Will SimCity 2018 become a reality?

[fredinno 54]

I know about the fiasco with SimCity 2013, but it still sold pretty decently (better than 4) and about the same as Cities Skylines ~2 Million (though SimCity 2013 sold a bit more due to being out longer). Is SimCity 2018 or even SimCity 6 likely (probably outsourced, Maxis Emmeryville has been shut down). Plus, major SimCity games generally release ~5 years- not to mention SimCity has (barely) not been killed off, since EA at least sees some money in it, potentially due to the relative successes of SimCity Social and SimCity BuildIt, along with Cities Skylines.

 

Hopefully, this time, the better computers of 2018 will permit Glassbox with bigger maps, and a NAM-style traffic controller.

And please no forced online. Please.

 

It would be funny to see Paradox make SimCity 2018.

[Skimbo 304]

I just hope they don't try on it again. It will be another bad* game made via comissioned work via a third party studio or what so ever. Just hope EA won't shoo away more players from the genre.

  Edited November 12, 2016 by cmdp123789  
vocabulary

[fredinno 54]

2 hours ago, Skimbo said:

I just hope they don't try on it again. It will be another shitty game made via comissioned work via a third party studio or what so ever. Just hope EA won't shoo away more players from the genre.

what if it's good

[MushyMushy 3,618]

All things considered nothing like it will probably happen. EA isn't going to outsource development like that - if they had any intention to continue city sim development then Maxis wouldn't have been closed down. Most of the big corporate game companies are focused on shooters, RPGs, and racing games because that's where the money is. Occasionally niche simulators have surprising massive success (like ETS2 or Spintires), but games like that are cheaper to make than a city sim.

The development process of SC4 all those years ago showed the struggles of making a true "city simulator." The developers at the time ran out of time (to satisfy EA) and had to cut/tone down features (and ruin the traffic system apparently) due to EA and simply due to the average person's computer limitations. Fast forward all these years and EA/Maxis has yet to put out a simulator that can fight a good fight with SC4, which without mods is relatively broken game in some respects, and mods can't fix all of its quirks either (I still love it though). The problem with making a solid city simulator is that it is appealing to a very niche market, but it's a costly thing to develop. If there's not enough money to be made, it won't happen. Plus city sims require incredibly powerful computers to look their best by modern gaming standards (if we're talking about 3D - personally I'm 100% fine with isometric but everyone's super hung up about 3D nowadays), and that's not even considering the CPU loads involved. SC4 runs a statistics-based simulation which is arguably less taxing than an agent-based one (which SC2013 and C:S use), but since it's old and can only use one core from multicore processors it can easily push even modern high-end processors to their limit (for example, a large city tile that's mostly developed and has a lot of stuff going on can start to bog down my processor, which has a boosted core clock speed of 3.7 Ghz). People want agent-based simulations now, and those are even more taxing. This is probably why C:S has hard limits on everything. And of course running a highly modded C:S requires hefty amounts of RAM as well - I've even seen 32 GBs come up. Companies aren't going to pour resources into a game that appeals to a niche market that is made smaller because it can only be really appreciated by people with exceptionally high-end rigs. C:S skirts this to some extent much as SC4 did. Based on reddit posts I've read, C:S has plenty of problems with it's actual simulation (still a pretty game though), including a frequently stupid traffic AI. It also has moderately low restrictions on building/pop count and the base game's largest growable buildings are quite small. It's problems are different from SC4 but the games are very similar in that modders are fixing them.

Making a gorgeous yet very functional city sim would take many years of being worked on by a professional team of devs, a lot of money, and simply wouldn't be cost-effective in the end. That's not to say that I wouldn't love to see one - I play many game genres that seem to be the kind that get no attention because the crowds aren't big enough. It stinks but because money is always the greatest factor... unfortunately that's just how it works out.

[fredinno 54]

3 hours ago, MushyMushy said:

All things considered nothing like it will probably happen. EA isn't going to outsource development like that - if they had any intention to continue city sim development then Maxis wouldn't have been closed down. Most of the big corporate game companies are focused on shooters, RPGs, and racing games because that's where the money is. Occasionally niche simulators have surprising massive success (like ETS2 or Spintires), but games like that are cheaper to make than a city sim.

The development process of SC4 all those years ago showed the struggles of making a true "city simulator." The developers at the time ran out of time (to satisfy EA) and had to cut/tone down features (and ruin the traffic system apparently) due to EA and simply due to the average person's computer limitations. Fast forward all these years and EA/Maxis has yet to put out a simulator that can fight a good fight with SC4, which without mods is relatively broken game in some respects, and mods can't fix all of its quirks either (I still love it though). The problem with making a solid city simulator is that it is appealing to a very niche market, but it's a costly thing to develop. If there's not enough money to be made, it won't happen. Plus city sims require incredibly powerful computers to look their best by modern gaming standards (if we're talking about 3D - personally I'm 100% fine with isometric but everyone's super hung up about 3D nowadays), and that's not even considering the CPU loads involved. SC4 runs a statistics-based simulation which is arguably less taxing than an agent-based one (which SC2013 and C:S use), but since it's old and can only use one core from multicore processors it can easily push even modern high-end processors to their limit (for example, a large city tile that's mostly developed and has a lot of stuff going on can start to bog down my processor, which has a boosted core clock speed of 3.7 Ghz). People want agent-based simulations now, and those are even more taxing. This is probably why C:S has hard limits on everything. And of course running a highly modded C:S requires hefty amounts of RAM as well - I've even seen 32 GBs come up. Companies aren't going to pour resources into a game that appeals to a niche market that is made smaller because it can only be really appreciated by people with exceptionally high-end rigs. C:S skirts this to some extent much as SC4 did. Based on reddit posts I've read, C:S has plenty of problems with it's actual simulation (still a pretty game though), including a frequently stupid traffic AI. It also has moderately low restrictions on building/pop count and the base game's largest growable buildings are quite small. It's problems are different from SC4 but the games are very similar in that modders are fixing them.

Making a gorgeous yet very functional city sim would take many years of being worked on by a professional team of devs, a lot of money, and simply wouldn't be cost-effective in the end. That's not to say that I wouldn't love to see one - I play many game genres that seem to be the kind that get no attention because the crowds aren't big enough. It stinks but because money is always the greatest factor... unfortunately that's just how it works out.

If SimCity 4 was actually good at launch, more people would have bought it, and then the market would be bigger now... I don't believe computers are the problem, a modern home desktop in 2018 or 2020 would have far more power than in 2013 due to Moore's Law- though obviously, not everyone buys a new computer every year, so sacrifices will still have to be made. I would prefer statistics-based over limits (especially since traffic is the difficult part, not the actual city).

 

But yeah, you're probably right. Unless they manage to constantly suck money from a specific SimCity game via expansion packs (2013 tried that- unfortunately, I don't think it worked, because that actually would have been pretty cool- of course, allowing mods freely would have been better), only relatively low profits could be made.

