What causes crashing? What are the known causes? Can we make a list?

[Haljackey]

Hey everyone,

I've received numerous comments and PMs from users on my Youtube channel about their games crashing and what to do about it.

Is there any way we can compile a list of some of the most common causes for crashing and some suggestions of what to do? The sticky thread in this section gives suggestions but doesn't describe exactly what causes the game to crash.

For example, hovering a puzzle piece over a TE lot will cause a crash. This is a known issue and there is a known way to avoid it: don't hover a puzzle piece over a TE lot!

I'm thinking if we can pile our knowledge together we can compile a great list of what causes crashes and what can be done to avoid said crashes.

This won't just be of help to newbies, even experienced players might be able to learn a thing or two from others about crashes they thought were out of their control or unpreventable.

Seem like a good idea?

All the best,
-Haljackey

[Death50]

Well I know this may be common knowledge but I'll throw this few that a new person may find useful.

Before playing Simcity4, do the following check list:
1. Did I close all un-needed programs?
2. Did I make sure all my plugins are up todate?
3. Did I remove bad/not needed plugins?
4. Did I install my plugins correctly?

Background task and Plugins are big causes of crashes. If you make sure only what is needed is running while Simcity4 plays, this will help lots. And also clean out your plugin foloders, make sure no conflicting plugins are installed.

Also ALWAYS when messing with puzzle peices, go slow. If you try to plop a lot all at once, that tends to promise a crash even on the best computer. Plop maybe 5 peices at a time, and save often. Every 5-10 minutes.

[mike3775]

Not setting the game to run on only 1 core of a dual core computer.  Will crash every time zoom is used

solution, set the shortcut to only run on one core with the "-CPUCount:2" in the target field(Z, Tarkus and many others have both recommended this trick on these boards)

[Haljackey]

I guess that depends on what processor you have. I'm using an Intel i7 that has 4 cores, and each has two processing centres or something which makes the total 8 cores.

Perhaps it's a good tactic to address yet another cause of a CTD, one I never knew existed until today. Thanks for sharing Mike!

[jmyers2043]

Add to the list. A corrupt lot.

I once did a farm. Tested it in my game. Saw it grow successfully twice. Decided to move a couple of props. I opened up the Lot Editor and moved them a few Sim meters. Clicked save. It was late in the evening so I decided to continue testing the next day.

Played the game for about an hour and my game crashed.    Did I click too many different things too quickly? I started the game again and an hour later the game crashed. I thought what gives? OK, I was tinkering with some timber farms about the same time so I removed them. Crash again. It took a couple of evenings of trial and error before I discovered that the lot that I had altered apparently did a corrupt save and the game was crashing whenever it grew.

In theory, everyone who's a member of a certified team uploading to the SC4D LEX thoroughly tests their creations. The LEX scrutineers look at all other material and are supposed to see the lot grow, generate traffic, and query properly before the  is given. So the BAD LOT problem should not manifest itself on the LEX. But nevertheless is one reason for the game to crash seemingly at random.

- Jim

[mike3775]

Add to the list. A corrupt lot.

I once did a farm. Tested it in my game. Saw it grow successfully twice. Decided to move a couple of props. I opened up the Lot Editor and moved them a few Sim meters. Clicked save. It was late in the evening so I decided to continue testing the next day.

Played the game for about an hour and my game crashed.    Did I click too many different things too quickly? I started the game again and an hour later the game crashed. I thought what gives? OK, I was tinkering with some timber farms about the same time so I removed them. Crash again. It took a couple of evenings of trial and error before I discovered that the lot that I had altered apparently did a corrupt save and the game was crashing whenever it grew.

In theory, everyone who's a member of a certified team uploading to the SC4D LEX thoroughly tests their creations. The LEX scrutineers look at all other material and are supposed to see the lot grow, generate traffic, and query properly before the  is given. So the BAD LOT problem should not manifest itself on the LEX. But nevertheless is one reason for the game to crash seemingly at random.

