Bumdark

PM'd you, hope you got it. You asked for me, so I've been chained and dragged here. (Metaphorically... of course... *nervous glances*) I must say I've never had this happen, but I think I may know what is happening... just a guess. I've heard (and experienced myself) that when converting from Vanilla to Rush Hour, many in-game settings get instantly horribly screwed-up. All settings are set to default, in-city fundings get to 0 or to max, etc... hell. So, just check your in-game graphics settings and see if anything odd is up. I can guarantee you there is. Fix it, return settings to previous states, and see if that fixes it. If not, then try to mess with said settings, lowering and raising them, to see if anything else happens. Just in case. Of course, if not in-game settings are to blame, than check anything else that either you know you changed, or think might possibly, somehow, have changed, when installing Rish Hour. Did you manually change any files? Did any unexpected problems or messages appear during installation? Etc. Anything could be a clue, we're literally playing as detectives here. Sorry I can't tell you what's happened exactly, but you should know this is precisely how most problems are found and solved eventually. Someone finds something wierd, they ask others who tell them ideas on solutions, said solutions work, and there we go. Just keep an open mind. Hope this helps, at any rate.

Wow, this thread's a lot hotter than I thought it would be! Glad to see people are finding help (or posting their own solutions, just as good) here! Namesys: 300 MB is what I consider to be the average Plugins folder size, for most players out there. Therefore, it should work perfectly. Still slower than with nothing in there, but one can't expect miracles, can he? If I may suggest, you could try "filtering" what you download (this goes to everyone who reads this BTW). I mean, by filtering, that whenever you download something, it appears in a WinZip window, right? Well, many people just extract the whole damn package into the Plugins folder. Instead, just select (trick: press Ctrl while clicking items to select them one by one) what you want and extract them instead. Saves probably twice the space, if not much more. (Finally, filtering out your Plugins from 1.3 GBs to 0.3 – pretty impressive!) fern244: Why, welcome! DuskTrooper: I've never experienced CTD's per se when "Save and Exit to Region"-ing, yet something strange did happen, for a while, long ago... there was a brief spell where whenever I clicked that, the game would save fine, then Quit normally to Desktop. Not crash or anything, just as if the Button lead to the instruction "Quit and Exit the Game". Pretty strange. Has this happened to anyone else? And thanks! stratusmonkey: Thanks for the input! DragonMinded: Welcome to ST, first of all. Now, come on, I can't that wrong, really. Everything stated here I've learned word-for-word from some of the largest computer self-help sites around, and they're the experts in this thing... So you'd be saying they're wrong. Pretty sure not, myself. Of course I could have misunderstood a few things, but not everything... While in most cases the solutions will fix some CTD's, this is due to luck...quote> You're saying that the amount of RAM is irrelevant, and adding more of it (or Virtual Memory) is pointless, and just based on luck? Please tell me I got that wrong (which I bet I did, sorry). Big Vine: "ILLEGAL_INSTRUCTION" is the common name for what's known as an Illegal opcode, or Undocumented Instruction. I've hears the basics of this, but can't really understand even the gist of it, so the best I can do is refer you to dear ol' Wikipedia, right here. Hope to see more in need of help! (Wow, that sounds wierd...) And, if I may be so recklessly bold as to implement a suggestion: could a Mod or someone Pin this / make it Sticky / whatever? People actually do read this, and it would be a shame for it to float around and get lost among the other threads popping up. Just an idea.

Chefjayman, we'll be gentle as long as you are! And Welcome to ST! Glad to see you took the first step of reading some of the Omnibus' articles. You're a rare case... me like. However, your problem is really quite amusing, not that I'm trying to poke fun. To make a neighbor connection with any type of network, just drag the network type (Road, Rail, etc.) towards and past a boundary in your city, and release. You'll get a confirmation asking whether or not to create an inter-city connection. Nothing could be simpler. Of course, you have to connect both ends of the connection to the main road networks, or no-one'll use it! This works with all inter-connectible systems: Water (via Water Pipes), Power (Power Lines), Transportation (basically everything except Streets), etc. You can then set up any Neighbor Deals you wish - though this can get a bit more complex that one would think, so keep reading that Omnibus! Come back if you need any more assistance, always glad to help.

wir3d: had (it's all I could find, honeslty... are you sure that's human-readable?) Me, me me! hveanvelgjegv;oeyxzlxcvawlqyalgonquinvy;nvoehda;xugvgweloxhvcus;sdnel;vqs;euvhuei;ehnu (Come on... it practically jumps and bites you in the eye!)

For disclaiming the contents of your CJ in your sig.

