An old SC4D Player back for the 20 Year Anniversary

[Cougar2004 127]

I'm an old SC4D player & long time Simtropolis member from over a decade ago, haven't played in all that time, but have returned.  I'm back visiting today for the 20 year anniversary of SimCity 4.  I actually played the original SimCity, 2000, 3000, & more.  Its nice to see so many familiar Member Icons here, and the STEX looks stable with new things added even.   I always loved customizing my in game music, correcting game bugs with plugins, and adding beautiful new items to the game. 

I looked to see if anyone produced a new game that rivaled or topped what SC4D has always been, but after app store and web searches, it doesn't seem so.  (TheoTown for Mobile devices is the closest, and even then, graphics are lacking, game play is limited, but its nice to see someone at least trying in this area - so shout out to them.)  Overall, I have been pretty disappointed in phone app games, so I rebooted my old PC today which still plays SimCity Deluxe w/Rush Hour (after a hack to fix the annoying DRM bug Microsoft hit us with to break the Run from Disc).  I'd like to try playing it again, even if its only an hour a week on Sundays.  I love that it doesn't require online access, no one will come steal your stuff or destroy this game's city, there are no pesky ads or features begging for credit card payments, and the custom (STEX) downloads are amazing, not to mention I can go back to writing my own plugins if I want something that no one has made yet. 

So now I'm hoping to hear from you guys on a few things.  And while I may only reliably visit this site on Sundays for my free hour of game time, I'd love some answers and help to get back up to speed here.

Questions:
1. GAME - Is there ANY new City Building Game better than SimCity 4 Deluxe now in 2023?   (whether from EA Games / Maxis, or someone else)

2. ESSENTIALS - Are there any MUST HAVE (but safe) essential UPDATES (or new things) on the STEX that I should grab before diving back into this game?  (IE:  NAM update, etc?)  I used to maintain a thread here entitled Essentials to help new players, but being gone a decade, now its me who needs the help.

3. COMMUNICATION - What is the best way to communicate with fellow Simtropolis members here?  This Forum?  I found Simtropolis on Discord, but it seems that permissions lock me out from talking there - maybe it has been deprecated.  Or maybe an Admin can help me with that, if its still a valid thing.

4. REFERENCE - I have and always used the SC4 Deluxe Prima's Official Strategy Guide, and kept various lists, notes, and spreadsheets of my own with information and reverse-engineering info to help build with best knowledge of the game's mechanics, tips, and yes even all the cheat codes for those 'special cities'. What are the best/new reference docs used today and where can I find those?
 

I hope all of you are doing well, and I look forward to connecting with some old friends if any are still here.  If I can get the 4 items resolved above, I'm likely to stick around, and bring SimCity 4 back into my life, even though it will be a much smaller part.  I welcome help from anyone here, and look forward to making some new friends along the way.  Perhaps this thread will not only help me, but can help other long-time players returning to the game, who find it here.  Thanks!

 

- Cougar2004
 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,426]

20 minutes ago, Cougar2004 said:

I'm an old SC4D player & long time Simtropolis member from over a decade ago, haven't played in all that time, but have returned.  I'm back visiting today for the 20 year anniversary of SimCity 4.  I actually played the original SimCity, 2000, 3000, & more.  Its nice to see so many familiar Member Icons here, and the STEX looks stable with new things added even.   I always loved customizing my in game music, correcting game bugs with plugins, and adding beautiful new items to the game. 

I looked to see if anyone produced a new game that rivaled or topped what SC4D has always been, but after app store and web searches, it doesn't seem so.  (TheoTown for Mobile devices is the closest, and even then, graphics are lacking, game play is limited, but its nice to see someone at least trying in this area - so shout out to them.)  Overall, I have been pretty disappointed in phone app games, so I rebooted my old PC today which still plays SimCity Deluxe w/Rush Hour (after a hack to fix the annoying DRM bug Microsoft hit us with to break the Run from Disc).  I'd like to try playing it again, even if its only an hour a week on Sundays.  I love that it doesn't require online access, no one will come steal your stuff or destroy this game's city, there are no pesky ads or features begging for credit card payments, and the custom (STEX) downloads are amazing, not to mention I can go back to writing my own plugins if I want something that no one has made yet. 

So now I'm hoping to hear from you guys on a few things.  And while I may only reliably visit this site on Sundays for my free hour of game time, I'd love some answers and help to get back up to speed here.

Questions:
1. GAME - Is there ANY new City Building Game better than SimCity 4 Deluxe now in 2023?   (whether from EA Games / Maxis, or someone else)

2. ESSENTIALS - Are there any MUST HAVE (but safe) essential UPDATES (or new things) on the STEX that I should grab before diving back into this game?  (IE:  NAM update, etc?)  I used to maintain a thread here entitled Essentials to help new players, but being gone a decade, now its me who needs the help.

3. COMMUNICATION - What is the best way to communicate with fellow Simtropolis members here?  This Forum?  I found Simtropolis on Discord, but it seems that permissions lock me out from talking there - maybe it has been deprecated.  Or maybe an Admin can help me with that, if its still a valid thing.

4. REFERENCE - I have and always used the SC4 Deluxe Prima's Official Strategy Guide, and kept various lists, notes, and spreadsheets of my own with information and reverse-engineering info to help build with best knowledge of the game's mechanics, tips, and yes even all the cheat codes for those 'special cities'. What are the best/new reference docs used today and where can I find those?
 

I hope all of you are doing well, and I look forward to connecting with some old friends if any are still here.  If I can get the 4 items resolved above, I'm likely to stick around, and bring SimCity 4 back into my life, even though it will be a much smaller part.  I welcome help from anyone here, and look forward to making some new friends along the way.  Perhaps this thread will not only help me, but can help other long-time players returning to the game, who find it here.  Thanks!

 

- Cougar2004
 

Welcome back to the SimCity 4 community

As you well know from Windows 10 onwards the CD version of SC4 no longer works. So to get a functional accomplish of SC4 you have to use Steam or GOG. Avoid using the SC4 version of Origin/EA App / EA Play / Xbox Game Pass because it has the unpatched version. Avoid using NO CD crack because you automatically lose the ability to install RHW (Without the 4GB patch you can not use RHW) This constraint is caused by windows security systems. 

After this premise we begin to answer your questions

1 There is currently no city builder superior to SC4. Cities Skylines although passed off as a city builder is actually a city painter with no simulation of the city except a bad traffic simulation. Also the requirements to make it work with mods are crazy because of the bad optimization.

2 Part of the question has been answered. NAM is fundamental because it is completely revolutionizing the gameplay of SC4. Obviously if you want to take advantage of all the features of SC4 you must have a computer with a minimum of 8 GB of RAM. This is a guide on how to make SC4 compatible with modern computers

A guide has been made on essential mods but I think using CAM and IRM is much more convenient than SPAM

3 Currently the SC4 community is located on Reddit, Forum and Discord. I can say that the SC4DEVOTION discord server is more active than ever while Simtropolis is the most active forum 

SC4DEVOTION Discord Server -->  https://discord.com/invite/NsNZHEC

4 Although the Prima guide still considers it the most reliable guide on the forums you can find other guides made by other people. Consider that many players have switched to no longer considering RCI and money but trying to overcome SC4 by pushing realism to the maximum (With a use of high mods)

[Cougar2004 127]

2 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

Welcome back to the SimCity 4 community

As you well know from Windows 10 onwards the CD version of SC4 no longer works. So to get a functional accomplish of SC4 you have to use Steam or GOG. Avoid using the SC4 version of Origin/EA App / EA Play / Xbox Game Pass because it has the unpatched version. Avoid using NO CD crack because you automatically lose the ability to install RHW (Without the 4GB patch you can not use RHW) This constraint is caused by windows security systems. 

After this premise we begin to answer your questions

1 There is currently no city builder superior to SC4. Cities Skylines although passed off as a city builder is actually a city painter with no simulation of the city except a bad traffic simulation. Also the requirements to make it work with mods are crazy because of the bad optimization.

2 Part of the question has been answered. NAM is fundamental because it is completely revolutionizing the gameplay of SC4. Obviously if you want to take advantage of all the features of SC4 you must have a computer with a minimum of 8 GB of RAM. This is a guide on how to make SC4 compatible with modern computers

A guide has been made on essential mods but I think using CAM and IRM is much more convenient than SPAM

3 Currently the SC4 community is located on Reddit, Forum and Discord. I can say that the SC4DEVOTION discord server is more active than ever while Simtropolis is the most active forum 

SC4DEVOTION Discord Server -->  https://discord.com/invite/NsNZHEC

4 Although the Prima guide still considers it the most reliable guide on the forums you can find other guides made by other people. Consider that many players have switched to no longer considering RCI and money but trying to overcome SC4 by pushing realism to the maximum (With a use of high mods)

Excellent reply, thanks Ulisse Wolf. 

1. GAME - I will stick with my SC4D then.  Thanks.

2. SYSTEM - Well this is a bit of a problem, as I only have a PC i built back in 2010, Win7 Ultimate, that has 4GB RAM, and I'm definately running off my Disc as it failed until I found and put it today.  What about the full features of the game will not work on this computer?

2. STARTUP - I bought SC4 on GOG about 5 years ago, so should have it around somewhere, if needed.  I don't think I ever installed it.  I think I removed the windows file that broke my CD from running instead.  Is there any way to check and know? 

2. NAM - I'm on NAM v31.2.  Now I'm a bit scared of attempting to upgrade it to v47.  And I have no clue if I have that 4GB mod thing.  How do I know if I have the 4GB Update?  Is it dangerous to try to update?  Is there a SAFE way to backup all the files that would be touched by attempting it so I can revert if it fails?  Is the difference between NAM 31.2 and 47 worth it?  

2. MODS - Once resolving the NAM situation, ill jump into the essential mods link to review and choose.

3. COMMS - I'll try to figure out what is wrong with my Discord, using the link you provided.  But will use this Forum for now.  Maybe ill check out reddit later.

4. GUIDES - Sounds like there are many good resources and guides around.  I'll jump into them, after finishing the topics above. Thanks.

 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,426]

7 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

What about the full features of the game will not work on this computer?

This is a problem because you will not be able to use Real Highway (RHW) because the RUL code to run RHW requires that SC4 uses 4GB of RAM (Maximum limit of a 32Bit application). That's why the minimum requirements have been raised to 8GB of RAM if you want to use Full NAM . Anyway. there is the option No 4GB Patch /NO RHW designed for these situations

7 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

Is there any way to check and know? 

You can check if it is the right version by going to see the properties of the SC4 EXE -> Details and the file version must be this 1.1.641.0

There are instructions on the official website of Network Addon Mod

https://www.sc4nam.com/docs/reference/installation-notes/

7 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

How do I know if I have the 4GB Update?  Is it dangerous to try to update?  Is there a SAFE way to backup all the files that would be touched by attempting it so I can revert if it fails?  Is the difference between NAM 31.2 and 47 worth it?  

