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Mister Giggles

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Everything posted by Mister Giggles

  1. I'm opening Pandora's Box with this. God help us all. Problem: SimCity 4 does not render in 32-bit color while running in exclusive (full screen) mode. Ever. For anyone. It has not done so for so long I'm not even sure it ever properly ran 32-bit color mode while full screen. It is not video card, CPU, or operating system related; I've seen it with various mixes of Intel, AMD, Linux, Windows, Radeon, and Nvidia hardware and software. SimCity 4 ignores command lines directing it to use 32-bit color. An easy way to test this is to remove your water mod, and load up a big old water map. You'll see rather stark color banding on the Maxis water. Next, run the game with the command line "-w" to run the game in a window and look at the same water. No color banding. It's not the end of the world, mind, since the game WAS designed with 16-bit color in mind. It does become a problem with any large, flat textures that are meant to gradually change colors. The situation boils down to this question: Is there a way to force SimCity 4 to use 32-bit color in full screen through a hack/fix, forcing it via the driver, creating a special resolution that disallows 16-bit color, or other solution I haven't thought of? We've dealing with buggy code on SC4's part, undoubtably, so there may be nothing that can be done without source code. Still, this problem has wore on me for a long time so any kind of resolution is better than nothing. Horrible, empty nothing.
  2. Kirakimori over at Good Old Games has discovered that EA has been keeping its FTP archives alive for Maxis. In addition to a few archaic patches for SC4 and older Maxis classics, it's also hiding a neat screensaver: A SC2000 city is built, then destroyed, then built again. Really quite neat. It'll work on all versions of Windows, I suspect, but actually getting it installed will prove difficult for anyone not running a 32-bit operating system. Thankfully, Universal Extractor exists and can unpack the data.z archive into usable files. An entire theme is in there, actually, but I don't know how much of it is still functional on a modern operating system. On the subject of other files kept in the FTP archive, it would be wise to back up those that have, until now, been missing. Who knows when EA will want to do a little spring cleaning. Losing a file once is bad, losing it again and forever is worse.

  3. I am concerned about Nonny.

    Mister Giggles posted a topic in Community Goings-on

    Last I heard, he went off for some cancer related surgery on the 30th of May. While he did inform us ahead of time that his leave of absence from the site would be indefinite, he did also indicate a range of a week. It has been over 3 weeks. While I am not one to beg a group of individuals for my personal sake, I do request that anyone who is capable of getting in contact with him - a friend of his from real life, perhaps - do so and allay concerns as to his current condition. It seems grotesque to simply forget about the man, with how intergrated into the SC4 universe he is. A day without one of his posts is a day where the sun might as well not bother rising. (Dear moderators, I am unsure as to where this topic should be, or if it should be at all. Move it or delete at your discretion. Thank you.)

  4. PSA: Gobias Mods are Back!

    Mister Giggles replied to nos.17's topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion

    The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and you have laid the first tile. Yes. It is acceptable to me. A dependency pack is not public properly unless made explicitly so by the creator or through contractual obligations. More importantly, it is not yours. When you begin rationalizing why something becomes yours without indication of the creator's cessation of existence, you demolish the most important tenant of free association; The ability to withdraw from it. People become bound to what the tyrant wants, not their own diversions or desires. What you have done is set a very bad precedent, based on bad logic, that inevitably leads down a slippery slope lubed with KY. There is no stopping this altruist theft from reoccurring now that it's been accepted; every long-standing standard and rule will be abandoned in the name of saving the community, or saving people from themselves, or fighting back against the seedy underbelly of the internet. The reasons will never end. Then will come the day that you stare at someone's request to take down their files and you'll begin to write a long, eloquent post as to why you can't: Because it wouldn't be fair to the people that rely on them. Yes, that's how it's going to go from hereon, isn't it? If a creation is viewed as important enough it'd be CRUEL to the community to let it go. You're already floating the idea of hosting Gizmo's files. How many months do you give him before his files become yours? The full 8? Eh, maybe six. Wouldn't want to unduly delay your plans for saving the community. Enow.

