Turning off data views is slow

[ROB EIS 34]

When I want to look at the Data Views (not necessarily the overhead map feature), exiting the views and turning off all views seems to work relatively fast...EXCEPT for the Zones view.  When I try to shut off the Zones view, it takes F O R E V E R for my buildings to return.  Is that normal?  If not, is there some way to fix it?  In the meantime, while I'm waiting, I seriously grab my phone and scroll through Instagram trying to pass time.

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

3 hours ago, ROB EIS said:

Is that normal?

Unfortunately, yes. You will also likely have longer times exiting from underground Water Pipe building view and underground Subway view too.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

6 hours ago, ROB EIS said:

When I try to shut off the Zones view, it takes F O R E V E R for my buildings to return.  Is that normal? 

Yup -- It's reloading and rendering everything. It might even be going back to the hard drive

Make sure you have the 4GB patch, and consider using a RAM or SSD drive for plugins and regions.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

From a personal experience, it might also be found how toggling shadows to Low can help improve performance.

From the Graphic Options dialog:

 

Sometimes especially when having lots of built objects in a city (including trees), it can be beneficial to reduce shadows while going about development and switching between the various views. Then for sightseeing around a tile if could be raised up for the purpose of capturing screenshots with seeing everything in full glory.

[rsc204 21,866]

Certain actions in the game require everything on screen to be re-drawn, the zones view (and Subway View) are notorious for this behavior.

10 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

toggling shadows to Low can help improve performance.

This reduces the load on your computer when re-drawing the screen.

12 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

Make sure you have the 4GB patch, and consider using a RAM or SSD drive for plugins and regions.

The first is essential if you are using the NAM, because it contains a lot of new RUL code that needs to be stored in RAM. An SSD makes a huge difference because it allows applications to read data so much quicker and does not have to seek the location of it first. If that's not an option, DAT-Packing your Plugins is a big help.

But as with a number of factors, SC4 is an old game and doesn't support many new technologies needed to unlock the full potential of modern hardware. This means at some point, based on the size of your city, number of objects within it and number of sims living/working there, slowness becomes inevitable.

[art128 4,622]

@ROB EIS I'm going to assume you have the NAM installed.

Go into your plugin folder and then the Network Addon Mod folder. There should be a file called something along those lines: "NetworkAddonMod_Zone_Data_View.dat"

move it outside your plugin folder (in case it doesn't solve your issue, instead of deleting it) and test your game without it. It should solve that issue I believe.

 

Let us know if it works.

 

As a side note, setting the shadows to low will not really do anything good unless you have done the no shadow trick as explained here by GMT on SC4Devotion. [link]

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

8 hours ago, art128 said:

As a side note, setting the shadows to low will not really do anything good unless you have done the no shadow trick as explained here by GMT on SC4Devotion. [link]

Nice info, thanks for posting about this.

Speaking from a personal standpoint, I have found how setting shadows to Low does help for the standard setup compared to Medium or High, but that sounds like the graphics rules will do even more so. It's nice when people share hidden gems like this which might not be overly known about.

[ROB EIS 34]

On 5/13/2020 at 6:41 PM, CorinaMarie said:

Unfortunately, yes. You will also likely have longer times exiting from underground Water Pipe building view and underground Subway view too.

Oddly enough, I get no lag when coming out of Water Pipe building view, nor Subway view.  Admittedly I find that strange, but I'm not complaining about it. haha

On 5/13/2020 at 9:27 PM, jeffryfisher said:

Yup -- It's reloading and rendering everything. It might even be going back to the hard drive

Make sure you have the 4GB patch, and consider using a RAM or SSD drive for plugins and regions.

Ugh....is this basically the same as reloading my entire city map from the region?  Oh...yes, I have the 4GB patch.  Thanks.

On 5/13/2020 at 11:27 PM, Cyclone Boom said:

From a personal experience, it might also be found how toggling shadows to Low can help improve performance.

From the Graphic Options dialog:

 

Sometimes especially when having lots of built objects in a city (including trees), it can be beneficial to reduce shadows while going about development and switching between the various views. Then for sightseeing around a tile if could be raised up for the purpose of capturing screenshots with seeing everything in full glory.

I forgot all about those features.  I just recently started playing again, and I'm playing catch up.

On 5/14/2020 at 10:20 AM, art128 said:

@ROB EIS I'm going to assume you have the NAM installed.

Go into your plugin folder and then the Network Addon Mod folder. There should be a file called something along those lines: "NetworkAddonMod_Zone_Data_View.dat"

move it outside your plugin folder (in case it doesn't solve your issue, instead of deleting it) and test your game without it. It should solve that issue I believe.

