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Showing results for tags 'save'.
Found 34 results
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Can I transfer my save files from the Windows CD version to the mac steam version?
tale3339 posted a topic in SC4 Mac Users
I have SC4 Deluxe on my Windows XP PC, but I bought the Mac version via Steam so I could play it on my Mac. Is there a way I can transfer my save file from the XP install to my new Steam install? -
Is there a mod that will automatically save the game at specific intervals? To the best of my memory there may be one that prompts in the adviser section to save, but I am looking for one to save the game automatically without any intervention of the user. If not, with the new functionalities of DLLs can something like this be made?
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Hi all, I'm trying to get hold of SC4Savegame Explorer, which should be available on Sc4devotion but I see that website has been down for quite some time! Is there an alternate source / or can someone share with me please? Thanks!
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Hello, I'm not talking about phantom dialog occuring during both Save and Exits. I'm talking about phantom dialog "popping up" during normal saving process. Unfortunately, I don't have any videos but it happened to me multiple times. It happens when I hit Ctrl+S, then game pauses, and coincidentally, a popup news dialog "shown" to the screen. The entire screen except the invisible "window" and its content is blocked and produce a "nope" sound when clicked. For those who are uninitated and even myself during the first occurence of this bug, they'd think the game is freezing. It's not. I never encountered a very long freeze except in only one scenario, manually rendering a grayscale image. Most freezes are short and if it's game ending, it'd just CTD a sec later or just instantly. The saving process is also blocked until I hit the invisible "OK" button. And then, the city can be safely saved and the game can be played normally. Anyone have experienced this? Let me know.
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SC4 Auto Save - a DLL plugin that saves a city at user-specified intervals
Null 45 posted a topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion
A DLL Plugin for SimCity 4 that automatically saves a city at user-specified intervals. This auto-save plugin does not require any launcher and will work with any digital Windows version of the game, Steam, GOG, etc. The disc-based versions are not supported due to the fact that they are incompatible with Windows 10. If you use a 3rd-party launcher that has its own auto-save setting you will need to disable that option when installing this plugin. Download: https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/35761-sc4autosave/ Source Code: https://github.com/0xC0000054/sc4-auto-save System Requirements Windows 10 or later Installation Close SimCity 4. Copy SC4AutoSave.dll and SC4AutoSave.ini into the Plugins folder in the SimCity 4 installation directory. Configure the auto-save settings, see the Configuring the plugin section. Configuring the plugin Open SC4AutoSave.ini in a text editor (e.g. Notepad). Note that depending on the permissions of your SimCity 4 installation directory you may need to start the text editor with administrator permissions to be able to save the file. Adjust the settings in the [AutoSave] section to your preferences. Save the file and start the game. Settings overview: IntervalInMinutes is the number of minutes that elapse between auto-save attempts, defaults to 15 minutes. Note that the save timing may not be exactly this value depending on what the game is doing. For example, auto-save is disabled when the game is paused. FastSave controls whether the game skips updating the region thumbnail when saving, defaults to true. With this option enabled the save operation is equivalent to the Ctrl + Alt + S keyboard shortcut, when disabled it is equivalent to the Ctrl + S keyboard shortcut. IgnoreTimePaused controls whether the time the game spends paused is ignored when counting towards the next auto-save point, defaults to true. LogSaveEvents controls whether the save events for the current session will be written to the log file, defaults to true. Troubleshooting The plugin should write a SC4AutoSave.log file in the same folder as the plugin. The log contains status information for the most recent run of the plugin. -
I am an old age pensioner who has been playing SimCity 4 Deluxe, the game I have been building for 2 years simply disapeared off my computer yesterday. I have tried to contact Steam Support but they can't help me get my game back, can someone help. If any of you have spent 2 years building multiple cities you will know how upset I am to lose it all. All I need is some one to help me get my game back and or tell me who to contact, I have tried Steam but all I got was gobbbly gook instructions which did not work. Can someone please help me, this is way to complicated for me. I paid for a game I cant use.