If you only have SC4 installed then you don't have the 4GB Patch. Since you are using NAM 31.2 which is an old, outdated version you cannot receive support from NAM Team as it only offers support for the latest version available. Then you need to update NAM to version 47. The difference is vast between NAM 31.2 and NAM 47 as the latest version is becoming FLEX and therefore you no longer have to use puzzle pieces on almost all NAM features, as well as improving the traffic simulator and fixing bugs You can see the history of the various NAM versions to see the progress we've made to make NAM more modern and easy to use.

https://www.sc4nam.com/docs/reference/NAM-version-history/

There is only one procedure to perform a clean update of NAM

1 Delete Network Addon Mod folder

2 Delete the Z_NAM folder

 

[rsc204 21,836]

11 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

2. SYSTEM - Well this is a bit of a problem, as I only have a PC i built back in 2010, Win7 Ultimate, that has 4GB RAM, and I'm definately running off my Disc as it failed until I found and put it today.  What about the full features of the game will not work on this computer?

Honestly it's not a big deal UNLESS you really want to use the RHW (RealHighway) part of the NAM, that is literally the only thing that might be an issue with only 4GB RAM. So long as you have a 64-bit version of Windows, you should use the 4GB Patch and you may find the RHW works just fine on your system. It really depends on how much RAM Windows needs from that 4GB, then whether or not SC4 has enough left to run stably. The only real way to know is to try it, but if RHW isn't something you care for, this is a total non-issue.

Worse case scenario, buy a RAM upgrade, 8GB of RAM for a computer of that age (probably DDR3, but possibly DDR2), is something like $10 second hand, fitting it is real easy too even if you've never done it before, there is no configuration or anything, just swap out the existing sticks for the new ones essentially.

11 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

2. STARTUP - I bought SC4 on GOG about 5 years ago, so should have it around somewhere, if needed.  I don't think I ever installed it.  I think I removed the windows file that broke my CD from running instead.  Is there any way to check and know? 

Since you are using Windows 7, this again is a non-issue.

Personally I would remove the current CD version and install the GoG one, because it's just easier to install/use. The CD version requires that you add two patches manually, the CD must be constantly present to play and GoG includes some other useful extras, that help it work on modern equipment (relative to the game) without you having to think about it.

Should you be unable to find the GoG installer, you can re-download it at any time by logging into your GoG account.

All said and done though, if you patched your CD version properly and added the same commands GoG has by default, what you'd have is identical. You can buy SC4 from many different sources, but ultimately what you end up with is the exact same game/code, which hasn't been updated since 2003.

11 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

2. NAM - I'm on NAM v31.2.  Now I'm a bit scared of attempting to upgrade it to v47.  And I have no clue if I have that 4GB mod thing.  How do I know if I have the 4GB Update?  Is it dangerous to try to update?  Is there a SAFE way to backup all the files that would be touched by attempting it so I can revert if it fails?  Is the difference between NAM 31.2 and 47 worth it?  

Personally speaking yes the NAM upgrade, any NAM upgrade in fact, is worth it. For the most part, with few exceptions, NAM development is iterative, we don't change or remove things, we just fix, improve and add them. Therefore for the best possible experience, you'll always want the most recent edition.

However, we all have different tastes and yes we will not support older NAM users, but it could be you don't prefer the change. Rather than deleting the old NAM install, just move the Network Addon Mod and z___NAM folders from Plugins to somewhere else on your PC. Then install the new version of the NAM and check it out, if for any reason you want to go back, remove the new Network Addon Mod folder and restore the two you previously moved.

If you delete these folders (recycle bin recovery aside), then you will not have the files needed to restore your old version, if you also didn't keep the original installer, there is no way to use it again. So I wouldn't recommend simply deleting the original folders personally.

[Cougar2004 127]

I really like the responses here from rsc204 & Ulisse Wolf.  Thank you!   Now for some questions a little deeper, and then decisions will be made.

HERE is a copy of my config-log recently generated when I ran the game.  

1. It shows that I'm on version = 1.1.640.0 (however im not sure that it would show 641 even if it was updated.  How exactly can I check to see that?   The Executable that I think im using doesnt seem to have version showing when clicking on properties.  Any other ideas how to check and verify what I actually have installed?

2. This shows:  memory = 4096 and since I'm not sure when the log was generated, at startup, during use, or at exit, I don't know what I can learn from freeMemory = 1916.  But I am pretty sure that this motherboard from 2010 has a maximum RAM ability of 4GB DDR2 Ram which is already installed.
3. Windows version shown below is osVersion = Windows NT 6.1 which is Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.  So that answers some of the compatibility questions above.

4. Looking over the rest of these settings in this Game Config Data in the output file, does anyone suggest any changes that should be considered for a better experience?  To give context, I'll also give the startup string I use:  "C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity4Run.cmd" which refers to this file:

"@ECHO OFF
sc config secdrv start= demand
sc start secdrv
start "" /wait "C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -l:english -Intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -CPUCount:4 -EH:ON
sc stop secdrv
sc config secdrv start= disabled"

I believe maybe back in 2018 or so, I realized Windows destroyed my game's ability to run (DRM or something), so I found instructions online to hack it to work again.  I think that's why this is here and now works perfectly instead of my old shortcut which was: ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -l:english -Intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -CPUCount:4 -EH:ON"

 

Quote

Log generated on 4/30/2023, 19:12

Flags
-----
hardwareDriver = true
DXT = true
fullscreen = false
MMX = true
FPU = true
backingStore = true
forcedFSAA = false

Strings
-------
userName = Cougar
appName = SimCity 4
version = 1.1.640.0
osVersion = Windows NT 6.1
computerName = COUGAR-PC
CPU = GenuineIntel
sglDriverName = DirectX
sglDriverVersion = 2.0
driverName = nvd3dum.dll
driverVersion = 21.21.13.4200, GUID: D7B71E3E-4552-11CF-E877-A4140DC2CD35
cardName = NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX/9800 GTX+
cardVersion = Vendor: 10de, Device: 0612, Board: 34a41458, Chipset: 00a2
cardIdentity = NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX/9800 GTX+
soundDriverName = {0.0.0.00000000}.{632778a9-59db-4dd1-900d-43686708cfa4}
soundCardName = Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio)
buildType = Release

Numbers
-------
cpuSpeed = 2833
memory = 4096
freeMemory = 1916
screenWidth = 1920
screenHeight = 1080
screenBPP = 32
videoMemory = 1005
textureMemory = 1005
textureStages = 8
bogoFPS = 0
bogoMPPS = 0

Rules
-----
applying Sound
applying high sound detail
applying City Detail and Day/Night Settings
applying low computer power>
applying high computer power
  option 9 = 3
  option 13 = 1
  option 15 = 3
applying Texture Quality and Building Variety Settings
applying low memory>
applying high memory
  option 3 = 3
  option 14 = 3
applying Variable Speed Automata
applying default
  option 10 = 1
applying Standard hardware
  option 0 = 1
  option 1 = 1
  option 2 = 1
  option 4 = 0
  option 5 = 1
  option 8 = 1
  option 7 = 1
  option 6 = 1
  option 11 = 0
  option 12 = 0
applying Standard hardware>
  option 1 = 2
applying Standard hardware>>
  option 0 = 2
applying Standard hardware>>>
  option 2 = 2
applying Standard hardware>>>>
  option 4 = 1
applying Standard hardware>>>>>
  option 11 = 1
applying Two stages
applying Lotsa vidmem
applying Not Slow GeForce
applying Fast card
applying Fast card>
  option 12 = 1
applying Fast card>>
  option 1 = 3
applying Fast card>>>
  option 0 = 3
applying Fast card>>>>
  option 2 = 3
applying Fast card>>>>>
  option 4 = 1

Options
-------
Visual Effects       current:   3 recommended:   3
Cars/Sims            current:   3 recommended:   3
Shadows              current:   3 recommended:   3
Atmospheric effects  current:   1 recommended:   1
Water effects        current:   1 recommended:   1
Software/Hardware    current:   1 recommended:   1
Cursor               current:   1 recommended:   1
VariableSpeedAutomata current:   1 recommended:   1
Translucent UI       current:   1 recommended:   1
Graphic Detail       current:   3 recommended:   3
Building Load Speed  current:   3 recommended:   3
Texture Quality      current:   3 recommended:   3

Properties
-------
forcesoftwaredriver = false
renderdynamicview = true
renderstaticview = true
renderwatereffects = true
rendercloudsandfog = true
forcepointsampling = false
forcebilinear = false
forcenoalphablend = false
forcenoalphatest = false
rendershadows = true
renderdecals = true
usesecondstage = true
forcedebugtexture = false
renderparticleeffects = true
renderflorashadows = true
renderterrain = true
showupdateregions = false
usecursoreffects = true
drawlottextures = true
drawlotfoundations = true
drawlotwalls = true
forcetexturerepeat = false
usescreenshake = true
renderui = true
useupdaterectclipping = true
usevertexbuffers = true
showboundingboxes = false
useoverlayculling = true
rendersnapshot = false
noaddsigned = false
nopartialbackingstorecopies = false
usescreenflash = true
renderautomata = true
preferopaque = false
displayalertborders = true
drawlotopaquetextures = true
useviewcleanup = false
doautozoomandrotationchanges = true

viewoffsety = 0
viewoffsetx = 0
texturebits = 32
lodoffset = 0
shadowdebug = 0
maxparticlestarget = 10000
particlelodoffset = 0
effectprioritylevel = 5
backingstoremaxzoomall = 5
backingstoremaxzoombuildingsprops = 5
backingstoremaxzoomterrain = 5
backingstoremaxzoomflora = 5
shadowquality = 2
minvehiclezoom = 3
minpedzoom = 4
cursortype = 1
depthoffset = 2
debugtexture = 0
dirtyrectmergeframes = 2
sounddetail = 2
buildingvariety = 2
buildingloaderspeed = 1
modellodoffset = 0
stringtexturecachesize = 1024

particleeffectslod = 5
splattexturescale = 50
texbindmaxfree = 8
particledensity = 1
particledamping = 0
particlescale = 1
lightingupdatedelta = 0.0001
shadowmodelthreshold = 12
demolishmodelthreshold = 12
rendermodelthreshold = 6
rendermodelthresholdscroll = 40
particlesizethreshold = 300
maxvehiclepct = 1
maxpedpct = 1
opaqueuialphavalue = 0.55

 

 

5. NAM - Yes I'd like to use the latest version of NAM (with as much of it as I can, IE RHW), and I'm really happy to hear that its just moving or renaming 2 folders to clean up for the 47 install, and then if it fails, or wont run, I can delete those new folders and copy back my original 2 folders with 31.2 which works perfectly right now (just doesn't have all the new fixes and improvements).  However, Id like to verify 3 things with you guys...
 

A. Is there any possible RISK of things going badly if i attempt to upgrade to NAM 47, that wouldn't be covered by the restoration plan written here above? 
B. How do I know if i have the 4GB Patch?  Possibly I already have it.
C. If I don't have it, what is the RISK of installing it?  Is it as easy as NAM to undo, and restore my game to full currently working version?   Or is there risk of attempting to patch with the 4GB update that could make it so my game may never play again?   I'm concerned about this.

