Trekker4747

Thanks, I've already ordered the system and the larger video cards didn't quite fit into the budget. I'm hoping the lack of VRAM, which I wanted more of, can be made up for by the system RAM. Maybe down the road I'll get a better video card and upgrade. But this one on its own already required me to get a bigger PSU, so I figured something about it must be good. Thanks for the help.

System I am getting, I think it should run the game fine, but wanting some "experienced" opinion on this system and how well it'll run Skylines with high(er) setting and using the various map-size mods (not the 81-tile one, just the 25-tile one) to have a large-sized map. Intel Core i7 6700 Quad-Core, 3.4 GHz 16 GB DDR4-2133 RAM 2 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 Windows 10 OS, 2TB HDD, Integrated Sound, Yadda, Yadda.

I download the program from The Exchange but upon trying to install it it set off my anti-virus software which feels the program is malicious. Is it being overly protective or is their a problem with the latest available file?

No, EA, it's not "Homophobes" or "Whiny Madden Fans" that people hate you. Such notions are utterly ridiculous and pretty damn offensive, really. (And I say this as neither a "homophobe" or a "Whiny Madden Fan.") The problem is you utterly IGNORE what the people who buy your games want. For 10 years people have been saying what they'd like to see in the next SimCity game. You took these suggestions and utterly ignored every. Single. One. You produced a stripped-down game -you think a lesson would have been learned after "Societies"- that required an always-on connection. That was the load of it. But in of itself not bad but then you completely botched the launch by using servers powered by geriatric gerbils on rusty running wheels. You fail because you go for tossing any product out there to make a quick buck rather than doing your all to make the best game and best gaming experience possible. I could talk about the problems in Madden as well, but I'll pass as this isn't the time or place. But you need to learn and grow from your mistakes rather than blaming "homopobes" and "Whiny Madden Fans." Instead, blame yourself because GAME fans are tired of your BS.

Well Windows 7 is really called "Windows: Shhh, Don't Tell Anyone I'm Really Vista, Got Kind of a Bad-Rap There" so makes sense it work there as well. It's really a very, very, odd thing since -as I said- this account is usually hidden and there is ZERO reason to ever need it unless you're a super-user confident in everything you do on-line and in Windows or if you're using the computer as a "server' of sorts for a bunch of "dumb terminals" for user accounts. Certainly little reason why your average user would need the "true" Administrator account activated to operate NAM/TSCT so very likely it is, indeed, a programming bug.

You have to unlock the full Administrator profile, which is normally hidden. Open the Start Menu and type "cmd" into the search box (don't press enter.) The CMD program icon will appear, right-click on this and select "run as administrator," type this: net user administrator /active:yes at the c-prompt and hit enter. You should get a message that says the command completed successfully. Close the command prompt and log out of your current profile and there should now be a new Administrator user in the log-in screen (or available to use if you're using classic view.) Right now it's not password protected, click on it and a new desktop should appear. This one is going to be similar to how it was when you first ran Windows or a new account. Find the NAM/TSCT program in the Start Menu and should now be able to make the changes take hold. Interestingly, it's possible to right-click on the program icon and give specific permissions to user-accounts but this doesn't seem to work. Go ahead and go into Account Settings and password protect the Administrator account. There's almost no reason you should ever need to be in this account and you certainly shouldn't spend any meaningful time in it and you MOST certainly shouldn't websurf on it. It actually allows changes to be made to the computer without the UA controls, warning prompts or any other of the "protections" Windows has to prevent you from screwing things up. Passowrd protect it and only use if you need to make changes to TSCT or in those extreme cases where you try doing something and you get the "must be an administrator" prompt. (It's happened to me before plenty of times before learning about this hidden account I had no idea what it meant.) Really, after making the changes in TSCT you should probably re-deactivate this account (":/active:no" in the above instructions) but there is some degree of "use" here even if you don't go into TSCT very often. Just never, ever, really use this account unless you really have to in order to make a change and even then make sure you know for sure on the changes you're making and what you're doing. Seriously, there's no safe guards here so messing around too much would be like opening the hood of your car and just mixing all of the wires around to see what will happen. This is what I did and got it to make the changes in Windows Vista (can't speak for later versions of Windows.)

Well, good thing I'm the only user of my computer, then, and thus an Administrator. Ok, apparently you have to run it as a FULL Administrator, which is sort of dumb. So I found a way to unlock the (usually hidden) Administrator option, get into NAM and make the changes which it allowed to take hold. What a crock. Is there not a way to do this under a regular account with Administrator privileges?

So no updates, suggestions, hints, help?

Same here, checking background processes is one of the first things I did and still got the messages. Also waited a few minutes for things to "settle down" and for everything to get on the same page. Still get the error message.

