Game keeps crashing

alistersim · October 26, 2012, 05:43:00 PM

Hi...well I am pretty new here although I have been playing the game off and on for many years. I have found some great resources here and appreciate all the hard work you hard core folks have put in. I have been spending a lot of time downloading CAM e lots, dependencies and a bunch of other lots and tools. Now my game keeps crashing. I am so paranoid that I save it about every 30 seconds because it might crash and I loose all the great content growing in my city. Any advice or help would be appreciated. I love this game and love the new content so thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.

I guess I should also ask if these downloads are screened for viruses and malware?? my mcaffee kept picking things up but that doesn't necessarily mean a lot?

Jmouse · October 26, 2012, 05:59:23 PM

Welcome to SC4D alistersim. I can't help you with this problem, but I'm sure someone will come along who can.

Good luck...
-Joan

Swordmaster · October 27, 2012, 04:18:59 AM

Depends how and when it's crashing. Does it happen on loading an existing city? Does it happen in new cities? Does it happen when the game is paused? Etc.

Be more specific and we might help. Describe what you're doing when it crashes.

Cheers
Willy

alistersim · October 27, 2012, 05:25:45 AM

Quote from: Swordmaster on October 27, 2012, 04:18:59 AM
Depends how and when it's crashing. Does it happen on loading an existing city? Does it happen in new cities? Does it happen when the game is paused? Etc.

Be more specific and we might help. Describe what you're doing when it crashes.

Cheers
Willy

Thanks for replying Willy...fair point specifics would help! First off, in terms of hardware, I am running Win7, 2.4 ghz i7 processor, 8GB Ram, 2GB nvidia graphics card with a 2 TB hd. So I don't think hardware is the issue. The game freezes while in city mode, not in region view, and it often happens when I go to save the game. This is very random because I have gotten paranoid about losing progress and I save often, about every minute. So it is during one of those times when I am saving that the game freezes and I cannot recover from the freeze. I don't recall a time when simply playing the game, placing roads, landmarks, zones, etc, when the game freezes up. I hope this is specific enough to be of some assistance. I love this game and suffer through these set backs willingly. I just go back and rebuild what was lost, save and carry on.

Cheers...Alister

Swordmaster · October 27, 2012, 05:44:17 AM

I'm afraid that's out of my league. . . never had that. Doesn't appear to be a result of conflicting or missing plugins, though. Does it happen without any custom content installed? Maybe someone with Win7 knows more about it.

Cheers
Willy

alistersim · October 27, 2012, 06:06:14 AM

Thanks Willy...I don't recall this happening before installing custom content. I have started pouring through all my custom content using Cleanitol, and maybe cleaning up some conflicts with dependencies. I had to do this after installing RTMT as I had trouble with random brown boxes. That resolved that issue, so I figure it might just take some time to get the game to run efficiently.

Thanks again

Couchpotato · October 27, 2012, 06:51:51 AM

I've struggled with the game crashing for years. Decided this time to start small with just every dependency that I would be using for my cities. Tested that and the game didn't crash. Then very slowly added custom content by creator testing after every addition. The game is now very stable and only crashes on rare occasions.

alistersim · October 27, 2012, 11:03:54 AM

Thanks Couchpotato. I added a lot of CAMelots and then found they needed a great number of dependencies. I have added in only what I think I needed to avoid brown boxes. When I do get a brown box, I exit and go get the dependencies that I need. So right now, fingers crossed, the game does seem more stable and running a bit faster. No freeze ups so far today. So when I mention "custom content", I am not referring to lots I have created but rather the lots I have found on lex. I haven't gotten that advanced yet to start creating my own content...especially when there is so much amazing stuff already out there. So thanks again to all you creative types who spend hours perfecting your craft!

whatevermind · October 27, 2012, 07:42:30 PM

Programs crashing when they save is often a hardware/system conflict, since they usually require more resources while saving than during general use. If you can typically load cities without crashing, and run the game without crashing, then it's probably not any specific plugin (but that can't be ruled out, of course).

There's a few tricks to getting SC4 to run correctly on newer computers, including a command line prompt that's full of all sorts of goodness, such as CPU and resolution settings. If you haven't already set all that up, it's known to fix some of the more common problems that are out there. You should be able to find a few threads that detail all this if you do a search, otherwise someone can always post our own setup here and try to explain it. If you have already done this and been able to run it fine, then at least you can rule out that as the problem. There's also known issues with various video cards, etc. Basically, newer computers are plenty strong enough to run SC4, but the program tends to get hung up on all the options they offer that weren't around 9 years ago and the game wasn't designed to handle.

I'd suggest doing some searching using various hardware/software specs you have as keywords and see if that produces any useful results. Good luck!

SavagePilgrim · October 28, 2012, 12:07:28 AM

• 1
Load up Sim City 4 and wait until the region screen shows up.

• 2
When at the region screen (so everything has loaded nicely) hit Ctrl, Alt and Del and click 'Start Task Manager'.

• 3
In Task Manager click on the 'processes' tab and scroll down until you see Sim City 4.

• 4
Right click on Sim City 4 under processes and click on option that says 'Set Affinity'.