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Hi everyone, I have just joined this server and need to make a verified post before I can fully join the Discord server but maybe I can receive good here too. I am just recently started playing SimCity 4 Deluxe again after about an approx 4/5 year break. I play it on Steam. For some reason, for the first ever time, I am now constantly receiving ‘error saving city,’ messages which is stopping me being able to play the game properly. It lets me save the first couple of times and then just stops working. I have tried resetting my PC completely and re-downloading Steam and SC. I even deleted all the previous from my Cloud/OneDrive account but it’s done it again. I have no mods or NAMs involved, never even heard of them until a couple of days ago tbh but would like to try them once I get this issue sorted. Please share your expertise and help a diehard SC4 fan. I’m a noob when it comes to this type of stuff. Thanks
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A word of advice - saving conflicts with memory access
TheMurderousCricket posted a topic in SC4 Bugs & Technical Issues
Hello Community, A word of advice which some people may find useful. Recently I have accidentally nuked two of my cities due to, what seems to be, a memory access conflict between SC4 and other applications. Here is how it transpired... I played one of the cities for some time and then clicked the "save" button. However, when doing so, I have also accidentally clicked on Blender's taskbar icon, launching this program all while SC4 was still saving. As a result, SC4 stuttered for a good while and eventually "saved" the city - totally erasing it. The same happened an hour ago when I took a screenshot and started saving the city then, without much thought, immediately proceeded with opening GIMP to paste the screenshot in. Result - saving city erased. It seems that for some reason SC4 is "jealous" about memory access and any time other application tries to access the memory while a city is being saved, the game simply gives up and borks the save file out of spite. Luckily, I do have a repository of backups so I was able to just import the previous version of both cities and restored them without further problems. And I'm lucky I did that. Because once a city tile gets corrupted this way, you won't even be able to restore it through Explorer copy-paste. It has to be imported in-game from one of your backups. Hope some find it useful. I'll stick around, and will be happy to provide further details if anyone is interested. -
I have Windows 10 , installed SimCity4 on steam with NAM 45 as well as SimCity Launcher ( Autosave), but unable to save any progress Auto or manual. Im not all that computer savy. Can anyone help?
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I am not certain if this is the right forum (of the many available here on simtropolis) to ask this on, but here goes. I got into the habit of "saving and exiting to region" before I exited the game entirely. I do not know how I developed that habit, whether I read on an online strategy guide, or perhaps even on this forum, that it was "better" to do that. Recently, however, I got to wondering why it is "better" to do that. I can see why it would be necessary to do that if you wished to change cities, change a "regionwide" parameter, or even just admire your region before closing the program entirely. I do not, however, see it point if you are just exiting the game. After, all, saving and exiting the game directly would involve calling the save_city() function, then the exit() function, where "saving then exiting the region" then exiting the game entirely would involve calling the save_city() function, then the display_region() function, then the exit() function. Unless you want to do 1 of the 3 things I highlighted above, what is exactly the point of calling the display_region() function. Does calling the exit() funtion somehow work better if called from the display_region() funtion than calling it directly? Is it some how a different exit() function (perhaps exit2()? Brian Christiansen
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Version 1.01
265 Downloads
Summary Let me tell you what is SC4Ckpt.exe in a nut shell: * SC4Ckpt.exe is neither a patch nor mod, but a utility that runs alongside SC4. It does have the capability to launch the game if you desire. * Saves automatically results in checkpoints which are full region zips. Thus, any time you save, you have the possibility of full recovery. * You can go forward and backward in the history of any region. * Besides supporting manual saves, there is an autosave feature in 10/20/30/40/50/60 minutes. * Autosave comes in two flavors: hard (the same as you manually doing a save) and soft (just beep-beep reminder that it is time to save). * There is a Condense feature that helps you to make a relatively small history of an entire region build. * When you exit SC4, SC4Ckpt.exe will also terminate. See this topic for full info and support: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/761781-sc4-backup-checkpoint-tool-sc4ckpt/ Acknowledgements Cori and CB without whose insights and support, this would not have been possible. And patience with an aging engineer. Cori for contributions to the UI which made a better more functional program. CB for acting as Editor-in-Chief regarding documentation. Simtropolis members for your feedback and support. NAM Team for demonstrating that no classic game is too old not to merit improvement. Thank you, all! Fix for domain issue (v1.02) October 27, 2022 If the in the unlikely case this error happens to you: A fix can be found by the following link. ONLY USE IF YOU EXPERIENCE THE ABOVE. Domain Fix for SC4Ckpt -
