Testing Zoom Crash Issue

[Sam 163]

I concur. I have the additional problem that my game decides to zoom in or out on its own, so I don't always have a choice as to when or how quickly it zooms. However I do find that letting the screen redraw completely does help to some extent. Could it be a graphics card or RAM issue? My graphics card is almost three years old now, so it is not the best as far as memory and speed goes. I added extra RAM several months ago so I now have a total of 1Gb, but that doesn't seem to have helped.

[BarbyW 40]

I have 1Gb RAM too but that doesn't seem to make any difference. My computer was new last autumn and has an ATI Radeon x600 series card with 256MB of RAM on board. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that there is absolutely nothing that can be done except to be careful with zoom/scroll.

[Kgol 0]

I agree Barby,

I have a 3.2 dell 4700, geforce 6800 with 256mb, and 2 gigs of ram.... I totally have more than enough to handle simcity4.  Last night I was able to get it to crash while laying water pipes; hence no custom plops on the screen or being drawn.  I purposefully zoomed too quickly and got the same immediate crash to desktop.  I have also removed my entire plugins folder... everything.. and tried playing the game from a clean boot only to have the crash on a rapid zoom in or out.

[Keepan 0]

That was on the time that someone started to analyze all this crashes. Mine does not crash so often, just about 1 time every second or third hour but I still have to save all the time. SC4 must be the buggiest game ever made by EA but still I love it

[Pixelrage 34]

My personal hypothesis is that trees are what causes the crash. Just like the original poster -- I pretty much gave up on Sim City 4 because I simply cannot play the city I put so much time and effort into, and it just got upsetting. Every single time I zoom out, sure enough, it crashes real hard. I noticed that it will zoom out for about 3 seconds, the game tries to render all of the trees, then you can hear a hard drive noise, and ultimately it crashes. I've had this happen with tons of addons installed...and I've had it happen on a clean install with no addons at all....it didn't make a difference.

This was all tested/done on the largest block of land with trees scattered around the entire land area. I have a 2.8 Ghz H/T, 1 gig ram, & Nvidia 6800 GT card.

[Nik-nik 3]

Very usefull Thread here.

I had a lot of crashes indeed. Adding a bit of RAM helped (I have now 1,5 Gig), updating my NVIDIA Card helped. But the best help is to play at zoom level 4 or 3 and stay at those levels. When zooming out to level 1 it almost always crashes BTD. Strangest thing is it almost always crashes but not always. There is strange randomness here.

I do not recognize the problems Pixelrage has with the trees but I do recognize that the harddrive starts running widly just prior to a crash.

I do agree with the common opinion that crashes are more frequent when the town reaches a higher level of citizens. I will use that great tool to get rid of double files as soon as I have installed it (and if I can find the time).

I will keep my eye on this thread for more ideas.

Nik-Nik

[CaptCity 4,903]

Hi all. 

This has become one of my favorite threads because I, too, have started experiencing these annoying crashes. Interestingly enough, they didn't start until I got a new and better machine. As others have stated here, they seem to occur at fast zooms; for me anyway. I also noticed that those who have mentioned their computer specs, have machines toward the high end. I was curious... I copied my current city and the plugin folder back into my old machine. It ran like a turtle of course, but guess what...no crashes. Could it be that hardware capability has outpaced game function? Kind of like installing old '98 games on XP computers (yes...I'm that old). Sometimes just doesn't work.

[Briolab 2]

I think you may be on to something there. I cant think of a single crash on my old computer(1.3 GHz CPU), so I will try reinstalling Simcity on that one and let you know how it goes..

[JohnMK 0]

Has anyone made any progress? I'm trying the "eliminate all mods/bats/lots/props" game at the moment, trying to follow the half-rule, that being eliminate half the plugins and then see if it's crashing. If not, add half of what you removed. Test again. If stable, add half of what remains. Etc. Eventually, such an approach should help you narrow down the instigateur. I hasten to add my belief that if we find a specific mod or set of mods that seems to cause this, it's/they're probably just exposing a Maxis flaw and the plugin, per se, is probably not at fault. I hope we get this nailed my friends, this is a very annoying issue.

