Region size

[+Guest]

just wondering if there is a limit in terms of region size? is it possible to make a country size region without affecting game performance ?

[citycowboy 183]

the bigger it is, the longer it takes to load, because the game takes into account the region. I am currently playing on a region 18x18 large tiles, and its pretty killer on load times. You can do whatever your computer can handle. Keep in mind, each large tile is about 2 1/2 miles long. 

[kingofsimcity 5,739]

I don't think country-sized maps are within the realm of possibility, unless of course you're trying to recreate a microstate . County-sized maps however are very possible.

The unfortunate thing is that large regions become very taxing on RAM. For example, blunder's Ring of Fire recommends having at least 8GB, which is so far past the original game limitations that it requires a special 4GB patched executable. It also happens to be the largest map released to date and consists of 22x30 large city tiles, which gets you just north of 10,000 km² of space to work with. Compared to the real world, this isn't even 1/8 the size of the greater Los Angeles area. (~87,000 km²).

[Sabretooth78 808]

I'm using drunkapple's Bris Vegas map, which is a gargantuan 20x18 large tiles, which I actually expanded to 21x18 in order to complete an island which is cut off on the east end.  Load times are slow - I've timed it as about 17 seconds longer than with a normal sized region.

Performance-wise, I'm running it on a Mac so I have a few options.  If I run it in a virtual machine running Windows XP, it'll often CTD after the first city tile save and exit.  (The crash must occur during region map load because it never corrupted a save file.)  It won't do this when running under WINE, though, so I have to believe it's some sort of memory limitation.  I've since switched my VM to Windows 7 and while I don't notice the same behavior (which would be consistent with its larger memory addressing), I haven't tested it thoroughly enough to know for sure.

If you want to have a grasp at the size of such a region (which also crashes the Region Census application), check out the City Journal links in my signature.  Most of my municipalities/townships consist of squares of 4 large city tiles.  I've been inactive for a while, but I'll get back to it eventually.  From an Eastern US perspective, it provides a playable area comparable to that of a large county - plenty of room for a few large cities and some far-flung rural communities.

[Belfastsocrates 1,752]

On 09/03/2016 at 8:41 AM, kingofsimcity said:

The unfortunate thing is that large regions become very taxing on RAM. For example, blunder's Ring of Fire recommends having at least 8GB, which is so far past the original game limitations that it requires a special >4GB patched executable. It also happens to be the largest map released to date and consists of 22x30 large city tiles, which gets you just north of 10,000 km² of space to work with. Compared to the real world, this isn't even 1/8 the size of the greater Los Angeles area. (~87,000 km²).

What's the patch? 

I was having unbelievably frustrating crashes and save game corruptions when I upgraded my laptop from 4GB to 8GB

@Ln X provided me with a solution which means every time I want to play SC4 I need to load msconfig and limit the amount of RAM the laptop can utilise. I normally set to 2.5GB and this allows for game stability for a couple of hours. I also now backup religiously! The issue I seem to find is that once my game starts to utilise around 1.4 - 1.6 GB of RAM errors, glitches and crashes start appearing, saving a game at this point is worthless as the result is a corrupted file where one edge of the tile has a total loss of prop content. 
 

 

[kingofsimcity 5,739]

@Belfastsocrates: Here's the 4GB patch - basically lets SC4 utilize an additional 2GB of virtual memory. I don't remember if this patch was the direct cause, but I very rarely get CTDs now.

[Terring 6,473]

I've moved the topic to a more suitable sub-forum. Nothing to worry about 

- Moderator Terring

[Prophet42 1,500]

In addition to the 4GB patch, make sure you limit SC4 to using one CPU core by using the command line switch -CPUCount:1.  The game really can't handle multi-threading.  With these two fixes in place, I rarely ever CTD.

[rsc204 21,805]

Bear in mind here, the NAM installer (assuming you are using a recent version) will handle this for you. So you may find the game already patched. Also, the patch doesn't allow the software to use beyond 3GB Ram, but can be vital to keeping things stable if you have a large plugin suite. All it does is set a flag in the .exe that allows Windows to assign more than 2GB to the application where needed.

[Belfastsocrates 1,752]

On 12/03/2016 at 9:59 PM, Prophet42 said:

In addition to the 4GB patch, make sure you limit SC4 to using one CPU core by using the command line switch -CPUCount:1.  The game really can't handle multi-threading.  With these two fixes in place, I rarely ever CTD.

Yeah I have that command in place thanks to @rsc204

On 13/03/2016 at 0:59 AM, rsc204 said:

Bear in mind here, the NAM installer (assuming you are using a recent version) will handle this for you. So you may find the game already patched. Also, the patch doesn't allow the software to use beyond 3GB Ram, but can be vital to keeping things stable if you have a large plugin suite. All it does is set a flag in the .exe that allows Windows to assign more than 2GB to the application where needed.

I haven't migrated to NAM34 just yet, I plan to do a tidy up and install in the coming weeks. So by installing NAM34 the game is automatically patched?

My plugin folder is a beast, probably around 9GB or more and that's DATPacked as well! 

