CTD with one of the following plugins

[simaniac 3]

I am curious if anyone is using the following plugins, and also experienced CTDs running the Steam version of the game?

CV8x6_SOMY_GiantConsolidatedHospital_aec7c0e2.SC4Lot
DT_Keaton Plaza Growable.dat
DT_Keaton Plaza Plopable.dat
Giant Consolidated Hospital dependencies.dat
KEATON PLAZA-0x5ad0e817_0x2d2d42d9_0x640000.SC4Model
NDEX Global Essentials.dat
NDEX Wilkshire Tower
SOMY Prop Pack Vol05.dat
z_DataView - Cori's Parks Aura v1.0.dat

I suspect it's the SOMY Giant Consolidated Hospital causing this, as prior to placing it I had no issues.

From the list above, I have plopped two of the Wilkshire towers, and a single Giant Hospital. I also use Cori's Parks Aura data view,

The CTDs don't happen when interacting with any of the new buildings, rather they happen randomly when interacting with the rest of the map, such as bulldozing some industrial lots.

I will try to do more troubleshooting to narrow this down, but since SimCity uses a single save file,  I have to back it up, remove the affected properties and keep trying until (hopefully) no more CTDs. Because of this, I figured I'd ask around if anyone has run into a similar issue so I could perhaps target my troubleshooting better :).

 

 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,459]

it is a well-known problem. Many lots were made before it was discovered that there was the REP BUG. The bug only manifests itself in the mac versions while Linux and Windows are immune to this problem. 

[rsc204 21,866]

Whilst the Rep bug is certainly an issue for Mac users, I don't think that's what's happening here. Two very specific things will happen if you try to use affected content, either the game will CTD whilst trying to load a city, otherwise it will CTD when you try to place an affected lot. So if your problem is more random, there is most likely another explanation.

It's worth noting that the Mac version seems to have a general problem with instability, using an identical plugins setup to that which works flawlessly under Windows, I still find the occasional random CTD occurs, my personal feeling is that the Mac game is simply flawed in this regard, perhaps because it's missing the official EP1 patch which Windows versions have.

Another useful tip, ensure you are DATPacking your Plugins, there is a bug that occurs when the number of files and folders in Plugins is over a specific number, despite the fact that the DATPacked version of which is essentially the same amount of data overall. For example, the NAM alone will take you beyond this limit and lead to instability, hence we recommend all Mac users DATPack the NAM, but moreover it's a good idea to do this for all your Plugins. By way of example. my full Plugins on the Mac consists of just 7 or 8 DAT files and nothing else.

With the exception of Cori's Parks Aura (which I'm certain works fine), I'm not personally using any of the other mods you mention, but I'll try and check them out when I get a chance with the Mac game and see if anything specific crops up.

[simaniac 3]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

So if your problem is more random, there is most likely another explanation.

You might be right. I zipped up my region, then tried to reproduce the crash. I was unable to do so despite playing for a couple hours.

It might have been some other combination of processes that is causing this, as my city is also approaching a larger population size.

At some point, it might be worth it to install the Windows version using bootcamp. Though I imagine Apple is going to kill that soon. Maybe it's time to build a new PC :).

[rsc204 21,866]

8 hours ago, simaniac said:

I was unable to do so despite playing for a couple hours.

Sometimes I can go for hours too, I genuinely believe I've got the game as stable as can be, but it still has moments every now and again. I only really bought the game again on Steam, so I could look into some of the Mac issues and help with NAM support. I always end up back in Windows when I'm playing seriously.

Whilst city and to a lesser extent regional population sizes do take more toll on your computer, that isn't directly linked to CTDs, the game keeps going at a crawl when pushed. Consider the release of the expansion was in 2003, so the code is even older, so it had to be super efficient with how it used RAM and GPUs, as such it's almost unthinkable you could run out of resources unless you go really mad with custom content. Even then, if your system has 4GB or more, it's doubtful you'd ever hit such a limit, although that largely depends on what else is using the RAM in your system.

Bootcamp is a good way to go, provided you aren't stuck with an Intel iGPU, if you are then driver compatibility under Windows for DirectX 7 (which SC4 uses), means it's not going to run as well as it otherwise would. By way of example, my previous late 2009 mini with a NVidia 9400m GPU runs SC4 extremely well under Windows XP/Bootcamp even with only 2GB RAM. In fact, if you add an SSD from a compatibility perspective, it's in the sweet spot for running SC4 almost as well as a much more expensive PC, which SC4 can't take advantage of. Given such a machine runs less than $100 these days, is small, quiet, energy efficient and reliable, it's IMO a great choice for a dedicated SC4 PC.

Indeed Apple are going to kill BootCamp, but actually that's not really on Apple completely, since you can't run Windows on ARM (specifically the M1 chips) and MS aren't going to adapt Windows specifically for Apple hardware, something Apple would have no control over. It's not like MS ever seriously supported ARM anyway, it was a fleeting attempt to gain mobile users, which as we all know has been a continual failure for MS. So moving forwards, it just doesn't make any sense to keep BootCamp in MacOS. I seriously doubt in 2 or 3 versions time, that MacOS will even support Intel chips anymore either, the future is the M1 range and Apple don't dwell on the past for long. A little ironic perhaps how 'MacOS' MS have made Windows 11 at this point? I can imagine that the last version of MacOS to support Intel chips, is the last one with BootCamp, there is no reason to pull it beforehand.

[rsc204 21,866]

Oh and before I forget, there is another potential option using WineSkin, although I have to say having messed around with this, it's not the most user friendly process. I did manage to get SimCity 4 to run eventually and it appears to run OK performance wise. But something isn't right with my config, most likely user error, but it isn't as download and go as I hoped, plus I'm pretty sure this isn't going to work with the Steam version either.

[simaniac 3]

10 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Bootcamp is a good way to go, provided you aren't stuck with an Intel iGPU, if you are then driver compatibility under Windows for DirectX 7 (which SC4 uses), means it's not going to run as well as it otherwise would.

Unfortunately, I am stuck with Intel as it's a 2018 Mac Mini. I did run Windows for some old games, and yes, I have a small USB-C SSD that boots up very quickly.

But also my old PC is still around and will probably be a way better option with it's dedicated GPU given the legacy DirectX issues.
Also, I just got the STEX Collection DVDs and looks like the content is inside large binary blobs with a Windows-only browser. So another point towards switching playing to Windows.

10 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Indeed Apple are going to kill BootCamp, but actually that's not really on Apple completely, since you can't run Windows on ARM (specifically the M1 chips) and MS aren't going to adapt Windows specifically for Apple hardware, something Apple would have no control over.

You are right, and with the Intel sunset (similar to how they cut off PowerPC emulation at some point), old games will become unplayable on a Mac without serious emulation, which I don't think really exists, and there is not much of an use case/community to make that happen.

There are some excellent machine emulators on Windows (can't recall the name of the one I used), that literally emulate the whole CPU architectures, bios, chipset, everything. So I was able to run some really old adventure games that did their timings based on CPU clock. Was also able to run Windows 98 with DirectDraw support :).

By the way, I did take your advice and DAT-packed the NAM folder. I might pack other plugins as well. So far no crashes since then, but we'll see!