[Released!] SC4 Backup Checkpoint Tool - SC4Ckpt
MarkShot posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
Released - 07/05/22 Summary Let me tell you what is SC4Ckpt.exe in a nut shell: * SC4Ckpt.exe is neither a patch nor mod, but a utility that runs alongside SC4. It does have the capability to launch the game if you desire. * Saves automatically results in checkpoints which are full region zips. Thus, any time you save, you have the possibility of full recovery. * You can go forward and backward in the history of any region. * Besides supporting manual saves, there is an autosave feature in 10/20/30/40/50/60 minutes. * Autosave comes in two flavors: hard (the same as you manually doing a save) and soft (just beep-beep reminder that it is time to save). * There is a Condense feature that helps you to make a relatively small history of an entire region build. * When you exit SC4, SC4Ckpt.exe will also terminate. Acknowledgements Cori and CB without whose insights and support, this would not have been possible. And patience with an aging engineer. Cori for contributions to the UI which made a better more functional program. CB for acting as Editor-in-Chief regarding documentation. Simtropolis members for your feedback and support. NAM Team for demonstrating that no classic game is too old not to merit improvement. Thank you, all!- 192 Replies
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I am using windows 10. I have my game on Origin. I open origin and then use the SimCity 4 launcher I downloaded on simtropolis to open the game. Whenever my city reaches a certain size, usually about 20 - 35% of the map, I am unable to save. Message "error saving city". I have also noticed today that even if I save my city and then quit without save that my city, regardless of size, is no longer savable. It will get the same error message. Can anyone, who has knowledge of or has personally had to fix this issue, please explain to me how to fix it. I have tried running game as administrator, downloaded the SC4 638 fix, doenloaded NAM, unable to download SC4 641 and subaequantly B.A.T(it requires SC4 641). I have spent a month back and forth with EA help but everytime I get a reply it is a new person and we start all over again and they each have no idea how to help me. Is it possible that I need TPM on my computer or maybe a newer computer which I doubt since mi9ne is a 2010 and the game is based on programs and computer specs from the early 2000's.
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[Solved] Error whenever attempting to save city
jiffy427 posted a topic in SC4 Bugs & Technical Issues
Hey y'all, I used to be huge into SimCity 4 and decided to go ahead and buy it on steam and get back into it. Unfortunately I have run into an issue where everytime I attempt to save my city it shows an error message "ERROR saving city (city file name)". I've exhausted all solutions that I could think of/came across online -Went through antivirus software ensured that SimCity 4 was exempt -Removed all plugins -Ran the program as an administrator -Switched the number of cores to 1 -Installed the SimCity 4 Launcher -Uninstalled and then reinstalled SimCity 4 None of these have prevented the error and I am unable to play any city as it won't save. If anyone could provide some insight or possible solutions that would be greatly appreciated as I do really love this game and hate that I am currently unable to play it -
Today, I go to save my city, but it has started to crash to desktop without saving. I'm running it on hardware mode, no setting has been changed. The only thing I did was to add some new tunes to the mayor folder in the program files in C Drive, then I deleted some of them. Any other tips while I'm doing some reading up?
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minor annoyance: the game no longer remembers my settings after I exit the game. Every time I start the game, I have to turn off the advisor pop-up, auto go to disaster, turn off sound, change graphic settings from high to medium, etc, all found under the settings gear in the game. Game otherwise behaves normally. anyone have an ideal how to make the game retain my settings? I got the game from GOG, computer uses windows 10. Also, my plugin folder is on E drive and the game is on C drive.