[JohnMK 0]

Well, that approach is proving more problematic than I had hoped given the very random nature of my crashes. Sometimes I can load up SimCity 4 and it's flawless for 5 minutes, dozens of zooms/unzooms, switching to ground vs. underground view, orientation, etc. And then I can restart it, with the same plugins, and it might CTD on the first un-zoom. Harumphf.

Anyway, I just tried running my CPU at 1.4GHz to see if that would help. My default CPU speed is 3.60GHz per specifications, but I habitually run it just a little bit over that, at 3733MHz with a 1066MHz FSB. First run of SimCity 4 at 1.4GHz -- CTD on first un-zoom. Next run of SimCity 4 at 1.4GHz -- took 3 minutes of purposeful aggravating for it to finally CTD. Basically, it's no better at 1.4GHz than it is at 3.73GHz. So it must be something else on new computers, if that correlation is even true.

[MatrixDJ 5]

Hello everybody...

I know I have been absent from this topic for awhile now and really have nothing more to say about it... I gave up because the problem persists and EA/Maxis have absolutly no support for SC4 anymore. I sent various emails to them asking how to solve this issue and about the exception reports, but either got garbage back from them or nothing at all. It is up to you guys to keep this topic sticky still, so let me know if I should let the moderator know to unpin it.

Mike

[JohnMK 0]

I vote for this remaining a sticky. For those who have this problem, it's more than a mere annoyance -- it can be frustrating.

[JohnMK 0]

It's been mentioned that only modern computers seem to experience this problem with any frequency. So I have done a bit of sleuthing the past few days . . .

I seem to have better behavior when I disable hyperthreading in my BIOS. Has anybody else tried this? This is a preliminary finding considering the quasi-random nature of the problem. That said, I have rebooted several times, toggling the setting each time, and so far the link appears to hold up. Are those having this issue mostly Pentium 4 w/ HT or dual-core owners? Nobody has mentioned Athlon at least in this thread.

It would be unfortunate if I had to disable HT to get this game to work reliably . . . my computer is so much more responsive with HT enabled. Of course there is always the possibility that it's not the game per se, for instance maybe it's the video driver not handling well a certain type of screen redraw request when there are two cores, virtual or otherwise, etc.

Please folks, give this a whirl on your machines? Report back.

[jacqulina 162]

ok i will try and let u know and another suggestion is to turn of fast writes in bios i will give that a go as well

[CaptCity 4,903]

Glad to see the investigation is continuing...

I have been trying something the past few days. I started a new city with no plugins and let it build to about the same size as the 'crashing' city was when the problem began. One by one. I placed the same plugins (I hadn't had that many) back into the plugins folder, figuring sooner or later the crashes would start. Well guess what... after three days, it still hasn't crashed! And all the original plugins are back in. Grrr...

Maybe a bad file in the original city... But the older computer worked... It's a little bewildering...

On another note... This hyperthreading sounds interesting. I must admit my ignorance when it comes to the 'modern' technology of today's machines (I had to do a little outside reading up). Could the faster systems be getting tired of 'waiting' for SC4's redraws and just dump it? Is this an appropriate analogy or am I just showing my ignorance? I hope to try the hyperthreading disabling suggestion... If my cities decide to start crashing again. Imagine, waiting and hoping for the game to start crashing.

[JohnMK 0]

Hyperthreading isn't just faster, it's a different faster. It's faster by being ambidextrous so to speak.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Originally posted by: CaptCity  Could the faster systems be getting tired of 'waiting' for SC4's redraws and just dump it? Is this an appropriate analogy or am I just showing my ignorance? quote>

You should avoid anthomorphising your machine.  It is a common misconception that computers have 'volition'.  They don't, they are machines that must do what they are told or stop.  When a computer stops, it does just that.  Sometimes called a halt or hang.

