My Personal Questions.

[Tristy100 31]

Hello, I have multiple questions about just general stuff in SimCity 4.

1-Actual tile sizes (small, medium, and large)

2-How many large tiles would it take to remake Los Angeles, or New York (major cities)

3-How many large tiles would it take to create that major city, but include area for parks, and recreation? (only around 3/4 to 4/5 of the city will be skyscrapers)

4-Can I successfully recreated Milford, Michigan (village) on one tile (any size, not sure how big they are)

5-Any recommended regions to download? Not 50,000 please, just one or two of your personal favorites.

6-Do cities affect other cities across a gigantic map, lets say about 50 cities away, if they are connected by transportation (highway, airport, etc.)

7-How big of a map would I need to try and recreated Oakland County, Michigan? Any recommended maps near this size?

8-How could I reduce highway traffic tension as my cities develop? I'm seeing, after creating 10 or so cities of about 100k or more people, that my highways are becoming jammed. I have a commuter airport, two international airports, and a landing strip in a far away city of around 10-20k people. Also, would this far away city be affected by my almost million population mega-city? (about 5 or 6 tile wide city)

9-Will people still choose car, even if all the different transport types are used correctly, and are more efficient than auto travel?

10-This one may seem random, but as I first played SimCity 2013, why are the cities so much more limited in size in 2013 vs 4? (for the computer nerds that know all the GHz and ram or whatever :P)

11-Any tips on creating a rural county/region place? I tend to get carried away and try to limit myself, but end up zoning skyscrapers in one region for jobs, then it looks weird and I just zone everything high density.

12-Has anyone actually completed a region? My computer seems to poop itself when I try to load my city of 360k+ people, and the large city tile isn't even full yet. It's my largest city yet. (mostly based on pc limits) I've started to give up, and just zone low density to fill up around the skyscrapers, to make sort of a suburb. What are the recommended specs to get a region of 10-50 mill people? Is that physically possible without skyscraper spamming?

13-What are some design ideas you have for cities? What are some hacks you have, to make cities seem more realistic, or fun design elements you put in your cities?

14-How can I make a realistic highway system? I have NAM installed, but got rid of real-highway, as it's just SUPER confusing, and almost made me through my PC out the window. I now just have the base highway, and extra stuff NAM adds to that. Any tips with basic highway stuff only?

15-I never really use ferries, as I find them slightly not worth the time. I use metro's only when I remember, and never mess with trains or monorails or anything. I'm mostly using airports and highways. Personally, I haven't had any fatal traffic issues, but can someone explain what each transportation does well/brings to the table, and what situations it would be used for?

When answering these, please refer to the number of the question asked, thank you guys so much!

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

Hiya, @Tristy100. Welcome to Simtropolis!

You've certainly come to the right place to ask these questions. Since there are so many of them and many will take some time to type one's response I'm going to suggest to everyone to pick whichever numbered item you are going to start with, quote it, create your reply, and then submit it. Then move to the next one. No worries about the back to back posts this might create.

My reasoning is there could be more than one person working on the same question and we need not duplicate our efforts when the answers are obvious. Ofc, as usual, when there are multiple answers to the same question those will be great to have too. I'll start with the easiest one now and get back to the others as I have time over the next few days.

11 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

1-Actual tile sizes (small, medium, and large)

A small tile has 64 x 64 cells and each cell is considered to be 16 meters on each side. So that's 52.4934 feet. This means a small city tile is 1.024 kilometers across or 0.636 miles.

A medium tiles has 128 x 128 cells and a large has 256 x 256. (I'll leave the rest of the math to you.)

[TekindusT 3,809]

11 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

5-Any recommended regions to download? Not 50,000 please, just one or two of your personal favorites.

There are several very good and varied regions out in the STEX. Search for drunkapple or for blade2k5, both are very skilled map creators with a variety of landscapes.

11 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

6-Do cities affect other cities across a gigantic map, lets say about 50 cities away, if they are connected by transportation (highway, airport, etc.)

In my experience, here is no direct influence between non-adjacent cities accross a region besides the increase in the cap limits in commercial demand. Regional gameplay is needed to achieve those skyscraper-filled downtown districts.