Good for you, Namesys. CTD's when opening menus... hmph, never heard of that one before. And thanks for the confirmation. Agreed, it's one hell of a pain in the arse, but I think you can see it's working, right? I think you have it basically right for the Cleanitol, but just to be sure: the Cleanitol is basically a simple yet effective program. Whenever you download any BATs, most of them by now will come with .txt files that describe a bunch of files and whatnot. You input this text into the Cleanitol, and it basically deletes and removes any duplicate files, or outdated, unneeded files. Simple as that.

Crap, deion30296, that looks really bad. If you've got problems with Registry or INI files, than you're pretty much screwed as far as I know. The only way you could possibly get it to work is to try and reinstall the game completely. (Do backup your cities first...!). Sorry, that's the only way. Messing with the Registry is asinine at best, and with INI files, one small mis-step and your entire System's crippled irreparably. Tread carefully here. Hope this helps, anyway. Hope to see your CJ's soon!

Welcome back, bluejeans! 1 - My 4-year-old PC's not even as good as yours, yet SC4 still works fine for me. Of course, with large cities (Populations of 3-400 thousand...) things start to bug a bit, but nothing unmanagable. However, for it to truly run "like a dream"... well, the jury's still out on that one. I wonder if it's even possible with NASA's supercomputers lol. 2 - A thousand plugins? Holy crap! I see you like to mindlessly download all the stuff without even considering if you truly need it first? Of course, this amount (insane!) of plugins will seriously degrade the game's performances as it uses phenomenal amounts of RAM... you'd better delete a few of them that you don't need, such as those that you say don't work, etc. Your game will work much better, I promise you. Unfortunately, no, there's currently to way to actually preview them and test their functionality without seeing them in the game. 3 - "Wrong side of the road"... that's just mean I'm sure SC4 comes in two variants, for right-lane and left-lane...? In any case, you can use the NAM (Network Add-on Mod, the most prominent download by far on this site) to switch lane sides, along with totally customizing and revamping all of SC4's transportation networks. 4 - 'Fraid I can't recommend anything, but in case you forgot (not saying you did...), just use the Search function in the STEX while searching under the "maps" category. I suggest you think of a real-world place with lots of mountainous terrain, and see if they have that...? 5 - For the downloaded Regions, check out the Omnibus section, there's a full article that explains in very minute detail how to do it, and there are several ways now, including the famed SC4 Mapper (or something like that). Once again, welcome back.

IBY: First we would need to know, do you want a replicate of your city, or to move it altogether? Just moving it would simplify things a bit, but ah well. The Import button is found when you select a city tile (without entering it just yet). In the smaller buttons below the main stats, there's "Import City..." or something similar. You click this, and it brings up directories so you can find your desired city file and import it, replacing whatever is in the tile previously. BTW, I don't need to point out that you can only replace city tiles with other tiles of the same size, do I?

Unos, Welcome to ST, irw13! For your traffic problem, there are both several causes and solutions. It takes a while for Sims to notice, then get used to, taking another route from A to B, so perhaps this could be fixed after a few Sim years. If not, then enact the specific Ordinances that will encourage them to take carpools and stuff. Also, for your Highways, make sure you have ample amounts of Onramps, allowing for maximum possible connectivity between the ground Road networks and the great Freeway. Many make the mistake of putting too few of them. Sims from all sectors ought to be able to embark and get off whenever they wish. (BTW, for the Avenues you've changed into Highways - exactly what were you aiming for with the intended direction of travel? Were Sims merging onto the Avenue to all head in one direction, or were they just crossing it back and forth? Some figures below to help you understand what I mean. Fig. 1 :::::^:::^ ::::::|::: | -->---:::: ---<-- ------------------- Fig. 1 ::::::|::: | <-------------- -----------------> ::::::|::: | Also, I see you have some Subways set up. Good! Make sure the lines, and Terminals, are many and short between, so Sims from anywhere can board them. It's expensive, but damn well worth it. Also, enact the Ordinances that will encourage Sims to use Mass Transit. Don't just stop at Subways - don't forget the good ol' Bus Stop! In any case, a nice pic or two of your city, and your problem, wouldn't hurt, so we could see what exactly is going on. At any rate, I think this should tie you over for the meanwhile... Please holler back if you need anything else, or to tell me that it worked, or whatever!

