MatrixDJ

SC13 has been on the market for 4 months, we are currently 5 patches deep already (soon to be 6) and the game is still broken. Don't get me wrong, it has improved but in my opinion, it is still not playable to any kind of accuracy someone (or at least myself) would expect from a retail product. Maxis/EA, fix the vanilla product and get it where the consumer expects it to be before you start talking expansion.

I stumbled upon this when browsing the internet today. It is a new City Building Simulator by IBM and it looks like it'll be pretty good. Certainly no societies. Check it out for yourself... http://www-01.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/innov8/cityone/index.html

Like a couple people already said, it's a love it or hate it game. Personally, I love it! I have played the fallout games since Fallout 2 came out and I will never stop! If you're going to play this game set aside a lot of time to actually play it. I hear complaints about the game all the time that it's too short. That's because people don't do the side missions, they do the storyline missions and call it good.

Hello All and welcome to my testing thread! The purpose of this thread is to gather and give information about the zoom crash issue. My hope is to narrow this issue down far enough to solve it. I feel that it would be a great contrabution to the community and give it another notch to show how great it is. I really hope this helps everybody in the long run! Here is the history with this issue within my experience. I have had SC4 since the day that it came out and the same as RH. I was always able to play the game just fine until my city got to a certain size, which is a different topic. I never truly discovered ST till about a year ago and started downloading and donating to the community. As of recently, I hadn't been playing the game so much because it kept crashing even with a small region size of about 20,000 Sims. I then read a thread about this person having a crash only when they either zoomed in on something or zoomed out. I was able to discover after that point that I was indeed having the same problem! I did a little bit of research and emailed both ATI and EA about this and got back a bunch of garbage so I decided to troubleshoot it myself. I backed up my plug-ins folders and completely re-installed SC4:RH, applied the patches and updates from simcity.com and played the game with the following installed: Expanded UI Mod game_coding_errors_fix v2.1 Industry Quadrupler Services Doubler All Maxis made BATs and LOTs My Las Vegas Map (which can be found on STEX) Madison Simcity High School Newman Inc Hospital Clean Incinerator Orbital Power Receiver Water pump with 500000w a month City Hall Package Less Abandonment Network Add-on Mod (NAM v05.09.30 Opera House Fix Transport Map Mod White Sand Beach All props and textures from beforeAnd the game ran great! This led me to believe that it was a specific BAT, LOT, or a Prop/Texture conflict. Just for your information so you have all of it, all of my props and textures are in the same folder unless specified in the documentation of them to be installed in the 'Program Files' location. I have gone through, installing in batches, sixty-one BATs and LOTs from the STEX. All thus far seem good and okay to handle however, I did have a crash recently and am investigating it out further right now! Here are the specs of my system: Intel D865GBF Motherboard @ 800MHZ FSB Intel Pentium 4 3.0Ghz with HT 2GB DDR PC3200 RAM Sapphire Radeon 256MB Video Card Sound Blaster X-Fi Western Digital 7200RPM 120GB If you'd like to help me with this and you are having the same problem PM me and I will let you know what you can do to help! Please don't hesitate to ask questions either! There is no such thing as a dumb question, just unanswered ones. Do not post here if you are here to criticize SC4 programming or what we are doing here... it won't help! Finally, there is an attached file of all the plug-ins that I have installed and thus far, seem to be okay (with the exception of my last crash, which I'm still testing) I will update this file on a regular basis so check back and download the new file in this post! More to come... Edit by N_O_Body: Pinned as discussed. Anyone with information please add to this thread SC4_Plugins_Apr06.zip

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

Hello Everybody, Sorry I have been MIA for a little while, it has been a crazy couple of weeks with work and some of my side projects and personal life on top of that... I really have not had much time to work on this recently but that should change very soon. I will be working on completing my portion of this test within two weeks and hopefully have some results. I will also be posting a new thread related to this on the crash reports and what the memory addresses are pointing to and hopefully somebody knows how this works or knows how to find out... Talk more soon, ~MatrixDJ