  5. PSA: Gobias Mods are Back!

    Mister Giggles replied to nos.17's topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion

    What a merry band of thieves the administrators over at SC4Devotion have become. My membership on SC4devotion is henceforth terminated. Not that it really matters given I lost my password, still! It's the thought that counts. Sigh. Before the inevitable "You have no idea what you're talking about, read the topic for the reasons" post, yes, I have read the thread. I found the rationalizations for theft wanting, dire in their desperation, and befitting the cesspools of a torrent site. Here's a particularly salient example of what I speak: Killing his account, and closing all his files wasn't considered clear enough to the people who run the site! Oh my God. This is a joke, right? Rite? Guyz? The people involved in this decision rationalized away a core tenant of not just this community, but the vast majority of functional modding communities. This is the kind of event that murders internet communities, drives off innovation, and makes creators feel like they have no control over their creations. It's disgusting. It's the kind of thing EA would do! Yup. I hope that sort of nonsense doesn't find itself becoming policy on Simtropolis, or I suppose I'll have to be spending a significant amount of time deleting all my posts so they don't "magically" become Dirk's property after a few months. Sure, they're mostly marginally useful word spewings, but then again, I didn't think a few landscape mods would be enough to sell out principles and long-standing precedent. So who knows.

  6. Freight Path Mini Tutorial

    Mister Giggles replied to CorinaMarie's topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion

    Quickest, not shortest (Assuming you use Simulator Z). Edit: The rest deleted because I'm fairly sure I understood transit switch entry cost incorrectly.

  7. SparkleCity: SC4 or SC13? Your Choice.

    Mister Giggles replied to FoxieHikari's topic in SC4 City Journals

    That about sums it up, yes.

  8. Mary Millers Creations

    Mister Giggles replied to Mary miller's topic in SC4 - Custom Content

    Nevermind, was answering a question from a page back that's been answered.
  9. It does the whole 9 yards - decreases traffic by 20% on any given road with all expected benefits. This ordinance has worked for me for so long that I didn't even know it was broken until I tested it out with an empty plugins suite. Hell, I thought the claims that the ordinance didn't work were based off an earlier version of the game or some such. I've already eliminated the prime culprits - The ExtraCheats DLL and any obvious overwrites of the ordinance's exemplar file or the UI file for ordinances. I'm stuck with something of a paradox. Nothing in my plugins should be fixing the ordinance, yet... here we are. If any of ya'll have a good idea to help figure this out, I'm all ears. Well, not all ears. That'd be pretty awkward.
  10. Nothing in my plugins alters the Carpool Incentive Ordinance exemplar. Among other possibilities, it may be that the engine is combining properties from other exemplars into the one for the Carpool Incentive Ordinance. This would be a most disturbing occurrence if true. Without other people encountering the same "issue" I am, and winnowing down the possibilities for a cause, it'll be a hard road to hoe.
  11. <_<; A moderator will be with you shortly. They will answer all your questions. Just not in the way you prefer.
  12. I attempted that. It would appear more than one file is involved, as simply removing one half or another doesn't "unfix" the behavior. As you might expect, I found this most confusing. And now there's a topic on the subject. APSMS: No, I do not have any mods that alter an ordinance except the NAM. It appears that removing Simulator Z alone does not appear to induce the original behavior of the Carpool Incentive ordinance.
  13. *SSD Mmmm, those load times, man. So good. Anyway... I will declare will all good intent that this is a technical issue and very bug related. The game is not functioning as released, bugs and all, when one of the bugs corrects itself for no apparent reason! Granted, I'm pleased as punch the bug is fixed. But unless I know why, I cannot be very comforted in the proper behavior for the ordinance. What is fixed unknowingly can be broken again just as easily. Not sure what to recommend for a test bed. I did testing with and without plugins on a small starter town with a single road connecting residential and industrial. Without plugins, the bug works (?); no difference in the number of cars that appear on the road with it enacted and not. With all my plugins, the bug appears fixed; there is a decline of 5 - 20% in road usage numbers between enacted and not (More testing showed that the rate of decrease appears to vary, but it is not statistically insignificant). It's possible that the Carpool Initiative Ordinance is more complex than simply "Reduce road usage by X amount", and relies upon something in the simulation that, in the vanilla game, doesn't function well. This would also make finding out the exact cause of the fix very difficult given the mind-boggling number of things I've modded in my game over the years.