 

Let us know if it works.

 

As a side note, setting the shadows to low will not really do anything good unless you have done the no shadow trick as explained here by GMT on SC4Devotion. [link]

I'm going to try this.  I'll let you know if it helps.

[ROB EIS 34]

On 5/14/2020 at 10:20 AM, art128 said:

@ROB EIS I'm going to assume you have the NAM installed.

Go into your plugin folder and then the Network Addon Mod folder. There should be a file called something along those lines: "NetworkAddonMod_Zone_Data_View.dat"

move it outside your plugin folder (in case it doesn't solve your issue, instead of deleting it) and test your game without it. It should solve that issue I believe.

 

Let us know if it works.

 

As a side note, setting the shadows to low will not really do anything good unless you have done the no shadow trick as explained here by GMT on SC4Devotion. [link]

Unfortunately, no...it didn't work.  And I'm computer illiterate when it comes to doing the things at that link.  I really appreciate your help, but knowing me I'd delete the game entirely. ha ha.

Thanks again.

[tails2489 350]

My copy of the game takes forever to open, about 10-15 minutes. 5 minutes to load a city tile and then gameplay is perfectly fine and smooth unless trying to exit the zone view or subway station plopping. All other data views good, water pipes good, subway tracks good.

I've wondered if this was normal and have just put up with it for a long time now but will try the suggestions above and hope for the best.

 

I own the game on disc but my newest laptop didn't come with a disc drive and this was before I knew about Steam and other online legal ways to acquire games. Any chance a fresh install of the game from a trusted source could help any of these issues?

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

28 minutes ago, tails2489 said:

I own the game on disc but my newest laptop didn't come with a disc drive and this was before I knew about Steam and other online legal ways to acquire games. Any chance a fresh install of the game from a trusted source could help any of these issues?

Although we'll not discuss such other ways to obtain the game here, it is likely those are fraught with problems and may not even be properly patched. Additionally using an unauthorized version of the game is not endorsed or encouraged in any case.

For the game taking over 10 minutes to open, it sounds like this might be related to the size of your Plugins folder. This happens because upon startup prior to loading individual tiles, the custom content is subsequently loaded up into memory (RAM). Then when entering a city tile, the saved data is processed before the custom content in memory is displayed (which can have a performance detriment in its own right, as with shadows for plopped objects). While certainly the GOG version of the game is the recommended digital version, it wouldn't necessarily be a "magic bullet" solution since loading times are increased by the quantity of custom content being loaded.

As @rsc204 stated above, two things which can significantly help with this is by DatPacking items, and also the more expensive solution is to use a SSD instead. I recall reading how DatPacking while using an SSD isn't of significant benefit, although not having used a Solid State Drive myself and I'm unable to verify this.

Also using Cleanitol is a useful way to clean up redundant items such as images and ReadMe files. These are processed by the game even though not used, and so especially with a large Plugins folder, these all add up and might marginally increase loading times further.

[rsc204 21,866]

Either way, although it can be confusing with how Steam and GoG for example have updated their versions of SC4 in recent years. The actual code everyone (PC users) has, is identical, provided your game includes Rush Hour, (i.e. the Deluxe Edition) and has been patched. So no matter if on CD or Digital, if you have version 1.1.640.0 or above, there is no "different" version that exists.

What a lot of digital retailers do, is make changes to their installation or DRM functions or to make software work with their launchers. Maxis and EA have not developed the code since 2003, I do not see this changing.

On 27/05/2020 at 5:23 PM, Cyclone Boom said:

I recall reading how DatPacking while using an SSD isn't of significant benefit

Well I'd put that slightly differently, don't expect the sort of gains it offers when used with a traditional hard drive, but it still has benefits. Anyone who's downloaded @Ernestmaxis' huge MMP set, will have noticed over 800 new entries in the MMP menu takes a toll. When I first started using this, there was a stutter upon opening the MMP menu, along with some sluggishness using it. Once I DatPacked that set into one file, there was a noticeable increase in responsiveness, this is with an SSD on a sub-optimal SATA2 interface.

[tails2489 350]

How do I see what version I have? I just backed everything up and was about to try to reinstall the game again. Thanks.

 

Also, hey look at this, maybe I did get it from GOG, I don't remember it was 4 years ago, a lot has happened since then.

 

 

  Edited May 30, 2020 by tails2489  

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

3 hours ago, tails2489 said:

How do I see what version I have?

Open the SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition folder, then the Apps folder, then hover your mouse over the SimCity 4.exe file: