Now I remember why I stopped playing SC4

Guynemer · February 22, 2004, 14:13

...it keeps ****ing crashing to desktop, and there is no autosave!

What can I do to prevent this? I'm getting very frustrated with building up my utopia, only to have it crash before I think to save it.

Illuminatus · February 22, 2004, 14:17

SC4 = Sim City 4 ?

Is it so unstable?
Perhaps it has to high requirements.
Have you tried patches?

vovan · February 22, 2004, 15:02

Indeed, patches are good.

Also, it is quite stable on my laptop....

A couple things I can say:

Maybe try reinstalling the game?

Is it a legal version? If not, it could be missing some resource files, which would cause it to crash when trying to access them.

Try patches... Are you using plain vanilla SC4, or SC4:RH? RH has quite a few fixes, from what I can tell.

Try lowering the graphics settings. Maybe your computer is not quite powerful enough? Turn down the details, and shadows, and see if that helps any.

Guynemer · February 22, 2004, 16:03

It is a legal, fully-patched SC4 w/Rush Hour.

My computer is ~12 months old; it was cutting edge at "birth". I really can't see why it shouldn't be able to handle the game at 32-bit 1280x960...

Why no autosave?!

vovan · February 22, 2004, 17:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Guynemer
It is a legal, fully-patched SC4 w/Rush Hour.

My computer is ~12 months old; it was cutting edge at "birth".

Odd. It's only ever crashed once on me when saving a city... And that was the first version of the game - unpatched. And also, my comp is about 18 months old now. Was cutting edge at birth, bit it's a laptop, so a 12-mo cutting edge desktop should have my 18-mo cutting edge laptop beat by a mile.

Whet does it crash on you?

You sure you have the latest drivers and all that? New video cards often come with sucky drivers out of the box nowadays.

Quote:

Originally posted by Guynemer
Why no autosave?!

Saving takes a long time, and the game almost freezes while the saving is in progress. So, if there was autosave, your game would just randomly freeze every now and then. They chose no autosave instead. At least that's what the devs said on the official forums when the game was released.

Guynemer · February 22, 2004, 17:59

It crashes whenever it damn well pleases, rat bastards.

I suppose it's not all bad; I get a preview of different building strategies, and can change accordingly... but when things go swimmingly, and it crashes, steam starts coming out of my ears.

Grumbold · February 22, 2004, 19:25

I can believe it. Luckily it never crashes for me.

Urban Ranger · February 23, 2004, 01:23

Guy - the crashes could be caused by your CPU overheating. Clean the inside of the computer, and check the temperature on the CPU.

DrSpike · February 23, 2004, 09:20

It's the the gaming god's way of telling you to play something else.

General Ludd · February 23, 2004, 09:22

I've never seen SC4 crash.

Guynemer · February 23, 2004, 15:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Guy - the crashes could be caused by your CPU overheating. Clean the inside of the computer, and check the temperature on the CPU.

The CPU isn't crashing; the game is just suddenly ending, putting me on the desktop.

I have updated drivers. I run NOLF2 at 1600x1200 32-bit without any difficulty at all... can't believe SC4 is dumping me due to graphics overload. It doesn't run slow at all.

Adagio · February 23, 2004, 15:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Osweld
I've never seen SC4 crash.

Me neither... (yet)

But I'm very happy about not including the auto-save function... It's about the worst thing ever invented for games...

DrSpike · February 23, 2004, 19:42

Yeah damn those autosaves, the bane of all gaming.

bipolarbear · February 23, 2004, 22:25

Poor, poor cretin. Don't waste your time with a game that has the word Sim in in the title. Try a good game like KOTOR, or AOEII!

Guynemer · February 25, 2004, 15:31

Well, through compulsive saving, I've managed to fill up my first city lot, medium-sized, ~105,000 people, turning about $2500 profit a month. All avenued, so no traffic problems to speak of, save a few busy intersections, but I do have a question re:mass transit--how do you make it most effective? I was experimenting with it before one of my many crashes, and couldn't get many people to take the bait.

Also couldn't figure out how to make best use of rail for industry (heavily high-tech, a smattering of manufactoring). And are seaports worth a damn?

alva · February 25, 2004, 17:43

You're talking about 'Rush Hour' Tass.
(expansion)

alva · February 25, 2004, 17:48

Guynemer, do you play a lot on 'cheetah' (?) speed? (fastest setting)

'cause that is a known issue, you can do that for too long or it will crash.

A great game btw, every time sometimes starts a tread about it, I feel like re-installing it, then I remember something about path-finding and decide against it.

Guynemer · February 25, 2004, 18:45

Quote:

Originally posted by alva
Guynemer, do you play a lot on 'cheetah' (?) speed? (fastest setting)

'cause that is a known issue, you can do that for too long or it will crash.

ahhhhhhhh... that might explain it.

alva · February 25, 2004, 19:11

Yep, don't do that.

Especially with larger cities, it should be ok for a couple of months, then slow down a notch for a few seconds, then go at full speed again.

Something about a memory overflow blah blah.....

In English, the PC can't keep up with all the calculations and gives up