DmainEvent

Needing a lot of ram is not going to change with the operating system. The game variables will still take up the exact same memory footprint.

Hopefully you with your next 'expansion' you unlock more than a million sims... That would be sweet :)

Wait, this game is written in C#? Why would they do that? Unless there is a C# library that gets pretty low level. It's almost like writing this thing in Java... Anyway, why are we decompiling dll's? This isn't our source but the developers? Don't you guys feel a tad bit unethical messing with someone else's source.

Bro, I have some good ideas about how to create massive cities. I can help you work on the engine. Just shoot me a line.

Multivariable Calculus isn't a big deal at all. Its just single variable calculus where the other variables are considered constant while you integrate/differentiate over the first variable. Go to the first three classes and you should be able to get all the rest of the work done easy. Now Organic Chemistry... Is hard as hell. But now you will one less class to worry about while you play this lousy expansion pack [/My_attempt_to_make_myself_feel_smarter_by_bragging_about_how_much_I_know_about_a_class_I_got_a_B-_in]

larger contiguous maps and offline mode are what this game needs.

It's likely a bit of both. With pathfinding over long distances, it becomes an issue of combinatorial optimization: the difficulty and complexity of these computations increase exponentially as the number of choices, possibilities, and variables branch out further and further... essentially the classic "traveling salesman problem." These problems are what are known as NP-Hard problems and is a type of computation that traditional computing hardware struggles with. It essentially needs to brute-force and calculate every possibility in order to compare them and find the most optimal solution. For an example of how this exponential increase in difficulty would translate into the game, for graph of x2, where x is the area of the city lot and y is number of calculable possibilities: Where x = 5, y = 25. Doubling the map area, x, making x = 10 returns y = 100... a 4x increase in complexity. Tripling the map area, making x = 14, returns y = 225... a 45x increase in complexity. So just by doubling the map size, it would increase computational complexity by up to four times... just for pathfinding alone. The most effective means of solving these sort of NP-hard, combinatorial optimization computations is currently a quantum computer taking advantage of Grover's algorithm, which can give a quadratic speedup over typical computational brute-force search calculation methods. (But that won't help you very much unless you're Google, NASA, or Lockheed Martin and have access to a D-Wave 2 computer.) Most likely, Maxis isn't using typical brute-force means to solve the NP-Hard pathfinding solutions simply due to the computational load it requirement. Instead, they've probably developed a much more rudimentary pathfinding system with more simple rules and calculations, resulting in far lower CPU usage... but at the same time also being far less efficient in its pathfinding decisions (as you've undoubtedly seen firsthand). But doubling the map size will still create exponentially greater pathing variations and would certainly make the Glassbox pathfinding systems, as it stands, even less effective... not to mention that doubling the map size would also lead to nearly doubling the number of agents requiring pathfinding. Most pathfinding we see in games is only being used for a handful of NPCs at a time. The more effective pathfinding system, the higher the CPU demands. So in order to run this pathfinding for several hundred of game agents, simultaneously, it requires "dumbing down," of sorts, in order to make the load manageable. TL;DR: My point is that effective pathfinding is not that simple to implement, especially on the scale that is required within SimCity due to the sheer number of agents. Doubling the map size will have a much bigger impact on the game's computational requirements than one might suspect. The issue is of limitations both with the GlassBox engine and with CPU load. The GlassBox engine likely would struggle with larger maps; Improving the GlassBox engine to work more efficiently on larger maps would require more clock cycles. Note: So as not to misinterpret my intent, I am not defending EA/Maxis here, and I'm all for larger map sizes... I merely just want to make it clear that the issue is more complex than it may appear. Personally, I'm not going to get my hopes up. You have summarized the problem in a way I am not sure I even could have attempted (I was terrible at Algorithms back in college). Which is why I am an advocate of a simple statistical simulation eliminating the need for such complex path finding algorithms, and just show a statistical representation of traffic over a certain path (road, rail, etc). I am not sure why they went this route, but I think and I have asserted this almost since I first heard of this, that the glassbox engine was a poor design decision born out of Maxis' misunderstanding of why SimCity Fans play there game. Glassbox was probably designed for Simtown 15 years ago, and they dusted it off for this game... But let me just say that they create statistical representation of populations anyway, why not just go all the way?

I don't think Maxis has confirmed any of this yet. They want to change the tile size to a bigger tile [link], but the problem is that most normal computers can't handle this. We got to wait a bit longer I guess. PC's can handle this fine...............you don't know what you are talking about. This game is not demanding, and users can turn down some settings on bigger maps. The always online is why this game is so limited, not local PC;s. The problem is that with a change of the map size there is a lot more simulation to calculate. Since the Glassbox engine simulates every citizen separately this could mean that the requirements of the game changes a lot. And even if most modern computers have i5 processors, the game should also be accessible for people with dual cores and i3 (the i3 is also a very common processor for most modern computers). And I agree, the online mode is a serious problem and should absolutely be optional but I think it is a combination of always online and local pc's. For EA it is most profitable to make the game accessible to as many computers as possible without lowering graphics (since that is a big selling point for most people). The main reason to develop this game for EA is to earn money, that's part of the reason why they have such standards for compatibility. System requirements are the things people look at first before even buying the game so if you lower those requirements you have more potential customers. Don't get me wrong, I really think they should implement bigger maps and my computer has also the requirements to run those bigger maps. I just think that people with older computers should also be able to run the game properly. Hate to break it to you, but they fudge the simulation to get larger population numbers...http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9362976.page

