Game crashes to desktop when adding trees in God mode

[miguelkuk]

Hey everyone.

I have recently bought a new laptop and installed SC4 and Rush hour on it. Applied the patch, etc. I then copied all my plugins to the new laptop and applied the no-disk Win10 patch.
I changed the shortcut's Target to:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -CPUCount:1 -intro:off -w -r1440x900x32 -CustomResolution:enabled -CPUPriority:high

and the compatibility to Win XP SP3, no DPI scaling, run as admin.

The game itself is being run with all the graphic options on low, no clouds, no waves, no color cursor, no variable speed automata, and the renderer in software mode.

Now, when I enter a blank game, everything works fine when I plop my trees in God Mode, except when I plop them on the map's edge. Then the game crashes o desktop.
This happens regardless of whether the game is rendered with software or hardware, or CPUPriority low or high. None of that makes a difference.
The game worked flawlessly on my previous laptop on Win Vista SP2.

Any ideas on what could be causing this would be greatly appreciated 

[Andreas]

Make absolutely sure that you installed any custom tree mod properly, or in case you removed it, that you bulldozed all trees on the entire map before you deleted the associated files. It is quite possible that you have a conflicting tree controller, missing files, or "invisible" trees that now cause random crashes whenever you change something in any given city. Also, I don't know what "no disk patch" you're talking about, but if this is an unofficial patch, it might cause problems with your game that cannot be solved.

[miguelkuk]

Make absolutely sure that you installed any custom tree mod properly, or in case you removed it, that you bulldozed all trees on the entire map before you deleted the associated files. It is quite possible that you have a conflicting tree controller, missing files, or "invisible" trees that now cause random crashes whenever you change something in any given city. Also, I don't know what "no disk patch" you're talking about, but if this is an unofficial patch, it might cause problems with your game that cannot be solved.

I haven't touched my mods or plugins at all since migrating them from one laptop to the other. And the map I am working on has no flora at all on it.
As for the no disk patch, it's a no-cd workaround for windows 10 which doesn't let you run any game from disc. It's basically a patched simcity.exe file.
The thing is, if I don't have this patch I cannot play the game on Win10 at all.

[Andreas]

The patched SimCity.exe might be the reason for the crashes that you experience, if the rest of your plugins folder hasn't been touched since the migration. You could try to contact EA's customer support and ask for a free license of the Origin version of the game. After signing up, downloading and installing the game, it's not necessary to use the Origin client anymore, you can create the same desktop shortcut that is used with the CD version. However, there have been incidents where Origin distributes a "vanilla" copy of SC4, without the patches that are needed for the NAM and such. I am not sure if this problem has been resolved yet, though.

[mgb204]

Whilst I do understand the Windows 10 problem, using a NoCD patch which is illegal is hardly a good solution. One problem with such patches is that the file itself is a replacement for the original SC4 executable, so it may not actually include the correct patchs and installing them won't work, since it will recognise the file is modified. In short, this combination can mean you will be stuck with bugs that were long-since patched by EA. I seem to recall this is one such bug.

Wait for a sale, get a digital copy for under £5, it's the path of least resistance, they come pre-patched and work with Win10 since the disc DRM system is removed. Avoid Origin though, their version is unpatchable, in addition the offer of a free replacement has ended, although you might get lucky if you ask. Personally I'd go for a DRM-free version, that way it'l be the last time you need to buy the game.

If £5 is a big deal, the other option is to manually digitally sign the SecDrv.sys file from an older revision of Windows to work with your Win10 install. Having done this, you can create a script that loads the driver, runs the game, it will validate the disk, then disable the service once more. Instructions for signing the driver can be found through Google, the script works the same as described here for older Windows versions. Note that there is a potential security risk from running SecDrv.sys, at least that's MS' excuse for removing it and breaking every disc with SafeDisc 2 DRM such as SC4 in the process.

[miguelkuk]

Avoid Origin though, their version is unpatchable, in addition the offer of a free replacement has ended, although you might get lucky if you ask. Personally I'd go for a DRM-free version, that way it'l be the last time you need to buy the game

Where can I get a DRM-free version from? How do I check it is DRM-free? And is it fully compatible with all the mods and plugins I have installed?
Thanks for the help guys.

[TheTeaCat]

You can get it from here https://www.gog.com/game/simcity_4_deluxe_edition although you will pay full price but it will definitely work with Win10.

[miguelkuk]

You can get it from here https://www.gog.com/game/simcity_4_deluxe_edition although you will pay full price but it will definitely work with Win10.

Thank you so much! 

[miguelkuk]

I got excited too fast. Everything works except the DAMN Menu 

I moved all the DAMN files to their corresponding locations on the new install but nothing shows up in game.
I get an empty menu with the message: '''_NOT_IN_TEXT_DATABASE_''' text@dae1e774

EDIT: Never mind, I fixed it.