For slicking the city. ("City Slicker")

Namesys: For the most part, your PC's better than mine! No, those specs don't say you need a new one - I meant, to need to buy a new PC, you'd need some awful, 10-year-old crap like 600 MHz CPU speed and 250 MB RAM... Your specs are more than good enough to handle most of SC4. However, I see your Plugins is roughly 1.35 GB... Hang on, picking my jaw off the floor... OF COURSE that will bug the game up! You see, whenever the game launches, it scans your Plugins folder and takes into memory every single file in there, whether they be DAT files, SC4 files, TXT, etc. Therefore, the more files it takes, the slower it goes, as it has need for much more memory... 1.35 is a very, very big Plugins folder. I've got a few solutions for you: 1 - Clean out all the unnecessary files in there, meaning all the files that aren't needed for the game. This includes pics (JPEG, BMP, etc.), Text files, etc. Believe me, this would free up more than half of the space, most of the time. It did with me. 2 - Use the DatPacker to compress and place all these files into a single DAT file. This way, though it's still technically all the same files, they're all in one bundle. It's like having either 100 pennies or a dollar, which is much easier to manage... get the idea? The game will read this MUCH faster, and bugs will almost disappear. (At least, they should.) That's all for your Plugins... I would also recommend the Cleanitol tool, but I don't have it and have no idea how to use it yet (I plan to soon, however), so can't help you on that one. BTW... 42 text files? Please confirm these are indeed "ACCESS_VIOLATION" files? Just open them up, second line down, at the end. If they are said error, then that's that. If they're something else, then I'm afraid I can't help you as I've never experienced anything else myself. I think this should tide you over for now... Be sure to send feedback! northsider1983: Roughly 3 Gigs of RAM, still some crashes? If this is still an "ACCESS_VIOLATION" problem, then try to cancel some unneeded background tasks, or any other programs you don't absolutely need. Af for the DatPacker, it's only available at SimCityDevotion, and yes, you do need to register there. In fact, you must register BOTH for the regular site AND for the exchange... seems pointless to register two times, but it doesn't matter, the content is so GOOD! Anyone else need help, I beg you to send thy requests in!

Give him a break, krbe, I think he still uses those arrows that (painfully slowly) raise or decrease the numbers for the Tax rates. Heck I didn't know you could just type "0" until some weeks ago... *shamefaced* As for something that instantly puts all the "0"s there, that doesn't exist yet. Maybe someone with too much time on their hands could create a Mod...?

Glad to see you're willing to increase our already bursting-at-the-seams STEX' buildings! Good for you! (And us, as we'll use the darn things... heh.) Unfortunately I can't help you, but I can refer you, though. Check the Forums pages, there are sections for each of the various sections in the game. One of them will be the Custom Content category. You should post this same query in there, as you'll get much better responses than in the "General Discussion", I guarantee you. The people there are real pros, they just can't wait but help fledgling BATters. Sorry, that's all I can do, as I can probably never begin to understand and learn how to use that fantastically compelx program that is 3D Studio Max... Wish I could though, it kicks SketchUp's @ss big time.

*Sniffle sniffle* ... it's so beautiful! *sobs* Thanks so much! I can NOT believe it was that simple all along... I'm ashamed, I usally find these trivial things myself, I can't believe I'D ACTUALLY THOUGHT OF DOING IT BEFORE but thought it wouldn't work! Thanks so much! Owe you one. And now, I'll be busy for a while... hopefully making the next NYC... Cheerio! (And BTW - How the hell can you expect any city of that size to prosper adequately without Mass Transit? Shame on you, too! If you don't have much cash, at least plant a few Bus Stops around the place! MT isn't just for calming down traffic woes, it does scores of great things to and for your cities - decreases pollution from cars and vehicles, some MT networks are cheaper to build, and they have much, much higher capacities compared to Roads.)

I've finally figured out how to modify the Shortcut icon to open the game in Windowed Mode... [shortcut on Desktop] > Right-Click > Propreties > Target > ["C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -w] As you can see, the little "-w" is well outside the [" "] of the target program launcher. All is correct, right? Yet it seems to produce, shall we say, PARTIAL results. As demonstrated by the pic below: As you can see – this is without any other windows open BTW – the "Windowed Mode", which I've done *exactly* as described above, only does this. The Windows Taskbar appears above the game, and windows can be opened and changed freely over the game itself. Basically, it's as if the game replaced the Desktop. In the "Windowed Mode" pics I have seen around the Forums, the game runs in a true Window, with the standard three buttons on the top-right corner, with the Desktop visible behind. What am I doing wrong? Could any Custom Content be altering the functioning of the game's "Window Mode"? Please someone answer, I know it sounds like a dumb question but I would really love for it to work as it should... Please...

I also find it narrow-minded, even maybe a bit hyprocritical, that to think that in the Universe, the billions of galaxies, the millions of billions of solar systems and the trillions of planets out there, Earth could be the only one to support life. It's not quite hard to believe that there might just be life elsewhere. After all, they HAVE (seen it on Discovery Channel two years roughly ago) found what many consider to be vestiges of ancient primitive bacterial life on Mars... If it's true and they were truly alive, then it just confirms life is eternal and omnipresent throughout the Universe. I also think that whatever life there is, will be so unlike anything our imaginations can create that it's hard to fathom what they would be like. Maybe they wouldn't even be cell-based... who knows?