11 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

10-This one may seem random, but as I first played SimCity 2013, why are the cities so much more limited in size in 2013 vs 4? (for the computer nerds that know all the GHz and ram or whatever :P)

It's got to do mainly about how the simulation is carried out. SC2013 is an agent-based simulation, where every Sim in your city is an existing object going around to work, to school, taking a car, and so. Larger maps allow building larger cities and this taxes the processor exponentially. Developers had to cap the size of these maps in order that people could run SC2013 in medium-spec computers. Later it was proven quite a bad decision, leading to horribly unrealistic cities and layouts.

11 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

12-Has anyone actually completed a region? My computer seems to poop itself when I try to load my city of 360k+ people, and the large city tile isn't even full yet. It's my largest city yet. (mostly based on pc limits) I've started to give up, and just zone low density to fill up around the skyscrapers, to make sort of a suburb. What are the recommended specs to get a region of 10-50 mill people? Is that physically possible without skyscraper spamming?

You can create your own region maps, and do them as small as you want. In that case, probably someone has filled up a region entirely, but it's quite an uncommon case. You'd be playing for a couple of decades trying to fill up an entire map from one of the creators I wrote previously on this post. I'm playing a region with a population of around 1.2 million, where only 10 of the about 100 available tiles are occupied, and the computer is already struggling a bit with that.

11 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

15-I never really use ferries, as I find them slightly not worth the time. I use metro's only when I remember, and never mess with trains or monorails or anything. I'm mostly using airports and highways. Personally, I haven't had any fatal traffic issues, but can someone explain what each transportation does well/brings to the table, and what situations it would be used for?

Airports do not carry commuters in between cities. They are there mainly to boost commercial demand, but under no circumstance they are used by Sims to commute around. Ferries are quite an efficient and cost-effective way of transporting Sims around bodies of water, and they have a good capacity. You can also place a bus or rail station next to a ferry terminal for a multi-modal approach. Subways are, as in real life, always best in dense environments, downtowns and inner city districts. With the NAM, you can use the subway network in a more cost-efficient way, building trams or elevated subway networks, which are way cheaper. Rail networks can be used also for cheap commuter transport and they have the added benefit that they're not underground and you can see the trains running around, giving a higher touch of realism.

11 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

13-What are some design ideas you have for cities? What are some hacks you have, to make cities seem more realistic, or fun design elements you put in your cities?

Imitating real cities, observing where and why different building densities happen, understanding the history behind cities and towns, how they developed and why they did so; is an important part of building realistic cities. Why that city boomed in population and the one 10 km further didn't? Did the Greeks found it because of its safe harbor? Maybe it was a railroad town built for industrial purposed during the industrial revolution? Understanding this and the purpose of the existance of your city is a great start to define its urbanism and at the very end, how realistic it looks like.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

38 minutes ago, TekindusT said:

There are several very good and varied regions out in the STEX. Search for drunkapple or for blade2k5, both are very skilled map creators with a variety of landscapes.

Expanding on this, here are linkys to take you directly to the files content list for each author:

• drunkapple's files
• blade2k5's files

 

[Tristy100 31]

Thank you both for that, I found that drunkapple made a Detroit map (im in the suburbs), so I can start to build it up as I know it! Thank you!

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

14 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

2-How many large tiles would it take to remake Los Angeles, or New York (major cities)

7-How big of a map would I need to try and recreated Oakland County, Michigan? Any recommended maps near this size?
 

#2: Tiles required depends on scale. Not all SC4 region maps are at the same scale. If you look carefully at the SF Bay Area region that came with the game, you'll see that it's maybe 1/3 or 1/4 scale. If you tried to lay out the real roads, you wouldn't have room for them, never mind the property in between. However, some downloadable regions have been made at 1/1 scale. When shopping for a region that models the real world, pay attention to scale.

#7: Likewise, it depends on whether you want a toy region or a full-scale region.

 

Quote

6-Do cities affect other cities across a gigantic map, lets say about 50 cities away, if they are connected by transportation (highway, airport, etc.)

12-Has anyone actually completed a region?

#6: Indirectly, via region stats. If you install the CAM, then the region stats may become more important.

#12: Look in the journals forum. Somebody has probably reached a personal goal there. However, the "game" has no programmed end point, so no region is ever truly "done" (unless maybe you wipe every city with radiation).

