rowanoak

First, thanks for the replies. They really helped. (Q) (7 posts in 3 years...!) (/Q) . . . and all 7 posts in the past month. Ah well, what I can I say? I tend to just lurk and see if I can find my answers on my own but there usually comes a time when I'm forced to post. Actually I've haven't been playing SC4 for the past two years because my old computer choked on the graphics when my cities started growing. Now, with a new computer, I decided to give SC4 another whirl. (Q) If you install texture mods after the region has been already rendered, when you go into a city, save, and exit, there will be a patch of different terrain in your region. Other than that, there is no difference. (/Q) Then I CAN change the textures after the map is rendered. This clears up a lot of my confusion. I thought that the textures my region ended up when the rendering process had finished were the textures I was stuck with. This is really good to know. [upate] Just tried this and it works! Now I'm really a happy gamer . . . I really appreciate everyone's replies. Thank you! Dave

My questions has to do with maps downloaded from Simtropolis that need to be rendered before they can be played. I'm a bit confused about mods that do such things as change rock and water textures and/or add snow to higher elevations, such as the "Columbus Textures For Jeronijs Mod." Two questions: (1) Should ALL texture mods be in the plugin folder before rendering? Or are there some texture mods that can be installed during the city building phase, and if so, how can you tell them apart? (2) Can plugins that directly affect the rendering process be removed after rendering is complete? Dave

Hi moganite, Thanks for your reply. I've tried removing all mods except for the snowcap mod that came with the map when I downloaded it. SC4 still crashes when I try to start a new city using a tile I rendered earlier. (I rendered all my tiles and then go back and start a city.) I've tried another snow-capped mod with this region and it, too, causes SC4 to crash the game. Today I was rendering your NHP Kettlewood region and forgot to remove the snow-capped mod (the one that came with your download) from the plugins folder and the game crashed when I attempted to render the first tile of this new region. I've tried using a couple of other texture mods such as Peg's texture mods for rock and these don't seem to cause any problems. It's just the snow-capped mods that are causing the crashes. Any ideas? [Edit] I forgot to mention that when I rendered the tiles in SC4 for both maps, I kept getting a window that asks me if I want to "Reconcile now?" because the edges of the tile do not match adjacent tiles. I Always click "Cancel" and after I've finished rendering the entire region and then open a random tile I do not receive this message anymore. Is this normal for SC 4 to see these tiles as being mismatched when rendering a region using an SC4M file and SC4Mapper? Thanks, Dave

(1) PEG_RockMod2-WeatheredGranite_205 (2) CP_ColumbusPlayTerrainParametersForUseWithCPT_No7TreeController SNOWCAPPED.dat (the file included in your download package) The region came up okay, but when I tried to render the one of the tiles, SC4 crashed. Then I read on the SC4 TerraFormer forum that plugins often cause this. I removed both plugins and was able to render and save all the tiles. However, now when I use both plugins, click on one of the tiles to start a new city, the game again crashes. I've done some testing by using only one plugin at a time and the problem appears to be the "SnowCapped" plugin that came with your download. The Peg plugin appears to work okay. I also tried to use another snow-cap mod -- "snow-Capped/Arctic Terrain Mod" by Teirusu -- but SC4 crashed again. Currently I am using no other plugins in my Documents and Settings plugin folder. In SC4's main game directory (C:\Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe) I have: * bldgroup_vol1.dat * bldgroup_vol2.dat * Buildings as props_vol1.dat * RH buildings as props_vol2.dat However, these plugins don't appear to be an issue because SC4 brings up a new-city tile whether they are in the plugin folder or not. Two questions: (1) As I understand it, these mods can be in the plugin folder during the rendering process, although they don't have any effect the rendering process, and only create visual changes after a new city is created. Is this correct? (My apologies if I should have posted this question on another forum.) (2) I'm not sure if the issue is with these "snowcap" plugins, or if it is with the region itself, perhaps the altitude of rendered topography. (I assume plugins that put snow on mountains are designed to work only at higher altitudes.) Can you shed some light on this? This is a wonderful region and I'd love to use it if I could just get past the CTD issue so that I could put some snow on those mountains. Any insight you might provide would be appreciated. ------------------------------------------- System info in case you need it: ------------------------------------------- XP Pro SP2 SimCity Deluxe SimCity v1.1.638 DirectX 9.0c (updated, July 2007 release) 2GB RAM Intel Core 2 / 2.93GHz NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 with SLI, 2048MB (2) 250GB Sata II HDDs / Raid 0 Paging file 1790 MB ------------------------------------------- Thank you. Dave

[Q If you preformat a post, use the format window and say that the text is formatted. That should fix your problem. [/O] Thank you! That's good to know. I'll do that. Dave [Edit] Hmmm . . . the format toolbar does not appear in Opera. Guess when I post from now on, I'll use IE.

N_O_Body, My apologies for how my post looked. I initially wrote my post on another text program so I could run it through a spell check then pasted it into my post. It was originally formatted and looked the same in the message window. Somehow the formatting was deleted after I posted it. I have to admit even I can't hardly read it. Unfortunately I didn't see what happened until just now. Again my apologies. Anyway . . . onto your reply. I checked and I am using the correct update. I received a reply from EA today (they replied promptly, which was a real surprise) detailing how to manually remove my CS4 installation including some registry entries. I followed their instructions, but had the same results. The problem, I discovered, was that I was trying to install the update from my D: drive where I store all my patches, installation programs, etc. Oddly the patch installed the first time from this drive before I had this problem. But I decided to eliminate all problems and copied the patch over to my C: root directory, booted it up, and it installed immediately. Go figure . . . Anyway, I appreciate your input. Dave [Edit] I think the problem with my formatting is that I'm using Opera as my web browser.

Recently I was having an issue with SC4 crashing as soon as I tried to open a new city in a new region created from an SC4M file. The problem was that any "snowcapped" plugin I used -- the only one I was using -- kept crashing the game as soon as I tried to start a new city. I thought maybe the problem lay somewhere else so I decided to reinstall the update over itself. However, the installation immediately aborted right after it started with only an "Install aborted" message -- no reason given. Shortly after that I noticed I couldn't boot up SC4 at all. Then I discovered that my aborted reinstall had deleted most of the files in my main SC4 folder (C:\Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe). Next, I decided to reinstall SC4. Since SC4 was now missing in the Control Panel's Add and Remove panel, I ended up using the uninstall program on the SC4 CD. This appeared to have removed all the remaining files because I checked both the main game folder and the Documents and Settings folder and all folders and files were gone. I reinstalled SC4. Next I booted the game and it seemed okay. Then I downloaded a new copy of the SC4 v1.1.638.0 update (SKU-1) but when I tried to update my new installation, the process aborted again - no reason given. I also did a virus scan and it was negative. Can anyone give me clue as to what may be happening here or how I can install my update? Thanks. Dave ------------------------------------------- System info if anyone needs it: ------------------------------------------- XP Pro SP2 SimCity Deluxe DirectX 9.0c (updated, July 2007 release) 2GB RAM Intel Core 2 / 2.93GHz NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 with SLI, 2048MB (2) 250GB Sata II HDDs / Raid 0 Paging file 1790 MB ------------------------------------------- [ Edit ] I think I finally got this message to format correctly.