I guess you've just hit a bug, an in-game glitch, concerning jobs... SimCity may be close to perfect. but it's well known, even notorious, for having some rathet glaring bugs. Most are innocent little graphics bugs that are eliminated with a few clicks, while some others can get very damaging... If there aren't any known causes, and ESPECIALLY if the game can fix itself like that, than that's what it seems to be for me. And for the Windowed mode, that's exactly what I did, and am doing... but all that happens, is the game sort of replaces the Desktop.

*Sigh*... All my life I wished I had pets... Now I see such beautiful dogs, cute cats, hamsters, even rabbits jumping around the house... Makes me feel like I'll never experience that kind of joy... Damn parents, won't get even a small cat... Not since our last three died of some unknown, rapidly deadly disease in Christmas of '07...

It depends what you're trying to accomplish, Jurenic. If you just want Sims to get on / off the train in this city and head directly to another city, then theoretically 1 single station would be fine... but keep in mind Stations by themselves have a sort of invisible radius of effect, no larger than a block or two. It depends how far Sims are willing to walk to board a train. Adding a Bus Stop or two, and even a Parking Garage, next to said station(s) would be ideal. Now, if you want Sims to get on at one area of your city and off at another (say you have a mixed city with both Residential AND Industrial), then you will, of course, need more than one station. Sims can't be expected to jump trains every few hours on a daily routine, right...?

Here's wishing you a happy welcome to ST, shamewebb! Now, I can't link to said areas, but if you check the Omnibus in depth, you'll find at least two or three pages concerning radiuses and funding and that kind of stuff. It's really a treasure cove of information, the Omnibus is. Sorry I can't help in this post per se, but to put it all here would be deadly for human fingers... Here's hoping to hear from you soon!

Welcome to ST, longreach91! I assume you're not accustomed to how this site works... I'll answer your question for now, though. When Custom Buildings appear as the infamous "Brown Boxes", that means you're missing Dependencies. In case you don't know yet, Dependencies are simply files and stuff those particular buildings need to appear - not just textures, but props, effects, etc. For every download, there's a README (if there isn't one, knock the creator out with a shovel to the head several times) that states the building's specs, etc. and always DEPENDENCIES required. Make sure you have all those noted files, or it simply won't work, and you'll have a rather boring Christmas-themed town filled with parcels and boxes. BTW, may I present to you, the Omnibus? I assume you haven't yet checked out this marvel - the link is at the top of the site. It's simply the largest reference area on the Internet concerning SC4, with literally hundreds of articles ranging from solving common problems (such as this one), tutorials on how to build just about anything you can dream of, and a whole lot more. Peruse through them and you'll become a pro knowing all the game's secrets in no time. Believe me, it works wonders. I hope this helps. Holler back if you've got any feedback!

Sounds like something happened to one of the cities, or maybe even both. Recheck everything: did you change anything just prior to the problems arrising (funding, deleting or adding zones, etc.)? Is the connection holding up for both sides clearly? I gotta admit, this is intriguing, the first I've ever heard of this situation. I can't see how a city could suddenly stop working with a neighbor... If you could post any and all info you can dig up about this problem, your game, etc.; I'd be happy to pursue this, as would many other experts. For now, I'm baffled, never heard of this. On a sidenote, I'M BEGGING YOU... how are you managing to run SC4 in a window like that? I've heard of the so-called "Window Mode", where you add the little "-w" in the shortcut's "Target" field, yet I just get the bottom taskbar to show, it's not in a window per se... How did you do it? Lucky devil! Looking forwards to hearing from you soon. Sorry I can't help that much... YET.

This is just ridiculous... arresting people just 'cause they click a stupid link? The judicial system is so screwed up these days, these a-holes can do whatever the hell they want and no-one can complain or set them right. Personally - I might get flamed for this, but it's just my views - I don't think pedofilia is a crime PER SE. Commiting the act of touching or abusing a kid definately is, I'll always be against that, but just watching some videos and etc. - I must say it disgusts me to a rather high extent, but I'm against imprisoning them for that. How 'bout we arrest homosexuals for watching gay pornos? Or heteros for watching pornos? People shouldn't get jailed when they don't actually do anything wrong to anyone else. (But then again, it's a rather delicate issue... I wouldn't say watching the stuff is crime, yet making it definately is... rather hard do extricate what should be allowed or not...) Now that I got that out of my system... Personally, I wouldn't agree with the "abuse" of that link, mass-clicking it and all... It would piss them off, but before the ultimate goal is reached, so many innocents will have been caught and arrested... Disgusting.

Bumdark. loyal Simtropolis Helper Monkey, at your service. *Bows out*