- Jim

Thats why I basically only grab stuff from here for the most part, and a few other sites that I know also have strict upload criteria.  I still grab stuff from ST on occasion, but its usually only from specific lot makers(like Aaron Graham, SFBT, NYBT, etc) which I know goes through great expense to make sure the lots work.

As far as the dual core goes, it may be the graphics card as well, since my dual core came with a Nvidia GeForce GT 520, and there have been known issues with nvidia and SC4

[catty]

Add to the list. A corrupt lot.

They can be the worse to find as well, I downloaded a mod to change the Maxis Steam Train and was getting some quite nasty graphic errors while playing, I just about decided I needed either a new card or a new computer when by sheer chance one day when I hadn't been having any problems, the steam train went by on one of my rail-lines.

When I went back on the STEX to find it and report the problems it was causing, I couldn't locate it ... to this day am left wondering if it was a genuine mistake on the part of its creator or whether it has been done deliberately.

While we can't list all the bad lots, clear instructions on how to search for them, I used the old "half your plugins" method, but it can take some time especially if you have a big plugins folder.

[Ramona Brie]

I have exactly 175 exception reports I could donate to the cause, including some of my first SC4 crashes from as early as June 2005, when I started playing. Let me know if anyone is interested. Not sure if SC4's minidumps and reports are of value.

[mike3775]

While we can't list all the bad lots, clear instructions on how to search for them, I used the old "half your plugins" method, but it can take some time especially if you have a big plugins folder.

My wife says I am nuts for doing so, but whenever I download lots and before I install them, I put them on a word pad list with the date I installed them, this way if issues arise, I can generally know what lot or mod it may be.  after a little while(usually a month or so) I delete the list(usually when I make a backup of the plugin folder) and start it again.

[WC_EEND]

Not setting the game to run on only 1 core of a dual core computer.  Will crash every time zoom is used

solution, set the shortcut to only run on one core with the "-CPUCount:2" in the target field(Z, Tarkus and many others have both recommended this trick on these boards)

I have a core i7 (just like haljackey, though I probably have a different model than his) which also has 4 cores with hyperthreading (which makes it appear in Windows as an 8-core CPU). But my SC4 is 100% stable when zooming in and out without using the "-CPUCount:2" thing. That might also be because SC4 and my plugins are on my SSD though which gives very quick access and read times. (What I'm saying here is that the crashing on multi-core CPUs might be related to the fact that mechanical hard drives cannot read the data fast enough and therefore crash the game. I should add that this is a total guess and is solely based on my experience with SC4 and multi-core CPUs and different types of harddrives.

[jdenm8]

I'm using an i5 2500K (4 physical cores) and a SATA3 1TB Seagate Blue with no crashes while zooming, with the argument set to "-CPUCount:4", the game just chugs until the data gets from the HDD to the RAM then to my HD6870.

I've noticed that adding the argument "-EH:off" seems to really kill a lot of the CTDs as well, but nobody seems to know exactly what it does.

[Kitsune]

Not setting the game to run on only 1 core of a dual core computer.  Will crash every time zoom is used

solution, set the shortcut to only run on one core with the "-CPUCount:2" in the target field(Z, Tarkus and many others have both recommended this trick on these boards)

I have a core i7 (just like haljackey, though I probably have a different model than his) which also has 4 cores with hyperthreading (which makes it appear in Windows as an 8-core CPU). But my SC4 is 100% stable when zooming in and out without using the "-CPUCount:2" thing. That might also be because SC4 and my plugins are on my SSD though which gives very quick access and read times. (What I'm saying here is that the crashing on multi-core CPUs might be related to the fact that mechanical hard drives cannot read the data fast enough and therefore crash the game. I should add that this is a total guess and is solely based on my experience with SC4 and multi-core CPUs and different types of harddrives.

See... I've never had any issues with zoom either... and I use an i7 920 (one of the first ones to be produced) @ 4.1 ghz along with a 15K rpm hard drive. The only problem I have, like everyone else is the CTD issues, but these are rare for me... and usually happens a few minutes after I build a road.