6. GOG -  I really just bought the GOG download SC3D version so if my discs ever failed or I build a new future computer and was forced to reinstall and start everything over again, I would have a way to do that.  Plus I got it for $5, which was not a big deal.  Just so you know where my head is at.  I do not plan to install and use this download version at this time, since my game works perfectly with no errors or crashes, and I have the discs.  As with my questions above, I am concerned about breaking what I have now, and I recall that it takes a bunch of reinstalled files to get things back to where I have it, with all Maxis updates, and patches.

[catty-cb 4,411]

On 1/05/2023 at 2:48 PM, Cougar2004 said:

I'm an old SC4D player & long time Simtropolis member from over a decade ago, haven't played in all that time, but have returned.  I'm back visiting today for the 20 year anniversary of SimCity 4.  I actually played the original SimCity, 2000, 3000, & more.  Its nice to see so many familiar Member Icons here, and the STEX looks stable with new things added even.

It's nice to see you back again, no point me trying to answer your NAM questions as I tend to play Banished these days and while I do still have a SC4 plugin folder I'm pretty certain I still have the last two NAM updates sitting in my downloads folder

[rsc204 21,836]

8 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

1. It shows that I'm on version = 1.1.640.0 (however im not sure that it would show 641 even if it was updated.  How exactly can I check to see that?   The Executable that I think im using doesnt seem to have version showing when clicking on properties.

This just means the two official patches have been correctly applied, the Log File reports the version number. Version 641 (provided by GoG and Steam), is exactly the same as 640 in practise, it was only incremented to differentiate between a pre-patched copy (641) and the older disk versions with the manual patches (640). But this is ideal and you are fully up to date, so nothing to worry about here.

8 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

2. This shows:  memory = 4096 and since I'm not sure when the log was generated, at startup, during use, or at exit, I don't know what I can learn from freeMemory = 1916.  But I am pretty sure that this motherboard from 2010 has a maximum RAM ability of 4GB DDR2 Ram which is already installed.
3. Windows version shown below is osVersion = Windows NT 6.1 which is Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

The Log is generated when SC4 successfully runs, so if the Splash Screen appears, the log get's updated.

A 2010 motherboard that takes a max of 4GB RAM seems very low to me, 8GB should be more normal for such, but if it is DDR2 only that might explain this. Ultimately if you know the Brand/Model of the motherboard, it can be easily checked online, otherwise it's always noted in the manual. Either way, I must stress there is no reason to think this a problem (memory), even if you wanted to use the RHW with NAM, I would certainly see how that works before upgrading a machine. Again if you don't plan to use RHW, I wouldn't even think about memory for one second longer, you are fine.

Note too that the log file doesn't always detect things as expected, because there are things that have changed in the last 20 years that it simply doesn't know how to properly report them.

8 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

4. Looking over the rest of these settings in this Game Config Data in the output file, does anyone suggest any changes that should be considered for a better experience?  To give context, I'll also give the startup string I use:  "C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity4Run.cmd" which refers to this file:

Yes this is a necessary workaround needed to bypass the disabling of secdrv.sys, which MS say is a security risk. This is the best method to use as it only briefly enables the driver to initiate SC4 then switches it back off again.

8 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

start "" /wait "C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -l:english -Intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -CPUCount:4 -EH:ON

-EH:ON probably isn't doing anything, likewise you don't need to use -l:english, it's the default anyway.

You should change -CPUCount:4 to -CPUCount:1, failure to do this will lead to random crashes as SC4 can not work reliably unless it exclusively uses only one core of your CPU.

8 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

A. Is there any possible RISK of things going badly if i attempt to upgrade to NAM 47, that wouldn't be covered by the restoration plan written here above? 

Absolutely not, the NAM installer just copies folders as selected in a more user friendly way, but it doesn't otherwise mess with or affect your system. Ultimately whether or not you use the installer, this all comes down to the contents within the Plugins folder, i.e. those mods the game loads when it starts.

8 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

B. How do I know if i have the 4GB Patch?  Possibly I already have it.

Honestly that's very difficult to say, there is absolutely no harm from running it twice to be sure, it makes a tiny modification to the SimCity 4.exe file, simply adding a Flag which tells Windows to activate a special memory mode called LAA (Large Address Aware). This is a feature of 64-bit Windows that allows 32-bit applications (such as SC4) to utilise a 4GB Memory pool from your system. Two prerequisites though, first that you have more than 2GB RAM to begin with and second that it can't give your system more RAM than it actually has available.

32-Bit apps running normally (even under a 64-bit OS) have to share 2GB memory between themselves and the OS which reserves part of this, so in real terms SC4 can run out of memory, even though the system may have unused memory to spare. With LAA the pool is increased to 4GB and the OS reserved memory can be excluded from it, allowing a theoretical 4GB to the application itself. However in reality it rarely works out this way, this gets extremely complex to explain at this juncture. But the bottom line is, patching SC4 (or any 32-bit app) in this way allows it to theoretically use more resources, there are no negative side effects to this, so it's always a good idea.

8 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

C. If I don't have it, what is the RISK of installing it?  Is it as easy as NAM to undo, and restore my game to full currently working version?   Or is there risk of attempting to patch with the 4GB update that could make it so my game may never play again?   I'm concerned about this.

None whatsoever, in a bizarre set of random chances it's not impossible for something to go wrong, but no more likely than any other file on your system would be susceptible to corrupting because of a hardware fault or some sort of interference. As a precaution the patcher makes a backup of the old file, which of course if you are super-careful you may want to do manually before patching it. Honestly, I never bothered myself, if this process were to go wrong, it indicates a more serious problem you already have rather than being the cause.

8 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

6. GOG -  I really just bought the GOG download SC3D version so if my discs ever failed or I build a new future computer and was forced to reinstall and start everything over again, I would have a way to do that.  Plus I got it for $5, which was not a big deal.  Just so you know where my head is at.  I do not plan to install and use this download version at this time, since my game works perfectly with no errors or crashes, and I have the discs.  As with my questions above, I am concerned about breaking what I have now, and I recall that it takes a bunch of reinstalled files to get things back to where I have it, with all Maxis updates, and patches.

GoG included the -CPUCount:1 command by default which no other version does, this is helpful to avoid the stability issues I mentioned before. It's also pre-patched with the Maxis updates, as such it's just the easiest version to install/use (there are other benefits too).

That said, as you have the disks setup, it is as optimal (i.e. identical to) the GoG version, as SC4 can be, literally nothing changes except not having to have the disk present to launch the game. So yeah, if you are happy and it all works, there really isn't any pressing need to change things and knowing you have the only DRM-Free version of SC4, gives you peace of mind. Put another way, short on a newer Windows version being unable to run the game, you will always be able to install SC4 and play it. One caveat, you must have the installer file available to do so, sure whilst GoG is in good financial health and follows the principles they are known for, you will also be able to login an re-download it. But, to be truly sure keep a copy on your computer and maybe a second one as part of an external backup, just in case. Probably a little paranoid, but if the past is any indicator, no online service lasts forever and when things change it's usually without (much) warning.

[Cougar2004 127]

No problem catty-cb, others can answer my questions, and its great to see you here too!  Thank you for the warm welcome back.

[Cougar2004 127]

SIDENOTE Complement:  I hope no one is too bothered that I'm interrupting a perfectly good educational discussion here that could likely help a great many, especially those returning to SimCity 4 after many years of not playing, but I really want to take 1 minute and recognize rsc204 for these helpful technical responses.  You are truly a very clear communicator.  Your knowledge is so on point.  I just want to say thank you.  I'm glad you are a part of this community, and especially grateful you've been willing to assist me with my concerns as I'm getting back here and set up for more SC4 fun!  You Rock~!  (If someone can tell me how I can give some kind of reputation point credit to others, id like to know the steps to do that for people here that deserve a boost. Thx.)  I have to also give a gracious shoutout to Ulisse Wolf too, who was the FIRST to begin getting me set straight for my return.  I appreciate you as well!

--

Now... continuing discussion points from above.

Patched - I love your verification that my executable is 100% patched.  I imagine nothing much has changed on that since I've been gone except the 4GB patch.

RAM - It looks like my 2010 build was using a 2009 motherboard.  Here are some images that may help us figure out if I can have 8GB RAM or not.  (Yes Im pretty sure its DDR2.) - Oh I think I just figured out how to put images inline - Attache then click the + when my cursor is where I want it.  EDIT: I also dug up the following information about my Board's RAM requirements.  I'm currently using Slots 1 and 3 with 2GB in each - PC2-6400 (400Mhz) Corsair Dominator PC8500 - running stable at 1066Mhz (533Mhz clock x2).  I searched Crucial.com and some other memory sites, and its very hard to find DDR2 - I dont see any new, and used is risky.  Plus while its a minor issue probably, I reviewed some forums that clearly state tests finding that using all 4 slots with any configuration eliminates the ability to run stable at higher than 800Mhz (400Mhz clock x2), which is a small slow down, so probably worth it for double the available ram if i could find some.  (New Builds are costly these days - and my laptop is employer owned so cant use that.)   Regardless, as per the advice, I have installed NAM 47 + 4GB Patch now, and initial tests show it working fine, so we will see how it goes.

Quote

4 x 1.8V DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory
    Dual channel memory architecture
    Support for DDR2 1366+*/1066/800/667 MHz memory modules

* Refer to Memory Support List for more information.

 

SC4 Startup - As I recall, despite the risk of crashing, I believe I changed from -CPUCount:1 to -CPUCount:4 because it appeared that the game was always choosing to only use my first core, and unfortunately my first of the 4 cores is the only one that is a bit defective in that it runs extremely HOT, way more than the other 3.  So by allowing the game to spread processes out among the cores, it minimizes the overheating and risk of losing the core or whole cpu.  At least that was the logic.  I'm willing to reset it back and run new tests again, especially if I do a 4GB patch because maybe if its catching to disk LESS, then the CPU will have less work for that reason.  But what is the truth about how this works?  Could someone check my logic and knowledge on this, and tell me what I may have wrong?

I suppose I can delete the EH & English settings.  I don't suppose they are costing me any load time, but they seem to be superfluous.

SECDRV.SYS - Thank you for refreshing my memory on why I did that secdrv.sys. It all makes sense again. 

 

NAM 47 Upgrade - I definitely feel better that you have confirmed my understanding of how to safely backup and test and restore if ever needed, the NAM.   I'm excited to get to NAM 47.  Truthfully I never call having any problem with any versions of NAM loading yet. And now I have installed NAM 47.  Its up and running! 

You convinced me that the 4GB Update is only going to touch the SimCity 4.exe file, so I upgraded it, and it said successful on the first try using the included .bat.  So it wasnt patched, and now is.  No issues on its maiden voyage today.
 