Tidalpool - My crashes are always to the desktop Alkaola - make sure you did not remove any dat files when you removed those SG BATs or LOTs. Also you may want to ask SimGoober about this to see if he has a solution or information about this issue. Hello all, I have been talking to deadwoods about this issue and here is what he has to offer. The first two paragraphs are an excellent observation and great knowledge to this thread. Originally emailed by: Deadwoods Props missing is different to textures missing. We're not 100% on the impact of missing props, but we suspect if a lot has been plopped or grown and it had props that the game was doing some calculations on (like shadows if the props is set to "ground model"). I can't think of specific examples of duplicate props (i.e. downloading the BSC mega prop packs and not deleting older prop packs) causing problems. There have been issues with some of the CSX packs introducing extra lots that have caused probs. But the only issue I'm aware of with textures is if a base texture is missing and you go into underground mode, the missing base texture comes up as blue. Just be careful of "recommending to people to treat them with the same care as props.". Any advice needs to be given with regard to the audience that will receive it, and with ST we have a wildly varying set of people with different ages, skills levels and knowledge. Often advice, no matter how well-meaning, is misconstrued and snowballs. Advice such as "install X prop pack carefully in this particular situation" often leads to "don't install this persons stuff because it will cause your PC to crash". As to the exception reports, no I don't know what the memory address refers to. I don't know of anyone, outside of Maxis, who knows the memory model the product uses.quote> Take this information for what it is and use it to your needs. This is also suggestive that props are our main problem here too. Which seems right to me. I would think SC would just use another texture, create a "brown box" is one is missing, or draw nothing at all. Where as props would seem to have to be there as part of the BAT or LOT. What I am saying is, in theory, that Simcity crashes because it can not find what it is looking for which throws and exception. Will update files soon... ~MatixDJ

BarbyW - What do you mean my BTD?

Welcome to the second page everybody!!! Alkaola - Try removing one at a time the custom building that have been growing in your city. I would recommend keeping a simple log of what you have deleted and removed from you plugins folder so you can back track and/or reinstall the BATs that are causing the problems. ~MatrixDJ

Tidalpool - Don't quote me on this because I may be wrong but subfolders in either of your plugin folders does not make a difference to SC4. SC4 loads all of the plugins to memory regardless of where they are in the folder. This allows you to organize you folder so that you know what you got easier. As promised, later today I will be posting an Excel Spreadsheet with the two text files combined in to it for ease of use, check back later and I will edit this comment with instructions. ~MatrixDJ EDIT: I posted the Spreadsheet in a zip file at the bottom of the first comment in this thread. Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions!

Capo - Any help here would be appreciated more than you know!!! Please just upload and show it as an attachment to a reply! Thank you for your support and knowledge, it will prove to be an asset. As far as testing lots, I'll have to get back to you on that one but please don't hesitate to dish out what information you have. Once again, thank you!!! ~MatrixDJ

Thanks for that catch BarbyW!!! I missed that in the installation instructions. It is great to have a respected member of BSC aboard on my project here. Thank you!!! I have updated the Props and Textures file following BarbyW's find on the BSC park textures. I should be uploading an excel spreadsheet tomorrow with all of the files in one file rather than using two!!! I hope it will help ~MatrixDJ

Hello again all, I have updated the both of the text files for your viewing. However, the files that were added today 4/3/06 have not been tested. Also I am going to be compiling these into a single file, prolly an excel spreadsheet for ease of use, viewing and searching. I am about half way done with this project in determining which of my files is bad! I have one potential problem file that I have not mentioned because I am not sure whether it is or not. From today till I can get all of my files tested updates are going to be few and far between. I will still log on everyday and check things out on SimTropolis and keep an I on my email for updates in the thread though. So in that matter, don't hesitate to ask questions, make comments or offer advice! Everything helpful is more than welcome here!!! I am still waiting on an answer to my question... Does anybody know anything about reading the exception reports and/or have any information about them? How can I find out what the memory addresses are pointing to? Please! Someone help me with this!!! I know it is an odd question but I think knowing this information is vital to SimTropolis community. Knowing this information will help everyone solve there issues and know exactly what they pertain to! Anyway, have a great day and keep those comments, questions and advice comming! It is all absolutly awesome thus far!!! ~MatrixDJ

Alkaola - Congrats on your find! I am quite confadent to say that having all these props and textures in order will helf SC4 run faster too! Also, I hope that you are keeping track of what you have in the MEGA packs and with individual files so you truely can easily keep track of what you have! See the above comments and Props and Textures.txt file for an example. This might be more easily done in Excel or even Access if you have the experience with it! Best of luck with your new found knowledge!

