Help with NAM mod

[floyd86s]

hi guys! i want to ask for some help regarding to the NAm mod. it turns out that the mod makes my SC4 run unproperly, because many things happened since i've instaled it: for example, when i place light rail pieces (or other nam stuff) the game crashes, also the part of the screen wich is supposed to be all black or grey it becomes blue and also when i move around the city in pause mode i get some yellow stripes in the screen....and i know it's the nam mod because when i take it out from the plugins folder the game works just fine (i have 3gb in plugins installed).

So i would like anyone to help me and tell what do i have to do to make this mod work, because it's really awesome and i want it in my game!
maybe someone could tell me step by step which files to install and where to install them (i have the Rural highway mod, additional bridges, GRL original textures, and the nam file wich is 10mb), or maybe tell me wich plugins are compatible and wich are not because maybe it's that the issue.

i don't know really what's happening  so everything you guys can tell me will help a lot!

thanks to all of you for taking time to read this and help me   

CU

[Toichus Maximus]

you have 3 gigs of plugins (i'm not one to talk, I have the same amount and have reached the point where i'm about to uninstall everything and start from scratch)?? some mod in there is probably reacting with the nam.

As for the order to install, it's (per the SAM thread):


     a)  NAM
     b)  RHW
     c)  Additional Bridges
     d)  NAM Essentials
     e)  SAM

Aside from that, I'm not an expert, so I can only wish you luck.

[jplumbley]

Hello Floyd86s,

For your first issue... GLR Puzzle Pieces:

I would suggest not using the GLR Puzzle Pieces.  Puzzle Pieces in general have a fatal flaw in which is hard coded into the EXE and we are not legally allowed to make a fix for this issue, only MAXIS/EA have that right.  What I would suggest is using the Draggable GLR that was released in the January 2007 NAM and is also in the June 2007 NAM.  There will be what is called a "Puzzle Piece Starter".  These are Puzzle Pieces which you place down once and then using one of the network tools, you can drag a network out of it.  For the Draggable GLR, place the Puzzle Piece Starter and then using the El-Rail tool drag the El-Rail out of the end of the Puzzle Piece.  It will then change into GLR automatically for you.  After the GLR is longer than 5 tiles in length it will become stable and you will be able to remove the starter piece from the begining of the network.

Now, why is Draggable GLR better?

1.  It reduces the number of Puzzles Pieces requried, because now it only requires one puzzle piece.  In turn this reduces the CTD (Crash to Desktop) error.  It pretty much eliminates the CTD issue because you'd have to be pretty careless with that one Puzzle Piece when initially placing it.

2.  It makes it much easier and faster to build your network.. Draggable vs Ploppable.

I would suggest to everyone who has the original GLR Puzzle Pieces in their cities from previous NAM releases to start removing them and replacing them with the Draggable GLR system.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Puzzle Pieces were slowly phased out over time to prevent anyone having issues with the CTD issue.

Another mod out there you may want to play with to get used to Puzzle-Drag Technology (Puzzle Piece Starters) is the SAM (Street Addon Mod).  SAM adds multiple different texture variations for the Street network by using Puzzle Piece Starters for each differing SAM set.  It is definately worth a look.  It has been released to both the BSC LEX and the STEX.
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Issue #2 - Graphical Errors

It sounds to me that you are having physical limitation issues with your comupter.

You have 3gb of Plugins, this is ALOT!!  The game loads every single file in your plugins while entering the game and most of it when entering a city tile.  Then it holds onto as much of that information as possible so it can refer to it quickly within you RAM.  If you have 1gb of RAM that means you have more than 2gb of unloaded.  So, if your background is one of the unloaded things then it will give you a different background then you expect.

Now, how can NAM affect this?

Well it depends..  First off, it depends on how big your city is and which Pathfinding Engine you have installed.  The reason it depends on these two things is because the bigger the city is the more path commutes it has to calculate and if you have Better or Perfect Pathfinding installed it will check more routes to make sure that it has the "quickest" route.  If your city is a large tile that is half full, you are probably looking at 250,000 or more sims which means you will have give or take 180,000 paths to calculate x the number of attempts on average.  Thats alot of calculating and if there isnt sufficient RAM and Processor speed, your game will give you some of the errors you are recieving.  NAM greatly enhances the game and by doing so it increases the base requirements for the game.  It is to hard to tell what your computer should be but it will have to be much better than the Vanilla requirements.

I hope this ahs helped atleast in the slightest bit.

[wouanagaine]

#Graphical error
Have you run cleanitol ? There was a list that remove *.png which remove the background pngs that should stay in your 'Program Files/Maxis/Plugins' folder. if they are removed, it can cause what you're experiencing