[Tristy100 31]

22 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

#2: Tiles required depends on scale. Not all SC4 region maps are at the same scale. If you look carefully at the SF Bay Area region that came with the game, you'll see that it's maybe 1/3 or 1/4 scale. If you tried to lay out the real roads, you wouldn't have room for them, never mind the property in between. However, some downloadable regions have been made at 1/1 scale. When shopping for a region that models the real world, pay attention to scale.

#7: Likewise, it depends on whether you want a toy region or a full-scale region.

Full-scale, I was just wondering. If it helps, Oakland County is 907 square miles. Is this do-able?  The population is only 1.2 million, which I've accomplished in 4-5 large cities. How could I make a 1:1 map of Oakland County (if no one has made one)? *(I have SC4 Mapper)*

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Quote

8-How could I reduce highway traffic tension as my cities develop?

9-Will people still choose car, even if all the different transport types are used correctly, and are more efficient than auto travel?

14-How can I make a realistic highway system? I have NAM installed, but got rid of real-highway

15-I never really use ferries... can someone explain what each transportation does well/brings to the table, and what situations it would be used for?

#8: Since you have the NAM, you should learn to use the TSCT. It can adjust network capacities. Just be careful that you don't go too far: Commercial development likes near-congestion. If you raise capacity too high, then your businesses will think they have low traffic.

#9: Another feature in the TSCT allows you to see and customize what percentage of each wealth group will use car vs transit vs fastest. Since something like 50% of low-wealth sims need transit (they can't afford cars), you will need some system (like buses) to connect them from home to work and back. I recommend the RTMT mod for this.

#14: What do you mean by "realistic"? My best guess is that you want a region-spanning highway net with interchanges at realistic intervals. The easiest way to do that is to build it (and your rail net) first. Then you can build villages and towns near the exits. Such a strategy requires money for both construction and maintenance, so it won't fly if you play a tight-money game.

#15: Ferries cross difficult-to-bridge water. Because sims won't cross the same border twice in a row when commuting, they won't "go around" a big water feature that requires going to a neighboring city-sector and then coming back. A car & passenger ferry is the simplest way to span a large water obstacle that completely divides a sector. A ferry has a time-cost to enter, but it acts like a teleporter after that.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

2 minutes ago, Tristy100 said:

Oakland County is 907 square miles. Is this do-able?

About 30 miles on a side, full scale... That's easy.

[Tristy100 31]

2 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

About 30 miles on a side, full scale... That's easy.

If I did the math correctly, I believe it would be 144 *large* tiles. Do ya' happen to know any maps this size, and mostly flat with some water?

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

3 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

I believe it would be 144 *large* tiles. Do ya' happen to know any maps this size

I've been puttering around in a full-scale SF Bay Area on and off since 2013. It's almost 300 sectors (not all large). It must be 70 miles north to south and maybe half as wide. (I can't get at it at the moment to answer questions because its computer is currently dead).

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

18 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

4-Can I successfully recreated Milford, Michigan (village) on one tile (any size, not sure how big they are)

I grabbed a screenshot of Google maps showing your hometown, copied the 1000 foot scale thinger along the left and bottom sides, and added counting numbers to see how big it would be in feet:

^Based on that it needs about 160 cells wide by 204 cells tall. This would fit in a large city tile.

 

Then back in the original I drew a cropping box around the city limits:

 

Since all city tiles in SC4 are square I noted the pixel sizes for this map being 737 x 928 and then expanded the crop box to the larger size:

 

Then I did the actual crop, rescaled that to 257 x 257 pixels, and started painting in pure blue for the larger portions of water. I used the Acrylic 04 fuzzy edge paintbrush to give some randomness to the water's edges.  (The narrow water channels would prolly be best added with MMPs.)

 

Having finished that, I then used the Bucket Fill tool with the tolerance set to 90 to fill in the interior jaggies. I then switched to pure green, set the Bucket Fill tolerance to 50 and painted in the rest of the map. some portions of the town name and red border still showed thru. I then used the solid pencil tool at 100% opacity and covered those up.

 

Then still using the Bucket Tool I set the color to #4B4B4B to correspond to SimCity 4's height elevation of 75 and filled in the blue with that. Then setting the color to #575757 for SC4 height 87 I changed the green to that grayscale color. I switched back to the gray water (#4B4B4B), grabbed the paint brush again and used that to touch up the edges of the water which still showed some faded blue and greens.