However, faster systems can run the simulation so fast that updating will not catch up.  I cannot imagine why this should cause a crash.  If you are running in cheetah mode and crash, you can slow down the simulator by switching to rhino or (heavens!) turtle.  Pause the game if you are getting overwhelmed until you can look at the auxiliary displays and make the decisions you need.

[JohnMK 0]

I don't think game speed setting has anything to do with this particular type of crash.

He was aware that we were speaking in analogy . . . this is a helpful tool on occasion.

[CaptCity 4,903]

Didn't mean to sound like such a 'goof'. I wasn't trying to imply that computers have any life-like qualities. "Computers only do what they're told" is something I remind people of almost daily (tongue in cheeck usually). I was just attempting to put it in words that would help me understand. As I said, I'm still learning.

What I was trying to ask was stated much more clearly by N_O_Body: Can newer systems be running the game itself too fast? The simulation speed doesn't seem to matter in my case. I've had crashes at all speeds - including Pause.

[Kgol 0]

Hi all,

I have begun to notice that I get a crash not only on zoom... which is very frequent, but also when I click on certain plugins from the landmark menu. Specifically, SG canal pieces and some of PEG's CDK pieces. I have also figured out that the more I play, the more crashes I get. After the third in about an hour, I reboot and this seems to cut down on the crash for about a half hour. I also agree that just before she goes down, my harddrive kicks on fast... then black... then desktop. Strangely, I do not remember these crashes either on the zoom or on the plugins when I had a less fast machine.

[Bros_B4_Hos 0]

Hi guys. First post. I'm no expert, though I just finished talking to a friend who knows more about this than I do, and I would throw this out there as a possible reason for the crashes (which I also suffer more and more lately since I've been downloading plugins en masse). I have to sort of crudely interpret what I was told since I'm not that knowledgable, but here goes ...

It is related to the new computers, but it's also the plugins. New computers are designed to do operations all at once whereas older ones would sift through data it was tasked to interpret more painstakingly. Therefore, new computers will sometimes lock up when asked to read a whole bunch of data on the harddrive (like the plugins folder) because they do it all at once often without proper prioritization and this is trying for their active memory or something. Forgive my technical ignorance. So I would postulate this: yes, the zoom crash or the save crash might happen sans plugins (I used to get the game crashing back to desktop when I saved before I had any plugins at all - though it always saved the data), but having plugins probably exacerbates the likelihood of crash problems. And of course it follows that the more you have, the worse your game may perform. Giving the game more time to adjust graphics for the various zoom levels before switching views as BarbyW suggested will probably ease the computer's burden. As will having a tidy plugins folder sans duplicate files. Also, you might want to make sure your computer isn't riven with spyware as that will decrease performance in a variety of ways anyway.

Anyway, I just can't see this being an either/or. I'm sure the plugins matter, I'm sure the computers play a role, and I'm sure Maxis' buggy game is a factor. Am I wrong?

[jacqulina 162]

i have sorted my problem it was a mixture of right driver and right settings for the driver but i enabled fast writes as the problem was worse with it disabled,i turned of antiliasing and anisotropic and i played for 3 hours thats all i had time for but it would have kept going and i have no heat problem all 6 fans working well

[recollection79 0]

Hi everyone,

have followed this thread for a while as i also expereince these crashes

I use the sc4 deluxe game (european issue)

My system has the following specs

AMD athlon 3000+ with 512mb of ram

running on xp sc 2 US version

nvidia nforce audio

ASUS A7N8X motherboard

radeaon 9200SE graphics card

the game runs fine without zooming but as soon as you or the program zooms you to somewhere it crashes quite often either into a blue screen with automatic reboot or into the main windows screen

have heard hat sc4 does not like onboard sound cards and freinds ofm ine who do not use on board cards do not experience the problem if anyone has had the problem and then switched from onboard sound to a regular soundcard and the problem vanished pls let me know cause don't wanna waste money on buying a sound card

am not a super computer geek so please forgive forgotten specifics, have not installed any weird buildings etc. just the plain basics (industy x4, commercial x2, netword addon mod) and the albert heijn store

[cifa 7]

Hey evryone, well... I also have crashes quite often, it happens prevalently :

-When i zoom out ( zoomin in NEVER gave me problems )

-When i scrool fast

The same problem of many of you guys as far as i can see here. When it crashes, before it does, I usually got a screen of my view with dark lots replacing buildings, looks like a black base-texture of evry buildings i've got in the view !!! . I didn't notice something like thise when i got no plugins, by the way.

