School Coverage Radius - Bug Test

[CorinaMarie 29,615]

So, I'd mentioned elsewhere that some custom schools were reported to have a capacity bug. Looking into it again now and knowing that the problem seems to only be with Float32 and Rep = 1, I now suspect it is really the School Coverage Radius (0x691B42B3) property that might be the problem.

Attached are the files for one such school which can be tested.

For the before test include these three files in Plugins:

1. CV2x2_JB_Lil Red Schoolhouse - Original.SC4Lot
2. JB_Schoolpack_Props_v01.dat
3. Lil Red Schoolhouse.SC4Model

Plop in a dense residential area which has no school coverage, run time, and see how many students attend. Exit without saving.

Then replace the CV2x2_JB_Lil Red Schoolhouse - Original.SC4Lot with CV2x2_JB_Lil Red Schoolhouse-Radius Rep to 0.SC4Lot and test again.

This is the property in question:

^ In the potentially fixed version the only change is setting that to Rep = 0.

Lil Red Schoolhouse - Needs Mac Test.zip

  Edited May 29, 2020 by Cyclone Boom  
Authorized test models removed.

[xxdita 1,097]

Have you any indication on how this Rep Count is set to 1? Have you been able to duplicate this bug using any of the available tools? i don't see anything transit or TE-related, so I think we can rule SC4Tool out. PIMX sets the rep count correctly at 0. I haven't installed Maxis PIM, LE, or Building Tweaker again yet, as I never use them on purpose. How old a file was this?

I'm just trying to get a sense of how big a problem this may actually be, if it is a problem. But even without a proper test, I think we can pretty much expect that the majority of MAC compatibility issues is going to be related to Float32 rep counts. So that's the first thing we need to check out, in building desc's and actual lot files. 

[CorinaMarie 29,615]

14 hours ago, xxdita said:

Have you any indication on how this Rep Count is set to 1? Have you been able to duplicate this bug using any of the available tools?

Yes. @Cyclone Boom has found a way to replicate the problem and it seems to be a specific tool and sequence which causes it. The method is quite likely to have been the normal way lots were created at the time. I'm now helping him explore additional ideas and he'll post the results when it's more clear what's what.

 

14 hours ago, xxdita said:

How old a file was this?

It's from 19 November, 2006.

 

15 hours ago, xxdita said:

But even without a proper test, I think we can pretty much expect that the majority of MAC compatibility issues is going to be related to Float32 rep counts.

Agreed. The indications are very strongly oriented towards that.

In my original fix of this file for the 32 bit Mac game, I didn't know that it was Float32 as the culprit and I changed all the Rep = 1 lines to Rep = 0 for entries which had a single data value.

So, the zip attached to my first post is to test the Float32 with Rep = 1 as being the culprit. (That's the original file.) I believe on the 32 bit Mac game it'll just be the 1/1000 type bug, but on the 64 bit the original file will prolly cause a CTD.

Hopefully some Mac peeps will test the before and after files I included since I don't have a Mac to do it myself.

[mattb325 28,880]

There are a couple of versions of the School Pack Volume One available.

The potential MAC-incompatible pack found on the STEX was uploaded on 15 November 2006 and then updated on 19 November 2006. The description on the STEX advises that custom icons, etc, were added after the upload. Presumably (and I stress this is conjecture) the updates were done with the SC4Tool and this lot, and the other lots within the pack, have a Float32 Rep Count of 1 for the coverage radius.

If my memory serves me correctly (bear in mind this is now well over a decade ago) the STEX file pre-dates JBSimio's inclusion to the BSC.

The second version of this pack is available on the LEX and occurred after JBSimio was admitted to the BSC. The LEX version dates from 2007 (Updated in 2008) and if my memory serves me correctly, Andreas took a great deal of interest in these schools and provided much assistance to Jon in that regard.

I've attached a screen shot of the the Lil Red Schoolhouse from the LEX, and you can see that the files are quite different, and importantly do not contain the Float32 Rep Count of 1 on the coverage radius. I would therefore recommend downloading the pack from the LEX.

For whatever reason, the STEX file was not updated in 2007/8 when the LEX version was released. From an STEX admin perspective, I would simply place a note on the file and point users to the LEX version instead.

Note, I haven't looked into any STEX/LEX differences between the other school packs/files that are available under JBSimio's name, just this pack.

 

[Cyclone Boom 16,914]

Cori and I tested this some last night and have continued investigating today.

Using tools available back in 2006, we started with the old Maxis PIM and a random model file I created. As presumed, the original PIM places Rep = 0 everywhere it should in the .SC4Desc file it made.

Since we know this school was created for rural use, the next thing they likely did was to edit several of the properties. That might've been done using SC4Tool's "Exemplar Editor" module. As a quick test I opened my test file and edited the Exemplar Name (by adding "After" to the end) so the save option would be available.

The result:

That caused multiple rep counts to be changed!
(Even more changes than are present in the Lil Red Schoolhouse.)

So, this lets us know that in this particular sequence, SC4Tool does the unexpected and unwanted with regard to Rep counts.

Here's a before/after comparison to show the difference...

Before - Maxis PIM Saved

 

After - SC4Tool Saved

(Click and flick between both images to compare.)

Highlighted in orange are those properties that have been converted from 0 to 1 which are not Float32 data types. Then the two in red (School Coverage Radius and School EQ Boost) are Float32 properties. These are the potentially problematic ones now with Rep = 1 set.

As mentioned though, the Lil Red Schoolhouse is not nearly as messed up as this test suggests.

Those 3 properties in green are text strings and are unchanged. Nothing would be untoward with those. One additional observation is how the Budget Item: Cost property was removed when SC4Tool saved the file. This seems to be because it had two values and SC4Tool doesn't like this for some reason. Opening that in Reader beforehand though and it was able to see them both, so something odd happens there too.

So it appears that when editing exemplars in SC4Tool which were created with Maxis PIM, it can mess up rep counts, toggle Boolean values in Prop exemplars, or drop properties completely. On the other hand, editing a copy of the Lil Red Schoolhouse's building exemplar copied from the original file and SC4Tool does not do all the goofy things observed in the above test. The best that we can say is there is the possibility that some combination of using SC4Tool along with other tools might have been one of the reasons for the rep count differences.

This does indicate there may be be a variety of potential errors which only affect the Mac version of the game. Just because a Rep = 1 for a non-Float32 does not cause a CTD, we cannot be certain it is functioning properly in their game.

@mattb325

Thanks for the insight. We've added a message banner atop the STEX file entry.

Since the package has been updated on the LEX with Mac compatibility, that'll work fine for this particular pack. Then there could be many others for which something similar happened, and updates may have been made to correct them similarly in certain cases. It does indeed suggest how back in those times that the modding tools before PIM-X are to blame, and so there is potential for this to be quite a common occurrence.

As you mentioned @xxdita in the other thread, we do need the Mac users to thoroughly test items to see if there is a more widespread problem than we are currently aware of.

[xxdita 1,097]

So I hope the unauthorized models included in the OP's attachment will be removed? 

[CorinaMarie 29,615]

5 minutes ago, xxdita said:

So I hope the unauthorized models included in the OP's attachment will be removed? 

As the OP and an Admin of ST, I am one who can decide what is authorized use of something already hosted on Simtropolis. The intent was to provide an easy way for Mac users to test something which was brought to my attention as a problem.

Ofc, it turns out that CB and I have both wasted our time so there's no need for it to stay attached.

I've removed the file.