I'm having a problem with the latest version of NAM's companion program "Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool." I didn't have this problem with a previous version and just recently upgraded. TSCT Version: 1.3.3 (1715), Simulator Version 2.4.1. When I installed the upgrade it auto-ran and I made the changes I wanted to made, saved, and exited the program and then ran SC4. Well, some of the changes I made were... extreme. I charge Sims to drive on tiles of roads/rails rationalizing it as akin to a "personal property/licensing tax" on vehicles. Anyway, in old TSCT I had these figures set at a fraction of a cent. When I re-entered the values I mis-entered my figures by a factor of 10-100. Instead of charging fractions of a cent I was charging whole cents. City income skyrocketed well over city expenditures. Too much. So I exit Sim City, go back into TSCT to fix things and when I go to save I get an error dialogue box telling me I cannot save because Sim City 4 is currently running. It is not. Is this a bug or am I missing something?

My computer surpasses the minimum requirements (but not quite meets the recommended requirements). The only thing I'm "behind" on is really the memory which I'm at 3.5GB (I have 4GB installed, but 32-Bit OS and all.) The game is sort of... choppy running. Not really smooth on moving the camera or placing things. The graphics settings are pretty much at medium settings (silly, considering my video card surpasses the requirements) any thoughts/suggestions?

No, sorry, you release a product it should work right out of the box. Sure, I can see bugs and issues cropping up that need to be fixed down the road but the person who just paid for your product should be able to sit down and use it right away. This is like saying you buy a new car and they tow it to you on a flat-bed truck, drop it off and leave. Wow! You have a new car! So you get it in it, try to start it and then it doesn't start. Turns out the company forgot to put a starter in the engine. Oh well, should have waited to buy the car until the company knew the problems they have with it. No. Sorry. I should have been able to buy this game, install it, and played it right away. Not have to wait to be able to play it because EA sucks at life.

Really, if individual city sizes can't be too big due to hardware limitations (make sure we cans each, individual Sim walk from point A to point B, that's important!) than at least, I dunno can we make a city directly adjacent to a previous one like in previous versions of regional play and have the cities interact?

Yeah, silly me for buying a game on the day its released and expecting it to work right out of the box.

I've been a fan of Sim City since I first picked up that box at a Babbage's in a mall way back in 1991. Played that game for hours me, family, and friends would spend an entire Saturday afternoon taking turns playing with our cities. A simple, easy, game with nothing put simple tiled graphics and sprite animations. Heck, I still have the manual to that game because it was big, thick and utterly interesting manual to read. Sim City 2000 came out a few years later and I was blown away by the better graphics, the addition of water, highways and subways and invested so much time in that game it's no wonder I never got laid in high school. Building huge cities with millions of "sims" in them. Making up stories that happened over the course of the decades of the city's life time even at times leveling a city with an apocalyptic series of disasters and having the city rebuild. And, again, the manual for the game and the companion books that came out around it were great, great, reads. There's an old Prima book for SC2000 that's still fun and interesting to read. Sim City 3000 on indifferent towards. The look and mechanics of it just missed some "spark." Sim City 4 (with Rush Hour/Deluxe): If we liken the first Sim City to grade school, 2000 to fun times in high school and 3000 to struggling/awkward college years Sim City 4 brings us into the adult world. Time to get down to brasstacks and take things seriously. A fun game but for utterly different reasons. This was a serious game on running a city, add in some great transit additions with Rush Hour and then the 3rd-party creation of "NAM" which made the transit system more adapatable and adjustable you could really make something happen. Region play, cities more interacting with one another. It was something to behold. Ten years later and it's a game I can STILL play and enjoy even though I'm pretty adept at making a city successful and and some tweaks in NAM gives me a large influx of cash. (I charge my Sims a fraction of a cent to drive on the roads, considering it equivalent to car taxes/licensing fees.) It has it hardness but, darn if that game isn't great to play. Some quibbles with it (largely in no easy way to edit the entire region at once.) But utter fascinating. Now we're at Sim City "5" which, well, is sort of like going to a high school reunion and wondering why you're there. Especially when for an hour or two you try to get in and you can't even though the door is right in front of you. Once inside these people are shallow, not at all what you want them to be, the food buffet is filled with nothing but fillers and snack foods, and the bartender can barely make a simple rum and Coke and all of the other alcoholic beverages are watered down. Okay, I stretched that metaphor too far. Anyway, my point is I'm heart broken and disappointed. In the pre-release news I was sort of cautiously skeptical but still interested. The game comes out and I buy some upgrades for my computer and spend a good amount off time installing everything and get going. Only to find out it doesn't work, I can't get into a game to start a city because of this stupid cloud computing. Then I see all of my "fears" about the game from those who managed to play come true. This game is a shadow of the greatness of Sim City 4. Heck, all this game needed to be was Sim City 4 Deluxe (with some ideas taking from NAM) with some minor tweaks to the simulation with a modern GUI and massive graphical updates and full 3D motion and this thing would have been epic. A simple "Sandbox" mode or a trimmed down option could have been in place to attract new users. Instead... we get this. This which heavily relies on "cloud computing" requiring an always on connection to even play. This is just heart breaking. I'll keep giving this game a try but if I keep having the problems I've been having with it I'm going to give up and just suffer with the loss of $60 it cost me to buy it. Thanks for nothing, EA.