System rebuild, some stuff not working

[The Edge 215]

Morning,

I had to do a mini-rebuild on my Windows 10 (I know, I know) PC recently as a program was causing it to become unstable. This went okay but since doing so I've noticed a few things not working properly. I had to edit the registry to make the cars drive on the left again (for example).

My issue at the moment seems to be with the pathfinding and displays of it for the Network Addon Mod. For example, to see the car trips to/from a specific location, it used to show it following the road. Now it seems to show some sort of weird path like the car is flying through the air:

 

Previously the green arrows would have followed the pathway over the bridge to their destination, now it seems like they're levitating  

Does the Network Addon Mod need reinstalling? I had a quick look but couldn't find an installer to do this.

Any help greatly appreciated  

[Kel9509 1,357]

Does it work like that with a blank Plugins folder?  I'd guess reinstalling the NAM would help but honestly that looks like the game itself has something corrupt with it.  

Not sure why you'd need to edit the registry to get cars on the left-hand side, either.  I'd backup your regions and plugins and try a full reinstall.

[The Edge 215]

Thanks, I think I'll give that a go.

I had to do the registry edit when I first installed the game. I think the Windows Restore-thingo basically reset the registry, so I imagine it would have wiped my edit  

[TheMurderousCricket 5,044]

19 hours ago, The Edge said:

My issue at the moment seems to be with the pathfinding and displays of it for the Network Addon Mod. For example, to see the car trips to/from a specific location, it used to show it following the road. Now it seems to show some sort of weird path like the car is flying through the air:

This is a fairly normal goofiness of the game's query tool and not a sign of a glitch or corruption. It happens sometimes, especially when you make changes to your networks. We actually have many examples of this in the "Show us your oddities" thread. 

Like Kel, I'm not sure either why would you need to edit the registry to change the drive side. A safer way would be to simply run NAM installer again - it gives you a choice which drive side to use.

[CorinaMarie 29,569]

15 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Not sure why you'd need to edit the registry to get cars on the left-hand side, either.

1 hour ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Like Kel, I'm not sure either why would you need to edit the registry to change the drive side.

I seem to recall this is posted somewhere as a valid method. And for anyone comfy editing the registry, it'd be a quick two second tweak. 

 

[TheMurderousCricket 5,044]

24 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

And for anyone comfy editing the registry, it'd be a quick two second tweak. 

Welp, if that's so.

After all we both edited SC3000 through registry, so why not?  SC4 just seems more complicated to me, so I'd be afraid to use registry to change settings and so installer feels more comfortable. Damn, I wouldn't even know where to start!

[The Edge 215]

6 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

A safer way would be to simply run NAM installer again - it gives you a choice which drive side to use.

I haven't run it in ages - I think I'm using a very old version  are you able to point me in the right direction (please) of where to get it from these days?

[TheMurderousCricket 5,044]

33 minutes ago, The Edge said:

are you able to point me in the right direction (please) of where to get it from these days?

Yes! I! Can!

From right here.

Indeed, this is the newest version though. I am actually using an old version as well... 42 I think?  I just don't like the fact that I cannot adjust traffic variables through the TSCT y'know...

[Ulisse Wolf 4,399]

41 minutes ago, The Edge said:

I haven't run it in ages - I think I'm using a very old version  are you able to point me in the right direction (please) of where to get it from these days?

Use SC4Pac to install NAM

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/36700-sc4pac-mod-manager/

[The Edge 215]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far.

I tried installing the newer NAM, but didn't like how things looked (I'm a stickler for if it ain't broke, don't fix it).

This lead me to trying the reinstallation option. I made a copy of the folder and backed it up in case the worst happened.

Loaded the game after reinstalling and success! All the arrows follow the road as they did before - except all the cars are on the right-hand side of the road

So, I did the registry edit I've used before (as outlined here: 

and ran the game again. The cars returned to driving on the left-hand-side, which is great - except now the arrows don't follow the road again.

I guess I'm looking for some way to make the cars drive on the left that probably doesn't involve the registry edit. Obviously I've done this some way before as it all worked fine before I did the system restore - but I hadn't changed anything after installation when I got my current PC in 2018.

Any suggestions again are most welcome, thanks  

[rsc204 21,805]

On 06/01/2026 at 3:32 PM, TheMurderousCricket said:

Like Kel, I'm not sure either why would you need to edit the registry to change the drive side. A safer way would be to simply run NAM installer again - it gives you a choice which drive side to use.

The NAM installer does not switch the driving side of SimCity 4, rather the selection used must match your SC4 install. There are a number of ways to achieve this, the registry editor is as good as any, all the details can be found here.

10 hours ago, The Edge said:

...The cars returned to driving on the left-hand-side, which is great - except now the arrows don't follow the road again.

I guess I'm looking for some way to make the cars drive on the left that probably doesn't involve the registry edit.

The issue you are describing is something that has been known to occur, a glitch in the game if you will, perhaps in time (running the simulator in-game), it goes away?, its certainly not some LHD thing. You do need to ensure that both your game and NAM install are correctly using LHD, a mismatch causes many problems. But I honestly don't see anything hugely wrong in your screenshots, unless this is how all paths look. As for the NAM installer, if you need to re-install, we only redistribute the latest version of NAM, which can be found here. But, I recommend just running the game a few years in the city and seeing what happens, before rushing to change things.

[The Edge 215]

On 1/9/2026 at 2:52 AM, rsc204 said:

But, I recommend just running the game a few years in the city and seeing what happens, before rushing to change things.

Just wanted to come back and say thank you! I did exactly this and after about 6 months(?) the paths corrected themselves and now they all look normal again.

Thank you so much!  

[Lab Rat 12]

Automated Notice Message

All posts after 1 March, 2026 @ 01:37 GMT were lost in the site crash.

We've added this message thread divider in every topic across all forums for what were then active threads. (We decided active is if the most recent extant post (from the backup) was on or after 1 January, 2026.)

This divider serves as notice that the conversation was interrupted. Answers and further discussion which used to be here have been lost. Keep this in mind when replying. Our hope is to rebuild what is missing.