 

I then converted the image to true grayscale and added Guassian Blur of 2.0 to smooth the transition between the water and land. Next I rendered the map in the game and got this:

 

It seems a decent first attempt. I believe the distance between the river and the lake north of Central Park needs to be exaggerated to make it look better. Also the river has to be exaggerated in width in order to actually show water in the game.

So, I'd say with some more trial and error a reasonable game map could be made for Milford. (Ideally one would use Digital Elevation Model data to produce a more accurate map. That's beyond my ability.)

[Tristy100 31]

4 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I grabbed a screenshot of Google maps showing your hometown, copied the 1000 foot scale thinger along the left and bottom sides, and added counting numbers to see how big it would be in feet:

^Based on that it needs about 160 cells wide by 204 cells tall. This would fit in a large city tile.

 

Then back in the original I drew a cropping box around the city limits:

 

Since all city tiles in SC4 are square I noted the pixel sizes for this map being 737 x 928 and then expanded the crop box to the larger size:

 

Then I did the actual crop, rescaled that to 257 x 257 pixels, and started painting in pure blue for the larger portions of water. I used the Acrylic 04 fuzzy edge paintbrush to give some randomness to the water's edges.  (The narrow water channels would prolly be best added with MMPs.)

 

Having finished that, I then used the Bucket Fill tool with the tolerance set to 90 to fill in the interior jaggies. I then switched to pure green, set the Bucket Fill tolerance to 50 and painted in the rest of the map. some portions of the town name and red border still showed thru. I then used the solid pencil tool at 100% opacity and covered those up.

 

Then still using the Bucket Tool I set the color to #4B4B4B to correspond to SimCity 4's height elevation of 75 and filled in the blue with that. Then setting the color to #575757 for SC4 height 87 I changed the green to that grayscale color. I switched back to the gray water (#4B4B4B), grabbed the paint brush again and used that to touch up the edges of the water which still showed some faded blue and greens.

 

I then converted the image to true grayscale and added Guassian Blur of 2.0 to smooth the transition between the water and land. Next I rendered the map in the game and got this:

 

It seems a decent first attempt. I believe the distance between the river and the lake north of Central Park needs to be exaggerated to make it look better. Also the river has to be exaggerated in width in order to actually show water in the game.

So, I'd say with some more trial and error a reasonable game map could be made for Milford. (Ideally one would use Digital Elevation Model data to produce a more accurate map. That's beyond my ability.)

That is super cool! I've just been wanting to create a rural region for a while, and am experimenting with designs and concepts atm in other regions (specifically my flat test region), and probably will start soon. I'll experiment more with creating regions. I've been testing out using greyscale images with SC4 mapper to create some maps, but it's quite hard to find a good terrain greyscale map of a place now-a-days. I've never been real tech-savvy, so I wouldn't know how you did this, but it looks great, and I can totally tell where stuff would be based on that empty tile! Thanks for helping! (Can you link me to a tree brush mod, where when you load up a new tile, you can click a button to fill it with trees, or something related? Thanks!)

[Cyclone Boom 17,016]

Welcome to Simtropolis, and thanks for taking the time to write up those questions!    (And of course, feel free to keep them coming.)

First of all I'm no expert at gameplay strategies, but I'll do my best to share a few ideas where I can...

 

On 21/01/2018 at 5:35 AM, Tristy100 said:

10-This one may seem random, but as I first played SimCity 2013, why are the cities so much more limited in size in 2013 vs 4? (for the computer nerds that know all the GHz and ram or whatever :P)

Just adding to what @TekindusT said above:

Although I've never played SC13, the reason for the notoriously small city tiles is due to the demands of the "GlassBox" simulation. The way the game was made, it ended up being a matter of scale versus accuracy. The tiles were maxed out at approximately 2km² and equivalent to a medium tile in SC4. Whereas with SC4 using a statistical model for the simulator, it's less demanding on computer resources (processing and memory), and therefore allows greater scope for a larger city tile.

In the end, the developers even admitted complexity of the agent-based calculation was to blame for the restrictions. Also I recall there was official testing done and the game simply couldn't run on tiles much larger. So with it being an early design choice, there was no going back or margin for compromise.

Seeing as the simulation was fragile to expansion when overloaded, the name GlassBox rather proved to be an apt choice.

Anyhow, turning the page back the predecessor...

