GrampaAl

Hello Mary: Glad to see you seem to have that first stage down. Heh! Do I see a little bragging here? lol. JBM Farming eh! Nice touch. First a small warning, those darned animated horses, can eat away at your RAM also. I would maybe use only one of those effects props, maybe two at most. Just a recommendation. -------------------- Now for the stage. This being a Horse farm, and horses eat the hay from a stage 1 growth farm, I would make it Stage 2. Now if you later make a slaughter house or a glue factory that is on a farm lot that would be a stage 3. Get what I mean. So, to change the stage this is real easy. Look at the Lot exemplar, and see the property called Growth Stage, change the value 0x01 to 0x02. Wow, that was easy wasn't it! ---------------------- For the little lot that grows around this, how about making a hay field with JohnB's hay bales. I would think a couple of bales per field would be fine. Now if we could get those bales to appear at different times, that would be cool wouldn't it. Don't ask! We aren't even close to that yet.

Well, you could increase the size of the virtual memory, but what that does is beat your hard drive mightily. I don't recommend it. Now as I understand it, you were able to do two rows but not three. At least you got the number of props cut in half. Had you been able to get three rows combined, you would have reduced the number of rows required to 1/3 of the 15 which would be 5. That at least would be a workable number. You might try sending a few PM's to some known good batters and ask it they would be kind enough to clone your one row and to combine it 5 times to have a prop that is 5 rows wide, which would then only require 3 of those props to make up the entire width of the lot. It will need to be someone who has significantly more memory that you have. 1 gig or more of RAM should do it I would think. I have 1 gig but know nothing of the BAT so wouldn't even know where to start. Unfortunately for quite a few here, I suspect memory problems are the downfall for some who wish they could do more.

256 Megs of RAM? Ooops! that is too bad. You will be limited by that in what you can do, not only with the BAT but with the game itself. I'm rather surprised that you have not seen a number of problems in the game already. If you have even half of a medium size city which is primarily farms, I would expect you to be seeing serious lag, especially if you are running on high graphics mode. Can your partners do it for you. Maybe they has more RAM?

Yep this can be heading for trouble. However, just think of what that would have been without strips. 15x15 or maybe as many as 225 props. That would have been a total disaster for a 1x1 lot. Now I actually rather like the appearance of those strips, you are really getting better here and those look nice. Performance will be crap, but the visual is nice. If you were to take every other one and rotate it 180 degrees would it look less consistant. Maybe it is better with the rows between where the tractor went. Not sure. Since you have the ability now to combine one prop into a strip of props, how about combining all 15 strips into ONE prop that spans the entire lot. Now THAT could be something. A single prop that looks like that would be a real achievement in my view. I would be proud to use that prop on one of our lots as well. Also with a single large prop, the performance issues would be practically gone. Please remember to save this original strip, since you may not like the single prop when done, and wish to do some further work on it with the strip prop to combine in different ways. Can't really tell until you see the final or a preview result. You are humming now.

On those seasonal props. A warning certainly is in order. So far, there are NO 4 season props, only two seasons that I know of so far. Mary, we had just started on the seasonal props, and our little discussion so far was for only ONE season. An on/off type of switch that is timed. To do truly 4 seasons would require a separate prop for each season, so the calculations that Daeley presented above would indeed be true and look like a total worst case scenerio. So you do remember my recommendation to use strips for props, and not more than about 4 of them even then. Now even if you should carry this all the way with 5 stips per 1x1 lot, and then 4 seasons as well, that would be 20 strips total, and would indeed result in eventuall disaster. What I believe BLS GA has so far used is 4 or 5 strips, with only two seasons for a total of 8 to 10 props per 1x1 lot. Even that is a strain on lesser systems. Daeley mentioned that at that time (maybe still I don't know) that he had only 320 Megs of RAM, and that is seriously not enough for what he was at that time doing. I now think that we ourselves at BLS GA need to provide warnings to folks that these farms can eat more resources that big cities. Not all, but some of the more recent. Those which have more than 5 props per tile.

Any PROP that has seasonal properties. I am looking at one now: prop_bls_Pumpkins_Seasonal. Here are the properties that I see that are different: 1. Simulator Date Start. This has two values, the month and the day that the simulator is to start. 2. Simulator Date Duration. This is how long in days the prop is to display before it disappears. 3. Simulator Date Interval. This is how long the time is before the simulator starts all over again. (usually 365 days), but could be a different time period. 4. Resource key type 4. WHAT!!! Now this one is the most difficult. This one has 8 values. The first 4 are all zeros. The fifth value is 0x27812821. The next three values are the TGI of the MODEL which is the model of the prop to be displayed. --------------------------------------- More on this later. --------------------------------------- My question for you now, before we get off onto another topic. You originally wanted to know how to get a farm lot to grow. Then you wanted to know how to attach a small 1x1 lot to grow around the farm. Are you satisfied that you can now do this repeatedly. Doing one lot once is fine, but can you do it again and again. If not, you should practice this until you are quite sure you can do it everytime. When you feel you can, that is really when you are ready for the next step. Is that next step seasonal lots? If so, do you have enough machine power and memory to handle this. If you do fine for you. Now how about the rest of the community. Will they have adequate machine power? If not, you run the risk of people complaining that your farms are slowing down their machines (a good sign in a way, since you now know that are actually using your farms) but do you want to accept this risk. Maybe if you do this, you should also warn the general public that your lot contains seasonal props and they can possible cause a serious LAG to their cities if they have large farms with these seasonal props.

