My SimCity 4 game crashes whenever I try to load a large (massive) region. Is there really no way to get it to work? :(

[Joe_Winko_From_YouTube 18]

im having a problem with this one region i downloaded (and modified) for SimCity 4. 

I downloaded this region: 

^it's the 48 contiguous states of the USA.  I truely love this region because it's very beautiful, However, i wanted more 'space' with it. as in make the whole map bigger. So what i did was, i doubled the size of the config, which would make the entire region twice the size as it is. and followed the readme steps included with it, i did nothing to the gray-scale image though.

However, whenever i try to load the region in my SimCity 4 game, it crashes before it can load the region. the game crashes, not my computer.

My computer is a MSI gaming laptop, so it should be able to handle the region, i guess, despite it's massive size, but the game crashes when i try to load it.

I even turned down all the graphic settings to their lowest settings and it still crashes when i try to load it. 

I'm just wondering, does anyone here know if there's anyway to get the increased-sized region to work? 

please help ♥

and if u have any questions, just ask. 

[rsc204 21,869]

What your computer can handle won't necessarily translate to an old game like SC4, for starters it's limited in terms of how much RAM it's possible to utilise since it's a 32-bit application, that means 4GB is the theoretical maximum the game can use. In practise that will likely be lower, a very large region may simply never work, there is a maximum limit here. Bear in mind also to utilise more than 2GB requires that you have the "4GB Patch" applied to your game, which is typically handled for you when installing the NAM.

However I suspect the real problem here is that you simply adjusted the config.bmp file, making it twice as large as the region map itself. So the game tries to load it, but the data simply doesn't match, your region map (grayscale) must mirror the size of the config.bmp or it won't work. Try restoring the original config.bmp or temporarily moving the region files out of the regions folder, either should get SC4 loading correctly once more. Then you are going to have to correctly re-scale your map before attempting this again.

[Joe_Winko_From_YouTube 18]

the way the region mod i downloaded works is that it came with the grayscale image and the bmp, and the instructions told me to import it into SimCity 4 mapper. I changed the config size first, then imported it, i didnt do anything to the grayscale image though. was i supposed to resize it? i didnt think i needed to because when i imported it into SimCity 4 mapper it said they didnt match and gave me an option for the program to match them instead. it imported into SimCity 4 mapper fine though.

the config image's original size was 104px by 64px, BUT i doubled the size of it, making it 208px by 128px. i didnt do anything to the greyscale image.

Oddly enough, i tested it on my other windows 7 laptop computer (which is not a gaming computer at all. it's just average.) And the game didnt crash at all, BUT when i tried scrolling and seeing the whole region on that computer, it would not let me go to the farthest edge, as in when i clicked and dragged to see the side end of the map, it would stop part way.  

[rsc204 21,869]

It sounds like SC4 Mapper is handling things for you regarding the necessary alterations to the map.

In which case if it's working on one machine but not another, I think you might want to check if the 4GB Patch is working for the computer with the problem. Because large regions take a lot of memory, if SC4 runs out of memory a CTD is the most likely symptom. Assuming you've installed the NAM, locate this folder:

Documents\SimCity 4\NAM Auxiliary Files\Tools

Run the file 4gb_patch.exe from there, it will ask you which file to patch, point this to SimCity 4.exe in the installation/Apps directory. This just sets a flag that tells Windows when you run it that the application can use more memory. After doing that, hopefully the region will open without the crash.

2 hours ago, Joe_Winko_From_YouTube said:

BUT when i tried scrolling and seeing the whole region on that computer, it would not let me go to the farthest edge

That happens when you go beyond the maximum region size that SC4 can support. I can't recall the exact width and height limits, but you should be able to find them somewhere.

[Joe_Winko_From_YouTube 18]

3 hours ago, rsc204 said:

That happens when you go beyond the maximum region size that SC4 can support. I can't recall the exact width and height limits, but you should be able to find them somewhere.

oh  there's no hack or no way to get around that?  

[twalsh102 1,601]

You might want to take a look at this topic over at SC4D "Maximum Region Size?" https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=17831.msg519616#msg519616

[Joe_Winko_From_YouTube 18]

22 minutes ago, twalsh102 said:

You might want to take a look at this topic over at SC4D "Maximum Region Size?" https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=17831.msg519616#msg519616

^that didnt really tell me of how to get around the scrolling issue :/ 

 

and heres a video of everything going on: 

its a long video but it shows the comparison of the original map and the resized/modified one i made. 

 

 

[rsc204 21,869]

29 minutes ago, Joe_Winko_From_YouTube said:

that didnt really tell me of how to get around the scrolling issue

That's because it's a game limitation and locked in the .exe, in other words, there is no way around the problem. The linked thread shows some extreme examples of the limits of what can be made to work. But in all honestly, how many tiles do you really need? Some of those examples would take anyone years to fill with anything of quality.

[Joe_Winko_From_YouTube 18]

2 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

That's because it's a game limitation and locked in the .exe, in other words, there is no way around the problem. The linked thread shows some extreme examples of the limits of what can be made to work. But in all honestly, how many tiles do you really need? Some of those examples would take anyone years to fill with anything of quality.

good point i honestly just wanted to double the size of the region because it makes the rivers smoother. i know i could edit all of that my self, but i prefered to just use a large region.

but oh well just gotta work with what i got

but thanks for trying to help ♥