On 21/01/2018 at 5:35 AM, Tristy100 said:

11-Any tips on creating a rural county/region place? I tend to get carried away and try to limit myself, but end up zoning skyscrapers in one region for jobs, then it looks weird and I just zone everything high density.

It's not easy, but perhaps an idea in this regard is to focus on small clusters of development within a tile. Allowing defined spaces in-between towns, without there being a uniform coverage throughout. Then it may help with creating more gradual transitions between urban and rural. I'm no expert in this regard, but I've heard the danger of zoning high density too early is the potential for sudden rapid expansion. While at first small R$ houses may construct, they won't last when the higher staged buildings become eligible. When demand caps are surpassed (I think that's the term), there can potentially be whole segments of RCI upgrading at once, which could imbalance the population and create a sudden demand surge for more jobs. Also the traffic congestion, leading to transit networks being strained for capacity.

For finer control over which RCI buildings are allowed to develop, using precision zoning methods could be useful here. As explained in this guide, through combinations of the Ctrl, Alt and Shift keys, to allow the zone parcels to be laid out more specifically.

In terms of aesthetics, my #1 basic tip would be to use a custom water and terrain mod (if not already). The reason being since they're shown throughout a tile, can completely transform the appearance of an even untouched landscape. Of course, they do shine through more in more rural landscapes featuring open spaces. But also for urban settings, how some famous cities have water channels flowing between clusters of high rises.

 

On 21/01/2018 at 5:35 AM, Tristy100 said:

13-What are some design ideas you have for cities? What are some hacks you have, to make cities seem more realistic, or fun design elements you put in your cities?

I'd say a key aspect is to take development at a pace which still allows your creativity to flourish.

Maybe consider running the simulation paused for a while, relaxing the immediate need to maintain the city's general upkeep. Then there's more time to focus on smaller details across the tile. There's many options, but examples may include varying the layout of new zones, micro-managing the terrain levels such as using digger lots, or placing MMPs in certain locations. The diggers can be useful for special types of construction as shown in the linked article, and these are included in the NAM nowadays. As for MMPs, they're basically like flora items which aren't constrained to the limitations of the grid (see here for an index of items on the LEX).

At the end of it all, really the main thing is to have fun. Perhaps if ever getting frustrated with a city, it might be time to move onto another tile for a while and give that one a rest. Then gain some inspiration from a cleaner slate and return later. The great thing is a city will remain frozen in the last known state, and can be returned to at any point.

Now this may sound blatantly obvious, but planting trees might work to set the scene for a rural environment. Because having a big forest there, it may seem easier to leave alone as natural landscape, without zoning vast expanses of RCI and transit networks.

 

1 hour ago, Tristy100 said:

(Can you link me to a tree brush mod, where when you load up a new tile, you can click a button to fill it with trees, or something related? Thanks!)

Recently I discovered there happens to be a standard in game trick called the Flora Blast command.

As I explained here, the advantage being it's a big timesaver over the God Mode brush tool. Once specifying the command with the 3 parameters, it allows a tile to be filled automatically upon pressing Enter. Maybe this fits the type of tool you're searching for?

For example, a before and after blasting comparison from my latest region, using a flora blast 400 400 400 density of flora:
 

 

(Click to enlarge, and use the arrows to switch between.)

Note that this must be done for each individual tile. So for the above 12x12 region, I had to repeat the process 144 times.

If this sounds useful, to speed up this process I'd recommend copying your command (containing the 3 values) to the clipboard in advance. Then open up the box and paste using Ctrl+V. Once entering each time, there will be a slight delay of around 10-30 seconds whilst the trees are planted in the background, before all appearing at once. This will vary depending on the strength of the effects, the undulation of the terrain (and amount of water), and also the size of the city tile. I found it becomes easier after doing a few and getting into the flow. Even though it seems a daunting task at first.

You may have heard there's also the world of tree controllers and all kinds of custom varieties (including high definition models). Though as much as I like the sound of these myself, it's an area of custom content I'm yet to personally explore. So I'm unable to offer much other than they look interesting to say the least.

Along with everyone else's input so far, I hope you may find at least some of this useful.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

On 1/21/2018 at 12:35 AM, Tristy100 said:

11-Any tips on creating a rural county/region place?

I've played around with various ideas for rural settings. Some of my original ideas start here and continue in that thread for a couple of pages.

