SimBuilder2014

Also I'm getting weird cursor flickering in the game for example If I select the bulldoze tool and move it around over blank terrain it is leaving artefacts of several highlighted tiles with a $0 appearing. These only disappear if i actually use the tool or another one. What would be causing this? My first thought was the screen resolution but it happens even with the default resolution. To clarify I've installed SC4, Rush Hour and NAM 32 (minus the RHW) but without Java yet on Wine. I initially installed the full NAM and subsequently repeated the install with the RHW deselected - I'm assuming that left RHW uninstalled.

That's excellent thanks. Now how do I install Windows Java in Wine? I've tried running the installer by right clicking and selecting Open With Wine and also from terminal using the chmod command. However the wine background loads and crashes after a few seconds.

Thanks for that Tarkus yes it was me who posted on LEX. Seems like a fairly simple workaround and as I've indicated - creating a restore point before installing NAM and then performing a system restore after installation does the job - I don't know if it will work right away as I've only tried the system restore by rebooting into safe mode. I suspected it might be something like you've explained. Am I likely to encounter the same problem if I try to install NAM with Wine on Linux and possibly cause Wine to crash?

I have sucessfully installed Simcity 4 in Wine - Ubuntu 12.04 (a lot easier to do than PlayInLinux). The game runs okay apart fron the fact I can't get it to use the full screen - it's sitting in the top left corner with a black border below and to the right. I'm using a 1440x900 monitor. I cant set the screen resolution in the Wine settings below 96 dpi though I understand windows runs at 72 dpi so I'm not sure if the problem is related to that. Is there any thing I can do to at least centre the display and make it use the full height of the monitor? I've tried adjusting resolution and other settings in Wine configuration and the game settings to no avail.

How will that solve the Windows boot-up issue? I'm assuming nothing connected solely with SC4 or NAM is launching at startup and some configurations were altered by the installation in a way that upsets Windows.

How would that affect windows booting up though when SC4 doesn't run. The game actually runs ok and I can add RHW pieces (though I'm not that bothered about RHW and really only looking for an upgrade because of lots in the January 2009 version, eg the ferry terminals and some of the rail under road sections, causing the game to crash when placing them)

But why would that cause a problem at booting up when the NAM package functions in the game? It seems to me that I can install NAM 32 fine provided I do a system restore immediately afterwards to reverse whatever then installation did to windows. Presumably the NAM stays intact because there is nothing in the registry it needs to run. Alternatively is there anywhere to download an earlier version (but later than 2009 version). I'm thinking because v 30 is modular not monolithic it should be okay. Also the CD I have for Rush Hour says minimum requirements 128Mb ram (though I gather NAM will probably want more) and I used to use it on a Pentium system with only 500 Mb ram

The Windows I have is 32 bit and I have 2Gb of RAM

I downloaded from SC4Devotion which I assume is a trusted site. However after doing a system restore when I run Simcity 4 the NAM 32 is still installed and working so clearly it is something to do with the installation process. AVG found 22 infections during the scan in safe mode but also lists 22 locked files not scanned in the log files so I assume this is what this number refers to. If I right click on these files and scan them no infection is found. Here is the text of the log file:

Well I'm getting closer to the problem. After system restore a completely clean install I completely removed SC4 and its folder in my documents just in case installed components were causing a conflict of some kind. Downloaded NAM 32 and the patch from a different site in case the ones I had were corrupted. Clean installation of SC4 and Rush Hour then I created a system restore point. Rebooted and installed the SKU patch - rebooted again everything OK also doing a virus scan at each stage - nothing found. Next I installed NAM 32, rebooted and on the windows welome screen the graphics were screwed up again (probably other problems too that are less obvious). I hit reset right away and went into safe mode where I'm currently running an AVG command line virus scan of the full system before doing a system restore. I think it may just be coincidence that I had a virus the first time (and it may have been something else that caused me to have to reinstall windows). Either that or whatever the NAM installation did allowed the virus to do its dirty work during boot up prior to the antivirus loading. Where the viruses came from I don't know - I'm blaming Avast! I used AVG for many years - since it first came out infact - before switching to Avast on my previous system (on a recommendation that the PC would run faster and AVG was getting the blame for BSODs that turned out were likely due to the fact the PSU was on its way out) and it never allowed anything through and now that I've gone back to it, I found five trojans on my external HD. I think I'll change to AVG on this laptop as well and see what nasties may be lurking. I did note from the system requirements (which I actually bothered to skim this time) that NAM 32 works best on a 64 bit system - I'm using Windows XP Pro SP3 32 bit version (my PC is a self build with 64 bit processor but I bought the full XP to replace Win 2k on an old P4 system that is now defunct) but my processor is 64 bit. I wonder if that is causing the problem? Surely though I can't be the first person to have attempted NAM32 installation on 32 bit XP. My fall back option is to now try a Wine installation on linux (which should run as 64 bit), at least that way if it screws up I'm not putting the rest of my files and data at risks as I'm now extremely wary of patching this game at least until I buy Windows 7. Alternatively can anyone recommend an earlier version of NAM - not the 2009 version - I've been using that one and the ferry ports and a few other items keep causing the game to crash - which I understand is a known bug with this. The first time I installed NAM 32 I managed to use it in the game and add the new features without any problem - including the ferry ports - infact overall it functioned better that the 2009 version. It's only on boot up that problems are manifesting. I had just installed the latest Java prior to installing SC4

Well things went from bad to worse to an utter nightmare and I had to format and reinstall windows. I also had to recover a partition (using EaseUS) that had been deleted. After that I found a couple of viruses in the files I'd backed up when I restored them and did a full scan and so attributed the problem to these. To cut a long story short - after reinstalling Simcity 4 and Rush Hour this evening I then applied the patch (UPDATE_SKU1_TO_P1_B638) and installed NAM 32 again. After rebooting the same thing happened to my display again (the windows splash started off normal then went to a black screen then the minimum resolution without using the entire screen) so I am now very suspect of something to do with this installation. I immediately rebooted into linux, copied a few files to back up and then booted windows into safe mode to do a system restore to a restore point earlier this evening. That has fixed everything exept it has unistalled Simcity 4 obviously and everything seems to be fixed. I'm still waiting for AVG to finish a full system scan but it found nothing in the folders where I detected viruses previously (in the Java application data folder in docs & settings). One thing I am windering about - NAM 32 flagged that Java was not installed - both before and after installing Java this evening - it seems like more than coincidence I found the viruses in a Java folder before.

I can run linux no problem and everything displays fine. Besides the PC is only a couple of years old - self build and and graphics integral to the Motherboard.

I installed the latest version of NAM for SC4 yesterday and had to try a couple of versions of the patch for Rush Hour to enable it to install as I'd got an error message about a missing file. So that all seemed okay and new version of NAM worked fine but next time I tried to boot up my PC it won't boot normally, graphics aren't working (only 16 color display) and programs missing from the start menu. I later discovered the system/32/config/system file was missing. I restored the config files from the CD recovery console (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545) and was able to do a system restore in safe mode but still the problem persists. At last attempt to boot up I got a BSOD with an error message that netui0.dll is missing. It may of course be coincidence that this is the last thing I installed. I'm just wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar or any viruses with the NAM or the patch.. I'm running XP Pro SP3 on a Core i3

Thanks for the tips. I discovered I hadn't straightened the corners properly under the water so it was uneven underneath the dock corner sections. I managed to solve the problem by deleting them, levelling the water bed terrain right into the corners of the dock areas in diagonal bridge mode using rail puzzle pieces and then replacing the dock sections later after removing the diagonal bridge enabler. It just meant having to close and open the game a couple of times but seems to be problem solved

I used Photoshop Elements. You can apply a grid overlay (won't affect the actual image) and set the grid size to correspond to your cities (assuming you are using all cities the same size). Work in greyscale and gradually lighten the shades (by setting R G B to all the same number) to get higher terrain by creating contours (easiest way is to draw the contours with a brush tool and fill in the colour) then apply a gaussian blur to get smoother topography. It will make it much easier than using Paint. This article provides some good tips: http://www.simcitycentral.net/knowledge/simcity4/regional-customization-part-2-grayscale-heightmapping/ Go to "drawing form scratch" about half way down the page.