GOG SC4 Download - Lastly, about the GOG purchased 641 SC4D file, I think I found it.  I logged in just fine, and see its the only game i purchased previously there.  I see this screen.  Is this offline download backup file at the bottom that calls itself a hotfix really the only file i need and nothing else, for if i ever have to reinstall, or if i want to add this to some future new computer?

 

Thanks again to this community for being awesome and helping me back into the fold.

 

  Edited May 7, 2023 by Cougar2004  
Clarity, additional info, and simplification, and updates

[rsc204 21,836]

RL has been a little crazy, so firstly sorry I wasn't able to reply sooner.

On 05/05/2023 at 3:02 AM, Cougar2004 said:

I searched Crucial.com and some other memory sites, and its very hard to find DDR2 - I dont see any new, and used is risky. 

Actually I had already looked up the manual for your Motherboard, but yeah you can have 4x4GB (16GB) RAM maximum in this system.

Not hard, probably impossible, because DDR2 is obsolete so they don't make it any more. However buying used is not risky at all, of all the parts in a computer, RAM and CPUs are practically indestructible, they just don't fail without some improper handling/usage or other problem. It's also so cheap as to make it practically risk free, ideally you want to buy another set of identical sticks to those you already have, just stick the model number into eBay and you'll probably find some. Otherwise, replace what you have now with a new set (2x4GB or 4x2GB) of DIMMs because unmatched RAM is never a great idea.

I built my current PC with 16GB RAM (Corsair Dominator Platinum) and about 10 years later picked up an identical set for a total of 32GB. I did the same with my backup machine too, upgrading it from 8GB to 16GB by purchasing 2nd hand DIMMs identical to the originals. In both cases the RAM worked just fine when it arrived and I've had no problems since, I used eBay and had no troubles.

With the exception of one computer built on such a meagre budget, I've seen precisely one failed DIMM in all my time with computers. Let's just say I see and work with a lot more parts that your average person too. If it works on arrival, it'll probably work for life, provided you don't improperly handle it, static electricity is very bad for RAM for example. Likewise, along with any other component it can overheat, but if your PC is properly functioning and with the correct cooling system working, this isn't an issue. Again, consider 8GB RAM is probably less than $10 value, just find a seller with a good reputation and pay with PayPal or some service that ensures your purchase is protected in the event of a problem and it's totally risk free.

On 05/05/2023 at 3:02 AM, Cougar2004 said:

As I recall, despite the risk of crashing, I believe I changed from -CPUCount:1 to -CPUCount:4 because it appeared that the game was always choosing to only use my first core, and unfortunately my first of the 4 cores is the only one that is a bit defective in that it runs extremely HOT, way more than the other 3.  So by allowing the game to spread processes out among the cores, it minimizes the overheating and risk of losing the core or whole cpu.

You've misunderstood both how this command works and how your Operating System handles multi-core use.

You can't pick which core is going to be used, only the number of cores the app can access, but just because you can tell it to use 4, doesn't mean it will. These commands are not unique to SC4, rather they come from Windows and DirectX, but in short the idea in setting it to one is to limit the application so it won't try to use more than one core. This is very important, because Windows will try to be smart, see two separate threads for SC4 and assign separate cores for each. Essentially the OS is trying to enable multi-core usage for apps which were not designed to use it in the first place, which usually is fine. But in the case of SC4, those two threads will reach a point where they are out of sync, but there is no code to handle what to do when one thread has to wait for the other to finish, it was coded to work in parallel on one core. So, when you reach this point, the game simply crashes, which rather sucks. The only way to stop that is to force the game onto a single core to run as intended.

You can't spread SC4 over more than 2 cores, because it only uses two threads, there is no further optimisation to be had, but it doesn't really spread the load over two either, it just runs one of the lighter tasks on another core, giving a marginal speed improvement, but hardly worth the tradeoff of a terribly unstable game. To trying spread the load in this way requires that the app, OS and hardware have all be coded to do it, not to mention there are varying levels of optimisation there too.

Now why is one core hotter than the others?, it's probably just being used more, but Core2Quad CPUs can handle very high temps, for example my 2013 Core i7's can run as high as 90°, but that is well within the specifications of the product. Without knowing the specific CPU you have, I can't give you an exact figure, but SC4 fully utilises one core in use constantly, so provided the system isn't overheating, getting hot isn't a problem it's just how CPUs work. Yes the primary core tends to be used first, before spitting tasks to the other cores, hence it's very unlikely the other cores will ever be running as hard as the 1st one, hence it appears they are cooler. But if there was such a fault, your CPU would be broken, at the least your system would be unstable with random crashes all the time. More likely if it went wrong it'd just destroy itself and never work again, potentially taking out other components with it.

Again by way of comparison, both my i7s have 4 cores with HT, so 8 cores available to the OS, only two tasks I ever do utilise the full potential of these chips, which are already 10 years old now. Rendering 3D models in 3DS Max and rendering video using Handbrake, that's the only time all four cores are being pushed to the limits and therefore heating up evenly. In every other usage scenario, only the first core is ever getting hot and the others are just taking care of light tasks to free up the first one, which is totally normal.

But again this isn't a scenario you need to worry about much, this stuff is rock solid reliable, just clean your PC periodically, especially the CPU and other fans to ensure the cooling system is in good order. If you do that and it was made properly to begin with, the odds of problems is real low, I mean this thing is 14 years old already and still working, right? I've way older systems, my experience is good stuff doesn't tend to break. A cheap laptop is a whole different story, so is some of the faulty by design parts that make it to the market place. For sure reliability of some parts isn't what it used to be, but stuff from that era that works today, will probably be working fine in 20 years time still.

On 05/05/2023 at 3:02 AM, Cougar2004 said:

Is this offline download backup file at the bottom that calls itself a hotfix really the only file i need and nothing else, for if i ever have to reinstall, or if i want to add this to some future new computer?

Yes, it's not a HotFix, rather the 'version number' is with the hotfix mentioned. Honestly, all this relates to the GoG platform or contents of the download, the actual game again has not had a single update in almost 20 years and it's not likely it will. But yes this is all you need to have.

[Cougar2004 127]

Thanks @rsc204.  Its good to hear from you again. 

GOG - Thanks for confirming that i do have the right file there.  I have a couple copies of it now in my possession.

RAM - I understand what you are saying.  My Corsair Dominator DDR2 1066 matched pair RAM is in 2 slots.  Since you believe I can find it cheap perhaps on eBay, I'll seek it there.  If I put in 2GB in each of the 4 slots, as matched pairs, it should be ok.  However I will lose my 1066speed, as proven by nearly every forum.  Every test ive read, shows that when using all 4 slots on this board, the maximum stable speed appears to be 800Mhz.   Thats why I originally only put in 2 slots, so i could enjoy the higher rated speeds.  I never could find any larger dimms like 4GB matched pairs at a reasonable price before, but maybe this year i can.  So ill try looking for that because at least there is a possibility that I can keep my higher speed by only using the 2 slots.  But if you are right about $10, I wouldn't have a problem with trying all 4 slots with 2GB each or 4GB each even.  Maybe it wouldn't drop in speed, or maybe i just wouldn't notice or care.  Some people online did mention that the different between 800 and 1066 wasn't that noticeable, and they really needed the 8GB over the 4GB.   I have the full list of supported RAM for my board and was just looking at it last week.  There are lower quality ram than Dominator, and I might be able to find another high quality version of another brand.  If I cannot find any at a price range like you mentioned, then I probably am not doing it right, so I'll let you know, and provide you info here, so maybe then you could help me me find some options.

Cores - I understand what you are saying.  I have never had a crash for that reason that I can recall.  Certainly none in the last weeks of daily running the game, as ive returned to it.  Maybe its a more rare occurrence?   Or maybe there is some reason why my setup, is not finding exceptions to crash the game.  But I think I'll just change that to 1 core now, and run the game for a few more days, and see if i can feel or notice any serious degradation.  After reading what you said, my theory is that i wont see a difference. 

Additional Context -  Here is the information on my CPU - its not the best in its line, but it was the best price point for the performance at the time I purchased.

Likewise, here is some GPU info. I've never figured out how much the GPU matters, or why.  I just haven't taken time to research it, or liken its stats and abilities to how SC4 uses it.  But I can say that I had a much lower card previously, an evga with about half all the speeds and 1/4 the ram of this card, and around 2014 after about 4 years on this build, it was tweaking, so I got this one, which was the highest performer in its class at the right price point at the time of purchase.  SC4 immediately played better, although I dont know the reasons why exactly since I thought SC4 really only uses the CPU, not the GPU.  But perhaps it borrowed some RAM, or used other attributes of the card.  Either way, its stable and seems to work well. 

 

Now that I've been back a couple weeks and playing a little every day, I have 4 problems (non-hardware related).  If anyone has suggestions for me, I'm very interested in solving these.

Problem 1:  Slow Load Time - The Game loads extremely slowly in the last week even though the week before it was loading fast.  What changed this week?  Well I did install NAM 47 (used to be NAM 31.2) - But I haven't used any RHW yet, only the default Maxis roads, rails, subway, etc.  I did add the AirForceBase from the Transportation Bonus CD, but after comparing it in various tools, even though Im 15 years rusty, and not a professional content creator as others are here, it really seemed to me as if it was virtually identical to all the elements already in my Deluxe version of the game, with the exception of the text languages and the file size of the images.   I think I'll remove that file and see if the game loads fast again.  It was loading in about 15 seconds, but now its 7 minutes or longer.  IS there any best tool to use that can just tell me which dat or dll files are slowing the load time?   I'd love to have that and verify as i try some custom content, or make my own again soon.

Problem 2: Farms don't grow.  I used to be able to have I-Ag desirability for decades in all size tiles, even spreading tons of beautiful custom farms from edge to edge of the map before beginning to introduce commercial and high rises.   But for some reason, since Ive returned to the game, perhaps ive just forgotten my strategies, or perhaps I haven't configured or copied some necessary files into plugins to support Farms as I used to.  Simply put, after only 2 years, whatever farms i have is all i get.  The rest just never grow.  I do not recall having any cheat or specific farm booster of any type, other than the I-ag doubler and all the Industry type doublers (not quad), which seemed to bring the game into realism.  Of course, that should lower the demand for I-Ag, and im sure i had those exact files before.  I actually didn't even download them, just copied them from my old drive that used to be my main drive.  As a sidenote, I have read some things on the STEX and in other forums here that people lately consider there are other Industry fixes - i hope i can find those again, and determine if those are right for me.  But if anyone has suggestions on what im doing wrong with Farms, or even just tips for generally supporting farm growth, and maintaining demand, Id appreciate it. 