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What is happening to the city tiles after being saved...?
mangojuice posted a topic in SC4 Bugs & Technical Issues
Hi everyone. I was wondering why this is happening and if possible how to correct this issue: As you can see from the image the problem does not occur all the time after saving city tiles and is not region specific but I'm at a loss as to why this happening and how to correct it... Laptop Specs: Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1 CPU: Intel Core i7 2670QM RAM: 4GB DDR3 Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M Has anyone any suggestions/advice please? Many thanks. -
I am a textbook example on how not to mod... I went about modifying some of the PEG's resources, wishing to decrease their monthly maintenance cost. PEG Ponds and trails may become a financial burden over time. Because they are not a natural part of the game, they cause SC4 to be slightly unbalanced economically - you still have to pay for their upkeep, but won't see any extra simoleons from your taxes. Anyway, I started to modify these files, right off the bat. When I got back into the game, the old monthly cost was stuck in my budget view, regardless of any bulldozing. The game simply saved the stats, not bothering that the original properties no longer exist! I write this post as a warning to anyone who is just starting their adventure with SC4 - first, do bulldoze anything you wish to modify, BEFORE you modify! Or at least - keep this golden rule alive in your mind... If not, learn the hard way by obliterating the affected cities...
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Whenever I save using Ctrl+S or the Save button, after about 3-5 seconds the window sort of 'loses focus', the mouse cursor which is supposed to be an hourglass when playing SC4 turns into the spinning blue cursor you usually get when loading stuff, and it says on the windows title bar that it is 'not responding'. If I do something stupid like changing windows or click-spamming then the screen turns whitish (the way it does typically with non-responsive programs). Sensible enough to not do this and just wait patiently. BUT if I don't do anything and just wait, then after about 15-60 seconds it says that the game is saved. (I consider this quite normal for save times) The save itself seems OK. the problem is that when this happens the region view of the city looks completely blank. It gets blank every time the save goes on with the aforementioned symptoms, and I have to tell you, it's very common - much more often then not. Once, a city got corrupted once so I had to load it from a backup, but that's only once. Maybe it has something to do with me attempting about a dozen saves of the exact same thing. SC4 does this weird phenomenon most of the time. Sometimes it saves normally without any of this hassle or 'unresponsive' screens. I don't know exactly when I get the problem, but the problem seems to be more prevalent in highly developed tiles, because my 20,000 pop rural area does this not responding thing only once in a while, in my 80,000 town - about two-thirds of the time, so in about two or three save attempts I'm clear. In my largest city of 950K I get this almost all the time. The game is playable but I have to say that trying 10, 20 times saving to just get a region screen view / or just look at blank green squares can be quite frustrating, and wonder if it is a technical problem that can be solved. ======== I run version 1.1.640. the plugin folder is about 1.3GB in size, so excluding the NAM I don't think I have that many plugins. CPU: Intel Core i5-8250U (this is a laptop) RAM: 4 GB Pagefile: 9353 MB, according to dxdiag (I dunno why, I recall setting this to 5120) GPU: GeForce 940MX / Intel UHD Graphics 620 (I use the former when running SC4) OS: Windows 10 version 1903 (build 10.0.18362) something 'special' - my C drive is running low on space so my pagefile.sys is on D. Maybe this might be a factor....
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i hate to bother you guys with this, but on the Lot Editor, what is the difference between "save" and "save as"? I like to edit lots from the game (not from st exchange) and i am just curious. if i hit the "save" button, does it replace the in-game lot? or do i hit the "save as"
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Recently, I've been getting random crashes when saving. Nothing actually gets corrupted, I'm just booted back to my previous save, so it's happening before it commits the write. Strangely, no mdmp files are produced, Using GOG version on Windows 10, with a solid state drive, don't remember installing the patch as I copied my previous NAM installation over, AV is Trend Micro. Crash may be connected to Parks menu and possibly a memory leak of some kind. Would the Launcher help at all? It seems to be able to report errors... Error code is 0xC0000005 (unhandled access violation), according to a Google search memory violations can include the following (This is for a "49" error but the causes here, particularly the ones I bolded, are plausible): *Related to 4GB bug Does opening and closing a particularly full menu cause crashes? We can only investigate. In looking up recent threads here it seems the game doesn't delete airport data connected to a lot if the lot's type is not an airport... Relevant crash log: Posted the whole thing in case the additional data leads to some big discovery, who knows, EIP 0x0091f7a6 may be save related...