[catty]

...adding the argument "-EH:off" seems to really kill a lot of the CTDs as well, but nobody seems to know exactly what it does.

It turns off the Exception Handling for the game, so no CTD and Exception Reports being generated (or at least not so many), but whatever is going wrong is still going wrong, which could cause more problems in your game than just a CTD.

[Haljackey]

I have a core i7 (just like haljackey, though I probably have a different model than his) which also has 4 cores with hyperthreading (which makes it appear in Windows as an 8-core CPU). But my SC4 is 100% stable when zooming in and out without using the "-CPUCount:2" thing. That might also be because SC4 and my plugins are on my SSD though which gives very quick access and read times. (What I'm saying here is that the crashing on multi-core CPUs might be related to the fact that mechanical hard drives cannot read the data fast enough and therefore crash the game. I should add that this is a total guess and is solely based on my experience with SC4 and multi-core CPUs and different types of harddrives.

Ya I have something similar. I have a i7 950 and SC4 running on a SSD and there are no graphical or mechanical problems with my game. However, my game crashes all the time, especially on older and more heavily developed game tiles.

The half-your-plugins tactic works well for 'instant' crashing, the same for removing your more recent downloads.

I'm looking for a list of exact or probable causes and preventatives on how to solve them. Random crashing sucks but I doubt that one can be solved completely.

The best advice I can give: save often.

[WC_EEND]

While playing SC4 the other day I did also notice something quite peculiar: During normal gameplay, my i7-2600k and gtx 560Ti combo usually nets me around 200-400FPS, however when buildings start growing it slows to just 4FPS. Am I the only one who has that or is this actually something common?

re: the crashing, I haven't had SC4 crash a single time on my new PC (have it since September), however on my old Core 2 Duo laptop, it was crashing galore.

[j-dub]

I have the game slow down when there are a lot of peds, because of this, I can't place as many reward menu lots down. I initially experienced more crashes on service pack 1, but someone I forgot what they did, had me do a few lines, to alter either the game or the system, and it made a difference. I just can't run the play button for over a certain amount of minutes on a real large city, because I have had crashes that way, there are times when the buildings change all at once, and the traffic changes, and the pollution, and occasional fire; I don't think it can handle all those processes at once.

[Haljackey]

While playing SC4 the other day I did also notice something quite peculiar: During normal gameplay, my i7-2600k and gtx 560Ti combo usually nets me around 200-400FPS, however when buildings start growing it slows to just 4FPS. Am I the only one who has that or is this actually something common?

Ok so I am not crazy. I notice framerate issues all the time, especially when I'm recording videos. Good computers these days can easily record 30FPS (what Youtube uses) or more on the highest settings for the newest games, but in SC4 my FPS struggles to stay above 20.

So it has to do with just too much crap happening all at once in the city? Or is it just construction? There must be a few aspects that cause the game to slow down that much, especially since this is an old game. If current systems can't keep up with it, how on earth did systems back in 2003 with the minimal hardware requirements do so?

If there's simply too much going on at any one time, it could cause a crash. It doesn't matter what your system specs are which is just crazy. We are all victim to it I guess.

[jdenm8]

how on earth did systems back in 2003 with the minimal hardware requirements do so?

Drivers, APIs and just general code was better back then, simple as that.

[WC_EEND]

Ok so I am not crazy. I notice framerate issues all the time, especially when I'm recording videos. Good computers these days can easily record 30FPS (what Youtube uses) or more on the highest settings for the newest games, but in SC4 my FPS struggles to stay above 20.

So it has to do with just too much crap happening all at once in the city? Or is it just construction? There must be a few aspects that cause the game to slow down that much, especially since this is an old game. If current systems can't keep up with it, how on earth did systems back in 2003 with the minimal hardware requirements do so?

If there's simply too much going on at any one time, it could cause a crash. It doesn't matter what your system specs are which is just crazy. We are all victim to it I guess.

my game (on practically empty tiles) slows down to about 4FPS during construction and once the houses have been built, it climbs back to 30-60FPS