Problem 3: Ordinances - (and im embarrassed that this even has to be asked, but...)   I used to love ordinances (not necessarily any mod versions of them, although i occasionally tested and played 1 city for a day with those).  The default game Ordinances were a very critical part of my SC4 15-20 years ago.  So much so, that I had a strategy for which ones i started with, and then generally in which years i would add new ones, and remove some old ones.  It was like an art as much as science.  I don't remember a thing about now, and will have to relearn, but I recall it may have started with some volunteer fire department at a very low cost on day one, as being a good idea, and then went from there.  Regardless of ordinance strategy which I will regain in time, especially if i can find my old notes, my BIG question now, is.... Where do I click on the screen to bring up the ordinances?  I can't seem to find them anywhere.  I should know this. But i keep starting cities, and taking them into populations and still can't find how to open the ordinances panel.  Can anyone help me remember how this works

Problem 4: Missions - Mission bubbles appear, but when clicked they just say... "oh sorry, thats not longer available".  Do recall seeing this happen once in a rare while when i used to play, but its nearly 90% of all of them are doing it since Ive been playing again this week.  Any ideas what causes this?  Or how to fix it?  I can't be the only one that this happened to.   For example, The Mayors Mansion, the Large Medical Center both seem to spawn missions, for the mayor's limo, and the ambulance, but they always won't let me do them. On the flip side, I have 4 train stations so i get whistle stop missions that work 100% of the time when clicked.  And the Hospital does give me the helicopter which works 100% of the times I click it, for either the good or bad mission.   So whats wrong with all the other missions?

Thanks!!  Again, I appreciate RSC, and everyone who has helped me get back into SC4 and Simtropolis here. 

[Propfam 2,292]

2 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

Thanks @rsc204.  Its good to hear from you again. 

GOG - Thanks for confirming that i do have the right file there.  I have a couple copies of it now in my possession.

RAM - I understand what you are saying.  My Corsair Dominator DDR2 1066 matched pair RAM is in 2 slots.  Since you believe I can find it cheap perhaps on eBay, I'll seek it there.  If I put in 2GB in each of the 4 slots, as matched pairs, it should be ok.  However I will lose my 1066speed, as proven by nearly every forum.  Every test ive read, shows that when using all 4 slots on this board, the maximum stable speed appears to be 800Mhz.   Thats why I originally only put in 2 slots, so i could enjoy the higher rated speeds.  I never could find any larger dimms like 4GB matched pairs at a reasonable price before, but maybe this year i can.  So ill try looking for that because at least there is a possibility that I can keep my higher speed by only using the 2 slots.  But if you are right about $10, I wouldn't have a problem with trying all 4 slots with 2GB each or 4GB each even.  Maybe it wouldn't drop in speed, or maybe i just wouldn't notice or care.  Some people online did mention that the different between 800 and 1066 wasn't that noticeable, and they really needed the 8GB over the 4GB.   I have the full list of supported RAM for my board and was just looking at it last week.  There are lower quality ram than Dominator, and I might be able to find another high quality version of another brand.  If I cannot find any at a price range like you mentioned, then I probably am not doing it right, so I'll let you know, and provide you info here, so maybe then you could help me me find some options.

Cores - I understand what you are saying.  I have never had a crash for that reason that I can recall.  Certainly none in the last weeks of daily running the game, as ive returned to it.  Maybe its a more rare occurrence?   Or maybe there is some reason why my setup, is not finding exceptions to crash the game.  But I think I'll just change that to 1 core now, and run the game for a few more days, and see if i can feel or notice any serious degradation.  After reading what you said, my theory is that i wont see a difference. 

Additional Context -  Here is the information on my CPU - its not the best in its line, but it was the best price point for the performance at the time I purchased.

Likewise, here is some GPU info. I've never figured out how much the GPU matters, or why.  I just haven't taken time to research it, or liken its stats and abilities to how SC4 uses it.  But I can say that I had a much lower card previously, an evga with about half all the speeds and 1/4 the ram of this card, and around 2014 after about 4 years on this build, it was tweaking, so I got this one, which was the highest performer in its class at the right price point at the time of purchase.  SC4 immediately played better, although I dont know the reasons why exactly since I thought SC4 really only uses the CPU, not the GPU.  But perhaps it borrowed some RAM, or used other attributes of the card.  Either way, its stable and seems to work well. 

 

Now that I've been back a couple weeks and playing a little every day, I have 4 problems (non-hardware related).  If anyone has suggestions for me, I'm very interested in solving these.

Problem 1:  Slow Load Time - The Game loads extremely slowly in the last week even though the week before it was loading fast.  What changed this week?  Well I did install NAM 47 (used to be NAM 31.2) - But I haven't used any RHW yet, only the default Maxis roads, rails, subway, etc.  I did add the AirForceBase from the Transportation Bonus CD, but after comparing it in various tools, even though Im 15 years rusty, and not a professional content creator as others are here, it really seemed to me as if it was virtually identical to all the elements already in my Deluxe version of the game, with the exception of the text languages and the file size of the images.   I think I'll remove that file and see if the game loads fast again.  It was loading in about 15 seconds, but now its 7 minutes or longer.  IS there any best tool to use that can just tell me which dat or dll files are slowing the load time?   I'd love to have that and verify as i try some custom content, or make my own again soon.

Problem 2: Farms don't grow.  I used to be able to have I-Ag desirability for decades in all size tiles, even spreading tons of beautiful custom farms from edge to edge of the map before beginning to introduce commercial and high rises.   But for some reason, since Ive returned to the game, perhaps ive just forgotten my strategies, or perhaps I haven't configured or copied some necessary files into plugins to support Farms as I used to.  Simply put, after only 2 years, whatever farms i have is all i get.  The rest just never grow.  I do not recall having any cheat or specific farm booster of any type, other than the I-ag doubler and all the Industry type doublers (not quad), which seemed to bring the game into realism.  Of course, that should lower the demand for I-Ag, and im sure i had those exact files before.  I actually didn't even download them, just copied them from my old drive that used to be my main drive.  As a sidenote, I have read some things on the STEX and in other forums here that people lately consider there are other Industry fixes - i hope i can find those again, and determine if those are right for me.  But if anyone has suggestions on what im doing wrong with Farms, or even just tips for generally supporting farm growth, and maintaining demand, Id appreciate it. 

Problem 3: Ordinances - (and im embarrassed that this even has to be asked, but...)   I used to love ordinances (not necessarily any mod versions of them, although i occasionally tested and played 1 city for a day with those).  The default game Ordinances were a very critical part of my SC4 15-20 years ago.  So much so, that I had a strategy for which ones i started with, and then generally in which years i would add new ones, and remove some old ones.  It was like an art as much as science.  I don't remember a thing about now, and will have to relearn, but I recall it may have started with some volunteer fire department at a very low cost on day one, as being a good idea, and then went from there.  Regardless of ordinance strategy which I will regain in time, especially if i can find my old notes, my BIG question now, is.... Where do I click on the screen to bring up the ordinances?  I can't seem to find them anywhere.  I should know this. But i keep starting cities, and taking them into populations and still can't find how to open the ordinances panel.  Can anyone help me remember how this works

Problem 4: Missions - Mission bubbles appear, but when clicked they just say... "oh sorry, thats not longer available".  Do recall seeing this happen once in a rare while when i used to play, but its nearly 90% of all of them are doing it since Ive been playing again this week.  Any ideas what causes this?  Or how to fix it?  I can't be the only one that this happened to.   For example, The Mayors Mansion, the Large Medical Center both seem to spawn missions, for the mayor's limo, and the ambulance, but they always won't let me do them. On the flip side, I have 4 train stations so i get whistle stop missions that work 100% of the time when clicked.  And the Hospital does give me the helicopter which works 100% of the times I click it, for either the good or bad mission.   So whats wrong with all the other missions?

Thanks!!  Again, I appreciate RSC, and everyone who has helped me get back into SC4 and Simtropolis here. 

Solution 1: Try to datpack. There's an official guide on how to datpack.

If it's still the case, use NAM Lite instead.

I literally stumbled on this problem a couple weeks ago, even using NVMe SSD. If all of those don't work, unfortunately you have to be patient. I mean, just wait the loading screen.

Solution 2: There's a bug regarding to I-R. If you have enough other jobs, I-R would just collapse. The source of the problem is unknown. But there's a similar problem just caused by being capped by well, the cap limit. Today's sponsor, Cap Lifter, is what you need.

Solution 3: Very simple. Just head to the budget panel (marked with a dollar sign), then click City Ordinances, either marked green or red.

Solution 4: That's normal. Not everyone in the city hall wants you a mission. So, you have to be patient to get a bubble. To make you a reliable partner, try start with what missions available and progress from there. Or, try to drive every single vehicle in the UDI lists, or use "udriveit" cheat (I assume it needs Extra Cheats) and select whatever vehicle you want.

[rsc204 21,836]

5 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

Here is the information on my CPU - its not the best in its line, but it was the best price point for the performance at the time I purchased.

So your CPU is good until just above 70°, so if the single core is within that range, there is nothing bad happening. It also has a 1333Mhz FSB, so your current 1066Mhz RAM isn’t actually able to keep up. Put another way, your RAM is limiting the ability of the CPU to be fully utilised, otherwise creating a bottleneck in your system. Honestly unless you are overclocking the system bus to get 1066, it should be stable and if your board can't support the CPU's 1333 bus, it's the wrong board for the system. Sadly, when people put systems together, they often use cheaper parts that can ultimately limit the potential of the expensive ones. It's like putting a big v8 in a small hatchback, sure you can do it, but it's incredibly inefficient to do so and you don't actually end up with the performance you might expect. That all said 8GB is better 4GB, more is usually unnecessary for normal users, but directly in the world of SC4 with a full NAM controller and a highly modded setup, I'm sure it will more than pay for itself. I'd aim to find two sticks of 4GB 1066 memory personally, it won't cost any more, you've two old ones to sell to recover some of the upgrade price and it should run better than switching down to 800Mhz.

Another common misconception is that Quad or more/many core CPUs are better, this can be the case but it very much depends on your usage of the machine. Dual core parts were introduced with the Pentium D processor and became the norm with the Core2 series which you have. But, it took almost ten years before the average software had been coded such as to take advantage of a multi core CPU properly. As a result the average user would have benefited from having less, but faster cores over having more of them. Since if your software is running on a single core, the only reason to have more than one would be if you were simultaneously using more than one CPU for applications that fully utilised them. In every other scenario, the cheaper and faster Core2Duo chips would have given you better performance in real life. Even though on paper the Core2Quads have more total power, most useage scenarios wouldn't be able to take advantage of it.

For comparison, again my 2013 i7 system, literally I can’t take it down, unless I’m using multi-core optimised rendering, otherwise most of the system is just wasted power I’m not using. Seriously I can run and use every application installed on my system and I get nowhere near full utilisation. One important aspect here is that Core i systems are much better at power management and running slower unless all the power is needed, something that only got even more efficient with each new generation. So if you compare that to older architecture like yours, there are large power savings to be had, which whilst not hundred's a year, may be much larger than you'd think.

I checked here in Germany and indeed 8GB DDR2 at 1066 is very possible for 10€, 1333 may be harder because it was expensive and few people had it. Since it's harder to find, it may carry a 'perceived' premium, I say this because anything over $10 (I'm assuming you are in America), is just ludicrous for RAM for obsolete systems. Let's say you paid $50 to get the faster RAM, the additional performance isn't worth it, ignore that for $100 you could buy a complete 2nd hand system that would look like a high end sports car next to your current system. It’s not like a vintage machine is some kind of antique or collectible, ultimately it’s a tool that when old is worthless.

