Game Freezes on Save (Win 10, Solved)

[Gunnarson 3]

So I recently got a new computer with Windows 10 (previously ran on 7), new hardware etc.

The game starts and runs fine (looks very nice on this fancy new graphics card).

However, the game freezes every few times I try to save or save and exit to region view.  Not every single time, mind you.  I thought I had fixed it for a while by turning off the music; after doing this I saved and loaded 3-4 different cities and thought the problem was gone, but eventually the game froze again.

When I say "freezes" I mean that the game becomes unresponsive and the music (if on) plays for about 3 seconds then loops.  The really annoying part is that even if I open Task Manager, I can't bring it to the front so I can't kill SC4 that way, and alt-tabbing out and clicking the "X" to close it (or right-clicking on the task bar and telling it to close) doesn't work either.  So I am forced to reset my computer to get it to close SC4.

I have already used the command line to set the intro off, the affinity to one CPU core, and set a custom resolution.  Like I said, the game starts up and runs fine, it just locks up every 3rd or 4th time I try to save.  I copied my plugins folder directly over, if that has any relevance.  Oh, and this is the GOG.com version, I downloaded that new rather than copying the installer I downloaded when I installed it on my old PC.

As a speculative fix, I have tried setting compatibility mode to Windows 7, and (I think) given the exe file all permissions, however this problem still occurred when I ran SC4 as an administrator, so I'm not sure about all that.  I have not tried the game again yet because I don't want to have to reset my computer again just now, but I will try it sometime today.

I figure that I should post this anyway in case someone else has the same problem, because I looked back through about 12 pages of this forum and didn't find anything.

 

Thoughts?

[rivit 3,404]

Nice description of the problem and your environment. Nothing sticks out as yet. I have run the same GOG.exe on Win10 throughout without problems since Win10 came out and am now running Win10, 1709, AMD 7870. I'm running it at XP SP3 compatibility (its that old), as ADMIN, suppress High DPI scaling.

• At face value it feels like a device related problem on the machine - music looping suggests the exe has entered a loop somehow (the hang). - are there any entries in the Windows Logs (Computer Mgmt Event Log) that might suggest generic issues. Do any other programs exhibit the same problem saving? or with music playback.?
• Are you sure the latest device drivers are loaded - sometime new machines aren't quite up-to-date. (check Motherboard, Graphics, Disk devices, Audio Devices) Don't change anything until you are certain its the cause.
•  Is it running off Slow Hard Disk or SSD?  Intel or AMD machine? I'm presuming plenty of space.
• Have you got the Graphics adapter in the Video Graphics.sgr file? (Programs\SC4). - no special overrides by the graphics card app?

with a bit of luck others have more ideas of how to pin this down.

[rsc204 21,869]

If the problem is unique to saving, it does suggest SC4 is having problems completing the save process.

SC4 is a little unique in how it saves the game, from what we have managed to decipher, it pretty much takes the detail of the city as it's held in RAM and duplicates it onto your Hard Drive. The reason this is important to know, is because that process is amazingly intensive as an operation, but there is a flaw in how it works. See, at the same time SC4 is trying to save the city data, it also is trying to make a screenshot of the city for region view to be updated. In addition when you use Save and Exit/Quit, the computer is also doing other things to facilitate those processes too, it easily becomes too much and leads to CTDs.

Long and short, it's a known issue that using either Save and Exit to Region or Save and Quit, can cause the game to hang. The bigger the city and more objects in it, the more likely the problem. As such, it is recommended to avoid these options altogether and only ever use just "Save", which appears on the lower menu bar or can be activated with CTRL+S. Then use Exit without Saving or Quit without Saving instead.

I note you mentioned just "save" in your description, so I won't assume you're using the Save and x options. If you get the same CTDs when using Save, is that consistent?, i.e. does this always cause a CTD in a given city, or once more is it only every few tries? Without wishing to get you to repeat yourself, it's important to be sure which. Because the issue I outlined in the above paragraph can lead to corruption of a save file, once corrupted, consistent CTDs can definitely become a thing.

But assuming overall that you can play the game stably for long periods, and only saving causes issues, I'd have to say the issue is most likely a conflicting application. Suspect #1 for messing with data being written would be Anti-Virus or Security software, even if it didn't prevent access, it might be interrupting the process in a way SC4 can not handle. Try temporarily disabling those if you have them and seeing if this alters things, it's probably a good idea to disconnect your Internet beforehand. Otherwise, depending on the app, some allow you to disable scanning for trusted applications.

Another possibility is a simple lack of RAM, either overall in the system or just based on the amount allocated for the game. Did you install the NAM, or otherwise update SC4 with a 4GB patch? If not, I would highly recommend doing so.

[Gunnarson 3]

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Did you install the NAM, or otherwise update SC4 with a 4GB patch? If not, I would highly recommend doing so.

Someone send this man a no-prize!

See, I copied my plugins folder over, including all the NAM files, and assumed that was that, but nope.

So I did a fresh NAM install and then ran through about two dozen save/load cycles on various regions and cities, including some with lots of trees/objects, some with the game running full tilt at maximum speed, hit "save and exit to region" a few times to stress-test the system.  No freezes this time.

(Just to clarify, this was never a CTD, the game would just get stuck and sit there and be impossible to close, or even shift focus to any other window).

So far, so good, although the NAM installer says I need Java now, so that's a thing on my to-do-list.

I'm going to keep an eye on things just in case I got lucky and didn't encounter a low-probability event (the freeze, which again, didn't happen every time) when testing; but if no problems come up in the next few days I will update the title to indicate the problem has been solved so anyone else who runs into this will know at least one potential solution.

My thanks again for your assistance.

[rsc204 21,869]

Just for clarity, the NAM itself doesn't require Java, but it is used for two related purposes. During installation, to create a custom controller based on your install choices and in order to run the optional application, the Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool (TSCT). If you do install Java, you should re-run the NAM installer, because the default controller may not be so efficient as a custom one, especially if you don't install all NAM networks.

The 4GB patch is not a NAM thing, although as part of the NAM install, it checks if your system needs it and applies if for you. This simply sets a flag for the SC4 .exe that tells Windows it can use more memory. But of course, when you make a new install of SC4, such changes are not carried over. Similarly, the I-HT fix which requires dat-packing a file into the Maxis originals will also need to be repeated for each new install. Unlike most fixes/mods, which reside in your plugins folder, that will be there provided you copy the old plugins folder to the new machine/install. So perhaps that's another fix to consider installing whilst you're about it.