With my windows 98, 600mhz and 128mb of ram i got some years ago, with simcity4 vanilla, i never had crashes.

Cheers

[CaptCity 4,903]

recollection79:   Don't know if a new plugin sound card would help in your situation... But I did want to say that both my older computer (P4, 1.6 GHz, 512 mb RAM) and my newer one (P4, 2.8 GHz, 1 Gb RAM) have onboard sound. Old one - no crashes... new one - crashes. For what it's worth.

[recollection79 0]

Hi CaptCity,

thanks for the insight saves me wasting money on a sound card

fwiw have been running the same config of the game on a brand new dell PC of a friend of mine that has a plugin sound card and he's been playing without any trouble. So the only difference I could think of was the onboard sound and I read previously that sc4 don't like it. Ydy played over an hour w/out any crashes and then a fire broke out and I was zoomed to the bldg immediately a crash followed... pretty frustrating

[amdinside 2]

I have been seeing a lot of these crashes also. I did not get them before populating my plugins folder so I will definitely check for duplicate files. My crashes usually happen when zooming in but it has even happened when I hit the save button. I have not been able to determine exactly why it is happening because sometimes I can play for hours with no crash and sometimes they happen within minutes of each other. They are always "crash to the desktop".

[JohnMK 0]

I think it would be useful if we all compared which plugins we have installed. Perhaps there's a way in DOS to list all files and subdirectories containing files etc. in a convenient format, some command like dir /b >> listplug.txt.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Dir /? returns

Displays a list of files and subdirectories in a directory.

DIR [drive:][path][filename] [/A[[:]attributes]] [/C] [/D] [/L] [/N]

  [/O[[:]sortorder]] [/P] quote>

[/T[[:]timefield]] [/W] [/X] [/4]

  [drive:][path][filename]

              Specifies drive, directory, and/or files to list.

  /A          Displays files with specified attributes.

  attributes   D  Directories                R  Read-only files

               H  Hidden files               A  Files ready for archiving

               S  System files               -  Prefix meaning not

  /B          Uses bare format (no heading information or summary).

  /C          Display the thousand separator in file sizes.  This is the

              default.  Use /-C to disable display of separator.

  /D          Same as wide but files are list sorted by column.

  /L          Uses lowercase.

  /N          New long list format where filenames are on the far right.

  /O          List by files in sorted order.

  sortorder    N  By name (alphabetic)       S  By size (smallest first)

               E  By extension (alphabetic)  D  By date/time (oldest first)

               G  Group directories first    -  Prefix to reverse order

  /P          Pauses after each screenful of information.

  /Q          Display the owner of the file.

  /S          Displays files in specified directory and all subdirectories.

  /T          Controls which time field displayed or used for sorting

  timefield   C  Creation

              A  Last Access

              W  Last Written

  /W          Uses wide list format.

  /X          This displays the short names generated for non-8dot3 file

              names.  The format is that of /N with the short name inserted

              before the long name. If no short name is present, blanks are

              displayed in its place.

  /4          Displays four-digit years

Switches may be preset in the DIRCMD environment variable.  Override

preset switches by prefixing any switch with - (hyphen)--for example, /-W.

quote>

[CaptCity 4,903]

Back to recollection79: I was rereading the thread, and I noticed you have an ASUS mother board. I also have one (P4P800SE). When I was setting up the computer, I had to get the newest audio drivers from the ASUS site (this wasn't related to any SC4 problems). If your still having problems you might try that if you haven't already. Good luck.