For context here, I have a third machine, a 2012 Core i5 with 16GB RAM, pretty good in it’s day, a great cost/performance balance that I believe was a popular configuration among gamers on a budget. I should know, I built two nearly identical ones for others, and eventually ended up with one set of the parts myself. This system would (no offence), make a Core2Quad system seem rubbish by comparison. Even so, I don’t expect I’ll get anything near 100 Euro for it, even if I throw in a monitor, and frankly the case cost me 90€ alone and that's anything but obsolete. It is by all measurements a very capable machine today and by no means a slow or useless one, for things other than gaming at least. But compared to the latest machines, it too starts to look rubbish by comparison, all of this stuff is relative really.

But I also know how night and day switching from a Core 2 to Core i system is, so before spending more than a small outlay on what you have, I'd put the money to better use buying a Core i system, for 100 Euros I could probably get a 5th or 6th generation system here, which is crazy powerful and energy efficient. If your computer is on often enough, you might actually get your money back in reduced electricity usage within a few years, before you consider you'd have a hugely more powerful system to boot. But that's not to say your system is bad, it still does everything it ever could do as well as it ever could, $10-$15 to keep a known quantity you are happy with is absolutely something I'd do.

5 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

SC4 immediately played better, although I dont know the reasons why exactly since I thought SC4 really only uses the CPU, not the GPU.

Probably mostly the amount of V-RAM, although SC4 doesn't need 1GB of the stuff, I believe 256 - 512MB is the max you can really make use of. But one thing I can say with some certainty is that you'd probably never need anything better. Coming back to my Core2 build, I had an ATI 3870 with 512MB RAM, I have another system, a Mac Mini actually, with a 9200 mobile NVidia chip, nothing I've used since offers any performance benefits and I've done solid testing in this area.

5 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

Problem 1:  Slow Load Time

The Full/RHW controller contains around 5 million extra lines of RUL code, all of which get loaded into memory after you select a city tile to load. This will take somewhere between 90 seconds to 2 minutes depending on your system.

If you have an SSD, I wouldn't bother with DATPacking, it's not going to make a big difference to this at all. If you don't have an SSD, rather a conventional spinning disk based drive, you should DATPack everything in Plugins to help SC4 manage things better... actually no, you should invest in an SSD, because today you can get a 256GB drive to maybe less than $30, I've seen some 1TB ones for 60€ or less recently, although you may not need such a large one. Yes, technically your SATA 2 connectors on your board isn't enough to fully take advantage of an SSD, but you will not regret the upgrade, because HDDs were for a very long time the bottleneck in every system. That Core2 system I used to have, I had a special PCIe SATA3/USB card and when I fist installed a tiny 60GB SSD for the OS, it was the first time my computer didn't feel sluggish. It just makes everything better, really no one should not be using one in 2013, let alone 2023.

5 hours ago, Cougar2004 said:

Problem 2: Farms don't grow.

Farms are one of the less typical zoning types, they don't work like the others, it all has to do with the fact that Maxis never intended for players to use them outside of getting their cities and regions going in the first place. What actually happens is that every R/C/I building fulfils the 'Cap' for farming demand, so before a city gets to big you reach the Demand Cap, which when full will prevent demand and development of that zoning type. This is destined to happen with farms, so if you want them, you have to build them before bringing large amounts of other Ind and Com development. Once they are there, they will stick around, but since they only employ Low Wealth sims, actually their continued presence isn't necessarily a good thing when you get to the point of mass R$$$, CO$$$ and I-HT.

Yes, using a cap raiser will 'cheat' your way around the problem, in fact it really is the only fix.

[Cougar2004 127]

Very Helpful!  Thank you RSC.  And welcome to the discussion elfrjz - its great to meet you and enjoy the benefit of your experience, suggestions, and links!

CPU Heat - My core temps start around 27 and usually sit right around 63 under average load, however the first core (core 0) does regularly report 90c which is a bit above the 70c that is supposed to be the safe max. I have multiple large tunable single direction flow case fans in addition to the cpu heatsink and fan, so turning those up usually helps a little, but i often close the offending program, or kill the likely runaway process causing it.  Sometimes I wonder if its related to cpu fighting to use disk cache since my RAM is all maxed out often, especially during those times.  There seems to be a correlation between maxed RAM, and sustained high cpu usage.  But that may just be that whatever process is working just needs both. 

You educated me a bit on how things really work, so thank you for that!

RAM Upgrade - I think its safe to say that you have convinced me that its worth trying to upgrade my RAM now.  I did an ebay search as you suggested, as well as Amazon, newegg, and a few others.  I found some 8GB as 4 x 2GB but that requires me using all 4 slots, which others research has shown that my board downclocks 1066mhz to 800mhz in those conditions.  I could not find a single 2 x 5GB DDR2 1066Mhz matched set.  So unless someone else can show me who to find them, I think i may be limited to trying either, only 800Mhz 2 x 4GB or the 4 x 2GB 1066Mhz which will likely down clock to remain stable on this board.   If filling all 4 slots is the only way, then I wonder if i should opt for 16 or 32GB max of my board?   But my search for those ran into trouble too, as i couldn't find any. 

V-RAM - Your comment about slowness being related to Video Ram makes sense.  And you're right.  The Game DOES seem to use some, but its a pretty small percentage exactly as you said.  But this conversation got me thinking of another vram, Virtual Ram, and how that might relate to overall computer and SC4 slowness.  I've about run out of disc space on this 1TB drive which is not an SSD.  So the configured virtual ram using that harddrive isn't likely getting what it wants and needs when the 4GB RAM maxes out.  I"ll work on freeing some space.  I'm sure i can get 10 or 20GB (who knows, maybe 50 or100GB free - I have a new 4GB portable USB drive so i can offload zipped files), which should help.

Problem 1:  Slow Load Time  - OK so the NAM 47 full install may be the cause, but strangely, I was pretty sure i was loading and playing cities about the same as before the NAM (after obviously the first time the city was loaded, which i do recall was very time consuming.  But maybe I'm wrong and it wasnt as fast as I thought for a day or two after NAM install.  I'm going to finish up some tests on that, by removing other things, and then the NAM, and see if i can just prove exactly what is slowing it for sure.  I didn't want to take this step of testing, because I have had the idea that it was more a conflict of something, meaning when i look and see the tools reporting what loaded in order, I see 'this was overwritten by that, and overwritten again by this other .dat'. it makes me wonder if that could be slowing it.  Besides that, I recall a couple things I loaded around that time.  One of them, the instructions clearly stated goes in the SKU1 directory in programs, which is not what im used to.  And a few others go to Program plugins, plus some .dlls that went into documents plugins.  So im just going to do the testing now. But what would really help me is to know if there is a specific tool that reports load times and reasons why?  I recall there being something like that, but I cant remember now. 

I see your suggestion to use datpak.  I haven't done that before.  I guess i should try it.  I just have a concern about it, because i like to constantly remove and add items, even if its only 1 a day, and if packed, im not sure how easy changes to plugins are.  I also see you say that NAME Lite could be an option.  I haven't had crashing or RAM limit failure with the NAM 47 full install YET, so I think ill hold off lite and try to keep the full l version for now, to try out all the new features.  So your advice to just wait, if all else fails may be ok, since i timed it and it was 5 minutes yesterday, but once i left a city, to region, and then returned, it was instant.  So it must only be on initial load.  But if im reading the link you gave correctly, it seems that maybe you can datpak just the NAM and not the rest of my plugins?  IF so, maybe that was all you were suggesting.  So ill dive into that next and read everything in that link.

EDIT:  I just performed 10 planned tests of load time, having only the game open, plus the directories I was moving things in and out of plugins.  I used only 1 small city, fully developed.  The Verdict is clear.  It doesn't matter what or how much I move in or out (among the 489MB expansive library of plugins I use), there is no significant difference on load times - it is always about 10 seconds.  However with the NAM 47, it is 8 1/2 minutes load time, even if nothing else is added.  So... since I often only have 30-60 minutes to play during the week, this is eating too far into that time.  Therefore, I have decided to create 2 different Regions.  One Region for NAM 47 Full Play (the weekends), and one for NAM 47 Lite Play (during the week).  If the Lite version is more than 3 minutes, I will likely change the week night region to a NAM 32.1 (which I had backed up) or just NO NAM for quick load-short play times.  Therefore, I must admit you guys giving me the advice, were right on, correct.  It was always the NAM as the cause of slow load times. And it has been verified that even the full NAM 47 loads in under 10 seconds when already having been in the city, and just exited to Region view and then going back in, so that is a plus, and explains why I didnt think it was the NAM 47 Full at first.

Problem 2: Farms don't grow - You know, I think you're right.  I had the game on turtle speed, and placed industrial and commercial too early and too much.  I do recall that when i used to play, i would go longer time with just farms, so that was probably my mistake.  I know I never had any cheats or cap removers before.  I suppose i could try one out, but I think im fine with the regular game mechanics as long as ive collected all the fixes (maxis bugs + realism improvements).  I'll download that cap lifter just because on a new city, id like to see the difference in game play, but because I recall the region play can be affected by demand of even a single city, Ill make a new region before loading that to explore it.  Thanks for the idea.

I just wanted to get some clarity on one thing you said.  Once farms are there, they stick around.  I recall that being true, and on larger maps, id have a corner where id leave the farms for the lower wealth to work while building up other areas.  That seemed to work ok.  However, what would happen if i raise the taxes on the I-Ag Farms?  Do they persist and just pay?  other Industry would abandon. What happens to farms in that case? Maybe thats a way to make more money that i hadn't tried before. 

And my last Industry related question, fits farms but also the other types... you referred to a bug in the game about  I-R.  I've seen "fixes' doubling quadrupling jobs for industry, as well as some other fix that claimed it solved the problem a different way than jobs.  Are any of these useful, important, for realism or bug fixing that i should consider adding to plugins?

Problem 3: Can't find City Ordinances - Your instructions were simple enough.  I found it!  It was in the monthly budget the whole time.  I can't believe I forgot things this simple in 15 years.  But finally i can use ordinances in my cities again.  Thank you!

Problem 4: Missions Bubbles Reject me - I have no trouble getting mission bubbles - in fact i often click 15 within 15 seconds, only to find each one has decided its outdated, or it otherwise just doesnt want to let me play it.  Some work though.  I just dont recall it being that annoying.  I think id get 10 work and maybe 1 that rejected me, but usually that was because i didnt jump on it fast, and im fast on all these, even more so since im only playing on slow.  I do realize that i have to place certain buildings, to get NEW missions, and i have a list so no problem there.  I'll try your idea to drive UDI vehicles around and see if that helps at all.  It just feels like there is something different or wrong with the quantity of rejected missions that pop up and fail when i click them since ive been back. 