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Hi everyone! I have a little problem that I didn't remember had to read here. I changed game options according this image below: But, always after exit and back at the game, the options are according this image below: Is it normal behavior? I forgot something? Is there a way to ajust this? My SimCity version is the 1.1.641.0 (I bought in gog.com) and I'm using NAM. I used this command line: "C:\Program Files (x86)\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -intro:off -CPUcount:1 -audio:on -UserDir:"C:\armario\nuvem\gdrive\cm\celo\SC4\" -CustomResolution:enabled -r1366x768x32 -w If you need more informations to help me, just ask me.
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Version 1.0
15,106 Downloads
This is a mod which visually alters the UI button labels for Save and Exit (and Save and Quit), to highlight the risk of using this one-step method. Two options are included. The first option disables that choice completely. The second simply renames the buttons, but continues to perform the same function as before. Background Information Regardless of how the save is initiated, the game writes out the city tile's game data which is in memory to the save file, along with updating neighbouring tiles. The potential problem can occur when using either of the and options (Save and Exit or Save and Quit). Apparently Maxis never envisioned the sheer quantity of custom content many of us use today. When using either and option, the game code only allows a certain amount of time for the save to occur, before it proceeds to initiate the Exit or Quit. Should the save process not be completed when this happens, the save file will likely be corrupted. Subsequent loading of a corrupted tile will either immediately crash to the desktop (CTD), or the whole city tile will be missing and show as a flat area in the region view. Exceptions Many times the one-step process is perfectly fine to use. Examples include when terraforming a region by hand, going through Mapper generated tiles to update the snapshot previews, or planting trees such as using the Flora Blast function. It's just the dangers of corruption become heightened when doing this for established cities with lots of development, and crucially featuring an abundance of custom content. Purpose of this Mod The idea is to discourage the one-step process for saving. My mod provides options to modify both the UI dialogs for saving, and changes the text shown on the buttons. It does not save the game automatically, nor display any reminders to save. By changing the appearance of the dialogs, this only intends to be a visual cue making this less desirable in normal circumstances. Variations Included There are 2 variations available. Pictured below are previews of each of the "Save and Exit to Region" dialogs. The same style is also done for the "Save and Quit" dialogs. As follows: Option A This is designed for those who wish to ensure they never accidentally Save and Exit. It completely prevents the button from being clicked out of habit. Regular direct saves (Ctrl+S) or clicking the Save Icon still work as they always have. Option B This simply renames and styles the button as pictured. When clicking the top-most button highlighted in red, it still operates the standard function for saving and exiting just the same as always. It intends to be a visual clue so you're reminded of the potential risk. Option A is the safest choice, since it's then not possible to trigger the one-step process for saving a tile. Option B is provided for those who are aware of the risks, but want a visual reminder each time when prompted at the save dialog. Is the saving process changed? No, not at all. Of course, there's still that potential risk for a city to become corrupted when saving with the direct one-step method. However, my mod alters nothing in the code with what the game's save routine does. In terms of functionality, it's still available when using Option B exactly how it is by default. Option A prevents this from being triggered at all. The recommended simple strategy is to make a habit of saving using the standard Save function. My mod merely encourages the use of such. This can be done using the first button on the options panel at the bottom, or using the Ctrl+S keyboard combination. A confirmation dialog will appear after saving. Upon clicking the button: A dialog is shown like so: Once this appears, it's safe to click OK and proceed to exit or quit as the next step. If so for the 2nd step after saving, you then select either Exit Without Saving or Quit Without Saving. (Remember you just saved it the regular way in the 1st step.) Important Note It's worth mentioning how in any situation, switching focus from the game while saving is a very bad idea. This is also known to result in city tile corruptions even if using the regular save and not exiting the tile. So just remember to keep SC4 in view and not changing to another program (even if using Windowed mode). In other words, simply clicking another window removes focus from the game and has the potential to corrupt the save. Always wait for the save to complete before doing anything else. Additionally, making regular full backups of your Regions folder is always a very wise idea. That way should you wish to