• 5
Another small screen will appear with a small list of all your processors (CPU 0, 1, 2 etc.) each with a small box that is ticked beside it.

• 6
De-select all the CPUs and then re-select just one CPU.

• 7
Hit 'OK', close task manager and click on the SC4 window in the task bar to continue playing.

• 8
This works because Sim City 4 was not designed to be used on systems with multiple processors and so cannot handle the 'threading' that is used causing the game to crash. This solution tells the game to use only one processor thereby fixing the problem.

alistersim · October 28, 2012, 06:56:27 AM

Thanks a million SavagePilgrim...I will give that a shot and see how it goes. Sounds like it should work given the amount of detail you have offered. Next time I fire up the game I will try that and post back with the results. Much appreciated!!

RickD · October 29, 2012, 02:43:51 AM

SavagePilgrim's suggestion ususally solves most of the crashing problems. However, I still had problems with freezes mostly when saving.

This helped: http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

No more crashes since.

Reginasunrae · October 29, 2012, 11:01:31 AM

Okay, I've just got to post here! I got my 64-bit Windows 7 computer a couple of years ago but with one thing and another just haven't really had much time for games (don't you just hate it when that happens?) so decided a few weeks ago to get SC4 installed and running. I've had those random CTDs since so I scoured the internet trying to find a possible solution (I'll spend days searching for something before I ever ask a question because I know how annoying it is when the exact same question gets asked umpteen times and the answer is right in front of someone's nose if they'd just open their eyes and look). I tried several different things to make the crashes stop but have never had any success. I changed compatibility settings, used Large Address Aware to make the game recognize more than 2 gigs of RAM, and still get dumped to the desktop occasionally. It's not too bad since it sometimes will go for a few hours before CTD, so it possibly could be related to hovering transit-enabled lots. So, I'm in the midst of downloading the latest version of all the mods I use and starting with a fresh Plugins folder, and will start paying attention to the possibility of it being transit-enabled related. If not, I'll be trying SavagePilgrim's recommendation. Thanks so much for posting it!

Indiana Joe · October 29, 2012, 02:42:54 PM

Savage Pilgrim's solution should almost certainly work. It is well known that SimCity 4 is very unstable when you try to run it on a multi core processor, and setting it to only run on 1 should sold 99.99% of all crashes for anyone (when plugins aren't involved).

You can set it through the task manager every time you start up the game, or you can do this permanent solution:

Right click on the SimCity 4 icon.

Click "Properties."

There should be a box that is labeled "Target:" At the end of what's typed in there, add a space, and type -CPUcount:1

SimCity will automatically only use 1 processor and shouldn't crash again.

alistersim · October 31, 2012, 03:35:40 PM

Thanks Indianna Joe. I will try that fix and thanks Savage Pilgrim. I have used your fix for a few days now and have not had any issues! So nice for a change! But it is true you have to use the task manager solution each time you start the game so I will try your more permanent solution. And Reginasunrae, I appreciate your patience. I also tend not to take computer issues lying down but will try everything to get the system working as it should. I suppose once Simcity 5 comes out in a few months all this will be mute! Can't wait though.

Cheers everyone....Alister

Reginasunrae · November 02, 2012, 01:43:10 PM

I tried switching to one processor the other day and I think actually worked. The reason I say I think is because I only played for about three hours and on occasion I've gone longer than that without a crash. So today I decided to try adding -CPUcount:1 to the shortcut but got an error message saying I couldn't do that because it's invalid.

Alistersim, I'm not sure if it will be moot or not only know it won't be for me as I have no current plans of buying a game that won't let me play without internet access. I don't think I'm the only person who isn't exactly embracing this new era of intrusions and marketing that is being foisted upon us in the name of the almighty profit.

Indiana Joe · November 02, 2012, 01:56:27 PM

Make sure you put a space after the target. It should look like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -CPUCount:1

Reginasunrae · November 18, 2012, 08:35:12 PM

Quote from: Indiana Joe on November 02, 2012, 01:56:27 PM
Make sure you put a space after the target. It should look like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -CPUCount:1

Thank you so much! I had forgot to add the space.

At any rate, using just the one processor sure has made a difference, not one crash as long as I made sure I remembered to set the affinity!

Lowkee33 · November 19, 2012, 06:13:21 AM

I've found that this solution is not just for SC4, plenty of games that use %50 (or whatever amount) of the CPU get much better performance when switched to the one core settings.

Reform · November 19, 2012, 07:24:57 AM

I had some amount of CTDs with my current computer, but less than with previous ones. Suddenly SC4 started to freeze during the game. First I thought it had something to do with my newly built Plugins folder. Then LE froze as well, while I was modifying a very simple lot. This computer goes trough a lot of stress daily, including image editing, 3D programs and other games, but I haven't had a single problem with any of them.

I found out that some newest NVIDIA GeForce series drivers have some compatibility issues that may (or may not) come up with SC4 and related programs. Problem went away after removing the newest driver and installing the previous one.

Something to try for you guys, if the game isn't behaving correctly. You can allways update driver again, if that wasn't the source of problems.

- Ilja