Thanks again for the great advice and discussion.  Appreciate you.  Perhaps someone will have some insights on the additional topics above.

 

  Edited May 14, 2023 by Cougar2004  
Updated after Testing

[Jasoncw 11,933]

The Discord is only for Simtropolis members. If you go to the upper right corner of the screen where your username is here on the forums and go to "Account Settings" (not "Profile") and then go to the Discord page, you can sign into Discord through here, and that will link your accounts.

This page is old but might help:

 

[rsc204 21,836]

On 14/05/2023 at 4:00 AM, Cougar2004 said:

CPU Heat - My core temps start around 27 and usually sit right around 63 under average load, however the first core (core 0) does regularly report 90c which is a bit above the 70c that is supposed to be the safe max. I have multiple large tunable single direction flow case fans in addition to the cpu heatsink and fan, so turning those up usually helps a little, but i often close the offending program, or kill the likely runaway process causing it.

Well it sounds like a good cooling system is present, but things are not working as I would expect, sure you can 'kill the app causing it', but there shouldn't be such a thing as a runaway process. If your CPU is being heavily used, then some app should have a valid reason to be making use of it. Again to use a car analogy, if your car had a top speed of 120mph, but every time you went above 70mph you had to stop the car, something needs fixing. This isn't a problem to ignore, rather something in need of attention, because the first thing you should know is that your Motherboard should not be allowing the CPU to heat beyond its intended thermal limits. So there are three points you need to address:

• BIOS settings/configuration
  In case you aren't familiar, the BIOS is essentially a bunch of settings for your motherboard. Amongst that should be settings for the CPU and Cooling, since to work a given board must know your CPU details, that should include its thermal limit. Either this is being incorrectly detected, has been set too high or perhaps disabled/increased for the purposes of overclocking or some such. BIOS's vary from one manufacture to another, but this is an area that should be checked.
  
  Because what should happen when a CPU is above its thermal limit, is that your computer freezes as the Motherboard does an 'emergency' shut off of the CPU to prevent it from being damaged or damaging other system components. Core i systems (I'm struggling to remember if Core2's also could do this), simply under-clock the processor at the thermal limit, slowing things down as much as needed to prevent exceeding the thermal tolerance of the CPU and other parts.
   
• Maintenance of cooling system
  Given the age of your computer, maybe it just needs a little TLC, whilst computers are fairly low maintenance, they do need a clean from time to time and every few years ideally cleaning the entire cooling system. Basically removing built up dust from all the fans, including the CPU and GPU fans, I use a little paintbrush and (very carefully) a vacuum cleaner to do this.
  
  At this point in its life, you might also find the original Thermal Compound, a paste used to increase the transfer of heat from the CPU to the Heatsink that sits on top of it, could do with replacing. To do this requires removing the Heatsink/Fan from the board, very gently cleaning the old stuff off the CPU & Heatsink, then applying a light layer of new paste onto the CPU. It's really not as hard as it sounds, the instructions for fitting/removal of this are in the Motherboard Manual too.
   
• Checking airflow is actually optimised
  I've seen well made and frankly confusing setups for airflow management in computers over the years. For example one HP Laptop with a plastic part that served no other purpose than to limit the ability of the cooling system (by blocking the air), after it had overheated and died of course. The point is, fans are all good and well, but if they aren't working together as one system to move hot air out of the system, then they are hindering more than helping. The basic idea is to bring in cool air from the front of the case and blow hot air out of the rear. The area around the top of the CPU, which also tends to be close to the GPU, the other parts that gets real hot, is of particular importance.
  
  I have one large fan right behind the CPU to expel air from this area, then two fans on the front which bring in cool air, which will pass over the CPU before being ejected by the rear fan. One of these is only used to cool my HDDs and has a dedicated temp. sensor so it only turns on when the HDDs are starting to get toasty. This is because hard drives last longer if they are kept warm, but under heavy load my system will ensure not too warm. OK this is all a bit specialised, when you are running 7 or 8 drives in your rig, it sort of becomes necessary. I also have a very well designed case, literally my 2013 PC runs silently with minimal fan noise, until you really push it, then the Motherboard will increase fan speeds as needed until eventually it limits the processor speed should that be necessary.
  
  It might not seem obvious, but you would be advised to check the fans are working together optimally if the previous two suggestions aren't helping.
   

Quote

Sometimes I wonder if its related to cpu fighting to use disk cache since my RAM is all maxed out often, especially during those times.  There seems to be a correlation between maxed RAM, and sustained high cpu usage.  But that may just be that whatever process is working just needs both...

...But this conversation got me thinking of another vram, Virtual Ram, and how that might relate to overall computer and SC4 slowness.  I've about run out of disc space on this 1TB drive which is not an SSD.  So the configured virtual ram using that harddrive isn't likely getting what it wants and needs when the 4GB RAM maxes out.  I"ll work on freeing some space.  I'm sure i can get 10 or 20GB (who knows, maybe 50 or100GB free - I have a new 4GB portable USB drive so i can offload zipped files), which should help.

Honestly whilst it does seem that you do need more RAM, because Virtual Memory (VM) is not something you ideally ever want to be using. The amount of VM Windows allocates is typical 2x the actual RAM in the system, so right now maybe it's reserving 4-8GB of your HDD for this, but that isn't shown as free disk space either.

But when you find yourself using VM the solution is not to increase free HDD space, but to provide more RAM to the system, so it can avoid using it altogether. Yes for complex reasons some things will always sit in VM, but having to cache data to the HDD which is many, many times slower than RAM, is a performance killer. So it seems like 8GB makes sense for more reasons that simply SC4.

Quote

I could not find a single 2 x 5GB DDR2 1066Mhz matched set.  So unless someone else can show me who to find them, I think i may be limited to trying either, only 800Mhz 2 x 4GB or the 4 x 2GB 1066Mhz which will likely down clock to remain stable on this board.   If filling all 4 slots is the only way, then I wonder if i should opt for 16 or 32GB max of my board?   But my search for those ran into trouble too, as i couldn't find any.

Well to put it bluntly, maybe you need to do a bit of work to find some, since this isn't available new, you may need to check more than once over a period of time to find what you are after at the right price. Here is where living in Europe I can't really say for sure what your best option would be where you are. However, for me there is eBay, then something called kleinanzeigen, which is a sort of more legit craigslist, basically the digital version of classified ads. If you search hard enough and long enough, eventually you should find what you need for a reasonable price, but one small issue is that a small bunch of folks/businesses/a-holes like to buy up every second hand part they find, to restrict supply and push up the prices. For example, lots of offers from these folks, but their pricing is nuts, I wouldn't even consider it. But, if you find an actual honest person who's selling some old bits, that's a whole different kettle of fish, for example:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/115596158923

Certainly not overpriced, but 2x4GB 1333 RAM - my guess is this is ECC (Server) RAM, you'd have to check your motherboard could support it. But if your board is struggling with 1066, I'm not even sure if 1333 would be a good idea. Again, with a little searching and a bit of luck, you should find 2x4GB 1066 much easier, although 800 was probably the most typical speed of DDR2 in use, ergo it's plentiful and cheap. Where I've seen faster RAM, a lot of it comes from servers which again fits because those buying such systems would have been willing to pay the very high additional cost of faster RAM. Honestly getting both larger and faster DDR2 memory is trickier, because it was rare for such systems to have more than 4GB or faster than 800/1066 RAM in the first place.

More is always better, right?, well actually not always and again it depends on your specific needs. My 2013 system was built with 16GB RAM and I've never been able to utilise it all, I upgraded to 32GB knowing it would make no difference to anything, but it was a future proofing thing and the 2nd hand sticks were very reasonably priced. Honestly, I'm not sure I'll ever make use of that 2nd 16GB though, I can't imagine your system would benefit from more than 8GB. This is because the sort of Apps that would use large amounts of RAM, would be impeded by your other hardware to the point that they would probably be unusable. Put another way, if your needs went that far, you'd be struggling to run things you needed already. However 4GB is pretty low these days and over 25 years or so I've seen a common pattern for the amount of RAM systems ship with. When the RAM market is good and prices are keen, every manufacture throws a lot of extra RAM in, it makes the specs look better and if you need it increases performance. But, in those years where RAM prices are high, most skimp on RAM, giving you only just the minimum required for the system to work. In fact, one of the reasons Windows Vista got such a bad rep, is because systems were shipping with 2GB RAM or sometimes less, when if MS were more honest, 4GB was really the minimum needed to run Vista properly. Not that it was MS who are really to blame here, manufacturers knew, but they figured they could get away with it because consumers trust the salespeople to tell them what they need. Sadly, salespeople want to sell you what they are told to get rid of, they rarely care about the consumer or give them impartial advise. A couple anecdotes if you'll indulge me:

Spoiler

A good friend of mine bought a PC from a large electronics retailer, they had asked the salesman about two different systems for roughly the same price. One was an old model 486, the other was the latest Intel Pentium line, needless to say the later was obviously the far better computer for the same cost. However, the salesman convinced his mother who was paying, that the 'improved' software bundle with the 486, made it the better choice. He never used the bundled software once and could have had a much faster machine instead.

Back in the early part of the millennium I was working for AOL, once of the biggest headaches we faced constantly was users complaining about constantly loosing their internet (Dial Up) connections. Many falsely believed our service was oversubscribed and would not readily accept that in fact we had sufficient capacity for the number of users. Of course it's not to say we never had internal issues, but these were rare and things were on the whole maintained to a high standard. The real cause for many folks?, their shiny new computers costing at least £1,000 but likely much more in those days, typically bought with the exclusive intention of using the internet, contained a modem that could be bought at retail for less than $10. This fact came as a surprise to many, who then felt a little irate about it, specifically the problem was Software Modems. For a long time, if you wanted a sound card, modem, LAN card or just about anything a computer needed, then you bought a part with everything physically on it to make that work. But as computers got ever more powerful, most processing power was going to waste (i.e. spare), so to make such add-ons cheaper, some chips were replaced, with the work needed to handle their functions, passed to the rest of the system. Problem was, if your computer ran out of RAM, started using VM which was too slow to keep up, the modem would briefly stop working, cutting your internet connection off. For the sake of a $30 retail modem which actually had the chips to run independently, you could resolve this problem. Because back then adding RAM was very expensive, it didn't help that some systems included these cheap modems but also never had enough RAM such that they had a chance of working right. Fast forward 10 years maybe and these problems went away and software-based devices is actually very normal now, they work fine too.

...

Quote

OK so the NAM 47 full install may be the cause, but strangely, I was pretty sure i was loading and playing cities about the same as before the NAM(after obviously the first time the city was loaded, which i do recall was very time consuming.  But maybe I'm wrong and it wasnt as fast as I thought for a day or two after NAMinstall.  I'm going to finish up some tests on that, by removing other things, and then the NAM, and see if i can just prove exactly what is slowing it for sure.