Let me be the first to proudly proclaim I didn't buy the game. I was disappointed in the feature set they had and I decided to save myself the grief and wait 2 years or so for all the feature/expansion packs to be in the bargain bin for 9.95. But I watch gameplay vids on Youtube all the time, and while it does look fun (I like the options they have for roads and transportation), I can't bring myself to play on a Micro map. I like large scenic cities. Cities with lots of space to expand so I can have freedom to build out the city and place things anywhere needed. I get it, you think its fine the way it is. I don't. I want LARGER contiguous tiles (Ie the cities are next to each other) with NO SPACES between cities. If they don't do that, I feel no need to purchase the game as it is merely a shadow of its former self. I would actually not mind playing simcity 4 instead.

Nobody is claiming to want SimCity 4. We simply want a STEP FORWARD in city simulation and not BACKWORDS. the tile sizes are ridiculous. I understand they need more processing power etc, but they could still process and find routes etc, with a progressive simulation... similar to how you dont draw graphics you cant see you dont simulate the simulation that isnt important. if you want to know more, and I doubt you do because you like micro-maps, then I could start a new topic and we can discuss this there. some people like creating large metropolises. If you dont then simply dont, dont deny us the option of building them.

I wouldn't hold my breath. It seems like there are only 3 people commenting on this thread, so only 3 people care. Which makes me sad. That being said, among those of us who care, I think we should make it clear that we have some demands for this game to be improved. My only hope is that they are working on a sequel to this thing (lets say Simcity 2015) and for that we ABSO-FREAKING-LUTLELY need to make sure Maxis gets the idea. We want Larger maps Contiguous tiles (Like in SimCity 4) Terraforming Offline city mode... Something like that wouldn't be hard to program. I believe I have explained how I would have done this. But you can implement this in any number of ways. Multi-core processers are now on smart phones, there is no reason why you can't break up the simulation into several threads. Regardless. I hope someone from Maxis is reading this. Someone get me in contact with those guys.

^^^^^^^^^^^^ Yes I want larger cities ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is supposed to be sim CITY... Not sim town. Cities are larger than that. Small towns are about that size. Thanks, Derek

What happened to my post complaining about the small and non contiguous tiles? I really hate that Simtropolis has now become a place where censorship reigns. I have a valid complaint and the mods just scrub it.

Now that they sold there 1.6 Million they will say its a success and us long time fans are screwed. No larger maps or contiguous maps, no terraforming. And always online. Yippee. As I get older I get more and more Jaded about the video game industry. It's just a bunch of crooks and robbers who get you hooked, and then make you beg for the goodies. Mod Edit: Mind your language please.

I hate to say this, but to me, the game is almost irredeemable. I may just skip buying this game all together and wait for Simcity 2016 or something...

Wow, these forums sure did die pretty quickly after this thing was released.

Agreed. Bigger Tiles that are contiguous in a offline mode would fix a-lot of what ales this game.

Greetings Simcity enthusiasts. I haven't purchased SimCity 2013 because I didn't feel it was worth my money. But I am excited about the prospect that the game could improve. Lets start a discussion on what we want to see out of this game if they decide to improve it. Or lets discuss a possible future version. I want to see much larger maps in this game AND contiguous tiles. I would like it if the tiles were as big as the regions and we could put multiple tiles next to each other. I know there are computational problems but that is what I would want to see. Also a single player (non-online mode would be good). discuss...

The article posted today by Rock paper shotgun, has a lot of interesting tidbits. One thing that I noticed, is that Maxis did indeed implement a simple version of my "focuses" idea, that I have described on this forum in a couple of different ways. With a couple of key caveouts. They only have 2 Foci. One being the city and the other the region (which is similar to how simcity 4 worked). And obviously the interaction between cities occurs online. If only they would have implemented it the whole way with minimum of 3 foci. As I described in previous posts those focuses would include districts (wich would be about the same area, 2kmX2km, as the current city-I envision non-square tiles, but Ill take whatever I can get), City (4 districts or about 4kmX4km) and region which would be humongous. When you switch from one district to the other you would essentially be freazing the state of the district you just left, but that district would have informed a city level simulation that would keep feeding the district you are currently working on. The city level simulation would be slightly more simplistic, maybe only high level descisions would be made, perhaps you would store a hash of fastest path to certain region/city destinations at that level (between districts. Destinations within districts could have fastest paths stored within local hashes). You could basically do the same for regions. That hash would of course be updated with fastest paths to different area within the city when you load districts and the city and region level simulations have a chance to update themselves. At the region level very little simulation would be going on aside from your great works and maybe some high-level region related sim stuff. Anyway, read the most relevant part of the article when it comes to this discussion: "But how exactly would that work? If those cities are frozen, resources won’t be renewed, nor depleted? “Let’s say you and I play in a region together,” says Azzer, talking about the regular online game. “You build a town that has lots of power and water (water is a consumable just like coal) and spare fire trucks. I build a big casino city with lots of criminals. You go offline and don’t play for a whole week, but I keep playing for an entire week.” Okay, with you. “During that week, my client will keep telling me stories about fire trucks coming to help me from your city, I’ll keep getting water from you, I’ll keep getting power from you – of a ‘set amount’ dictated by how much you had spare when you last logged off. This is all processed by my client, not by the server. All the server did was tell me ‘X fire trucks available, Y water available, Z power available, from city with the name ABC,’ as a raw list of values. When you log back on, your water levels will be exactly as they were when you last logged off, because EA’s servers were NOT doing any processing, and my client only affects the city I am simulating.” Maybe the developers could develop an expansion pack building upon this idea (for an offline mode of course).