Sort of like how people pay for major KSP (Kerbal Space Program) update packs- a sim that probably is about as complex as SimCity (4). Wonder why it failed, did users just drop off so fast?

 

The old great sims of Roller Coaster Tycoon and SimCity- I don't want them to die.

 

But Roller Coaster Tycoon is dead, Atari is bankrupt at this point. SimCity... well, if there is someone who wanted it, it could happen.

 

Darn it, I just want SimCity 4-2! If it's partially broken on launch (like 4 and 2013), just make it easily moddable, please .

[Tarkus 6,934]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

I don't believe computers are the problem, a modern home desktop in 2018 or 2020 would have far more power than in 2013 due to Moore's Law

Many in the computer industry feel that Moore's law has broken down or is, at the very least, is not going to be sustainable for much longer.  It used to be that there was a race to get to the highest clock speed--and until Intel started their stupid model number trend, the processor speed was the model number.  They put that front and center.  But you'll notice that over the course of the past decade, the CPU manufacturers started shifting toward going to adding cores, and (particularly with laptops and mobile devices) dealing with power consumption metrics.  Clock speeds have barely budged, and in many cases, with CPUs with 4 or more cores, the top end models actually have lower clock speeds than those with fewer cores. 

That's partly because the cost of developing the circuitry to handle even higher clock speeds reliably (i.e. not having to open up your computer and dump liquid nitrogen on the CPU, like some extreme overclockers do) started to become really expensive.  The rise of smartphones and ARM architecture has also shifted the landscape considerably.

When SC4 was developed, Moore's law was still largely in effect.  It's also a 32-bit application, which limits it to 4GB of physical RAM (it's capped at 2GB without being patched to switch on Large Access Aware mode), and since it appears that clock speed improvements have ground to a halt, performance on SC4 is pretty much capped (unless you're looking at performance of running SC4 while you also have other programs open).  The reason it still runs pretty decently, in spite of the lack of proper multi-core support, is because the clock speed it required was still pretty low. 

The original Cities XL is in even worse shape because of this.  It's a full-3D city simulator, but is a 32-bit application that only runs on a single core.  The specs required to run it were insane (higher than those of SimCity 2013, IIRC, despite coming out in 2009), and the ceiling of how much one can open up that game are quite low, especially since it also has a memory leak.

-Tarkus

[matias93 7,535]

Maybe the best chance to see improvements coming from Maxis is that EA stops with their stupidity and some of the original coders of SC4, make consumer research here, and develop an extension pack that basically devotes itself to patch the most annoying problems. So, if they ever read this, a wish list:

- repair the problem with prop file compression on city files, a dirty and easy solution to prop pox (not addressing the root cause, but more than enough)

- modify the code to allow multiple processors and to port the executable to 64 bits (arguably, the hardest changes)

- change the traffic simulation only slightly, pondering the number of mass transit automatas for its capacity, so to avoid the 'one bus by sim' issue.

- repair the sim spawning mechanism, to allow industrial and residential ploppables to work adequately. On the same vein, allow for an extra category of mixed residential-industrial and residential-commercial buildings (basically, allowing one building to spawn and recieve Sims and freight)

-repair issues with bridges: allow for ferry-allowing height to be changed with a mod or DLL, and allow adjacent and diagonal bridges to be tended without the DBE.

-make the moisture and climate simulation to work, or at least to make its activation more accessible to modders.

-  (I know there are other hardcoded nuisances that could be easily resolved with just a bit of work from the original developers, but don't remember them clearly)

-and obviously, to give some recognition (even monetary one) to the NAM team, that has basically done 35 expansion packs for them for free, and that is the main reason they can still recieve money from the game sales, 13 years after its initial release.

[rsc204 21,867]

13 hours ago, fredinno said:

what if it's good

Hmmm, well let's think about that shall we.

Who ruined SC4 for the most part, was it Maxis or was it EA? If you said Maxis, you don't win a cookie. Because they wanted to maximise profits at all costs, EA told Maxis to bork the traffic simulator to run on low spec PCs. That's pretty much the change that the NAM's simulator Z reverts. Just look also at the fuss required to get Origin, an EA company, to actually sell a patched version of SC4. In the process, they killed support for SC4 BAT, the very tool that helped keep SC4 alive all this time. You can't reason with EA, because they will tell you SC4 BAT isn't an EA program!

Those same wonderful people that took SC5 (2013) and dictated it be ruined by online play. The developers at Maxis had a much better vision for the game. It was stymied once more because all EA could think about was making a buck in the short term with DLC. If they had stopped for a minute to realise how much better the long term sales would have been with an open modding platform, a-la SC4, they could have made more money.

Since then, Maxis has been closed and the talent that brought us the Sim City series and many other great games no longer exists. EA have publically said that they consider SC (2013) to be a commercial failure, hence shutting Maxis.

Given all this, do you really think EA will green light another Sim City? Maybe in ten years, perhaps twenty, but frankly I seriously doubt they ever will.

6 hours ago, fredinno said:

I don't believe computers are the problem, a modern home desktop in 2018 or 2020 would have far more power than in 2013 due to Moore's Law- though obviously, not everyone buys a new computer every year, so sacrifices will still have to be made.

As Tarkus rightly points out, you can forget about Moore's law. Intel are giants and really the leaders in CPU technology. What is Intel's focus in the last 5 years or so? It's not CPU speed, it's power efficiently improvements and increases in the # of cores. Actually, that last one is subjective, we've had 4-core CPUs since the Core2Quads from 2007, around 10 years. Yes, some 6 and 8 core parts have been released since then, but at ridiculous costs, way beyond the wallet of normal folk. The fact is, Intel are not looking to PCs for the future, sure they will still exist, but there is a change in what consumers are looking for. In future I believe that more and more devices will be mobile-based, not desktops like we have today. The requirements for those are not simply raw power, it's much more important they are low-power enough to run from batteries. Not to mention, tell me a single application that really takes full advantage of the raw CPU power we have these days? Everything is poorly optimised, relying on brute-force to get the job done. This has happened because CPUs are simply far more powerful than the average person could possibly take advantage of. The bulk of the market is buying PCs/Laptops that cost between 300-500 ($/£/€), not expensive machines like enthusiasts might pay for. As PC's become mere commodities, their value is rapidly decreasing. Realistically, this all contributes to stagnation in some areas of computing technology.

If you really want to crunch numbers, what do you do? Well you string multiple cores and CPUs and a-GPUs (GPU cores that run like CPUs) together to make a supercomputer. Some of these systems are using very low-spec chips, but so many of them that it more than compensates for the lack of speed of the individual part. But that's a very specialised area.

Not to mention, what happened to the latest 7th Generation Core series processors from Intel? They were not supposed to be running on 1150 chipsets, which have been around since the 4th Generation Haswel processors were introduced. Intel had problems making this year's refresh chips and at the 11th hour tinkered with last years chips a little so they could bring a new product to market. It's going to take a change in the processes used to manufacture CPUs before we see any real change in their capabilities. We've already got Lithography of silicon to a point where there is too little advantage to be had in simply shrinking the lithography further. Not to mention, the technical costs and difficulties of silicon getting even smaller.

