NAM installer not working - states that "SimCity 4.exe" was not found as expected?

[djalley22 0]

Hello, after many hours trying to get my steam version of SimCity 4 to launch on Windows 10, it seems the NAM installation may solve my problem.

So I installed the NAM files and clicked on the "NetworkAddonMod_Setup_Version43.bat" file and it simply states:

 

SimCity4_4GB_Patch_Script_v3.bat
--------------------------------
This command script automates applying the 4 GB Patch to SimCity 4.exe.

ERROR: The system was unable to find the specified registry key or value.

* * * ERROR * * *

"\SimCity 4.exe"
  was not found as expected.

Press any key to continue . . .




Does anybody know how to fix this?

[rsc204 21,859]

The error is telling us that the game itself (SC4), doesn’t appear to be correctly installed. The most common reason for that would be if you had moved an installation manually between computers. However, you can’t really do this with the Steam version because the game wouldn’t launch (DRM) unless it was installed via the Steam launcher. I think it’s far more likely that the script you are running, simply isn’t being given access to read the registry, hence it doesn’t find the expected information. You may simply need to run the script by right clicking it and selecting run as Administrator, which should ensure the process can access the registry correctly. It relies upon this to find where SC4 is installed, so it can apply the 4gb patch. It is of course possible to manually run the 4gb patcher, but you will need to tell it where to find your SC4 install. Thereafter you can run the NAM installer (.jar file) directly. 

[Steviefaux 1]

It looks for this entry in the registry

"HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Maxis\SimCity 4"

If it finds it, as it did on mine, and finds it empty, as it did on mine, you'll get the error.

I'd only just installed it on Steam. You have to at least get SimCity 4 to run successfully once for that reg entry to be populated. Once I'd done that the script said it patched successfully (although I don't think it has but that's a separate issue I'm working on).

 

I'm still on Windows 7, this is my experience with Windows 7, may be different on different OS.

[Steviefaux 1]

May or may not help, but the fix to my other issue of the installer not starting, in case you or anyone else runs into this is my Windows 7 install is a bit of a mess at the moment, despite installing OpenJDK none of the JAR files were registered with it so obviously wouldn't run. Just right click and say "open with" and point them to OpenJDK and then works fine. Did that with the NetworkAddonMod_Setup_Version43.jar file as was just about to do a manual install instead.

  Edited February 10, 2022 by Steviefaux  
spelling

[rsc204 21,859]

On 13/01/2022 at 8:03 AM, djalley22 said:

Hello, after many hours trying to get my steam version of SimCity 4 to launch on Windows 10, it seems the NAM installation may solve my problem.

1 hour ago, Steviefaux said:

You have to at least get SimCity 4 to run successfully once for that reg entry to be populated.

If SimCity 4 isn't even launching to begin with, your problems are not going to be related to the NAM. For whatever reasons the default install of SimCity 4 doesn't work with your particular setup, this is almost always the result of incompatibility with your GPU and its drivers.

Find SC4 in the Steam library, right click on it and select Properties, then add the following in the box Launch Commands:

-d:software

Does SC4 run properly now? Note that isn't so much a fix as a last resort compatibility mode, to really experience SC4 properly, you need to use the DirectX renderer, which requires a fully DirectX 9 compatible GPU, the problem is some modern GPUs are starting to ditch legacy support. The good news is that there are solutions to that, but let's not get ahead of ourselves too much. You can enter multiple commands at once, each starts with a hyphen and there must be a space between commands, the following commands may be useful too:

-Intro:off
This disables the intro videos, some modern hardware can't display their low/legacy resolutions, causing the game to fail to start. It's also nice to skip them once you've seen them a couple times, you'll probably prefer the game starting faster instead.

-Audio:off
This disables all audio in-game, it's not that common but certain setups simply aren't compatible with SC4. There is also an issue with a certain type of soundcard, where if there is nothing physically plugged into it (Headphones/Speakers), the game will crash on startup.

The remaining commands don't really apply to your problem, but you'll probably want them once the game is working.

-CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32
This is actually two commands, but they work as one, the first enables resolutions not otherwise selectable and is mandatory for widescreen displays. The second specifies the resolution to use with SC4, ideally this should match your desktop resolution in Windows. Note the example would work for a Full HD or 1080p monitor, any resolution beyond x1200 though is unlikely to work without using a DX Wrapper.

-CPUCount:1
SC4 is not coded to work with Multi-Core CPUs, Windows tries to force things and so the game becomes very unstable. Simply add this command to tell Windows to only use on Core with SC4 and you won't suffer the number one complaint people have using SC4 on a modern PC. Everyone needs this frankly.

Hopefully somewhere in all that you'll get SC4 going, once you do if you report back what worked, we can help if any further tweaking would be advised.

1 hour ago, Steviefaux said:

If it finds it, as it did on mine, and finds it empty, as it did on mine, you'll get the error.

That's certainly useful to know, thanks.