Well, I was under the impression that everything was an agent. If that is not the case, then they have no freaking excuse for not giving us larger maps. That is true that they fudge the population numbers. So then why the hell can't they give us larger maps?!?!?!?!

I concur. One theme that seems to be playing in this thread is that: Ooh the simulation may be instense can my computer even run larger cities?? And then there a lot of posts to either support this fear or assail it. My thinking is that, with all that Maxis/EA junk about server-side calculations and all this we modeled it to run on low end PCs... we may consider larger cities if PC hardware advances..... blah blah blah. Personally... all of this misleading information is pure BULL. it take more calculations to rotate all the vectors and realign the matrix data of a 3D model and print view matrix from the viewport to your Screen than it is to calculate the age of each person each year of 1,000,000 persons. you want proof? consider... or(int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) { sims[i].Age++; } ///one million additions - this is actually very fast FIRST EXAMPLE is just math on some variables... or you can say the Simulation mechanics we are aging each Sim by one year. And we have One Millions Sims. for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++) ///to be fair - lets use only a hundred thousand buildings { Matrix[] transforms = new Matrix[model.Model.Bones.Count]; model.Model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(transforms); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Model.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mm.Effects) { effect.View = camera.view; effect.Projection = camera.projection; effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); } mesh.Draw(); } } 2nd Example uses MUCH more work, even though we have 1 factor less amount of items to calculate And todays GFX cards can do this easy... which means our CPU can do the 1st example....very easy we can have large cities... this small city restriction is part of the MMO grand stratedgy they are trying to force on us... While I would like to think that they COULD be able to do it. I think you may be overthinking some things. You have to remember that everything in the simulation is an agent. So each agent has to find paths, across the city, and all that jazz. I am not an algorithms guy by any stretch of the imagination. But I imagine that it might be slightly more complicated than you letting on here. Let me just say for the record, I think that they could and should give us larger cities with contiguous tiles, I am not entirely convinced it is easy as you suggest.

All this is making me wonder why they can't just maintain a simple database, of all the information passing back and forth between cities. Going back to my idea, of perspectives, they could store all that data between perspectives their. IE, the district perspective would have all the information about cities and so forth being passed around now, except it would all be local. You would have one more perspective which would be the region perspective, which would kind of be the ultimate traffic cop between perspectives, and then they could put that mode online. Sigh, if only they had thought this through from the beginning.

The tile sizes are an absolute disgrace, I think we can all agree upon that (I contend if they made the cities contiguous then I wouldn't be as mad). What we can't agree upon is whether or not they will give us larger maps, and if they do, will they be just slightly larger, or large enough to make us forget about contiguous tiles. I think the only way to make us forget about contiguous tiles is to make our cities as large as the entire region. But then that would break there precious online model (hip, hip horray I say). After luccy bradshaw through stones in her Glassbox last night, I get the feeling they are going to be taking the lemmings for a ride over the cliff. IE making us pay for more and more content (include larger maps and perhaps contiguous tiles) that should already be in the game. I wonder if the developers feel bad about this at all? Completely f'ing over the long time fans who have been playing this game since the beginning to appease the easy gamer crowd? Probably not, they got their money. Not from me though. I can watch you tube videos of this game.

Now that we know that maxis is working on a fix for the traffic issues, would it be that great of a leap to hope that they would work on another fix that is weighing heavily on us hardcore sim-mers hearts? If they were to fix something next, and those were the only two things that they could fix, which one would you want them to fix more?

I don't nec I have neither in there. I don't have the caption, but if you feel that is the case vote and state what you think is more important. To be honest, as much as it pains me to see the predictable server issues, or the predictable state of release, personally I have much more issue with the enforcement of online play DRM and the insistance of EA to only have their desired vision count and not that of the customer. In that regard the latest marketing blurb from Bradshaw as an extreme eye opener. I don't necessarily disagree. I think the game is a complete train-wreck to be quite honest with you. Seems to me they have dug their heels in with the always online bull#*$% and I am content with that. I just want larger maps that are contigouos with each other. If they do that, I will shell out money for this steaming pile. Online is good for some games, but not for others.