Tristy100

Hey guys. Haven't posted in a while (if ever). I took a bit of a break from SimCity 4 for a while, and have just gotten back into it. I installed NAM (not Custom installation IIRC), and I think I installed everything that was an option to me. I hate the diagonal roads. Is it just me, or are they SUPPOSED to change altitude? I can never use them besides on a super flat city because they ruin all the terrain. Also, I have no real idea if I'm doing it correctly... I drag out part of a road, take the end and go one direction, then 90 degrees to the side, then 90 degrees back, etc, etc. one unit by one unit. I'm fine doing the roads in this slow pattern, I just wish that it would have the ability to change altitude as it goes. Does anyone have any fixes pertaining to that? Thanks.

Thanks guys! That's pretty much answered my question.

Thanks so much! Yeah, it is Streets that I was referencing. Forgot about roads for a second, as I have been going around city by city and putting down basic rural farm roads, agriculture, and some little rural communities to get started in my region! NAM is incredibly overwhelming. What are some of the most useful things in day-to-day play for you @CorinaMarie?

Hello, I have multiple questions about just general stuff in SimCity 4. 1-Actual tile sizes (small, medium, and large) 2-How many large tiles would it take to remake Los Angeles, or New York (major cities) 3-How many large tiles would it take to create that major city, but include area for parks, and recreation? (only around 3/4 to 4/5 of the city will be skyscrapers) 4-Can I successfully recreated Milford, Michigan (village) on one tile (any size, not sure how big they are) 5-Any recommended regions to download? Not 50,000 please, just one or two of your personal favorites. 6-Do cities affect other cities across a gigantic map, lets say about 50 cities away, if they are connected by transportation (highway, airport, etc.) 7-How big of a map would I need to try and recreated Oakland County, Michigan? Any recommended maps near this size? 8-How could I reduce highway traffic tension as my cities develop? I'm seeing, after creating 10 or so cities of about 100k or more people, that my highways are becoming jammed. I have a commuter airport, two international airports, and a landing strip in a far away city of around 10-20k people. Also, would this far away city be affected by my almost million population mega-city? (about 5 or 6 tile wide city) 9-Will people still choose car, even if all the different transport types are used correctly, and are more efficient than auto travel? 10-This one may seem random, but as I first played SimCity 2013, why are the cities so much more limited in size in 2013 vs 4? (for the computer nerds that know all the GHz and ram or whatever :P) 11-Any tips on creating a rural county/region place? I tend to get carried away and try to limit myself, but end up zoning skyscrapers in one region for jobs, then it looks weird and I just zone everything high density. 12-Has anyone actually completed a region? My computer seems to poop itself when I try to load my city of 360k+ people, and the large city tile isn't even full yet. It's my largest city yet. (mostly based on pc limits) I've started to give up, and just zone low density to fill up around the skyscrapers, to make sort of a suburb. What are the recommended specs to get a region of 10-50 mill people? Is that physically possible without skyscraper spamming? 13-What are some design ideas you have for cities? What are some hacks you have, to make cities seem more realistic, or fun design elements you put in your cities? 14-How can I make a realistic highway system? I have NAM installed, but got rid of real-highway, as it's just SUPER confusing, and almost made me through my PC out the window. I now just have the base highway, and extra stuff NAM adds to that. Any tips with basic highway stuff only? 15-I never really use ferries, as I find them slightly not worth the time. I use metro's only when I remember, and never mess with trains or monorails or anything. I'm mostly using airports and highways. Personally, I haven't had any fatal traffic issues, but can someone explain what each transportation does well/brings to the table, and what situations it would be used for? When answering these, please refer to the number of the question asked, thank you guys so much!

Does this require anything special?

Another particularly dumb question: Is there a 6 or 8gb ram patch? I want SC4 to use the entirety of my PC. Are there also any other performance related mods? Thanks!

SimCity 4 will NEVER be free. 1) Its an EA product, so no way. 2) Its still selling on Steam and GOG. Again, EA wouldn't cut the profits, as SC4 is sort of making a comeback. (infact, I have come back to it). If your parents won't purchase it for you, get a job. If you aren't old enough, ask another family member, or for your birthday/other holiday. Sorry.

What I try to do is build the roads and streets to my liking first, for design's sake, and then I zone along them. When zoning low res, it restricts me to 2 small 1x3 lots before placing a street. I don't want that street, and it requires me to have to go down the row doing 2 at a time, wasting lots of time I could be using for something else. Anyway to get around this? Is there a faster way to do NAM intersections?

I have yet another question. Whenever I go to zone long distances, it restricts me to only zoning 2 residential lots (1x3, total of 2x3) before putting a street there. I also noticed NAM isn't automatically placing turn lanes on normal roads at 4 way intersections, only avenues. Anyway to fix this? It takes awhile to go through and do both of these things.

I have! I haven't ever had issues with that though. Any tips on keeping land value consistent? If I want only middle-wealth people to move in, any way I can regulate that?

Thanks! Also, I know your suppossed to constantly flip through cities, and grow each one slightly to make a realistic region. Any other tips relating to making a realistic region? (Not individual cities)

What is Hardware and Software? One uses CPU and one uses GPU, which is which?