Sample pic of Dipsy-Doodle:

^ Mostly what I was after is that the farms and trees are interspersed with each other like they are where I live in RL.

 

Later in that thread in this post I was pursuing the idea of the farms being a bit more realistic on flatter ground and conforming to the hills and terrain:

^ In that same post are several pictures showing the zoning data view to better illustrate the terrain heights to show why the farms are the shape they are.

I guess my main advice would be to maybe designate one city tile that will be your skyscrapers and then have all the surrounding tiles be the rural farming areas.

 

On 1/21/2018 at 12:35 AM, Tristy100 said:

12-Has anyone actually completed a region?

I did finish one as much as I'm going to. I started a new region after this to incorporate all I learned while playing this one:

^ That's 4 x 4 large city tiles for 16 total.

 

On 1/21/2018 at 12:35 AM, Tristy100 said:

15-I never really use ferries,

I've not really gotten into them too much myself, but I can imagine a region which used them a lot could be interesting. So far I've just done silly things like a tiny island village that does have a ferry service in case anyone wants to visit the mainland:

^ More pics of this here.

[Toby Ferrian 875]

On 1/21/2018 at 9:21 PM, Tristy100 said:

If I did the math correctly, I believe it would be 144 *large* tiles. Do ya' happen to know any maps this size, and mostly flat with some water?

The only region that comes to mind is The Ring of Fire. It might not be mostly flat, but I'd say it has something for everyone if you're willing to look past the downright impractical size of it.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

6 minutes ago, Toby Ferrian said:

downright impractical size of it.

Says its 88x120km.

Assuming that's a rounded number of 4km per large city tile it would be 22 x 30 of them for 660 total! Let's say one could complete one large city tile per week. Then the region could be finished up in a bit under 13 years.

[Tristy100 31]

3 hours ago, Toby Ferrian said:

The only region that comes to mind is The Ring of Fire. It might not be mostly flat, but I'd say it has something for everyone if you're willing to look past the downright impractical size of it.

Ironically, I already have that installed, and completely unused! Thanks. Also, any mods to hide city names while taking a screenshot in the region view (sort of like you did Corina, but with the population statistics)

[Cyclone Boom 17,016]

3 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

Also, any mods to hide city names while taking a screenshot in the region view (sort of like you did Corina, but with the population statistics)

This is possible by unchecking the Show City Names option like so:

(Which also hides the mayor names for all tiles in the region.)

Seeing as it can get difficult to capture the full expanse of a large region, a useful tool which may come in handy is Region Census.

This basically puts together a montage of all the city thumbnail snapshots, rendering them as an overall region preview. There are toggles to hide the names, city tile borders, and also switch between the traffic and satellite views.

For example:

The currently shown preview can be exported via: File > Save Image

In the "Save as type" dropdown menu, there's two image formats. Either PNG for higher quality, or JPG to optimize the file size (since they can get quite large).

To start with the whole region will be previewed, but each individual tile inside the region is also exportable with the same options. Also there is a tab featuring a breakdown of the RCI population and the total funds remaining. The Save Data option allows this info to be exported as a CSV file should that ever be useful.

----------

By the way, when I mentioned in my above post...

On 22/01/2018 at 5:44 AM, Cyclone Boom said:

For finer control over which RCI buildings are allowed to develop, using precision zoning methods could be useful here. As explained in this guide, through combinations of the Ctrl, Alt and Shift keys, to allow the zone parcels to be laid out more specifically.

In case you may find it useful, earlier I replied to another topic elaborating on this slightly.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

3 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

Also, any mods to hide city names while taking a screenshot in the region view (sort of like you did Corina, but with the population statistics)

I see @Cyclone Boom has already covered a bunch of this, but since I spent the time to make a little image tutorial, I'm posting mine too.

 

As mentioned you can toggle what is shown using the in-game options:

 

To get full screen images in the region view or within city tiles I use the Clip2Pic (v1.0) program which then saves consecutively numbered images each time I hit the PrintScrn button.

To make the region picture in my prior post I went into the just mentioned Region Census and grabbed an image of the Region Info stats:

 

Then under the Image tab:

 

Select save, set it to the folder I want, name the file, and select the JPG option:

 

I then pull up the first image in GIMP, zoom in, and draw a crop box around the part I want:

^ Note the size of the crop box is 158 x 44.

