Graphical glitch, help?

ak_punk · November 15, 2009, 01:29:16 PM

The game was running fine, but now when I move around the city, parts of the city or the GUI will repeat and remain on screen over the live gameplay. This doesn't happen all the time but still frequently, and often when I'm near the edge of the city. I'm wondering what could cause this to happen?

wouanagaine · November 15, 2009, 01:38:08 PM

Make sure you still have 'background*.png" in your maxis/sismcity4/plugins folder

j-dub · November 15, 2009, 02:36:42 PM

I did not even know the game could run without the background files, if they are not there, the game just crashes.

Rayden · December 13, 2009, 01:37:11 PM

Well, I think the problem above it's the same I've been having since I installed the system again and new Nvidia drivers. Here is what I had posted in another thread:

QuoteIn the meantime I'm having some graphic glitches that I haven't figured it out yet. If anyone has experienced this or know the reason, I would appreciate some fedback. My graphic drivers are up to date, the directX the same and the graphic card it's an nvidea geforce 9800 gtx (1gb DDR). It worked very well without any problems when I had Vista 64 bit installed. Since I installed WIN 7 64 bits that I'm having this issues. Here is some pics.

As you can see from the images, when that happens I just have to zoom in and out and the display clears up. But then later it happens the same. With the time playing, the issues happen more often. The game doesn't crash but it's very annoying to play like this. Any help will be appreciated.

And this is what I found on the net, not related to this game, but exactly about the same damn flickering.

QuoteHad the same problem with flickering with this game. I have NVidia 8600 GT and disabled the PhyX GPU Acceleration which did the trick.
I did read on this forum sometime ago about flickering and some kind soul suggested this solution. Give it a go....

And it did the trick. Here is a screenshot about what you have to disable on Nvidia Control Panel

I hope this helps others that might have or will experience this problem

Rayden · December 14, 2009, 03:34:53 AM

I regret to inform, but this hasn't solve to problem completely. It surely improved and doesn't happen that often, but it still does and I'm a bit frustrated right now. Any ideas?

SC4BOY · December 14, 2009, 03:49:10 AM

There probably also is a setting to "let the program run set the video card properties".. be sure to set that (it will be worded differently but you should get the idea)

Rayden · December 14, 2009, 05:48:13 AM

Quote from: SC4BOY on December 14, 2009, 03:49:10 AM
There probably also is a setting to "let the program run set the video card properties".. be sure to set that (it will be worded differently but you should get the idea)

I already did that.

xxdita · December 14, 2009, 06:13:29 AM

Have you tried datpacking your Plugins? I honestly haven't had this glitch since I found DatPacker, though it plagued me on just about every system before. I can't even try to explain how it could possibly help, aside from limiting the number of files loaded by the game. Either way, can't hurt, right?

Rayden · December 14, 2009, 06:47:15 AM

Quote from: xxdita on December 14, 2009, 06:13:29 AM
Have you tried datpacking your Plugins? I honestly haven't had this glitch since I found DatPacker, though it plagued me on just about every system before. I can't even try to explain how it could possibly help, aside from limiting the number of files loaded by the game. Either way, can't hurt, right?

I have them packed, but that gave me an idea. I'll try later without packing to see if it behaves the same. Because the game it's very flow, only the graphics behave like that. The only thing different from before is the OS (use to be Vista) and the power source that burned and I had to buy a new one. Could this be related to lack of power? Does anyone know how many volts does this graphic card uses?

thingfishs · December 14, 2009, 07:55:46 AM

FWIW My old setup used to do this as well, more frequently as a city got larger, and I just put it down to system overload of some sort. It hasn't done it yet on my newer setup, which I am putting down to the speed of the system (without any evidence to back this up)
(There's many variables between my two computers so it could be something else)

Rayden · December 14, 2009, 01:41:51 PM

Well, after all Nvidia drivers were the culprit, I had to downgrade my drivers, go figure that.

I have a dual boot mounted on my rig (windows 7 and windows xp), so, I installed SC4 on the XP drive and copied all my plugins and saves to that OS. I played the game without any glitches or crashes. I then checked the nvidia drivers and the directX and they were older than the ones installed on the WIN 7. I checked then the internet about the driver version installed and in a forum they said that many people complained about how faulty were the nvidia drivers series 192, and that people should install the latest 186 series dated from June 2009. I did that and for my amaze and at the same time content, it worked, no more glitches or failures, just perfect as it should be.

If you have this problem and are willing to try, just download them from here - http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_64bit_186.18_whql.html

Rayden · March 25, 2010, 07:16:41 AM

I forgot to mention, I have already updated my nvidia drivers to the version before this last one (196 or 197, I'm not sure) without any problems like the ones I had with versions 192. Now everything is working fine.