[rsc204 21,805]

The NAM installer checks if the flag is set in the SC4 .exe file, if not, it offers to patch it. So if you don't see the message, it's probably patched already.

[armpit43 172]

Urm, I feel a bit stupid now. I made a region which is meant to be the size of Belgium, but in total its probably half the size of Barbados. I think with perception, and not sprawling your cities beyond one tile, you might be able to pull of the effect of a large country. Otherwise you'll find cities that are meant to be a hundred miles apart sprawling into one another. 

[CorinaMarie 29,565]

On 3/10/2016 at 1:28 PM, kingofsimcity said:

@Belfastsocrates: Here's the 4GB patch - basically lets SC4 utilize an additional 2GB of virtual memory. I don't remember if this patch was the direct cause, but I very rarely get CTDs now.

Two questions:

1. Does this affect SC4's self integrity check? (I'm under the impression any change to the .exe would cause it to fail its own checksum routine.)
2. Would this be of any use on my system which has a mere 2gb of physical ram? (Like would it enable the program to do the pretend-there-is-more-memory by swapping stuff out to the hard drive?)

Thanks.

 

[rsc204 21,805]

Adding a flag does not bork the integrity check, since the code inside the .exe itself is not modified. However, you may want to update/patch SC4 fully before you make the change.

There is no point having a 4GB patch unless you are using a 64-bit operating system. Since you can't have more than 2GB RAM assigned to an application in a 32-bit environment. Not to mention, if you don't physically have more than 2GB RAM, you can tell the OS to use more, but there is nothing there to be utilised. The name 4GB patch is really because it's only useful if you have 4GB RAM or more in your system. Since it would tell the OS it can have 1GB to use and allow 3GB for the application. 32-Bit systems can only see 3GB RAM, even if more is installed, such a patch can not work around this limitation. There are 64-Bit versions of XP, but I've rarely seen them in the wild.

The basic issue here is that since the dawn of the IBM-PC and DOS, the OS will not allow you to use all your RAM for a single application. In times of old, that meant making special boot disks which could reassign the memory to allow up to 640kb of memory to a single application. Whilst Windows has improved the state of play, the OS still reserves a bunch of memory which applications can not access, even if it is free. In order for any application to use more than 3GB RAM, it must be a native 64-Bit application in the first place. This all gets a bit more complex when Virtual Memory is added into the mix, so for the sake of simplicity I won't get into that here.

[HayleyRenaNemeth 465]

My region is currently 32 x 32 , sure the game takes a few minutes to load but I don't see any issues from the region size. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Something I've never been quite sure of with Windows, and since I don't use it anymore I have no way to check it.  I know my current Ubuntu system will page applications.  There are two binary formats, one pageable and one not.  To the best of my knowledge Windows executables are not pageable without a lot of preprocessing.  I don't understand why MS did not adopt the pageable binary format for later programs as it make launching them with a VM operating system much easier.

Being an old main frame type, I am spoiled, I guess.  VM operations seem simple to me, but I guess they baffle some programmers.

[NCGAIO 562]

Just a suggestion ...

While we certainly anybody expect technical accuracy in comments over a gaming site is always useful recommend the enhancement of knowledge so to be possible to explain about issues in the most correct way possible

All the more so when it comes to matters that  all seem want to dominate ...

So it would be USEFULL to really understand the operation of the OS. over  memory ... and others too

-Windows-physical-memory/  -- --  -Windows-virtual-memory

with some innocuous changes to the game in question everything is still valid  - WOW64 Implementation Details

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Thanks for the links.  Since I haven't run Windows since 2007 or there about, I really am out of touch. 

FYI the first commercial VM machine I am aware of was the ATLAS which had 8 CPUs and not very much ferrite memory with lots of storage for backing store.  Later on the Honeywell 800 series was similar.  This was in the late 1950s or early 1960s.  For some reason, VM was abandoned and not much used after that except for some very strange special purpose mainframes.  I suspect it has something to do with the suit IBM lost to CDC over the 7000 series.

[poshbakerloo 186]

There is a limit...

I have the huge LA regions and its about 150km x 150km ish. It doesn't lag or use that much ram...but you can't scroll to the edges!

I only have 4Gb ram, you don't need 8Gb like some people claim, maybe even 2Gb is fine! The region is a simple thing to display as its not simulating anything and once you've loaded a map that's separate from the region!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The limit would be 3GB - (the size of the game's text + tables).  If you were running software rendering, the whole works would be rendered in memory, but with an active GPU much more could be displayed if the GPU had enough memory.

[armpit43 172]

So is there anyway to increase the region size of an already existing region?  

[crishy 57]

You can expand to the bottom and the right of the region by adding to the existing config file.

 

Now, if you want to expand upwards and leftwards, then the only option is to create another region, and design the config file so that somewhere in the middle of the new region you can fit all the old cities in. You can just copy and paste the old config file in the middle of the new config in Paint. Then you will need to manually transfer all the old cities to the new cities. I suggest creating a backup of the old in case you do mess up in the transfer. For large regions being transferred to even larger regions, you probably want to (re)name every city tile with a different name and create a physical map so that the transfer goes smoothly.

