Mister Giggles

Do you have a dual/quad core machine and Windows 7? Then might help your stability.

It ain't over until it's over. Did you try the buildings I linked you to? What's your traffic situation look like? You have nothing installed except NAM, correct? Install the Census Repository Facility and post a screenshot of your information screen so we have some clues to work with. If all else fails, you could always upload your city's region to Dropbox/somehere and I could check the problem for myself.

I thought SimCity 4 at least required DirectX 8, then I checked on the minimal requirements: Operating System: Windows XP/ME/2000/98 (Windows 95/NT not supported) CPU: 500 MHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor RAM: 128 MB CD/DVD-Rom Speed: 8X Hard Drive Space: 1 gig plus space for saved games Video: 16 MB video card, DirectX 7 compatible Sound: DirectX 7.0 compatible Input: Keyboard, mouse lolwut Legacy game indeed, Nonny.

You removed a plugin that had at one point existed in the city you loaded, and you're being informed of that fact. Plugin IDs are generally useless in discovering the culprit; however, you can always look for a suspiciously empty lot somewhere...might jog your memory.

Depends entirely on what it is. Could you link to it, please?

Using the Clean Air Act ordinance from the NAM? Do you have problems with pollution? perhaps? Edit: Correcting post...

For those wondering about the viability of playing the game outside the grasp of our EA masters, here is your answer from the Maxis AMAA thread on Reddit: "We will allow you to play for as long as we can preserve your game state. This will most likely be minutes." In response to questioning such as this. Thank you, Kip, for being honest. It is much appreciated.

Well, this set contains a Hong Kong Flag...and if that doesn't fix your box problems, maybe this one is needed too?

I do believe you have the original, non-Rush Hour version of SimCity 4. An unpatched one, too. Go here, read and accept the terms, click on "SC4 Update( Original Version)", then download the update applicable for your region. See if that helps...by the way, unless you get the Rush Hour expansion or Deluxe (SC4 + Rush Hour), you will not be able to use the vast majority of mods/buildings available on this or any other fan site. If you already put things into your plugins, remove them immediately. If you continue having problems with your copy, it may be damaged. You shouldn't be encountering whack-a-mole water pipe problems. Might I suggest a copy from Steam? 19.99 at the moment, but wait a couple weeks until we're closer to Christmas...Steam tends to have sales, damn good ones at that. SC4D can drop down to about 5.99... If Steam doesn't suit your fancy, there's GamersGate, Origin, and Amazon can send you a physical copy...

True. I should have mentioned that current versions of NAM greatly increases the effectiveness of the Clean Air Act ordinance, to the point that it wipes out most of the air pollution generated by vehicles. Combined with other ordinances and air purification lots ( as ), most non-dirty industry air pollution can be eliminated. Totally unrealistic? Oh, quite. However, our hand is forced in this instance due to the ridiculous amount of air pollution generated by buildings and its grossly unbalanced effect on desirability. After all, when has a little smog stopped a metropolis from expanding? On a sidenote, I have most everything you've ever made, Jason.

The game normally uses DirectX, no need to set a command line for it. OpenGL is quite buggy. My visual experiences using it have been similar to yours, and I run in 1600x1200. I think this is simply a lack of refined programming on Maxis' part. Software is certainly going to be slower even with a strong processor like yours. The game only uses a single core, and all that stuff the graphic card normally handles is now also being handled by the processor that does everything else too. You could try the -CPUcount:1 and -CPUpriority:High command lines. Former sets the game to use only one core, the latter sets it to take computational priority versus other applications running. There's also to mull over, given you have a Radeon. I don't think these will help you obtain your desired resolution, but your game will be more stable/run smoother and that is something. According this wiki page, 2048 x 1152 is the highest functioning resolution the game can be forced to render in (At least, it seems, without some caveats), so you may wish to try that. I don't know which higher resolutions will work, or work correctly.

Commercial zones demand a certain amount of car traffic ("Customers") to have the desirability necessary to grow skyscrapers, assuming the stage limits requirements are met as well. Air pollution murders desirability with ease, and is caused by lots of cars as well as large, dense clusters of buildings. Ergo, a solution is necessary to nip this problem in the bud before it grows.