The same problems are plaguing Hard Drive manufacturing for some time now. I'm not talking so much about SSDs or NAND, but spinning-disks with high-capacities. There was a huge pause around the creation of 1TB drives. All the tinkering has only got us from 1TB to 8TB-10TB drives in over 10 years. Look at the 10 years previous, we went from drives with barely a GB of storage, to a TB, which is 1024x the capacity. Yet in the 10 years since, we've only gained 10x the capacity. Moore's law has it's limitations, and frankly most of the way PC components are manufactured will need to be totally overhauled before we will progress at the same speed as before. The real problem here is the cost of developing totally new ways of making things work. That would be less of a problem if PC sales were healthy and high-value. But since they are anything but, no one want's to invest the billions required to achieve a real breakthrough. That's before you consider that most computer users, simply wouldn't have a need for such new parts anyway. The whole PC industry is built upon giving everyone a reason to upgrade their machines constantly, but that has slowed greatly in the last 10 years. Such changes will happen eventually, they are bound to, but in the here and now we're still many years, if not decades away from such huge changes in technology.

[fredinno 54]

9 hours ago, Tarkus said:

it's capped at 2GB without being patched to switch on Large Access Aware mode)

???

 

6 hours ago, matias93 said:

Maybe the best chance to see improvements coming from Maxis is that EA stops with their stupidity and some of the original coders of SC4, make consumer research here, and develop an extension pack that basically devotes itself to patch the most annoying problems. So, if they ever read this, a wish list:

- repair the problem with prop file compression on city files, a dirty and easy solution to prop pox (not addressing the root cause, but more than enough)

- modify the code to allow multiple processors and to port the executable to 64 bits (arguably, the hardest changes)

- change the traffic simulation only slightly, pondering the number of mass transit automatas for its capacity, so to avoid the 'one bus by sim' issue.

- repair the sim spawning mechanism, to allow industrial and residential ploppables to work adequately. On the same vein, allow for an extra category of mixed residential-industrial and residential-commercial buildings (basically, allowing one building to spawn and recieve Sims and freight)

-repair issues with bridges: allow for ferry-allowing height to be changed with a mod or DLL, and allow adjacent and diagonal bridges to be tended without the DBE.

-make the moisture and climate simulation to work, or at least to make its activation more accessible to modders.

-  (I know there are other hardcoded nuisances that could be easily resolved with just a bit of work from the original developers, but don't remember them clearly)

-and obviously, to give some recognition (even monetary one) to the NAM team, that has basically done 35 expansion packs for them for free, and that is the main reason they can still recieve money from the game sales, 13 years after its initial release.

 

They kind of did that for 2013, bringing in modders for feedback. Also, SimCity 4 is way too old at this point, they would do it on 2013 if they wanted to. Plus, it would be easier.

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Who ruined SC4 for the most part, was it Maxis or was it EA? If you said Maxis, you don't win a cookie. Because they wanted to maximise profits at all costs, EA told Maxis to bork the traffic simulator to run on low spec PCs. That's pretty much the change that the NAM's simulator Z reverts. Just look also at the fuss required to get Origin, an EA company, to actually sell a patched version of SC4. In the process, they killed support for SC4 BAT, the very tool that helped keep SC4 alive all this time. You can't reason with EA, because they will tell you SC4 BAT isn't an EA program.

 

It was probably EA, yeah. And the traffic sim is broken in a sense even in Cities Skylines and SimCity 2013 for similar reasons. I don't expect the Traffic Sim not to be broken on launch.

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

 

Since then, Maxis has been closed and the talent that brought us the Sim City series and many other great games no longer exists. EA have publically said that they consider SC (2013) to be a commercial failure, hence shutting Maxis.

Given all this, do you really think EA will green light another Sim City? Maybe in ten years, perhaps twenty, but frankly I seriously doubt they ever will.

 

 

Well, I tried.

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

The same problems are plaguing Hard Drive manufacturing for some time now. I'm not talking so much about SSDs or NAND, but spinning-disks with high-capacities. There was a huge pause around the creation of 1TB drives. All the tinkering has only got us from 1TB to 8TB-10TB drives in over 10 years. Look at the 10 years previous, we went from drives with barely a GB of storage, to a TB, which is 1024x the capacity. Yet in the 10 years since, we've only gained 10x the capacity. Moore's law has it's limitations, and frankly most of the way PC components are manufactured will need to be totally overhauled before we will progress at the same speed as before. The real problem here is the cost of developing totally new ways of making things work. That would be less of a problem if PC sales were healthy and high-value. But since they are anything but, no one want's to invest the billions required to achieve a real breakthrough. That's before you consider that most computer users, simply wouldn't have a need for such new parts anyway. The whole PC industry is built upon giving everyone a reason to upgrade their machines constantly, but that has slowed greatly in the last 10 years. Such changes will happen eventually, they are bound to, but in the here and now we're still many years, if not decades away from such huge changes in technology.

 

Graphene and Quantum Computing led by supercomputer and scientific needs?

[matias93 7,535]

41 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Also, SimCity 4 is way too old at this point, they would do it on 2013 if they wanted to. Plus, it would be easier.

Age of Empires II is much older, but Microsoft re-edited it anyway, even introducing changes and a new expansion pack. In fact, the game age was an advantage because of the code simplicity.

 

43 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Graphene and Quantum Computing led by supercomputer and scientific needs?

And staying on university and intelligence labs; those technologies are still too costly to reach consumer level, and even if they do one day, it will be on high performance computers, not budged and portable devices as the ones that are dominating the market increasingly. When hardware developers say that the future is mobile, they imply that is also poor on processing power, because most tasks that someone needs to be done on movement are light on processing and resources. Is not casual that most game developers have been following this trend and bifurcating their productions, with huge efforts to create very simple and engaging mobile games, while reserving detailed and complex ones to select users which are prone to spend lots of money on a single time (as opposed as casual mobile gamers, that produce revenue by ad-seeing and small in-game purchases)

[rsc204 21,867]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

it's capped at 2GB without being patched to switch on Large Access Aware mode)

32-Bit applications can not use more than 2GB Memory. Just like 32-Bit operating systems can't access more than 3GB, these are system limitations. LAA simply allows a 32 bit application to use memory that would otherwise be reserved for the OS.

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Well, I tried.

Bear in mind we're just expressing opinions here. No one ultimately can force EA to do anything but I just don't see the company EA being one that takes risks in an attempt to bring gamers great content.

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Graphene and Quantum Computing led by supercomputer and scientific needs?

Graphene has been touted as a possible solution. But then I've heard scientists going on for ages about how it's the next big thing. Despite this, so far nothing has come to market that uses Graphene. It's totally possible that it turns out to be one of those discoveries that won't ultimately prove useful.