restore a city in the event of issues occurring, or simply wanting to rollback to a previous instance for other reasons, it's a simple case of copying back individual named region subfolder (or the tiles inside). See this topic for an overview of the basic process. Installation This mod uses the standard process of installing SC4 content. There are no dependencies. Only ONE Option can be used at once. First choose either of the 2 available zip files when clicking the Download button. Contained within each zip archive are the following: Option A SaveWarning_Disable_Exit_Quit.dat Option B SaveWarning_Message_Button.dat Copy either of the above .dat files into your Plugins folder. Hopefully this might prove useful. Special Mention A big thank you to @CorinaMarie for helping and supporting me with ideas for this project. Cori has given valuable input on ways it should best be implemented, and also for encouraging me to finally get the mod dusted down, polished up, and released. -
This is the Continuing Saga of the Wonky SC4 Install. (it has been gong on for weeeks now, on and off, as I got discouraged or RL interefered.) SO. The story so far. I consultes Those in the Know. Got various wise advices I tried to follow. Eliminated several explanations. Got down (apprenhensively) to the hardware. My tech friend came and checked my computer. My hard drives. My head. Various Repairs ensued (while having coffee). We carefully reinstalled SC4. At first try, hurray, everything works. Friends leaves, proudly (and caffeinated to the gills.) I reopen the game just-to-check. Exact same trouble : intro music, no images, then black sceen. Or (on second try) direct CTD. I reinstalled the game --all by myself-- to check my nagging thought : success... save... second try... CTD. OK It now seems clear to me : Something Not Right is Happening on Save. Anyone has an idea why or, better, how to deal with it ?
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Sudden and sporadic / unpredictable crashing after correcting fullscreen crashes
xDEFCONx posted a topic in SC4 Bugs & Technical Issues
Hey there, I have been fiddling around with organizing my plugins, optimizing the game, etc. Out of nowhere, my game is now being very stubborn, which never really happened before some things. My plugins folder is just shy of 6 GB. I recently restructured it and organized the loading order, etc. I have been (before "optimizing" the game) able to play flawlessly without crashes. Saving led to no problems, gameplay was about as smooth as it can get with that many plugins loaded in at once. However, recently I had an issue of my idiotic city tile thumbnail displaying as a flat tile. It infuriated me enough that I attempted to correct this. I generally play in borderless windowed mode on hardware, but the moment I tried loading it with fullscreen enabled, I was met with instantaneous application crashing. Fullscreen functioned fine in software. I (was) also using an HD terrain mod, so I had to have it in hardware, so it was necessary to correct this and not just play on software. I went through and first tweaked the Graphics Rules and Video Cards .sgrs from the posted tutorial. I'm currently running with two SLI 1080ti (yes), and I have SC4 using only one w/ application controlled settings (default on the NVIDIA settings). It didn't correct the problem and the game still crashed (most likely because I do not know the input syntax for a 1080ti beyond the actual device ID and whatnot, and fortunately there's no documentation specifically for my card). I state this because I don't know if this could be contributing to the issue right now because of how beefy this setup is, but I'm stating it for possible consideration. I replaced the altered .sgr's with the vanilla ones after this as well. And yes, I have been running with the CPUcount:1 flag. HOWEVER, it did work when I switched SC4 over into compatibility mode (windows xp) fortunately, and somehow still worked even when I disabled compatibility afterward... which is odd. Whenever I play the game now, I pretty much get met with standard gameplay for about 10 minutes, right up until the game just vanishes before my eyes. As well, saving is now causing crashes (the game is saving successfully, it just decides to die post-save or when attempting to return to the region.) I decided to return to the same settings I had run with prior to the crashing, as I assumed it was fullscreen, but the issue is still present. I'm not doing any sudden camera movements like scroll zooming that are infamous for crashes either. I won't be surprised if this is because of the sheer bulk size of my plugins folder. However, I find it unusual that I could run the same load size before these shenanigans with full stability, of which I experienced no CTDs in normal gameplay and saving. Any help would be grand. I've gone through pretty much every resource on the site, and I'm very confused as to what could be the origin of these woes. I also have some other floating questions, if it's any help: Could it be the city tile itself that has too much being rendered on it and I'm just now experiencing the side effects of a lot of stuff in one city? Since I removed the HD terrain pack now, should I just stick to playing on software? Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.
