weatherdrew

The lots are not T21 themselves, although I did briefly look into that prospect. I'm using the old fashioned "lot next door" method whereas the sign places next to a highway piece on an adjacent spare tile. It's not the best solution but for now the only one I had time to get working.

Yes, that is the plan currently. There are some essential differences in the RHW pieces which will require me to rebuild a new pack from the ground up, which takes time. Ultimately I want to have RHW pieces next and left-hand versions available thereafter. As time permits I should be able to work on the next set.

Thanks for the kudo's! I believe ehbk2006 just updated some of his rail / track LOT's which might be a great addition for your rail focus areas. I would love to work on some additional track accessories as well, although I believe I want to finish some additions to the road based TSP objects before I look into that.

The Transportation Safety Project A series of packs with highway signage and road accessories, has been updated. STEX: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=21100 Delicious Cake... (Screen Shots): Some additional screen shots not available in the STEX are posted here, as well as information on the Volume 1 pack and the expected additional packs. I welcome ideas and comments from anyone, and appreciate everyone's interest! Current Development: The current pack release is "Volume 1 Update 1", which contains 44 signs ranging from Exit Offramp signs to LED Variable Message Signs, in a two colors (Green and Blue). The current "Volume 1" pack is designed for the width of the in-game Maxis ground and elevated, as well as the highway interchanges provided by the NAM. Additional packs will be released containing a similiar sign set, differing in numbers for the RHW and other puzzle pieces. A left hand version will be looked into, although the time and effort it takes to put one of these packs together is mind blowing. Below is a table with the current development status of the project. Network Type and Status (North American): Maxis Ground and Elevated: CompletedMaxis Road and Avenues: n/aRHW for NAM: Next ReleaseSpecial Signs: n/a Network Type and Status (European): Maxis Ground and Elevated: n/aRoad and Avenues: n/aRHW for NAM: n/aSpecial Signs: n/a ** The Special Signs phase is a release of an animated set of safety signs with flashing warning lights. It's release will depend if I can get animated props to work. I did look into putting these thru dedgren's "Plopperizer" method but I wasn't really happy with how the plops would place (you had to click several times to get the alignment right) plus it was tricky to get it lined up correctly along the highways. I opted for the standard "LOT next door" method instead, which I feel has it's drawbacks - but allows for easy placement and in most cases, will suffice most users needs. Thanks To: All the Simtropolis members who downloaded and provided positive comments, and all those BAT'ers who are creating all the wonderful content I also enjoy in my game!

The file "Video Cards.sgr" actually helps the game identify the video card onboard the computer, which I would assume is then uses in the "Graphics Rules.sgr" file to load the presets for detail, shadowing, etc. I located the identifier for an nVidia 9600 GT thru some Google searching and added a HEX to String mapping in the file: # # ID to video card mappings # vendor "NVidia" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de card 0x0622 "NVidia GeForce 9600 GT" end I then went into my "Graphics Rules.sgr" file and made sure I had a rule which would match the above driver mapping (there was already one present): partialRule "Fast card" -any # We run well on these cards, so up the defaults. stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Geforce*" stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Quadro*" stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*9700*" stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*8500*" stringMatch cardIdentity "Matrox*Parhelia*" Upon restarting the game I verified that all the detail settings were at their highest level with hardware rendering and 32 bit color selected. However, with the shadowing set to Medium or High, I get terrible performance scrolling or manipulating terrain, among other things. Disabling it (set to low) however brought the performance back immediately and the game played quite well. I have also tried turning the rendering option to Software and turning the shadows back up, and this works - except there appears to be a slight difference in the hardware rendered shadowing at High vs. the software shadowing at High, whereas the hardware rendered version appears more detailed. Like many of you out there, I do run the game using a custom resolution option in front of a Windows Shortcut that sets the resolution correctly for the monitor. I have tried using smaller resolution settings but was still unable to get the smooth performance I see when shadows are disabled. I have yet to find a proper solution to this issue, as my machine and GPU should easily be able to handle the game at it's full settings.

Thanks for the clarification "north country dude" - I have never been sure if this file actually loaded additional control mechanisms into the game when utilizing hardware modes or not. I did experiment around a bit when I first ran into this but was never able to get the hardware rendering rules correct for my GPU, which is an nVidia 9600GT - plenty of horsepower for a game of this age. As a result I ended up having more success offloading the processing to the CPU, for whatever reason. One thing that might be interesting to try is a collaborative effort by the community to come up with an updated "Graphics Rules.sgr" which can be used as guidance for persons having hardware trouble, if it has not been done already. This template could then be tested by various users and feedback could determine the effectiveness of the changes, and it looks like your recommendations above can get most people going in the right direction. By the way, glad to be of some help "Liv", although there are plenty of other experts around here who could have probably given just as much information!

I was able to fix this with a little trick from an old thread over at SC4Devotion. To get rid of the foundation (red bricks) I set the "Occupant Size" property in the iLive Reader to the following: "0.000001,0.000001,0.000001". This effectively shrank the building footprint from the presence of the LOT. Since my signs are offset from the centerpoint of the LOT anyhow, this is fine unless you need to ever edit this again in the Maxis LOT Editor. I have read some older discussion about also setting the "Building foundation" property to "0x194B1000" from user "sam" but I did not try this myself as any attempt to set that property to "0x00000000" seemed not to work, and I had assumed I was working with the wrong property.