Cities no longer load with NAM mod

[nico511 4]

Everything was working perfectly when I last played the game (~1.5 weeks ago) but now every time I open the game, the region loads time but when I try to load a city the game freezes (not responding). More specifically the in-game hourglass pops up before immediately going to my computer’s loading system and Not Responding. It stays stuck on the region screen. I have not touched any files or launch settings for this game since last playing. By all means it should work because nothing on my computer or the game files has changed or been touched. The only mods I have are NAM and PROG farms. When I remove NAM the game works perfectly. I have the 4GB patch and have repatched and freshly reinstalled the mod several times. Any ideas on what could’ve happened??

[Ulisse Wolf 4,444]

First, the loading time to enter the city for the first time is always long as it has to load all the RUL code into RAM. If you provide information about which NAM version you are using we can solve the problem faster

Also be sure to corectly configure SC4 by following this guide

 

[nico511 4]

I’m not entering for the first time, these are cities I had previously worked on seemingly not working out of nowhere. Like I mentioned, the game worked perfectly fine when I played a week ago and now it doesn’t. It would load in just a couple of minutes. I have let it sit for 10+ minutes with no progress. In fact I haven’t even used the computer at all since I last played and it started happening today when I started the computer again. I have the newest version of NAM.

I did try uninstalling and reinstalling minus a few components from NAM to improve on load . Now it actually gets to the city loading screen but it still freezes. 10+ minutes later and nothing.

I don’t have all those fixes installed but i’ll try that. I don’t see the reason why the game worked a week ago and now a week later with no changes it doesn’t, and NAM is the only issue. The game works fine without it.

[Propfam 2,297]

44 minutes ago, nico511 said:

I’m not entering for the first time, these are cities I had previously worked on seemingly not working out of nowhere. Like I mentioned, the game worked perfectly fine when I played a week ago and now it doesn’t. It would load in just a couple of minutes. I have let it sit for 10+ minutes with no progress. In fact I haven’t even used the computer at all since I last played and it started happening today when I started the computer again. I have the newest version of NAM.

I did try uninstalling and reinstalling minus a few components from NAM to improve on load . Now it actually gets to the city loading screen but it still freezes. 10+ minutes later and nothing.

I don’t have all those fixes installed but i’ll try that. I don’t see the reason why the game worked a week ago and now a week later with no changes it doesn’t, and NAM is the only issue. The game works fine without it.

You might have spinning hard drive installed. HDD is known to have pretty long loading times. SSD is the answer. Grab a small one and use it. It's relatively cheap today.

Another is the memory issue. I think your issue is caused by lack of memory, than 4 gig isn't properly applied. Lack of memory necessitates swapping on the hard drive, which combined with slow read/write speed, compounded into really slow experience. An SSD should be enough but you could upgrade your RAM, assuming if it's possible.

In my experience, long freezes aren't necessarily crashes. More often, freezes are often short and if it's crashing the game, it just mean CTD a second later or instantly. There's only one scenario that causes long freeze: rendering a grayscale map using the undocumented Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R method.

[nico511 4]

This is interesting, as I am playing on an older laptop (maybe 7-8 years old?). It's possible. But what would be the cause for the game working one week ago, and suddenly not working with no files or computer settings touched?

[Propfam 2,297]

42 minutes ago, nico511 said:

This is interesting, as I am playing on an older laptop (maybe 7-8 years old?). It's possible. But what would be the cause for the game working one week ago, and suddenly not working with no files or computer settings touched?

If you upgrade to latest Windows, chances are the newer version is way heavier than the previous one. Not to mention, there might be programs you or the computer install that can drastically make your computer slow.

[rsc204 21,864]

9 hours ago, nico511 said:

This is interesting, as I am playing on an older laptop (maybe 7-8 years old?). It's possible. But what would be the cause for the game working one week ago, and suddenly not working with no files or computer settings touched?

(Hypothetical analogy): So yesterday I parked my car and everything was fine, but this morning it won’t start? How can that be, nothing has changed? Well that’s not true, because we know it's no longer working, therefore something MUST have changed, it’s just that you need to troubleshoot the problem to work out what.

9 hours ago, nico511 said:

I did try uninstalling and reinstalling minus a few components from NAM to improve on load . Now it actually gets to the city loading screen but it still freezes. 10+ minutes later and nothing.

I don’t have all those fixes installed but i’ll try that. I don’t see the reason why the game worked a week ago and now a week later with no changes it doesn’t, and NAM is the only issue. The game works fine without it.

NAM is the only Plugin/Mod that by itself has a massive impact on Memory Usage (RAM) when playing SC4, it's the reason why we bundle the 4GB Patch with NAM. So the mere fact that with a few less components, you can get further, suggests to me that your problem is a lack of system resources. The amount of free RAM your system has will vary constantly depending on your usage, for example leaving a few more tabs open in a browser can eat up a lot of memory. The most surefire way to have the maximum system resources free, would be to restart your computer, then when it finishes loading, only open SC4, do not run any other Apps/Programs. Does SC4 start properly now?

Either way, we really need to know how much RAM your system has available and which specific edition of Windows you are using, is it 32 or 64 Bit also. Right click on My Computer and select Properties or search for System Information to get Windows to display this information.

[bhmantan 2,099]

Hi,

not sure if it would help, but datpacking your NAM folder usually will improve the load time. You can give it a try by following this tutorial here:
https://community.simtropolis.com/omnibus/SimCity-4/tutorials/datpacking-the-network-addon-mod-the-official-way-r865/

If it's not helping, try installing the bare minimum NAM (with only Road, Street, RRW, and Pedmall for the Network Features) and see if it runs better.
Also, there's an option of NAM Lite where you can still get the bug fixes from NAM but no additional network and stuff.

[nico511 4]

Positive update -- I troubleshooted with someone on the Discord and we figured out that it was the NAM download that was causing problems. It must've corrupted or something, and I was uninstalling/reinstalling the plugin using the same download.  I got a fresh download from ModDB instead of Simtropolis and that solved the issue. Why the game wouldn't load with NAM after the computer was turned off for a week, I'll never know...

Interestingly enough bhmantan, when I had tried what you suggested (uninstalling the plugin and reinstalling with just the bare minimum packages) it made SOME difference, as in the game made it to the city loading screen instead of being stuck on the Region screen. Though it still would never load. With a fresh ZIP file downloaded from ModDB the game loaded with all the components installed so it was definitely the mod/files causing issues and not my computer. So weird!!

  Edited March 5, 2024 by nico511  
added more context

[bhmantan 2,099]

That's pretty weird since you got it from Simtropolis, but, glad that you managed to fix it!

Still, seeing that you run it on a pretty old machine, if you installed the full NAM then I suggest to datpack your NAM folder when you have the time.