Struggling with launch from Steam, attempted mod with NAM 47

[HeyJD 1]

Good day to you,

First, I apologize for how frustrating this is for some of you.  I'm equally frustrated.  Hopefully, I can explain enough to share my challenges, which inevitably might be a multi pronged issue.

I installed SimCity 4 December 25, 2023 from Steam.  I have logged about 9.5 hours so far with only one crash playing in the tutorials.  The money making tutorial after about an hour or few worth of play crashed yesterday.  I didn't think much about it.  However, I've become more curious about how to build a proper city.  In as much, I learned via YouTube that there is something called a NAM 48 which would solve some crashing issues as well as improve options for game play.

Eventually, I found the https://www.sc4nam.com/ website.  I attempted to follow this step by step.  I couldn't figure out how to find the compatibility as suggested from that site in the https://www.sc4nam.com/docs/getting-started/installation/#version-compatibility. However, I guessed that being I just installed it from Steam, It would be up to date.

Now, I originally have had the game installed on a spinning 4TB hard drive - a secondary drive from my system boot drive.  Steam has been installed on the OS boot drive which is solid state.

As such, I thought going back and deleting all the files I could find and reinstalling this game on the 4TB hard drive would be fine.  I had tried installing the NetworkAddonMod_Setup_Version47.bat file, which I couldn't seem to figure out the correct step to get it to execute with the SimCity 4.exe file.  So I resorted to the NetworkAddonMod_Setup_Version47.jar file, which did seem to work.


However, still, when I click play, not much else happens. The "play" icon in step goes to "stop."  After a few moments, it returned to the green "play."  I've attempted to" Verify the integrity of the files."  The only thing which seemed to work was moving the game/installing the game to the boot/steam drive itself. However, I am afraid if these NAM files have caused failure with the game on my 4TB drive, will it cause failure on my main boot drive preventing me from playing the drive all together.  I attempted adding various boot commands in the steam general "Advanced users may choose to enter their launch options" , i.e "-CPUCount:1 -CustomResolution:enabled -r1280x720x32".  I tried my native resolution at 2560x1440x32.  I tried part or none of these commands.  I'm stumped.

I'm asking for help to find remnants of the "4GB Patch" file, which I had downloaded from https://ntcore.com/?page_id=371.  Additionally, I'm looking to remove the NAM 48 files the the .jar file and the .bat file installed.

Ultimately, I would love to have some fun with this game.  And I'd like to enjoy it without bugs, "CTD"s and other issues.  Are there any details which would assist in my recovery here?  As of right now, I've deleted everything I can search "SimCity" on both hard drives.  But reinstalling this onto the secondary 4TB spinning hard drive does not work any longer as it once did.  The game is off of my machine as far as I can tell.

[Jackspital 391]

Hey there! I am by no means an expert with modding, but I can attempt to give advice. Have you installed NAM in your plugins folder? or elsewhere? It sounds like it would be worth attempting a fresh install of the game and seeing if it runs standalone, and then with the 4GB patch. If that works, I would also prioritise downloading the offical Maxis patch, in order to have the game updated. Without this, I don't think you can use NAM or other custom content.

https://community.simtropolis.com/sc4-maxis-files/

Once you have the 4GB patch, and the game updated to version 1.641.0.0 (You can check this by right clicking on the game in steam, properties, local files and then clicking on the properties for the .exe launcher.) I would see if the game runs smoothly without any mods. If you plan to install NAM, make sure it installs to your plugins folder. If you need any help with these steps I can try to explain a little better! I'm not always very concise. 

You have inserted custom parameters for your resolution and how many cores you want the game to run which is defintely recommended.

I run the following on mine: -CPUCount: 1 -EH:off -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -f -d:DirectX -Cursors:fullcolor  -CPUPriority:high -BackgroundLoader:off

If any of this is helpful, please let me know! I don't always respond to tech issues but I thought I would try to help out. 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,456]

6 hours ago, HeyJD said:

In as much, I learned via YouTube that there is something called a NAM 48 which would solve some crashing issues as well as improve options for game play.

You probably came across the live streaming Introduction to Network Addon Mod 48 which is the live stream I made to introduce the new features that will be present in NAM 48. Currently there is no NAM 48 but NAM 47 is available to the public. NAM Team never announces release dates. When it becomes available there will be an official announcement in the appropriate channels

Examining your problem, it seems that you have not corectually configured SC4. I have made a guide on how to corectly configure SC4 (The English version will come out next year). Since you have the Steam version that is compatible with NAM and the other mods here is the video dedicated to the Steam version

 

[HeyJD 1]

6 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

You probably came across the live streaming Introduction to Network Addon Mod 48 which is the live stream I made to introduce the new features that will be present in NAM 48. Currently there is no NAM 48 but NAM 47 is available to the public. NAM Team never announces release dates. When it becomes available there will be an official announcement in the appropriate channels

Examining your problem, it seems that you have not corectually configured SC4. I have made a guide on how to corectly configure SC4 (The English version will come out next year). Since you have the Steam version that is compatible with NAM and the other mods here is the video dedicated to the Steam version

 

Yes, Ulisse Wolf.   I have watched this video presented in the Italian language 2x.  There is a lot that I'm not sure about here for what is going on.  I patiently watch just to see the movement of the cursors.  But I am not sure where these files comes from.  The video starts on this individual's desktop.