 

The new tiles in either case will be completely flat but you can use SC4 Terraformer to terraform it outside of the game, or download a new region and move some of the new tiles to the old expanded region, these are the easier options. In the latter case, you can download a larger new region, delete some of the inner cities so that the old region fits inside, and make sure the old region config fits exactly somewhere inside the inner cities that you deleted in the new config file, and then if necessary terraform as needed so that they blend in.

 

Remember, config files use red for 1x1 cities, green for 2x2 cities (in blocks of 2x2 pixels), and blue for 4x4 cities (in blocks of 4x4 pixels). And yes, you can use MS Paint to edit them. Use the Pencil tool to edit the pixels one by one, and keep an eye on the pixel X/Y plot in the bottom left of the application.

[armpit43 172]

On 18/05/2016 at 4:42 PM, crishy said:

You can expand to the bottom and the right of the region by adding to the existing config file.

 

Now, if you want to expand upwards and leftwards, then the only option is to create another region, and design the config file so that somewhere in the middle of the new region you can fit all the old cities in. You can just copy and paste the old config file in the middle of the new config in Paint. Then you will need to manually transfer all the old cities to the new cities. I suggest creating a backup of the old in case you do mess up in the transfer. For large regions being transferred to even larger regions, you probably want to (re)name every city tile with a different name and create a physical map so that the transfer goes smoothly.

 

The new tiles in either case will be completely flat but you can use SC4 Terraformer to terraform it outside of the game, or download a new region and move some of the new tiles to the old expanded region, these are the easier options. In the latter case, you can download a larger new region, delete some of the inner cities so that the old region fits inside, and make sure the old region config fits exactly somewhere inside the inner cities that you deleted in the new config file, and then if necessary terraform as needed so that they blend in.

 

Remember, config files use red for 1x1 cities, green for 2x2 cities (in blocks of 2x2 pixels), and blue for 4x4 cities (in blocks of 4x4 pixels). And yes, you can use MS Paint to edit them. Use the Pencil tool to edit the pixels one by one, and keep an eye on the pixel X/Y plot in the bottom left of the application.

 

Thank you so much for your reply. This is the answer I have wanted.

For now at least, until I get to grips with what I am doing, I will only like to expand to the right and bottom. Once I locate my config file, how would I go about editing it? Is it as simple as drawing new squares out on paint? I have plenty of backups for my region so I am not too skittish about the procedure.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,565]

1 hour ago, armpit43 said:

 

... Once I locate my config file, how would I go about editing it? Is it as simple as drawing new squares out on paint? ...

 

Yep.

Just make it the right number of pixels each direction and use the right red, green and blue values. When you color green or blue areas, make them the right number of pixels. Reds are 1 square, Greens are 2x2, and Blues are 4x4. Somewhere I've seen the code numbers for them, but I just use the color getter eyedropper thinger when I do config.bmps. I opened one of the original ones from a Maxis region to use for my sampling.  Any color that isn't the 3 exact ones it likes will be empty holes in the region view. Many peeps have used this to create interesting shaped regions. Even with islandinated tiles. Btw, when I save a Bmp in my Photoshop it asks me how many bit. Like something, 24, and something larger. The default is 24 and that's worked just fine. I don't know if it matters or I just got lucky.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You can use MS-Paint, but set it to maximum zoom so you can see each pixel.  You might prefer MT-Paint.

[armpit43 172]

Hi, I have figured out how to add more city tiles, its a bit tricky though.

Just wondering if it is possible to move an existing city to a new location in the region? I have noticed when I move a city in the config image it will create the tile but delete the city it was on.

[Compdude787 916]

I think you use the "import city" function.

[CorinaMarie 29,565]

On 5/26/2016 at 4:26 PM, armpit43 said:

... I have noticed when I move a city in the config image it will create the tile but delete the city it was on.

Right. The config is only the layout of the city tile borders. First add new tiles down and/or to the right without changing the pixel colors (and size) of the other tiles. Like if your upper left is a green 2x2 in config.bmp, keep it that way. (And all the rest.)

Here's an example. Original region with 11x11 config.bmp:

 

Then make a new empty config.bmp and c & p the old one into the upper left corner:

 

Then fill in the white space and save as Config.Bmp:

 

Now load the region with the new bmp in place:

 

And then, let's say, I want to move that 4x4 tile to the corner. Select the new, empty tile, then click the Import as @Compdude787 said:

 

Does that splain it better?

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The safe way to move a city from one tile to another is to copy the city to your SimCity 4/Downloads folder in your user area then backup your region.

Make the changes to the layout, adding tiles down and to the right.

Using the region mode, import the city from the Downloads folder to the new tile, which must be of the same size.

When this is successful you can delete the old city from its original spot by simply opening it and pressing CTRL+SHIFT+o.  This removes everything from the tile except the flora.

[armpit43 172]

Thank you both for your replies. I can now try and build a more country size region and stop cities that are meant to be hundreds of miles apart from morphing into eachother. Looks like I have another few years of work ahead.