You perhaps misunderstand my previous comments, I wasn't speculating, that absolutely is the cause of the loading times increasing. Regardless of your system, loading that code will add up to a few minutes with the Full NAM controller. However, it only needs to load this data (code) from the disk to RAM, once that's happened, i.e. the first time you load SimCity 4 and a city, it is done. So loading subsequent cities and playing the game will run pretty much as before, it's just a one time deal when starting the game anew.

Honestly on a normal HDD loads times can be hugely improved by DATPacking, but indeed it is a form of constant maintenance and adds another level of complexity to dealing with Plugins, it's not ideal. An SSD would mitigate most of this without the hassle of DATPacking, given you've probably a need for more drive space, I am tempted to say you should consider buying one. Again though I am mindful, even though this is a relatively modest cost, it doesn't make sense to throw $50 at your current system, because I know for $100 you could have a hugely improved system and that would be a far better investment. Buying second hand isn't always risk free, but it depends on how you go about it, you can at least ensure you will get something that works on arrival or get your money back if it doesn't. If it's working when it arrives, the risk of failure is no more/less than your current system, plus newer hardware generally will have more life left than older stuff.

For the sake of comparison, open eBay search for "Core i desktop", then sort by lowest price and try to filter out what makes sense (I put $60-$100 and from US only). For example, a 6th Gen i5 system (Dell) for $70:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144964788098

Granted, this needs a HDD and OS, but those don't have to cost a fortune, in fact you can install Win10 and use it without registering/paying, add a good size SSD and your old 1TB drive and it's still just about in the sub-$100 range. This is just from a quick peek, there are some seriously respectable machines out there for very little money. Again, you will save considerably on electricity consumption, have way more power and it's just a better solution to spending $50 to keep your old system limping on.

Again, all I am saying is I wouldn't spend more than $10-$20 on the old machine, not when for a small additional outlay you could have something so much more capable with the upgrades you need.

Quote

I'll download that cap lifter just because on a new city, id like to see the difference in game play, but because I recall the region play can be affected by demand of even a single city, Ill make a new region before loading that to explore it.

I just wanted to get some clarity on one thing you said.  Once farms are there, they stick around.  I recall that being true, and on larger maps, id have a corner where id leave the farms for the lower wealth to work while building up other areas.  That seemed to work ok.  However, what would happen if i raise the taxes on the I-Ag Farms?  Do they persist and just pay?  other Industry would abandon. What happens to farms in that case? Maybe thats a way to make more money that i hadn't tried before. 

And my last Industry related question, fits farms but also the other types... you referred to a bug in the game about  I-R.  I've seen "fixes' doubling quadrupling jobs for industry, as well as some other fix that claimed it solved the problem a different way than jobs.  Are any of these useful, important, for realism or bug fixing that i should consider adding to plugins?

Long and short, the Cap lifter only solves the problem for existing cities where the cap has been hit, but on a new city it will change nothing, because you won't yet have hit the cap that this unblocks. Demand caps like this are not propagated between cities.

Raise the taxes all you want, it will kill demand but existing industry will both stubbornly remain (whilst complaining) and pay you a lot more in tax. The same works for I-D, simply taxing it at 20% won't get them to move out, but it will prevent any more developing.

As for fixes, there isn't really anything broken, doublers/quadruplers aren't fixes, they are mods that alter how the game works. Specifically if every Ind building had say 2x the employees, you'd need twice the amount of Res development as before to supply them. So in essence it alters the slice of the pie between how much Res/Com/Ind you need, but this is really personal preference more than anything. There is an IR fix as part of CAM, but it's not strictly necessary and what it specifically does is frankly a bit opaque.

Quote

I have no trouble getting mission bubbles - in fact i often click 15 within 15 seconds, only to find each one has decided its outdated, or it otherwise just doesnt want to let me play it.  Some work though.  I just dont recall it being that annoying.  I think id get 10 work and maybe 1 that rejected me, but usually that was because i didnt jump on it fast, and im fast on all these, even more so since im only playing on slow.  I do realize that i have to place certain buildings, to get NEW missions, and i have a list so no problem there.  I'll try your idea to drive UDI vehicles around and see if that helps at all.  It just feels like there is something different or wrong with the quantity of rejected missions that pop up and fail when i click them since ive been back. 

Well your version of the game is the same as any other and so if there is an issue here, everyone else is suffering it too. I suspect it's just that things change, such that if when you click the conditions are no longer valid, you can't start these missions. Bear in mind, the message may not appear in your view at the very moment when the conditions were right, you might see it much later.

[Cougar2004 127]

On 5/14/2023 at 8:45 PM, Jasoncw said:

The Discord is only for Simtropolis members. If you go to the upper right corner of the screen where your username is here on the forums and go to "Account Settings" (not "Profile") and then go to the Discord page, you can sign into Discord through here, and that will link your accounts.

This page is old but might help:

 

Wow, it worked!  i never could figure out how to make it work before.  Thank you for this help Jasoncw !

[jonnboy1976 218]

Hi and welcome back @Cougar2004!  Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see this mentioned yet...

SC4Fix: Third-party patches for SC4 - Gameplay Mods - Simtropolis

The file in the link above is a MUST.  It has many much needed fixes, but the game changer for me is the CTD fix when trying to plop transportation lots!  

The people in this community continue to pleasantly surprise me.  They have always been amazingly helpful, creative and innovative, and it just gets better as time goes on!  

[Fantozzi 4,067]

And we don't really leave. Never. We live here. Only sometimes we travel around. Some near, only in the neighbourhood (Banished), like Cathy. Some very far like A Nonny Moose.

[catty-cb 4,411]

On 7/16/2023 at 3:20 AM, Fantozzi said:

And we don't really leave. Never. We live here. Only sometimes we travel around. Some near, only in the neighbourhood (Banished), like Cathy. Some very far like A Nonny Moose.

SimCity has a special place in my heart, but these days I like pottering around in small villages with my only worry is whether the villagers have got enough firewood and food stores in the barns to survive winter ... and based on this picture I need to organize some villagers to go and collect some more logs so they can be turned into firewood as 430 logs isn't going to keep 171 people warm when the snow comes

[Jackspital 391]

On 5/1/2023 at 2:58 PM, Ulisse Wolf said:

This is a problem because you will not be able to use Real Highway (RHW) because the RUL code to run RHW requires that SC4 uses 4GB of RAM (Maximum limit of a 32Bit application). That's why the minimum requirements have been raised to 8GB of RAM if you want to use Full NAM . Anyway. there is the option No 4GB Patch /NO RHW designed for these situations

You can check if it is the right version by going to see the properties of the SC4 EXE -> Details and the file version must be this 1.1.641.0

There are instructions on the official website of Network Addon Mod

https://www.sc4nam.com/docs/reference/installation-notes/

If you only have SC4 installed then you don't have the 4GB Patch. Since you are using NAM 31.2 which is an old, outdated version you cannot receive support from NAM Team as it only offers support for the latest version available. Then you need to update NAM to version 47. The difference is vast between NAM 31.2 and NAM 47 as the latest version is becoming FLEX and therefore you no longer have to use puzzle pieces on almost all NAM features, as well as improving the traffic simulator and fixing bugs You can see the history of the various NAM versions to see the progress we've made to make NAM more modern and easy to use.

https://www.sc4nam.com/docs/reference/NAM-version-history/

There is only one procedure to perform a clean update of NAM

1 Delete Network Addon Mod folder

2 Delete the Z_NAM folder

 

This was actually SUPER helpful for me. I am a longtime player, but I am still running NAM 32. I also fear updating my files because I fear losing my 6 year region! 

[Jackspital 391]

 

On 6/3/2023 at 7:12 PM, jonnboy1976 said:

Hi and welcome back @Cougar2004!  Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see this mentioned yet...

SC4Fix: Third-party patches for SC4 - Gameplay Mods - Simtropolis

The file in the link above is a MUST.  It has many much needed fixes, but the game changer for me is the CTD fix when trying to plop transportation lots!  

The people in this community continue to pleasantly surprise me.  They have always been amazingly helpful, creative and innovative, and it just gets better as time goes on!  

I always return too! When the internet can feel very hateful, especially on social media, it warms my heart to return to such a lively, helpful and kind community! I'm in my 20s so I think I get used to how reddit and instagram feel. I return here and always feel more accepted.

[SRS 9]

I saw some discussion about ancient computers running DDR2 RAM. My advice is to ditch that ancient system instead of upgrading the RAM and get a new one. While it's true that SimCity 4 is still the best city simulator, a modern system will make it run well as well as give you the option of running more recent games and also make it speedier for other things, like web browsing. Here is an inexpensive system as an example (using USA Microcenter prices):

AMD Ryzen 5 4600G CPU (6 cores, 12 threads, plus integrated graphics; bundled with CPU cooler) — $95 plus tax ($85 at BestBuy)

ASRock A520M-HDV mATX motherboard — $63 plus tax

TeamGroup T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16GB DDR4 3200-speed RAM — $36 plus tax

Inland TN320 1TB SSD NVMe PCIe Gen 3.0x4 M.2 2280 3D NAND TLC SSD — $50 plus tax

Thermaltake Toughpower GX2 600W 600 Watt 80 Plus Gold PSU — $60 plus tax

a case that can hold an mATX motherboard — (check the pricing; it doesn't have to be fancy)

an anti-static wrist strap (if you don't have one) to prevent zapping components when installing them — (check the pricing)

a 1440-resolution monitor that's 27" or larger, if you don't have one (check input/display lag rating and ghosting if you do action gaming) — (check the pricing)

If you don't need the monitor you're looking at a system for less than $375, tax included. The integrated graphics aren't going to run demanding 3D games, though.

In my opinion, life is too short to spend time on ancient hardware unless that hardware is required to run special software. In the case of SimCity 4, it can run on current hardware.

 

Ebay sellers often show parts on carpet that aren't in anti-static bags. This makes me very leery of buying used computer parts from Ebay. Plus, Ebay is full of crazily high prices so you have to really make an effort to find a good deal. However, I got a graphics card for a low price there years back and it works fine. I also got another one years before that and it still works. I bought it from sellers who showed them in the anti-static bags inside the boxes — not on carpets. However, there is no way to know how parts have been handled.

 

If you plan to get a strong GPU for current 3D games, then get this RAM instead, as some new games are requiring 32 GB to run well:

TeamGroup T-FORCE VULCAN Z 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3600-speed RAM — $60 plus tax

However, the motherboard is only rated to run at 3200 so you may also need to get a better board for that RAM to run optimally. And, the low clockspeed of the 4600G could be a liability when dealing with the most-demanding new and upcoming 3D games. For the AM4 (DDR4) AMD platform, the 5800X3D CPU, which is much more expensive than the 4600G, is more suited to such demanding games. It would pair well with that 32 GB 3600-speed RAM and would benefit from a motherboard upgrade. It would also need a high-performance 3D GPU which would cost more than the entire computer system I showed above.

Also, if you're not going to use the integrated graphics, the Ryzen 3600 is a better choice than the 4600G because it has more L3 cache.

Hopefully this advice is helpful for you and others who have ancient equipment, as long as you can spare a few hundred dollars for an upgrade.