 

Then I also open my exported region image and draw a temporary crop box to see how big I want the population data to be:

 

Noting that it's 1084 pixels wide (because of the larger image size) I then divide 1084 by 158 getting 6.86 which I'll round to 7. So back to the population image I do the actual crop and then select Scale Image. I've multiplied the 158 times 7 to get 1,106 and that's what I put in for the width. Because I leave the scaling proportional (by not clicking the little chain and breaking it) the height adjusts itself accordingly:

 

I copy this upsized version into my clipboard and go paste it in the other tab while having the Move Layer Tool selected:

^ It'll initially paste right in the middle and then I drag it into position.

 

Next I select Flatten Image from the Image menu:

 

And last I select to simply overwrite my original image:

 

And that gives me this:

 

One other thing that's handy in the Region Census program is you can de-select the Shrink to fit option and then scroll around the image in 1:1 size:

 

Yes, that's a few extra steps, but it's how I go about making those.

 

[Tristy100 31]

Something else possibly for computer nerds. My first city builder was SC2013. I was fairly new to pc gaming, and just wanted something I could play as a hobby/past time. It ran fine, even on very high graphics. The only things I had to disable were shadows. I then went to Cities Skylines, and saw a huge difference. I had to absolutely do everything in my power to make it as little intensive as possible, and still could only create cities up to 20k people. I then wanted something I could actually play well, but was sort of similar, and discovered SimCity 4 recently. Now, I am starting to have performance issues, especially after using the Flora Blast command. I have fully treed up large city tiles before, but for some reason the flora command completely disables the game. Here is a photo of my specs (sorry, its from task manager whilst the game is running.) I'm playing these games on a small, cheap laptop. https://snag.gy/oCVzNt.jpg

Any optimization ideas? I don't want to touch the graphics. (I do have them maxed) Also, any reasons Flora Blast would cripple my game compared to slowly placing down all the trees.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

3 minutes ago, Tristy100 said:

Any optimization ideas? I don't want to touch the graphics.

Can you at least check the settings for Shadows? Those are a killer in this game too. Everyone recommends setting them to low (often stated as:off).

Otherwise your specs look better than the comp I use to to play the game and I've used flora blast 3000 3000 3000 in my large tiles. (I am using XP Pro tho, so that's less bloated than later OS's.)

[Tristy100 31]

4 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Can you at least check the settings for Shadows? Those are a killer in this game too. Everyone recommends setting them to low (often stated as:off).

Otherwise your specs look better than the comp I use to to play the game and I've used flora blast 3000 3000 3000 in my large tiles. (I am using XP Pro tho, so that's less bloated than later OS's.)

Yes, I will check. Shadows kill my computer, I had to disable them completely in SC2013, and I've maxed everything out, so I'm surprised I've got to 370k+ in a city, with forests on the land I haven't used. Also, do you know where I can install Windows 7? It was my favorite, or do you have to buy the disc and everything?

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

2 minutes ago, Tristy100 said:

Also, do you know where I can install Windows 7? It was my favorite, or do you have to buy the disc and everything?

I know you can't get it for free anywhere.

My boss bought it via an online retailer and they sent an ISO image which he then burned to a disc. For my web comp I have Win 7 Pro and it came already installed. That's the extent of my limited knowledge for the Win 7 OS.

[Tristy100 31]

1 minute ago, CorinaMarie said:

I know you can't get it for free anywhere.

My boss bought it via an online retailer and they sent an ISO image which he then burned to a disc. For my web comp I have Win 7 Pro and it came already installed. That's the extent of my limited knowledge for the Win 7 OS.

Mmm, I have an Old HP Laptop with 7 Home Premium, as well as an old desktop from around 2008 (back when 2.7ghz Intel Dual Core Pentium was the BOMB.COM) I love that computer, just need to replace the power-supply. The desktop and laptop both have 6gb ram, 2 more than I have. I do know that the other laptop has some sort of virus, or super worn down processor, so thats why I bought my new one, as an ASUS. Fast and Cheap. Also came with an air-conditioned hand rest, 1k dollar Macs don't have my luxury. Anyways, yeah, I don't know what an ISO image even is. I know what burning is, but I have no idea how to do it lol. I guess I'll put up with Windows 10. UGHHHHH  (Cortana is annoying as heck btw, never upgrade to 10)

[Cyclone Boom 17,016]

2 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

Shadows kill my computer, I had to disable them completely in SC2013, and I've maxed everything out, so I'm surprised I've got to 370k+ in a city, with forests on the land I haven't used.