  14. SC4: DE Win7 issues

    Mister Giggles replied to Someguy12121's topic in SC4 Bugs & Technical Issues

    "The device, \Device\CdRom0, has a bad block." indicates a problem with either the CD-ROM drive or the disc itself. I find it unusual that you can install the game without error, but can't get past the disc-check. Well, we work with what we have. I recommend, based up the information available, that you clean the disc and the drive, and then possibly re-install the game to preclude the possibly of a corrupted install. Check the integrity of the disc while you are cleaning it. Large and/or deep scratches may mean it's time to move onto a new copy. Might I recommend the GOG version? A digital copy with no DRM that you can always redownload from the site in the event of occurrences. Edit: Cart before the horse, perhaps. It is possible you have an update installed that is preventing the game's DRM from functioning correctly. As well as DRM can function, anyway. Other possible issues: 1: Your game is not updated. The latest patch for Rush Hour/Deluxe can be found here after accepting the agreement. Your copy is likely in SKU 1 territory... 2: It is possible that Simcity 4 doesn't correctly close when exited, and the process still runs. Kill it via Task Manager. While I doubt that is the issue here, it is something to keep in mind for future troubleshooting.

  15. That Unused Moisture Data View

    Mister Giggles replied to CorinaMarie's topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion

    It is (...probably) possible to add more buttons to the data view selection screen, so you don't need to replace the air pollution data view. Look at instance EA287193 in SimCity_1.dat - that appears to be the UI file for Data View. Editing it may be problematic given how it looks in iLives Reader 0.9.3 and Tropod's updated version. iLives 1.4, if I recall, renders complex UI elements correctly. It also has a nasty habit of corrupting files, so keep back ups. The number next to "DataView Legends Key" corresponds to a LTEXT file, likely within SimCityLocale.DAT. Edit: I should note that you don't NEED the UI file to be properly rendered in order to modify it - though that makes it easier to see what your changes are doing. Most of your time will be spent fiddling around in the data graph that makes up the UI.

  16. The Architect - A City builder being made in Cryengine

    Mister Giggles replied to HeadClot's topic in City-Building Games

    Edit: A long post by the CEO of the company EnodoGames, Jean-Baptiste Reynes, who explains in detail the design and gameplay goals of the game: https://www.facebook.com/TheArchitectParis/posts/1747021032248626?_fb_noscript=1 It's a good read. Everything I said below was before I found and read this post. Weigh my words accordingly. And should Raphael himself want to bump the topic with a link to said post, he shouldn't let my edit stop him. It's his game, and all. (Most of the below is a rehash of what I said to Raphael in the chat...) The trailer is lacking in details - no gameplay. No user interface. A few icons here and there, a fairly nebulous scene with a blueprint background, but nothing I can sink my teeth into. I do not understand the "idea" you're trying to flesh out and give unto the world. If the game has not advanced to the point where it is possible for you to do gameplay footage, perhaps it is too early to be making trailers for it. Even your Facebook page does little more than gloss over what is the most important part of any game, let alone a city builder! The game looks great, but calling it a game at this point is a field too far from my perspective. What I have experienced so far is a series of loosely connected scenes from a movie. I wish you and your team all the luck and ability to get this game finished and released, but please, the next time you upload a video to amaze us with, have it show a significant depth of game play.