Beattle - Thank you for your support on this thread! It makes me feel encouraged to keep going! I am doing it for the Simtropolis community and to further its development! To answer your question, SC4:RH crashes to the desktop, it has never blue screened on me. Funny story though, back a few years ago, I was in school full time and used my USB flash drive a lot and left it plugged in to the computer. I was playing SC4 and it just reset the computer, no blue screen or nothing. I tried again, again and again. Finally, I unplugged it and took it to school the next day and it was fried! Basically it shorted my entire system! Thank god it did not do any damage to my computer and I had the files backed up! Ha! Anyways, my sound card and video card are up to date and I find it unlikely to be the problem but I will for sure keep it in mind when I can find out what these memory addresses are pointing to in exception reports! Thank you for the input! Very Helpful! SamFlash - I understand what you are saying and I am would have to say delete it. No I am not positive on this but my theory is this: Since SC4 looks at literally everything in your plug-ins folder as a group not individual files, it will see that both files are pointing to the same file name. The only reason I am not sure on this is because they may be different files... Meaning file size, creation date, etc... Is this on your system? If so, would you be willing to try testing to see if it impacts anything by moving one of the duplicates out somewhere besides your plug-ins folder? I hope by chance that they are both either landmark or plopable files for your ease in this! Please post your findings if you decide to do this. Great Question by the way!!! Alkaola - Your problem is exactly what I am investigating here. If you wouldn't mind, could you take a look at your exception files and look for similarities in them especially the stack dump section of the file! I would really appreciate your feedback on this! Please PM me the results and I am building up to that point after I get all of my plug-ins tested! One thing you can do for yourself is run the double killer application and check for duplicate files. Completely redo your prop and texture downloads just as I have done. Keep a file with what you have and what is included in the MEGA packs. This is truly a help when wondering what files you already have for newer lots and bats! Good stuff! Keep me up to date! Now for an update! Sorry for any grammar errors I have been playing SC4:RH and drinking wine... You get the idea! I have updated the BAT and LOT plugins and Props and Textures files. I have added many BATs and LOTs, I still have many to go through and there seem to be no problems with the existing BATs and LOTs that I can see thus far. I will keep testing the latest additions for a little while longer however! Further, my main city is a little over 300,000 Sims and still running very smooth, I am actually impressed. I have started to expand into the region with some residential. I am mostly focusing on transportation right now and will be for a while now. If anyone can get anything out of this post, please do what I did with my plug-ins folder! It helped so much! It is described in a previous post. Keep in mind that if you have any information about this, please let me know. I really need to know what the memory addresses are pointing to in the exception reports. I may start a new thread in the main forum if somebody does not answer soon. If any of you have any ideas of how I can improve this thread, please let me know! I feel like this post is kind of dry and useless other than responding to people's comments and questions. Please by all means give me some feedback! More to co

Hello again all, Sorry about the delay posting an update! I got held up in some unfortunate personal matters I also noticed that this topic is now being rated and I would like to take this time to thank you for your support! As of today, the plug-ins into SC4:RH have not changed so the two text files are up-to-date. I have also discovered that after installing the MEGA packs for some props and textures SC4:RH runs a lot better. It is handling a 240,000 Sims city better than I have ever seen with this amount of plug-ins. Tip: When downloading props and textures, keep a record of what you have. This means with the MEGA packs AND individual files, write down or type into a file of what they include this way you will know for sure that you have all the dependencies that are required! Also, do as the instructions say provided by the developer (especially MEGA packs) of the prop or texture and delete any necessary files as they can complicate things and possibly cause issues! I am going to continue now with installing buildings into SC4:RH and start determining what files may be causing problems in SC4:RH and will update on my progress either Sunday or Monday depending on how things go. Finally, I am also starting to observe the exception reports generated by SC4:RH when a crash occurs. I will also update on these at a later date but as a preview, I am noticing a lot of similarities in the stack calls and the instruction data. Maybe somebody could help me determine what these memory addresses mean or are related to in the code!? Talk to ya soon!

Originally posted by: DPMorse That is an excellent little program. The thing I am wondering about is if I should delete the duplicate model and description files. Do the lots that are in separate subdirectories need their own copy to function correctly?quote> DPMorse - You should not have any duplicates at all. When you have duplicate model and description files, it litterally creates a second building! dedgren - Thank you for the Great Tip I actually found a couple of duplicates! This really helps me out a lot! Thank you! To reiterate what I am doing at this point... I am redoing my entire collection of props and textures. I have deleted all of them out of the single folder and reinstalled them according to the dependacies of the BATs and LOTs that I have. I also downloaded all of the MEGA packs of props and textures! In addition, I read through each of the descriptions of each and made sure to delete the ones that the instructions indicated! More to come thursday night... If you'd like to see what props and textures I have installed, see my previous post and download the text file. I updated it with the finds from the Double Killer application! Kudos to dedgren for the find!

I think what you are talking about could be floweres in a prairie or something like that... You are talking about those dots in the field right?

tchaos713 - Thank you for your support! I am currently revamping my entire ...My Documents\Simcity4\Plugins\PropsTextures folder to ensure that there are absolutly no duplicates between the MEGA packs and individual prop and texture files. I have an intuition that this may be causing some conflicts in the game. Does anybody know if this is true? Also, does anybody know if the dat files for props and textures should be in the My Documents or Program Files folder? Further, I am considering creating a windows based application that would detect duplicates between the MEGA packs and individual files if this turns out to be true. But that is later... I am also experiencing a few crashes right now too... and it was not crashing until I started getting a decent amount of Sims in my city... Will post these results by Thursday... Edit: Combined the two text files into one Excel spreadsheet. This file can be found at the bottom of the first comment in a zip file. Enjoy!

Thanks for the blast from the past!! Great topic!