Quote

The biggest obstacle to graphene’s use in electronics is its lack of a band gap, the gap between valence and conduction bands in a material that, when crossed, allows for a flow of electrical current. The band gap is what allows semiconductive materials such as silicon to function as transistors; they can switch between insulating or conducting an electric current, depending on whether their electrons are pushed across the band gap or not. Because graphene has no band gap, electrical charges simply flow along, as in any metal.

New research conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology may have changed this, however. The researchers claim to have produced graphene samples with a band gap of 0.5 electronvolts, which they say should be enough for graphene to function as a semiconductor. If true, this could lead to graphene supplanting silicon as the semiconductor of choice, enabling much faster electronics to be made.

Source: Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/what-is-graphene-and-how-will-it-shape-the-future-of-tech/#ixzz4PM1hraCZ

Right now we're already nearing the limits of what can be achieved with silicon. Perhaps a stop-gap solution will come along from elsewhere, maybe Graphine will mature, who can know? Either way, it's years off being a commercial product. Much the same applies to quantum computing,. In theory it all looks and sounds promising, but we're a long way off being able to take advantage of it. Remember it's not enough to simply be able to make something, it must be cheap enough to make so be profitable.

For example, Concorde made commercial supersonic flight a thing. But in that case, the cost was so high that technology actually went backwards and you can't do something today you could almost 40 years ago. One of the problems with money and business ruling technology (i.e. capitalism), is that we as humans may be suffering ultimately, because progress is limited to those things that are profitable, rather than possible.

[catty-cb 4,413]

And something else to bear in mind not all operating systems are equal when it comes to what they can do, most people know I've recently deleted Windows 7 off my computer and installed Linux Mint, now in Windows 7 I could run Cities Skylines not well it has to be said but it did work and I could build very small neighbourhoods in it, but in Linux Mint despite Cities Skylines having a Linux version it no longer works on my computer it just hangs if I try and start up a new city in it ... and yet its the same computer  :(

[Tarkus 6,934]

2 hours ago, fredinno said:

They kind of did that for 2013, bringing in modders for feedback.

As far as I know, EA did not consult with any SC4 modders while developing SC2013.  Some of the Maxis folks remarked that they were influenced by the NAM and the SC4 community, and I think a select few might have had their "preview" period extended a little, but that was really as far as it went.  They also shut down some modding attempts after launch with certain patches.

Monte Cristo (Cities XL) and Colossal Order/Paradox (Cities: Skylines) did have direct communications with SC4 content developers, however.

-Tarkus

[Talla 2XLC 36]

What i dont understand is, with all the Knowledge the NAM Team and other Modders gained over the last 10+ Years about the inner Workings of SC, why is there no Way to boost the Performance of SC4 (make it Multicore and 64bit). Is this Stuff in the exe, hardcoded or simple way too complexe?

[MushyMushy 3,618]

34 minutes ago, Talla 2XLC said:

What i dont understand is, with all the Knowledge the NAM Team and other Modders gained over the last 10+ Years about the inner Workings of SC, why is there no Way to boost the Performance of SC4 (make it Multicore and 64bit). Is this Stuff in the exe, hardcoded or simple way too complexe?

Based on my limited understanding, changing something from a 32 bit to a 64 bit program is a lot of work, which is infinitely harder if the game's code is unfamiliar (I know we're familiar with some of the more accessible parts of the code, like RUL, but the inner workings are another story I'd imagine) to the people working on it. It's also a core part of the game so we can't touch it at all.

[rsc204 21,867]

54 minutes ago, Talla 2XLC said:

What i dont understand is, with all the Knowledge the NAM Team and other Modders gained over the last 10+ Years about the inner Workings of SC, why is there no Way to boost the Performance of SC4 (make it Multicore and 64bit). Is this Stuff in the exe, hardcoded or simple way too complexe?

Put simply we are a bunch of modders, not game programmers. That's before you get involved in the legality of modifying the games code. The NAM team had to agree not to modify the game's .exe at one point to avoid the wrath of EA's lawyers.

Then there is the sheer complexity of the task. Even if you managed to get the original game's programmers in one room, they themselves would struggle to do what you are asking. Because it's been a long time since they worked with something that is uniquely coded by a large group working together. To have to unravel how it works first would be intimidating for even the most expertly qualified programmers.

Put simply, to ask this question shows a complete lack of understanding about how code works. Whilst I often explain it with an analogy about learning a different language. Coding is not nearly so simple. Think about how one language can have variants or dialects that might make it sound like a totally different language altogether. Then imagine that coders will work in one realm of computer logic, but that doesn't mean I would naturally choose to code in the same language, the same task, in that same way myself. Overcoming these barriers for such a complex product like SC4 is really a big ask.

I think to sum it up it's best to say, it's simply not a very realistic proposition that anyone will be able to make such a huge overhaul of the code. Even if we had the source code, in all likelihood, the best you could hope for would be subtle improvements and additional functionality. As it stands, we can modify parts of the game that are not stuck inside the .exe, which alters the behaviour of various things. Don't get me wrong, over the years some very bright sparks have found ingenious ways to make the impossible work. But for the most part, we are very limited in terms of what we can and can't alter. It's therefore quite amazing to think of just how far the NAM has pushed such a closed system.

[Tarkus 6,934]

Also, it's worth noting that SimCity 2013 is only a 32-bit application, and the main part of the game is still single-threaded.  64-bit CPUs and operating systems have been commonplace since the early/mid-00s, but it's only very recently that games have started to be made as 64-bit applications (Cities: Skylines is one).  Inexplicably, there's still quite a few people running 32-bit OSes, who can't run 64-bit applications.  For much the same reason that EA required Maxis to nerf the traffic simulator on SC4, game companies have been stuck with making 32-bit apps, to maximize their potential market size.

-Tarkus

 

[rsc204 21,867]

1 hour ago, Tarkus said:

Inexplicably, there's still quite a few people running 32-bit OSes, who can't run 64-bit applications.

Well it certainly doesn't help that MS would expect you to pay for a totally new OS to move from a 32-64 bit variant. Nor that many OEMs preinstalled 32-bit versions of Windows onto machines with 64-Bit capable hardware either. But even XP has a 64-bit variant, although finding drivers for existing hardware that worked was a real problem there. But from Vista onwards, there really was no good reason for 32-bit systems to continue existing for average users.

[APSMS 1,893]

I found that a good example of the challenges that exist even when trying to code multithreaded programs from scratch can be read in this relatively simple post by Anselm Eickhoff about his work with his City Building Sim Citybound. Read the follow-up post to get an idea of the problems you can have with something so seemingly simple as memory management and disk allocation.

This is for a game being programmed from Scratch. Now imagine an existing, 13-year old game built in an era when 500MHz PCs were still widely common, and the Floppy A still made logical sense to represent the save button on your machine.

Yeah.

[fredinno 54]

11 hours ago, rsc204 said:

12 hours ago, fredinno said:

 

32-Bit applications can not use more than 2GB Memory. Just like 32-Bit operating systems can't access more than 3GB, these are system limitations. LAA simply allows a 32 bit application to use memory that would otherwise be reserved for the OS.

I was more asking to where that patch was. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Is it in the Maxis patches?