Short answer: It depends. As you can see, that answer sucks, but without extensive knowledge of the city it must suffice. However! Long answer: The Census Repository Facility is an excellent information tool. What you're specifically looking for is your residential ($, $$, $$$) capacities versus their drives. If the former exceeds the latter, it means you have too many of that residential type for the jobs in that city to sustain them. Since you have several cities hooked together, and that the drives only take into consideration local jobs, having your residentials exceed the job capacity of the city might not be an issue. My suggestion? Keep an eye on the information but don't worry too much unless no job zots show up. And yeah, feel free to ignore that silly "slim scouts for office space" message. It's about as accurate as a Russian nuke.

Three problems come to mind... 1: The vanilla traffic simulator sucks and is the cause of many problems, including flat out screwing up desirability. If you haven't already gotten it, download and install the 2: RCI demand capacity of 6000. Several stage 8s exceed this cap, and can be very difficult (NOT impossible) to grow. This problem is complicated by amount of demand cap already used, as it decreases RCI demand cap. The Census Repository Facility allows you to get more detail on these numbers - for instance how much actual demand you're seeing based on your caps. Reading the manual is suggested to make sense of the numbers. 3: Air pollution due to traffic kills desirability for most occupancy types quickly. It's the number one killer of desirability in dense, heavily developed areas. If it's not a problem now, it will be. Thankfully, we have GooberGen Air Purification! You also might want to consider enacting the anti-air pollution ordinances; NAM empowers one of them significantly.

The information in thread will allow you to solve your problem.

I apologize. CAM doesn't just include all Maxis building exemplars: It includes all Maxis lots to enable tinkering of growth stage... In order for your (excellent) relots to be fully compatible with CAM, they'll need to be run through PIM-X to correct capacities/stages. Or just datpack CAM and your relots and live with it. A few of the larger industrial buildings will be at a stage lower than they should be, but eh. It's not the end of the world.

1a: CAM doesn't change any Maxis exemplars besides those that exceed stage 8. Perhaps the industrials, I can't remember. 1b: CAM has a copy of every Maxis building exemplar AND lot. It'll overwrite/be overwritten by whatever you have. Datpacker/Reader will be required to work incompatibilities. You may also wish to accept it, as CAMmed buildings are using an extended version of the formula Maxis used for their buildings. 2: You can, but that doesn't mean the occupancy numbers will be correct. PIM-X allows you to calculate the proper occupancy and stage for buildings. Reading the manual is an absolute must! 2a: It'll work the other way, too. Growth stage numbers are kept in the lot file of buildings. CAM only dictates when stage 9-15 buildings can grow. 3: Read thread. It lays out a strategy you can employ to eliminate the doubled residential bug CAM 1.0 has. This bug makes it so your city requires double the amount of commercial population than it ordinarily would. For the most part, bad. However, some people actually find it a boon because they love large commercial areas. Edit: Clarifying what CAM includes.

...where does time go when it passes?

I believe Nonny would link you to were he here at the moment. Time to load your shotgun and go hunting.

Are these the same cities in which you DID have overpowered lots?

1: Did you overpower the garbage chute lot? 2: Do you have any overpowered pollution reduction/garbage/recycling lots?

excuse me??? I ALREADY have a good AV!!! and a virus would NOT stop plug-ins in Sim City 4 from working!!! people who create viruses wouldn't even care about sim city 4!!! 1: A virus residing in memory can cause almost anything to bug up depending on what it's doing. 2: You have a good anti-virus...but is it updated? 3: Based on the previous thread I helped you in, and the results of that thread, I suspect you've overpowered your garbage lots. Solution is just the same; nuke them or depower them.

1: Nuke the custom water plants you're using. Replace them with Maxis water plants, or this which hasn't caused me any problems. 2: Nuke the custom water filtration facilities you're using. The linked plant filters water, too. Do things return to normal? If the above steps fixed your problem, NAME and LINK to the lots that you were using.