The basic issue is that I cannot get the game to boot at all. Even after deleting everything, the "vanilla" version now will not load, where it had worked previously.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,456]

2 hours ago, HeyJD said:

Yes, Ulisse Wolf.   I have watched this video presented in the Italian language 2x.  There is a lot that I'm not sure about here for what is going on.  I patiently watch just to see the movement of the cursors.  But I am not sure where these files comes from.  The video starts on this individual's desktop.

The basic issue is that I cannot get the game to boot at all. Even after deleting everything, the "vanilla" version now will not load, where it had worked previously.

In the video description there are all the links where you need to download the files you need.  And yes I know the language is not English but putroppo I was only able to do the tutorial in Italian as we did not have time to record the tutorial in English. Remember we are all busy in NAM development, Restore LEX files and CAM 2.5 development. That is why that the English language tutorial was not made but hopefully next year we can make the English language tutorial

[rsc204 21,866]

15 hours ago, HeyJD said:

The basic issue is that I cannot get the game to boot at all. Even after deleting everything, the "vanilla" version now will not load, where it had worked previously.

When you delete everything, you reset to the default configuration and it would appear that's not working for you. Should you require specific settings to use SC4, then it is a good idea to make a note of them, so that in future you can get up and running again without any trouble.

At this point it would be helpful to just find out what is behind the failure to launch the game. Assuming you are using a clean install and have no contents in Plugins (mods), then the first thing to determine is which rendering mode, if any, works. You should test SC4 using both Hardware (DirectX) and Software rendering modes. You can set this either from within the Steam client software. The commands needed are:

-d:DirectX
    or
-d:Software

for Hardware and Software rendering respectively, see here for further details on how to set these up.

If neither rendering mode allows the game to start, you may have a GPU/Monitor that is unable to support the low resolution SC4 intro videos. Add the following command to disable these videos, which will avoid such problems:

-Intro:off

It is also possible that your Audio card is preventing the game from loading, sometimes this happens when nothing is plugged into the Speaker Output jack, but to see if it's a problem you can simply add another command:

-Audio:off

Whilst it's not going to be the cause of your problems, whilst here you should add the following command to prevent random CTDs later:

-CPUCount:1

Lastly the game's default resolution may not work with your hardware, although that tends to be rare. I see you have a 2K monitor which throws a spanner in the works. You can not run resolutions that large, it's a DirectX 7 limitation. Better to use FHD just to get things working, since your monitor should definitely support it.

-CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32

Some modern GPUs can not handle Legacy DirectX 9 support, needed for SC4 to function. In these cases it will be necessary to successfully configure a DirectX Wrapper that essentially adds this legacy support. dgVoodoo2 is one of the easiest to setup, so I'd recommend using that. Use of a wrapper will allow you to use your monitors full 2560x1440 resolution too, which is going to look better that any other resolution you can get to work. The nature of LCD displays means that only the native resolution provides a crisp image.

Other commands may be useful too, but at this stage you just want to get the game to launch, if there are further issues it's better to troubleshoot them later.

[justanothercivil 0]

On 12/29/2023 at 5:52 AM, Jackspital said:

Hey there! I am by no means an expert with modding, but I can attempt to give advice. Have you installed NAM in your plugins folder? or elsewhere? It sounds like it would be worth attempting a fresh install of the game and seeing if it runs standalone, and then with the 4GB patch. If that works, I would also prioritise downloading the offical Maxis patch, in order to have the game updated. Without this, I don't think you can use NAM or other custom content.

https://community.simtropolis.com/sc4-maxis-files/

Once you have the 4GB patch, and the game updated to version 1.641.0.0 (You can check this by right clicking on the game in steam, properties, local files and then clicking on the properties for the .exe launcher.) I would see if the game runs smoothly without any mods. If you plan to install NAM, make sure it installs to your plugins folder. If you need any help with these steps I can try to explain a little better! I'm not always very concise. 

You have inserted custom parameters for your resolution and how many cores you want the game to run which is defintely recommended.

I run the following on mine: -CPUCount: 1 -EH:off -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -f -d:DirectX -Cursors:fullcolor  -CPUPriority:high -BackgroundLoader:off

If any of this is helpful, please let me know! I don't always respond to tech issues but I thought I would try to help out. 

Does it matter if my file version is 1.1.641.0? I have a problem where my NAM is installed in the correct location, 4GB file is executed, but I cannot access NAM within the game. The buttons are all there but when I select RHW for example, I cannot plot any RHW tiles.

Thanks!

[Ulisse Wolf 4,456]

34 minutes ago, justanothercivil said:

Does it matter if my file version is 1.1.641.0? I have a problem where my NAM is installed in the correct location, 4GB file is executed, but I cannot access NAM within the game. The buttons are all there but when I select RHW for example, I cannot plot any RHW tiles.

This problem occurs when you do not have the NAM controller with the RHW code.  I recommend reinstalling NAM with RHW Controller and apllicating the 4GB Patch