11 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Graphene has been touted as a possible solution. But then I've heard scientists going on for ages about how it's the next big thing. Despite this, so far nothing has come to market that uses Graphene. It's totally possible that it turns out to be one of those discoveries that won't ultimately prove useful.

The problem comes in making large quantities of it. They recently made a meter squared of that stuff, so it might actually start becoming possible to mass produce it a decade or so.

Considering the revolutionary potential of 2D atomic structure-based materials and alloys, I would really hate if this was a dead end, and not just a slow beast, like Nanotech.

11 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Right now we're already nearing the limits of what can be achieved with silicon. Perhaps a stop-gap solution will come along from elsewhere, maybe Graphine will mature, who can know? Either way, it's years off being a commercial product. Much the same applies to quantum computing,. In theory it all looks and sounds promising, but we're a long way off being able to take advantage of it. Remember it's not enough to simply be able to make something, it must be cheap enough to make so be profitable.

For example, Concorde made commercial supersonic flight a thing. But in that case, the cost was so high that technology actually went backwards and you can't do something today you could almost 40 years ago. One of the problems with money and business ruling technology (i.e. capitalism), is that we as humans may be suffering ultimately, because progress is limited to those things that are profitable, rather than possible.

Still, business applications will push the needs for better tech for making applications, which then can make higher fidelity applications that consumers need. It's probably near the end point in the forseeable future in a VR version of SimCity

10 hours ago, Tarkus said:

As far as I know, EA did not consult with any SC4 modders while developing SC2013.  Some of the Maxis folks remarked that they were influenced by the NAM and the SC4 community, and I think a select few might have had their "preview" period extended a little, but that was really as far as it went.  They also shut down some modding attempts after launch with certain patches.

Monte Cristo (Cities XL) and Colossal Order/Paradox (Cities: Skylines) did have direct communications with SC4 content developers, however.

-Tarkus

Nope. From a former Maxis worker right after Maxis Emmeryville was shut down

https://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/2xxvz1/ea_closes_maxis_emeryville/

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Perhaps, EA should spring the 10-20k that it would cost to have a panel of "super fans" give their 2 cents on the plan as an outside sanity check.

Anyway, sorry for the loss, Maxis has been a key part of my life and I'm sad to see it go.

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[–]vertexnormal (Former Maxis Worker) 11 points 1 year ago 

We did. Several times. We flew community leaders and modders in, put them up in hotels, showed them pre-production software and got their feedback. They helped to make a better game.

And it was a great experience for everyone. The devs love to meet the fans and the fans have that same look of walking into hallowed ground that I did on the day I walked in for my job interview there.

He later goes on to sing EA's praises, despite being fired.

9 hours ago, Talla 2XLC said:

What i dont understand is, with all the Knowledge the NAM Team and other Modders gained over the last 10+ Years about the inner Workings of SC, why is there no Way to boost the Performance of SC4 (make it Multicore and 64bit). Is this Stuff in the exe, hardcoded or simple way too complexe?

We all wish we could fix that with just a (relatively) simple .dll...

11 hours ago, matias93 said:

Age of Empires II is much older, but Microsoft re-edited it anyway, even introducing changes and a new expansion pack. In fact, the game age was an advantage because of the code simplicity.

 

And staying on university and intelligence labs; those technologies are still too costly to reach consumer level, and even if they do one day, it will be on high performance computers, not budged and portable devices as the ones that are dominating the market increasingly. When hardware developers say that the future is mobile, they imply that is also poor on processing power, because most tasks that someone needs to be done on movement are light on processing and resources. Is not casual that most game developers have been following this trend and bifurcating their productions, with huge efforts to create very simple and engaging mobile games, while reserving detailed and complex ones to select users which are prone to spend lots of money on a single time (as opposed as casual mobile gamers, that produce revenue by ad-seeing and small in-game purchases)

Microsoft is not EA. And SimCity 4  is anti-simple. Also, there is a newer alternative that looks better and could benefit from being fixed just as well.

8 hours ago, Tarkus said:

Also, it's worth noting that SimCity 2013 is only a 32-bit application, and the main part of the game is still single-threaded.  64-bit CPUs and operating systems have been commonplace since the early/mid-00s, but it's only very recently that games have started to be made as 64-bit applications (Cities: Skylines is one).  Inexplicably, there's still quite a few people running 32-bit OSes, who can't run 64-bit applications.  For much the same reason that EA required Maxis to nerf the traffic simulator on SC4, game companies have been stuck with making 32-bit apps, to maximize their potential market size.

-Tarkus

 

SimCity 2013 is single-threaded? Quoting the AVGN, "What were they thinking?"

Geez, we could have used that performance for bigger maps! And potentially much better future-proof the game.

 

Also, the fact you need to reinstall your OS for 64-bit is the primary reason.

[Tarkus 6,934]

58 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Nope. From a former Maxis worker right after Maxis Emmeryville was shut down

https://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/2xxvz1/ea_closes_maxis_emeryville/

 

The only SC4 community people I know of who were at Maxis at any point during SC2013 development were the Dirktator and Zelgadis.  They might have brought some Sims modders in, but no one from the NAM Team was invited, and I've not heard of any other major SC4 content creators who were brought down to Emeryville.

-Tarkus

[rsc204 21,867]

6 hours ago, fredinno said:

I was more asking to where that patch was. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Is it in the Maxis patches?

Installing the NAM handles this for you.

A 64-bit patch is not unique to one game or application. You can apply it to any application, it just sets a flag that lets the OS know it can allocate more memory to it.

6 hours ago, fredinno said:

Still, business applications will push the needs for better tech for making applications, which then can make higher fidelity applications that consumers need.

Define need. See consumers might want such things, but business, I'm not so sure for the most part that's true. The fact is the bulk of business applications run just fine on current hardware, barring some very specialist cases. If a business needed more computing power, that means they must be able to justify the cost of the extra oomph. In which case, surely they would invest in super-computers and expensive mainframes. The fact is most of them don't, proving there is either no need or financial reward in investing in them.

Now in the field of science and high-tech industry, it's a different matter altogether. That's where all the really big budget stuff is, and usually where the technologies that eventually are made available for normal folk start out.

Whilst the breakthroughs may happen, it will be a long time before such breakthroughs are cost effective enough for mass production. In the meantime, the field of computing is simply stagnating relatively speaking, to the huge leaps in progress we saw from the first silicon-based transistors until recently.

6 hours ago, fredinno said:

It's probably near the end point in the forseeable future in a VR version of SimCity

VR really just serves to prove my point. VR tech is nothing revolutionary, sticking a couple small screens in some plastic with off the shelf SOC's to deliver a half-arsed psudo-VR experience is not a giant leap forward. But of course, if I were marketing such a product, I'd be talking like it somehow was.

