Lot Editor Severe Flickering

[fafalone]

The Maxis Lot Editor, immediately on startup, begins very severe flickering that makes it totally unusable. It does this about 70-80% of the time, so often I have to keep restarting the program until it starts up without flickering. I've tried every compatibility mode on the list, closing out all other programs, closing out all other programs that might be using DirectX... I don't know what else to try?

Anyone else on Win7 x64 have this problem?

(I have a Pentium G620 2.6GHz dual core, 8GB RAM, and a Radeon 4850)

[CasperVg]

Heh, that's something I've never heard of. Does it flicker with an empty plugin folder? Are you sure your graphics drivers are updated? Have you tried running the Lot Editor in full screen perhaps?

[fafalone]

Thanks... your comment reminded me that there were command line args for it, so I looked at them, and a few minutes later found that switching it to software rendering fixed the problem. There's some graphical glitches but they're minor and way better than restarting the program 5-10 times before I can use it 

[jmyers2043]

I don't know how severe the flicker is. I have a small number of video glitches on my screen when using the LE on my computer. It started when I replaced the video card (old one krapped out). So I think I'd be looking at driver updates, changing the set up, screen resolution, or if you can afford it, a replacement.

- Jim

[Andreas]

I'm using software rendering as well, as the overlay texture list has a transparent background in hardware rendering mode, which isn't ideal for picking the proper texture. So far, I haven't noticed any downsides when using software mode. Hardware rendering in SC4 works fine, though.

[Swordmaster]

I'm using software rendering as well, as the overlay texture list has a transparent background in hardware rendering mode, which isn't ideal for picking the proper texture.

Great tip, I'm learning something new once again.


Cheers
Willy

[rollfizzlebeef83]

I'm having the same problem. I just got a new laptop and I have the same problem. My laptop has an Intel Pentium 2020M Processor, Windows 8 64Bit, 4GB RAM and an Intel HD Graphics card.

[z]

Have you tried software rendering?  Just add "-d:soft" to the Lot Editor's command line in its shortcut.

[rollfizzlebeef83]

Yeah, I'm not very good at that. I'm not sure where it is.

[Indiana Joe]

Yeah, I'm not very good at that. I'm not sure where it is.

Right click on the Lot Editor icon, click Properties.  There's a box labeled "Target."  It has "C:\Program Files...blah blah blah...\Lot Editor.exe" written in it.  Add a space to the end of the text, and type the -d:soft

[rollfizzlebeef83]

Okay. It works fine now. Thanks. But now I can't find the plugin I'm looking for.