can make an one-way road 3x3 roundabout. I've tried to find info about this in readme, nothing aditional were found, so seems the way to build this roundabouts didn't changed on this version. But somehow I can't build them.

P.S. While installing, I've chosen everything what had been checked by default except cul-de-sacs and somethings, that I sure, it isn't about roundabouts.

[Tarkus 6,932]

5 hours ago, jakis said:

Hello there! I got a problem with road/street 2x2 roundabout. After 38 version of NAM installed, I can't build them by way I used to: by dragging road/street to 2x2 circle. It worked on previous versions, but not this. By the way, I still can make an one-way road 3x3 roundabout. I've tried to find info about this in readme, nothing aditional were found, so seems the way to build this roundabouts didn't changed on this version. But somehow I can't build them.

P.S. While installing, I've chosen everything what had been checked by default except cul-de-sacs and somethings, that I sure, it isn't about roundabouts.

The Road and Street Roundabouts are indeed still built the same way, and there were actually some features added to them for NAM 38, for the first time in quite some time (double corner connections).  They're also installed pretty much by default now (beginning with NAM 37), under the "Base Features" option under their respective networks in the installer.  The only way you could not end up installing them is if you by chance completely unchecked "Road, One-Way Road, and Avenue" and/or "Street" at the top level, which is the one way they would not get installed--and the fact that the OWR ones are working would suggest you did not have the former unchecked, at the very least.

It sounds more likely that there's INRUL interference somewhere--possibly a piece of an old NAM installation or something to that effect.  I'd double check that you've removed any old NAM bits, and reinstall NAM 38.

-Tarkus

[rsc204 21,808]

8 hours ago, jakis said:

I got a problem with road/street 2x2 roundabout. After 38 version of NAM installed, I can't build them by way I used to: by dragging road/street to 2x2 circle.

I have tested both with NAM38 today and they are working just fine. It does seem likely some part of an old NAM install was been left behind when you updated. Remember from NAM37 onwards, you must manually remove the old Network Addon Mod folder, before installing. This includes z___NAM too, if upgrading from NAM36 or earlier.

[jakis 287]

Thanks guys
I found another (older) NAM folder, which were sneaked in many levels from another folder. Idk why I were keeping that there. Deleting that folder and reinstalling worked for me.

[smurfN 26]

I have the latest NAM 38 installed. My problem is that one of the terrain raising lots included (7,5m) sometimes gets the immortal lot syndrome. Haven't tested the other lots to any extent to see if they also have this problem.  I've used these lots in previous versions of NAM without ever having this problem. Any ideas?

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

3 hours ago, smurfN said:

one of the terrain raising lots included (7,5m) sometimes gets the immortal lot syndrome.

How odd. Where in the menus did you find the lot? I ask because there are two whole sets of diggers & raisers. You should be using the tools under the road menu (scroll the ring until about where you see starters etc). Do not use any kind of lots (wherever those sulfurous things are).

The tools immediately raise or lower terrain without building anything there. The lots... I gave up on those so many years ago that I can't even remember all the trouble they caused me.

[akaThePrez 2]

I need some installation help. I installed OpenJDK that is included with the zip file. When I try to run the install with that program, a window briefly pops up (it's all black), for less than a second, then disappears. I can't get the installation to start at all. Any advice is appreciated!

[Flann 1,709]

21 minutes ago, akaThePrez said:

I need some installation help. I installed OpenJDK that is included with the zip file. When I try to run the install with that program, a window briefly pops up (it's all black), for less than a second, then disappears. I can't get the installation to start at all. Any advice is appreciated!

I have no idea what causes this but I had the same issue.  Couldn't get it (or any jar file) to work properly with the official Java or openjdk, but i was able to run the installer via command line with Java:

java -jar "path/to/installer.jar"

[akaThePrez 2]

7 minutes ago, Flann said:

I have no idea what causes this but I had the same issue.  Couldn't get it (or any jar file) to work properly with the official Java or openjdk, but i was able to run the installer via command line with Java:

java -jar "path/to/installer.jar"

I tried getting the command line method to work earlier but was unsuccessful. You first typed "java -jar" then the path? Want to make sure I try it correctly

[akaThePrez 2]

17 minutes ago, Flann said:

I have no idea what causes this but I had the same issue.  Couldn't get it (or any jar file) to work properly with the official Java or openjdk, but i was able to run the installer via command line with Java:

java -jar "path/to/installer.jar"

This worked! Thank you! Now I just need to get that patch to run...

[rsc204 21,808]

18 hours ago, Flann said:

I have no idea what causes this but I had the same issue.  Couldn't get it (or any jar file) to work properly with the official Java or openjdk, but i was able to run the installer via command line with Java:

If Java works with the command line, then Java is working fine. Java runs in a command line, but when ran from the desktop, it closes before you can see any errors. Logically there are only two things which might be different here:

• JAR files are associated with the wrong .exe from the Java package.
  It should be javaw.exe, solved with Right Click, Open With, pointing to this file manually (you can tick the box to make this the new default too).
• The Java.exe lacks elevated (admin) privileges.
  Note, right clicking/run as Admin doesn't solve this, because that doesn't get propagated to the actual .exe itself. Typically, the command line tool is ran with Admin rights, therefore you don't run into the same problem.

[Flann 1,709]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

If Java works with the command line, then Java is working fine. Java runs in a command line, but when ran from the desktop, it closes before you can see any errors. Logically there are only two things which might be different here:

• JAR files are associated with the wrong .exe from the Java package.
  It should be javaw.exe, solved with Right Click, Open With, pointing to this file manually (you can tick the box to make this the new default too).
• The Java.exe lacks elevated (admin) privileges.
  Note, right clicking/run as Admin doesn't solve this, because that doesn't get propagated to the actual .exe itself. Typically, the command line tool is ran with Admin rights, therefore you don't run into the same problem.

I did a bit more looking into this and discovered this fix which successfully restored my .jar file association.  http://johann.loefflmann.net/en/software/jarfix/

[junspud 1,066]

The new SAM flex piece would need to be modified with baked-in textures to show grass or sidewalks correct?

[klaklukla 15]

Hello! I have a problem with cul de sacs - I enabled them in the NAM installer (Euro Textures RHS) and after a bit of digging, I found a file called something like z8_eurotexturesculdesac.dat in the NAM Folder in Plugins. However, when I build streets in a residential zone in the game, they always end with that default yellow/black end thingy and not in a cul de sac. I tried this with no plugins bit NAM installed. Is there a trick I'm missing when building streets or something needed up with my installation?

[rsc204 21,808]

I *think* the following file if loaded after the NAM should fix your issue. It's an old forum attachment of mine, but I can't help you more directly right now nor test/see the contents of the file. But hopefully my memory hasn't let me down and it isn't a customised version - I make mods with custom sidewalks/grasses among other things, so it's possible.

Cull-de-Sacs.zip

Come back to us if it doesn't work, I can definitely whip up an override as a last resort if needed once I'm back at my Windows PC.

[klaklukla 15]

Thanks for the quick reply! It's great to see that a 17 year old game still has such an active community! I tried putting the file you gave me into my Plugin folder and putting it at the very bottom. It works somewhat, but unfortunately quite as I hoped, I'll attach a picture:

So the cul de sac looks pretty when there are no zones, but in the zones, there is still that ugly black/yellow thing? Is there a way to remove that in the zones as well? If it's to do that you can tell me how to do it myself too.