Back in 1998, there used to be a Sega park at the Trocadero center in London (Piccadilly). Not content with having hundreds of the best arcade machines strewn about the place, there were 7 very unique attractions there too. One of which was a huge cinema-like auditorium, where many people could play a massively multiplayer VR game together. Everyone had a headset, along with two fire buttons placed on the ends of the armrests of their seat. The game, a Star Wars inspired shooter, where each player took the role of one of the gunners on a huge spaceship. Motion trackers in the VR headset were used to aim, then you simply pressed the buttons to fire when in range on an attacking ship. It was an amazing experience for it's time. But 19 years later, home VR is being announced and I've yet to see a title that would surpass that level of immersion. So it's nothing new or special in my book. Not to mention, whilst the game was fun, the headaches 5 minutes of playing gave me were anything but.

6 hours ago, fredinno said:

Also, the fact you need to reinstall your OS for 64-bit is the primary reason.

Doubtful. Most people are quick to re-install their OS when there is a problem. It's an easy fix compared to locating and fixing the actual problem. I would imagine a large part of the reason is that few people know or care about the benefits of a 64-bit OS. They use whatever OS they were given (pre-installed).

[LivingInThePast 364]

With the reverse engineering of some of SimCity 4's code (allowing a fix to the "hovering bug") thanks to Aspyr's lack of data masking, how possible is it for a fanmade patch to take advantage of better computing power that was impossible (or at least highly impractical) in 2003?

[matias93 7,535]

27 minutes ago, LivingInThePast said:

With the reverse engineering of some of SimCity 4's code (allowing a fix to the "hovering bug") thanks to Aspyr's lack of data masking, how possible is it for a fanmade patch to take advantage of better computing power that was impossible (or at least highly impractical) in 2003?

Basically impossible, because that is such a small part of the code (and from a code that isn't even the one that most players are using), and because to optimize software for newer hardware usually implies to rewrite all the program, not only some parts. I think the realistically achievable changes are conceptually similar to already existing mods, what is to say, they would be changes to the simulation that just infortunately are hard-coded instead of stored on a DAT file (like the number of automatas per commuters or the posibility to tend bridges without an one-tile separation).

[LivingInThePast 364]

5 minutes ago, matias93 said:

Basically impossible, because that is such a small part of the code (and from a code that isn't even the one that most players are using), and because to optimize software for newer hardware usually implies to rewrite all the program, not only some parts. I think the realistically achievable changes are conceptually similar to already existing mods, what is to say, they would be changes to the simulation that just infortunately are hard-coded instead of stored on a DAT file (like the number of automatas per commuters or the posibility to tend bridges without an one-tile separation).

The "hard code" did what was believed to be impossible and now some of the cut content (upgradeable city halls) now seems within reach. Besides, the Aspyr port (which isn't very good, which is how we got this intelligence in the first place) rewrote the game to run on a completely different processor architecture, the PowerPC.

[fredinno 54]

9 hours ago, Tarkus said:

The only SC4 community people I know of who were at Maxis at any point during SC2013 development were the Dirktator and Zelgadis.  They might have brought some Sims modders in, but no one from the NAM Team was invited, and I've not heard of any other major SC4 content creators who were brought down to Emeryville.

-Tarkus

 

 

 

Huh. Strange that no one from NAM was brought in, since you guys are bascially the ultimate nerds of SC4.

Quote

Installing the NAM handles this for you.

I could be wrong, but I thought RAM overuse was the reason why adding too many .dat files that aren't packed is an issue... or not.

Quote

A 64-bit patch is not unique to one game or application. You can apply it to any application, it just sets a flag that lets the OS know it can allocate more memory to it.

Define need. See consumers might want such things, but business, I'm not so sure for the most part that's true. The fact is the bulk of business applications run just fine on current hardware, barring some very specialist cases. If a business needed more computing power, that means they must be able to justify the cost of the extra oomph. In which case, surely they would invest in super-computers and expensive mainframes. The fact is most of them don't, proving there is either no need or financial reward in investing in them.

 

1

We didn't need more than 2 GB of RAM even for gaming back a decade ago. Now people are going apeshit saying that the Switch is underpowered, since it is probably going to be maxed out at 4 GB, even though the OS on Nintendo is as minimalistic as possible most of the time.

 

You may not need it now, but eventually, everyone will be forced to 64-Bit and higher power computers, either because they want to play Civ 6, for processor-heavy buisness uses, or just because programmers become increasingly lazy as computer power improves.

4 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Now in the field of science and high-tech industry, it's a different matter altogether. That's where all the really big budget stuff is, and usually where the technologies that eventually are made available for normal folk start out.

Whilst the breakthroughs may happen, it will be a long time before such breakthroughs are cost effective enough for mass production. In the meantime, the field of computing is simply stagnating relatively speaking, to the huge leaps in progress we saw from the first silicon-based transistors until recently.VR really just serves to prove my point. VR tech is nothing revolutionary, sticking a couple small screens in some plastic with off the shelf SOC's to deliver a half-arsed psudo-VR experience is not a giant leap forward. But of course, if I were marketing such a product, I'd be talking like it somehow was.

 

2

It kind of is- since you can't simulate motion in a home setting while still being somewhat reasonably affordable. (also, space concerns).

Unless you were to drug the user, but that opens a whole new can of worms.

Quote

Back in 1998, there used to be a Sega park at the Trocadero center in London (Piccadilly). Not content with having hundreds of the best arcade machines strewn about the place, there were 7 very unique attractions there too. One of which was a huge cinema-like auditorium, where many people could play a massively multiplayer VR game together. Everyone had a headset, along with two fire buttons placed on the ends of the armrests of their seat. The game, a Star Wars inspired shooter, where each player took the role of one of the gunners on a huge spaceship. Motion trackers in the VR headset were used to aim, then you simply pressed the buttons to fire when in range on an attacking ship. It was an amazing experience for it's time. But 19 years later, home VR is being announced and I've yet to see a title that would surpass that level of immersion. So it's nothing new or special in my book. Not to mention, whilst the game was fun, the headaches 5 minutes of playing gave me were anything but.

 

1

Still, VR headsets are pretty much becoming the 'next big thing', the only thing keeping them back being high cost and low-power computers. So we have a drive to improve computers, at least for the time being, though Moore's law is probably starting to saturate.

Quote

Doubtful. Most people are quick to re-install their OS when there is a problem. It's an easy fix compared to locating and fixing the actual problem. I would imagine a large part of the reason is that few people know or care about the benefits of a 64-bit OS. They use whatever OS they were given (pre-installed).

 

 

True, but installing your OS is still a pain in the butt that usually takes up a lot of time that could be used watching football.

 

It's not like the PC gaming community is big enough to force manufacturers to pre-install 64-bit, because then the 32-bits would die about as fast as XP after losing support.