In terms of shadows, as Cori explained they really are a major burden on SC4's performance. Even taking their toll on higher end systems with great processing power and memory capacity. The reason being since most if not all game models feature them in some form, including but not limited to trees. The thing is when using the flora blast tool, the tree models are scattered and clustered throughout the whole tile. Essentially meaning it's a giant shadow the game then has to render at all times.

One suggestion might be to only set them to High for taking screenshots, then switch back to Low while actually building.

 

2 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

Also, do you know where I can install Windows 7? It was my favorite, or do you have to buy the disc and everything?

According to this article, systems with Windows 7 pre-installed were no longer sold after October 31, 2016. There might be some authorised and trusted sites still around which distribute the OS itself, but I'd be very careful if going down that route. (Or in fact anything which may seem too good to be true.)

 

1 hour ago, Tristy100 said:

Anyways, yeah, I don't know what an ISO image even is. I know what burning is, but I have no idea how to do it lol.

Basically it's the contents of a CD, storable as a file on your computer. From there it can either be burned to disc again, or what they call "mounted". This is a method of doing exactly what a CD does, but virtually using a software program. So the system wouldn't know any difference and treats it just like a physical drive.

[Tristy100 31]

Can someone show me an image of Shadows vs. Low Shadows in a rural town? I'm currently typing this on my phone, and don't plan on getting home for awhile, thanks! Just want to see what the effect is.

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

2 hours ago, Tristy100 said:

Can someone show me an image of Shadows vs. Low Shadows in a rural town?

 

[Tristy100 31]

Ah, wow. Not as big of a difference as I previously thought. Thanks! Also, just an interesting thing to think about. If SimCity 4 was 3d, some suburbs I built look fairly like the view over one of my neighbor's homes using their drone. It's quite pretty, and can totally see it if SimCity 4 was remastered.

[rsc204 21,836]

On 24/01/2018 at 5:00 AM, Tristy100 said:

Also, do you know where I can install Windows 7? It was my favorite, or do you have to buy the disc and everything?

If your system originally came with Windows 7, usually there will be a system recovery feature which you can use to restore it to factory settings. Typically this is accessed using a special key during startup, but each manufacturer uses something different so you'll need to look it up. Have a look on the bottom of your machine, there should be a sticker with the unique installation key printed upon it, that will also tell you which version of Windows you have a licence for.

Bear in mind too, if your system never shipped with Windows 7, you need to ensure there are drivers for it that will work with Windows 7, otherwise it may simply not work. The latest Intel chips have no support for Windows 7, but it all depends on the manufacturer and date it was made.

Any Windows 10 "upgrade" would have allowed you to Roll Back to your previous system, but this option only remains active for 30 days after the upgrade. So if you've exceeded that time, then only option now is a complete new install.

Worst-case, you can buy a Windows 7 O/S disc, but you should be careful to ensure you get an original disc and that the Product Key is supplied with it. Since Windows 7 is pretty old, those can be found for very reasonable prices, but there are a lot of dodgy sellers out there. It's important to know the difference between an OEM key and a full one, because OEM keys are not legally redistributable and are only valid for the machine they were originally included with.

On 24/01/2018 at 4:51 AM, Tristy100 said:

Any optimization ideas? I don't want to touch the graphics. (I do have them maxed) Also, any reasons Flora Blast would cripple my game compared to slowly placing down all the trees.

Simply put, likely that command filled the game with a lot more trees, more objects = more work to render them. Bear in mind SC4 isn't hugely Graphics intensive, so setting shadows to low/medium should prevent almost any slowdown in that department. The real killer is that it's very CPU intensive and once cities and regions really grow, the number of calculations needed to keep the simulator going will take down any modern CPU, including high end i7's. It's simply unavoidable I'm afraid, unless you limit your population. But it's not like SC4 is a FPS where stable frame rates matter, so this isn't really a deal breaker.

Make sure if you havn't installed the NAM that you have applied a 4GB Patch to your game. This will optimise the RAM that the game can access, which can make a surprising difference in some circumstances. The NAM includes this and will patch your game automatically upon installation.