I do still have it installed, and I like it. One issue though is I never got Real Highway working. I flipped out after trying to build a simple overpass for about an hour. I uninstalled it, and got back the normal highway's with NAM intersections and add-ons. It looks nice now, I'm currently recreating Windsor, Ontario. I'm NOWHERE near you, with the fancy hills and turns with puzzle pieces and over-passes. One thing I have an issue with is trying to be realistic. My hard-drive is quite slow, leading it to take FOREVER to save or load a region or city. Everything else is fine. Also, should I render with Software or Hardware? If software or hardware is my Graphics Card, then would it let the game perform better due to my CPU not having to render as well as load the info from the Hard Drive? Thanks. (by the way, APSMS, looks magnificent.) This is what I'm most proud of, and as you can tell, it was made without a slope mod.

I have another question. Does anyone have tips for keeping land-value consistent? I want to make middle-class suburbs across multiple large cities, but I end up with some low-wealth people in one city, or high-wealth in another. I wish there was a mod where when you placed residential, you specified what wealth-level develops on it. If anyone could create this, it would be great, but in the mean-time, anyone know of tips to keep it consistent? I'm also having issues with education. Once you place a plenty of libraries, schools, and museums, it gets jumbled as your building, and lose track of where your high-school serves vs. where it doesn't. Anyone know how to be less confused about it?

Thanks! Anyone know any good flat maps? I'm starting to like them more after installing this slope mod Thank you.

Thanks so much! I was also wondering, and benefits of over-funding the roads?

Can someone link me to a mod that ignores sloping issues and stuff? Ever since I got that Ennedi Slope Mod, I haven't been able to place any roads that aren't almost on a complete flat and it's pissing me off. Thanks.

Definitely not dead. People are just on at different times, have different lives, and forget about it for awhile. Definitely a bit too fast to rush to conclusion.

I would, except I have NO idea how to. I'm not tech-savvy. It's a true miracle I could make those suburbs. I've been practicing more of the main artery and vein technique, where your highways are the main arteries, the avenues are secondary arteries, roads are the veins, and the streets are the secondary veins that branch off randomly. I haven't put it into plan yet, but I am coming up with concepts for it. The attached photo is an example of where I want to go in my designs. I have a TINY ITSY addiction to suburbs, especially hailing from Metro Detroit (where there's over 4.3 million suburban people compared to 700k in Detroit!)

I installed it just now to experiment, tried it on all 3 settings. It's truly awful, and I'll stick without one. It makes it harder for me to do anything relating to zoning and roads on slopes. Thanks for the suggestions though. Does anyone have some advice considering my road layouts?

I need advice Attached are photos of a more dense suburb, most likely 10~20 miles from downtown, and the other is a coastal suburb probably 40~50 miles from downtown. Any tips on how to make it look more realistic, or any tricks with NAM roads? Thanks!

Great guide! I love the last photo, I'm working to achieve a suburb of that caliber. Good job!

I fixed it by simply running Windows Troubleshooter, haha. I guess I need to use that more often, thanks though! I know it wouldn't be incompatible, as I have swapped it around other laptops as well. I was wondering though, what does the average resident income measure? Is it per-capita or household? I have a small suburb medium plot of 18k people, and last I checked the average income was up to 90k. Is this good? If its per capita its great, but if its household its still nice. Just try to explain household income for me, thanks.

HELP!! SimCity 4 won't do stuffz. I right-click on the short-cut, and run as administrator. It starts up, but then idles at a black screen for awhile. No music is playing, but the cursor is on the screen. I can't x-out, and have to restart my pc everytime, anyone know the solution? It started after I did a RAM upgrade. My specs are currently (to my knowledge): AMD A10-8700P 6th gen, 4cpu cores, 6gpu cores. 1.8ghz~3.2ghz. (averages 2.5 to 3.0, 1.8 when idling, as it is a laptop). AMD Radeon R6 (something, its pretty bad for modern games, but then again i play soft body physics and cities skylines so its fine for this i guess). I have no idea what motherboard or anything, I have a 1920x1080 screen, but it has "virtual resolution" so it can run 4k somehow, don't ask me, ask AMD, came with my cpu. RAM is two different brands, one running at 1333mhz, and the other at 1335mhz, not sure if I'm dual-channeling, I don't honestly care. Total is 8gb, 7.4gb is usable for programs. Check a look at my current status while watching a youtube video and some tabs open on firefox. I didn't uninstall or install it again, as it was working fine before, so I don't know what happened.

Quick question, @Odainsaker recommended 8gb ram, so I now upgraded from 3.9 to 7.4 (4 to 8). The RAM isn't new, its just from an old laptop I don't use anymore. I tried to overclock, but apparently I can't on my laptop processor, which is sad because it never really reaches 3GHz, it usually sticks around 2.2~2.6 I have seen it go to 2.9 once, but that was on Beam.ng Drive. (not an easy game to run if you know it ) Since my processor has no issues and performs better than modern i5's, (take that intel) I was worried about my graphics card. I did an online benchmark and it's pretty bad, will this affect SC4 performance? It holds back the rest of my computer. (along with my hard-drive, but it's actually getting better somehow?) Sorry this question is very computer heavy. What does the ram do in SimCity 4 as well? Is it the stuff that stores data like traffic volume, population, jobs, etc? And, most important, is there a 8gb patch?