[MushyMushy 3,618]

I think the big problem with all of the talk of increasing computer power is that manufacturers haven't really been focused on doing that at all. I passively pay attention to computer parts' development and the department I see the most change in is graphics cards (the Nvidia 1000 series is a pretty good step up from the 900s). Making better GPUs is great for companies all around because game developers can make the same otherwise unintensive game have better graphics - but graphics have settings. If they make a super gorgeous game, you can still turn graphics settings down to make it playable on most computers. Shooters and the like are not going to require a ton of work by your RAM or CPU. In almost all games you can't really tweak settings that affect your CPU, because that would change the game you're playing. Why don't they try harder to make CPUs higher clock speeds? It isn't cost effective. Gamers nowadays are primarily hooked on games that won't melt your CPU. Intel and the like are focused on adding cores instead, which is going to appeal to professional companies that do all manner of things, because lots of heavy duty commercial software benefits more from core count than clock speed as far as I know. Gaming companies aren't going to develop games that need super high clock speeds because not enough people will buy the game. Games generally don't need a lot - before what I have now I had a laptop with a 2.3 Ghz dual core i3. It played most games fine CPU-wise. It struggled because it had an integrated graphics system, but if games had really low graphics settings I could play them just fine. Basically, the problem I see with the expectation that they will make faster CPUs  is that the market will be small. They haven't tried to make faster CPUs in a while as far as I can tell. My current CPU is a fairly top-of-the-line model from a few years ago and I see little difference in the new models except for heat management and efficiency.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Apart from sc4 I liked to play soccer manager games.

Segas Football Manager didn't have the licence for the german soccer league as EA had a contract with the DFB (german soccer association). Two years after EA had dropped  the development of its own soccer manager they renievew the contract with the DFB.

So Segas Football Manger now is the only one on the market but still can't include the names of the german football clubs or german players.

EA doesn't act much in the interest of players. They even burry and destroy gaming fun if it's in their strategies.

Just to expect something in this case is ...

... a waste of time.

And me , I expect more nice content from the community for sc4. But I don't expect anything from EA.

It's the same way I don't expect a superhero to come and solve my problems. I think I'll have to fix it myself. 

 

 

Don't wait for paradise. Make the best out of what you have.

 

 

[rsc204 21,867]

6 hours ago, LivingInThePast said:

The "hard code" did what was believed to be impossible and now some of the cut content (upgradeable city halls) now seems within reach. Besides, the Aspyr port (which isn't very good, which is how we got this intelligence in the first place) rewrote the game to run on a completely different processor architecture, the PowerPC.

Yes and no. You can't compare fixing some functionality that wasn't working to re-writing the code, that's apples vs oranges.

The Aspyr port would have involved altering the game engine to function on a different architecture. But no doubt Maxis's programmers/engineers would have been instrumental in assisting that effort. Again converting the application to run on different hardware is not the same as optimising it for new hardware. I don't want to be the big bad bully here, but can we just take it as red that this is extremely unlikely. Yes, theoretically possible, but EA would have to greenlight it and someone would have to fund it, most likely EA. Since it's selling anyway, I don't see why EA would suddenly feel like bothering spending cash to milk their cash cow. In fact, I think they'd let that dry up before investing in improvements/updates. Multi-core support with full optimisation is a pipe dream.

5 hours ago, fredinno said:

I could be wrong, but I thought RAM overuse was the reason why adding too many .dat files that aren't packed is an issue... or not.

Nope. SC4 indexes all your plugins on startup. Hard drives can read a few larger files quicker than many smaller ones. But, the same amount of data, regardless of how it's distributed, takes up the same amount of RAM. So DATPacked or not, RAM usage is no different, it just makes the game load faster.

Quote

You can test this out by copying a bunch of files from one location to another. Then, zip them into one file and copy them to the same place. Note how much faster the same files zipped are copied. If you do this with already compressed images (like JPEGs), you'll get a more accurate result. Since they can't usually be compressed any further when packing them into a .zip.

Note this may not apply to SSDs, which are so much quicker, that the difference becomes far less noticeable.

5 hours ago, fredinno said:

We didn't need more than 2 GB of RAM even for gaming back a decade ago. Now people are going apeshit saying that the Switch is underpowered, since it is probably going to be maxed out at 4 GB, even though the OS on Nintendo is as minimalistic as possible most of the time.

Ignore the fanboys. 4GB Ram is plenty. What does the Xbox one have, 5GB wasn't it? But the OS needs 2 of those. I think it's unlikely the Nintendo OS will need 1GB RAM personally. A well optimised system will outperform a high-end brute force one any day. Of course, I don't expect Switch games to look better than Xbox One games will, because let's face it, Nintendo hardly showed off anything new for it during the release. Not to mention, the switch is simply an android SoC equivalent, the PC-like architecture of Xbox/PS4 will simply destroy it, or at least used correctly it should.

5 hours ago, fredinno said:

You may not need it now, but eventually, everyone will be forced to 64-Bit and higher power computers, either because they want to play Civ 6, for processor-heavy buisness uses, or just because programmers become increasingly lazy as computer power improves.

It seems there are still 32-bit variants of Windows 10 (why?). But not everyone will need to run apps that need so much memory.

5 hours ago, fredinno said:

It kind of is- since you can't simulate motion in a home setting while still being somewhat reasonably affordable.

Wearing a headset with motion sensors is not really simulating motion. Affordable be damned, the entire world doesn't have the space to install such kit, even if it was affordable. I always wanted to own a pool table and some arcade machines. Affording them was never the issue, I simply never lived anywhere with the space to have them. True VR faces exactly the same problems, hence it can never be a thing for mass-market in-home users.

5 hours ago, fredinno said:

Still, VR headsets are pretty much becoming the 'next big thing',

Come back to me in 5 years on that one, we'll see. Remember how 3D was the next big thing, or BluRay? I think the jury is still out frankly. My opinion, expensive rubbish.

5 hours ago, fredinno said:

True, but installing your OS is still a pain in the butt that usually takes up a lot of time that could be used watching football.

Really? It's about 30m to do. OK, installing the drivers and updates are a pain, but you don't have to sit there doing it. What's an football?

5 hours ago, fredinno said:

It's not like the PC gaming community is big enough to force manufacturers to pre-install 64-bit, because then the 32-bits would die about as fast as XP after losing support.

XP is far from dead. Just a lot of business moved on, but in the consumer space, it's still quite popular, just under 10% of the world still using it. Source.

Thing is, 32v64-bit is like choosing the options on a new car. You as the purchaser need to know what you will and won't need. If you rely on the salesman or manufacture to tell you, you'll just get shafted.

3 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

EA doesn't act much in the interest of players. They even burry and destroy gaming fun if it's in their strategies.

Exactly. It's simply unrealistic to expect them to do anything to help improve SC4 and it's future/fortunes. The only people who ever seemed to care were the guys at Maxis.

You know it's really not said enough around here, I guess none of them are listening either, but...

 !!MAXIS - WE LOVE YOU!!

[fredinno 54]

On 2016-11-08 at 3:00 PM, rsc204 said:

Really? It's about 30m to do. OK, installing the drivers and updates are a pain, but you don't have to sit there doing it. What's an football?

The OS is the lesser problem than moving all your files to and from a safe backup location and reinstalling everything. Even if you don't sit there and wait, you still need quite a bit of spare time for it. Which is why it'd be nice if the upgrade process is a lot more seamless. Since most people (I would expect) in the consumer and general buisness marketplace wold benefit from extra RAM, even though (now I know) it would make the system slower overall. Especially since Adobe's editor programs have largely moved to 64-Bit, and gaming- and Internet constantly sucks up all my RAM for some reason too...