Oh, Oh! This one is going to be harder. Rather than plunge in right now, here is what I suggest. The secret is in the Props. So take a look at one of the existing lots that have seasonal crops, and make sure you study the Prop exemplar for the crop that is seasonal in appearance. You should see about 4 new and different properties that you may not have noticed before. The reader will explain in the bottom window what each of these properties is. I will myself be releasing a lot in the not too distant future which uses some of these techniques. None of this is really secret, all of it is contained within the SimCity4_1.dat file. However, it will probably be a whole lot easier to study an existing lot which is no doubt simpler than the Maxis supplied items. There as usual 2 or three different ways of accomplishing this effect. However, be warned once again, these seasonal things, although cute, are a real drain on the computer resources as well. In fact, once I release the lot, I will let you know here, and we can use it as a course of study. However, you can right now take a look at some of the others already on the STEX. Already some of the seasonal crops have been blamed by some for slowing down their cities. And they are correct. It takes a good computer system to display these particularly on the little 1x1 lots that have too many crops already. Come back around the end of the month, or the beginning of November and let us know what you have discovered, and where you have gotten stuck, and from there we can probably get you on the right track. Good luck. Have fun. And above all, enjoy the adventure of discovery.

OK, I had a look at your lot. It seems fine as far as pointers are concerned. However, this lot, the little 1x1 field, has 25 props. Ouch. This will cause the game to lag a whole bunch. Please try to limit the number of props on the FIELD LOTS to Max of 9. The number of props on the main farm is not such a bad problem, there are only one of those, but with the little 1x1 that grows around the farm, there are many of those. So a 4x4 main farm that has 16 tiles total (4x4=16) and has less that 9x16 or 144 props is not as bad as 16 each of the 1x1 field lots which also has 9 props on each. Now the 4x4 farm has way less than 144 props I am guessing. So now maybe you can see how having the growing 1x1 lots around the farm can cause a cumulative problem of very large proportions. Now, with props that are to be use on the little 1x1 field lots, you really need to make them in strips so you can have 5 or 6 strips on a lot. Each prop counts as ONE prop, does not matter all that much how large or small it is just the total count. So 5 long strips is way, WAY better than 5 rows of 5 props per row which is a total of 25 props! I hope everyone else watching this thread is learning about farm design from our discussion.

Ah, yes. Thankyou. I am trying to trace down a problem with the LE itself showing a lag when certain props are shown in the prop window. Do you have this problem? Now, the number of props you have on a field CERTAINLY CAN cause a lag of the computer. We have sort of decided that for a minimum system, the field lots should have no more than 3 props. For a medium system not more than 9 props and for a really high end system, not more than 12-15 props depending on the amount of memory. I would stick with a max of 9 props per field so most people will have very few problems with lag. Zone the smallest possible zone for the size of your farms will minimize this problem. Can you still attach the field lot itself. I don't need the props or models, just the .sc4lot file (zipped of course) so I can take a look at the IID's and the pointers. It does seem to be working, but I would like to make sure there aren't any hidden problems to rear their ugly heads laters. Thanks

Ouch! My head is hurting. Too many things at once for this poor old man. I edited my post above, please have another look. Also, how about attaching the field lot you made, in a .zip file. I would like to have a look at it. Thanks

Date: 10/15/2004 10:02:35 AM Author: pmiller19574 I noticed one more thing. That many sunflowers is a real lag in computer speed. I think I will put it back though BAT and do some changes like more flowers in like a pack of them more than what I have then Load LE and make less flowers on the lot. I just got done redoing my display drivers so its not that. Which means something is conflicting I think with the 1x1 lot field I did and the main lot I think. If I just plop it by holding the mouse key down it will plop like 2 of the lots in one thing. Like the above pic. And it grows it under the sunflowrs but if you buldoze that little section the main lot will grow back. I am really not sure what is going on now. I am going to del this field and try again after I pull it back into the BAT and do some adjustments. I really do not like the back side view of the flowers on the lot so I am going to try to put them back to back in BAT and then see if i like the look more. Other than these twi things the lot seems to be working fine. quote> Two things I see that can possibly be a problem. 1. The IID you show for the field lot, does NOT look like it was generated by the LE. Looks like you created it on your own. THIS IS PLAYING WITH FIRE and could cause serious problems later. I recommend you use the LE to open the little grassy park, modify it to make your SunFlowers Field lot,and then do a SaveAs. The LE will generate a SAFE number to use. 2. Also, you said I believe that you bulldozed the main lot? If you bulldoze the main lot, you ALSO NEED TO BULLDOZE ALL THOSE FIELD LOTS THAT GREW AROUND IT. The little 1x1 fields should NOT be left in the zone without a farm. This is what is causing additional farms to attempt to grow in the area covered by fields. --------------------------- One more thing. Can you post a picture of your sunflower prop as it shows in the LE under the Prop tab. I would like to see the IID and the description of your prop. Thanks

lol! How many field lots did I tell you to put into the Field Lots property of the building exemplar? One (only!)is what you need. Now I have not tried zoning that large, but if you have more than one field lot IID in the building exemplar and one of them can't be found, things like this can happen. Try zoning just 8x8 or 6x6. What is your lot size? Make the lot just 2 tiles wider and longer than the lot itself. Now zone about 5 of that exact size, and see if all of them get sunflowers. You are now learning how to be a tester! lol!

Yes, I have heard that WinXP SP#2 has problems, or compatability issues. I don't plan to update as long as my current system is running well.

Date: 10/14/2004 11:07:29 AM Author: pmiller19574 LOL, Ok thanks... that helps me out alot thanks.... I'll have to try that possably tomorrow. I am redoing my computer possably today. A fresh Start again. Last time it was done was last Dec. Did not quite make a year, O well. Thanks I will definitly do that. Thank you so very much. for your quick response. PMiller quote> What do you mean by redoing my computer? It is having problems?