  17. Corner buildings not on corners ?

    Mister Giggles replied to Cool_Z's topic in SC4 - Custom Content

    Based on what Matt says, contiguous zones that are connected to a corner will exhibit this behavior when they sub-divide. A 2x2 zone for example, in the middle of a block and not touching a corner, will not.

  18. Corner buildings not on corners ?

    Mister Giggles replied to Cool_Z's topic in SC4 - Custom Content

    It is an intriguing look into the ruthless heart of the Gozzo-Ronzo engine. As I noted earlier, you can easily break zones up to ensure that the corner settings are adhered to for these teeny-tiny buildings.

  19. Corner buildings not on corners ?

    Mister Giggles replied to Cool_Z's topic in SC4 - Custom Content

    If the zoning you used on the corner was larger than the width of the building, in this case being 1 tile, it is possible that when the game decided to fill up the zone, it ignored the corner setting on the buildings it picked.

  20. Corner buildings not on corners ?

    Mister Giggles replied to Cool_Z's topic in SC4 - Custom Content

    No... you could zone a large, contiguous area, then unzone a single tile and the large zone will separate into a series of 1 by X size chunks. Or plop a park, civic building, or anything, really, that replaces a zoning tile.

  21. Mary Millers Creations

    Mister Giggles replied to Mary miller's topic in SC4 - Custom Content

    Old as the moon, but it's stable and will do what you desire. A guide is available... DatPacker allows you to squish all your prop pack files into one large prop pack file, if you're interested.

  22. Can't find it?... Ask here!

    Mister Giggles replied to JakeMD's topic in SC4 - Custom Content

    And once you're done with the "some dependencies" lots, you can move onto the "all the dependencies" lots. Here's a couple starters, for your pleasure. Enjoy!

  23. Mary Millers Creations

    Mister Giggles replied to Mary miller's topic in SC4 - Custom Content

    You may wish to consider using PIM-X rather than the lot editor provided by Maxis. It is, in essence, an extremely powerful upgrade to the original. Reading the manually is critically important to understand its endless feature list. While the learning curse is akin to climbing Mount Everest, in the end the tool is easier to use than its predecessor. Datanode is an auditing tool that will tell you if dependencies are missing, if something is wrong, and much more.

  24. Cori's Dumb Question - Board Software

    Mister Giggles replied to CorinaMarie's topic in Simtropolis Related

    It was Prens. It's always Prens. A few years back, during the "Nonny's Sanity" period, many thousands of extremely long log files were posted in an attempt to understand the reticulating splines phenomena underlying the automata system of SimCity 4. Dirk wasn't amused. His first idea was to simply ban everyone forever and rule over a cold, dead world filled with broken lots and billions of dependency packages. This is when Prens offered himself as a sacrifice, to save everyone's accounts. And several thousand kittens (The servers are powered by their purrs). After a signing a contract with his own blood, and 1/3rd of his liver, Prens' soul was bound to every long post on the site. Like Sisyphus, he found himself in a struggle he could not win. It drove him to the point he began communicating entirely in . To this day, I still understand the subtle differences between and . Truly a beautiful and fascinating language, Cori. I suggest you learn it as to better understand the minds of all water fowl, not just ducks. Theirs is a cruel lot, and sympathy goes a long way towards their goal of universal domination. Eventually Bap, between excursions to alternate universes to better understand Prop Pox, allied with Rivit to construct 'the script', a mysterious nexus of programming might that was integrated into the Prens' liver, replacing what had been taken. Prens was then able to automatically wrangle in long posts without having to directly interface with the pages that contained them. He additionally gained the power to win hot dog eating contests without actually eating hot dogs. This has yet to be explained, and everyone who has tried has disappeared forever. The more you know, eh?
  25. You're using version 1.1.610.0 (...? I thought you had a digital version). You need to install the patches. Go here. Accept the agreement. On the next page, you'll want to click on the "SC4 Update( Rush Hour / Deluxe Version)" link. Then you'll want to download and install the SKU 1 update, as that is likely the correct one.
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