On 2016-11-08 at 3:00 PM, rsc204 said:

Exactly. It's simply unrealistic to expect them to do anything to help improve SC4 and it's future/fortunes. The only people who ever seemed to care were the guys at Maxis.

You know it's really not said enough around here, I guess none of them are listening either, but...

 !!MAXIS - WE LOVE YOU!!

You're talking to a corpse...

On 2016-11-08 at 3:00 PM, rsc204 said:

Come back to me in 5 years on that one, we'll see. Remember how 3D was the next big thing, or BluRay? I think the jury is still out frankly. My opinion, expensive rubbish.

Even if it doesn't pan out in the consumer market, I would anticipate it would still be a thing in say, gaming, just like with BluRays. It's not anywhere near as Gimmicky as 3D or Motion Control, and could make games a lot more immersive (while still sitting on your ass) if it becomes cheap enough.

 

On 2016-11-08 at 3:00 PM, rsc204 said:

XP is far from dead. Just a lot of business moved on, but in the consumer space, it's still quite popular, just under 10% of the world still using it. Source.

Thing is, 32v64-bit is like choosing the options on a new car. You as the purchaser need to know what you will and won't need. If you rely on the salesman or manufacture to tell you, you'll just get shafted.

That's my point. It's userbase collapsed right after it lost support from 30%, then stagnated, because the people still using it didn't bother to upgrade- possibly since they used it for consumer purposes only (ex. Gaming)- I still use it since it's a hella faster than Vista, 7, 8, or 10.

32 Bit should be the same way- most people would likely benefit from 64 bit over 32 Bit, which is why it should be pre-installed instead of 32-bit. No one pre-installs XP for the same reason.

On 2016-11-08 at 3:00 PM, rsc204 said:

Come back to me in 5 years on that one, we'll see. Remember how 3D was the next big thing, or BluRay? I think the jury is still out frankly. My opinion, expensive rubbish.

It would be nice to play VR SimCity :3

Plus, I think there are enough people wanting to buy VR COD to justify at least 1 or 2 gaming generations of VR.

On 2016-11-08 at 3:00 PM, rsc204 said:

Wearing a headset with motion sensors is not really simulating motion. Affordable be damned, the entire world doesn't have the space to install such kit, even if it was affordable. I always wanted to own a pool table and some arcade machines. Affording them was never the issue, I simply never lived anywhere with the space to have them. True VR faces exactly the same problems, hence it can never be a thing for mass-market in-home users.

Maybe in 2100 the GDP/Person will be high enough that the average indoor living space per person will triple. :3

There's no space? Just build up! Ask my Sims in my SC4 game. :3

I wouldn't say it's impossible, just not yet.

 

On 2016-11-08 at 3:00 PM, rsc204 said:

It seems there are still 32-bit variants of Windows 10 (why?). But not everyone will need to run apps that need so much memory.

This was before I knew about 64 Bit actually being slower than 32 Bit.

Like how we still have 8 Bit computers (wait wut?)

On 2016-11-08 at 3:00 PM, rsc204 said:

Ignore the fanboys. 4GB Ram is plenty. What does the Xbox one have, 5GB wasn't it? But the OS needs 2 of those. I think it's unlikely the Nintendo OS will need 1GB RAM personally. A well optimised system will outperform a high-end brute force one any day. Of course, I don't expect Switch games to look better than Xbox One games will, because let's face it, Nintendo hardly showed off anything new for it during the release. Not to mention, the switch is simply an android SoC equivalent, the PC-like architecture of Xbox/PS4 will simply destroy it, or at least used correctly it should.

Nintendo hardly showed off anything for it yet, not just anything new. They aren't too transparent when it comes to hardware- Sony keeps stealing their stuff.

Do we know it's android-based? Other than Nivida supplying the chips, and probably being x86 based, not much else about the hardware.

 

Also, the Xbox One is a 'one' entertainment system for your TV (hence the name), and is also competing with Smart TVs with the S version, unlike Nintendo's stuff.

It should be as powerful as the Xbox One (in game capability )if it wants the 3rd party support to not be a failure like the U. Let's hope Iwata learned that lesson before he died, even if it's more expensive as a result.

On 2016-11-08 at 3:00 PM, rsc204 said:

Nope. SC4 indexes all your plugins on startup. Hard drives can read a few larger files quicker than many smaller ones. But, the same amount of data, regardless of how it's distributed, takes up the same amount of RAM. So DATPacked or not, RAM usage is no different, it just makes the game load faster.

so what if you have more mods than 4GB of RAM?

On 2016-11-08 at 3:00 PM, rsc204 said:

The Aspyr port would have involved altering the game engine to function on a different architecture. But no doubt Maxis's programmers/engineers would have been instrumental in assisting that effort. Again converting the application to run on different hardware is not the same as optimising it for new hardware. I don't want to be the big bad bully here, but can we just take it as red that this is extremely unlikely. Yes, theoretically possible, but EA would have to greenlight it and someone would have to fund it, most likely EA. Since it's selling anyway, I don't see why EA would suddenly feel like bothering spending cash to milk their cash cow. In fact, I think they'd let that dry up before investing in improvements/updates. Multi-core support with full optimisation is a pipe dream.

Aspyr wut?

On 2016-11-08 at 11:18 AM, MushyMushy said:

I think the big problem with all of the talk of increasing computer power is that manufacturers haven't really been focused on doing that at all. I passively pay attention to computer parts' development and the department I see the most change in is graphics cards (the Nvidia 1000 series is a pretty good step up from the 900s). Making better GPUs is great for companies all around because game developers can make the same otherwise unintensive game have better graphics - but graphics have settings. If they make a super gorgeous game, you can still turn graphics settings down to make it playable on most computers. Shooters and the like are not going to require a ton of work by your RAM or CPU. In almost all games you can't really tweak settings that affect your CPU, because that would change the game you're playing. Why don't they try harder to make CPUs higher clock speeds? It isn't cost effective. Gamers nowadays are primarily hooked on games that won't melt your CPU. Intel and the like are focused on adding cores instead, which is going to appeal to professional companies that do all manner of things, because lots of heavy duty commercial software benefits more from core count than clock speed as far as I know. Gaming companies aren't going to develop games that need super high clock speeds because not enough people will buy the game. Games generally don't need a lot - before what I have now I had a laptop with a 2.3 Ghz dual core i3. It played most games fine CPU-wise. It struggled because it had an integrated graphics system, but if games had really low graphics settings I could play them just fine. Basically, the problem I see with the expectation that they will make faster CPUs  is that the market will be small. They haven't tried to make faster CPUs in a while as far as I can tell. My current CPU is a fairly top-of-the-line model from a few years ago and I see little difference in the new models except for heat management and efficiency.

Adding cores wouldn't make SC2018 have extra performance to work with?