SC4 Crashing to Desktop

[RisKFactoR]

Ok, I have searched on the boards, and on the internet, and have tried many different things in trying to prevent these annoying CTDs in SC4. I have a region with 13 cities, with a combined population of just 430,000. Out of my 13 cities, two of them, specifically, is constantly CTDing on me after only simming 10 days or so. The two cities are quite a bit smaller than my largest ones, which seems to work fine, for the most part.

Also, there are no other extra BATs being used or anything extra special, that I can tell about these two cities compared to the other 11.

Now, I do have a large plugins folder. Many different files I have no idea what they are or do, because the default labeling is pretty bad (these are old plugins, before I taught myself to keep my folder as organized as possible.) I have been systematically going through, file-by-file, and getting rid of files that have no description at all. I would then go back to my SC4 game, and bulldoze brown boxes that appear, at the end of every session of deleting/moving files around. (so far, I came across none.)

I do know about CTDs when you scroll around too fast. I learned that on my own several years ago. I have read about how SC4 hates Core 2 Duos, which I have had in my system since 2005 or so. However, the CTD with my two most notorious two cities is a recent phenomenon. Well, one city has been doing that for over a year now, and now out of nowhere, I have a second city that is doing it as well.

I have tried changing my virtual memory, going into the BIOS, currently looking through my plugins folder by hand, since cleanitol doesn't seem to find anything out of the ordinary with the plugins. I have also uninstall/reinstalled the game, and the patches. I am currently out of ideas. I am just on the verge of uninstalling SC4 altogether, all the plugins, and completely purging my system of all SC4 things, and trashing the CDs. I am waiting for CXL now. I am done with EA.

But, it would be a bit of a shame to do this, since the region I have been playing now since I bought the game about 5 years ago.

If there is any further information anyone needs, whether about my system, and plugins folder and whatnot, I will gladly supply it. I am just getting tired and frustrated with an inherently flawed product that has received no support at all from the creators. In fact, I got a reply back from EA about some kind of BS about how "SC4 is a $40 program, compared to Autodesk's AutoCad that is a $1000. You cannot expect a $40 program to not crash." All I can say is: "Where's the Fries? (next time we'll wash your mouth out with soap)?" lol. I was completely, absolutely dumbfounded by such a statement, it is unbelievable. 

Anyways, any help would be MUCH, and GREATLY appreciated! Thanks!

[RisKFactoR]

lol...."Where's the Fries?"....lol

EDIT:

I have 1 more idea, but want someone's technical opinion on this:

I am thinking of deleting all the dependecnies completely from my system. I found a huge dependency list on this site. I would then go through and d/l ALL of the dependencies on that list, and have those freakishly organized. There are two problems that I foresee with this:

1. I have old, I mean ancient BATs from a long time ago. Not sure if SC4D would have the necessary essentials in the that list from that long ago. ( I can always delete brownboxes form cities, and finding the corresponding offending BAT, and deleting it from plugins afterwards.)

2. It would make my plugins folder unnecessarily large, for d/l dependencies that are not necessary to have, since I may not have the BATs/mods that would use those dependencies.

The advantages:

1. I would be assured of getting rid of old dependencies that may have been updated, and getting the newest ones.
2. I can, essentially, "start from scratch" and get back on the right foot again. Would be easier to just d/l every single dependency, rather than trying to figure out which ones I need. Again, I do not know how well cleanitol catches these things.

Thanks, and sorry for the long posts.


The advantage would be that

[gottago]

Now that's what I call support 

I had exactly this go on for a while and I run sc4 on vista and there are two things that cured it for me:
you have to set your processor affinity correctly--see this thread: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=3683.0  which explains how to enable a variety of "custom" functions when sc4 loads, particularly setting affinity, the rendering engine, and exception handling. This will go a long way to curing the scrolling bug and ctd.

Also, it sounds like you probably also have a port pack/airport pack plugin conflict. This was what was crashing city tiles upon opening for me. The problem was that older port packs were in conflict with older ploppable airports and if you plopped both in a city you'd get a ctd at some point and the city tile wouldn't open any more. To cure a city, you've got to remove the conflicting plugins and edit the city's .sav file in reader by also removing the references to one of those plugins. IIRC it was Peg's functional seaports vs. SWAP airports and BSC port packs--you can't have both.

...All right, here is a linkie to a thread where this is discussed in greater depth: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=4702.msg152426#msg152426

Doubtless there is another explanation--hopefully less opaque--to be had by searching SWAP airports threads.

Also, if you've got boxes, don't toss out the lot file, instead go back to the readme (you saved those someplace other than in your plugins, right?  ) and check the dependencies lists, and DL the ones that are missing. If you didn't save the readme, just rerun the installer or reopen the zip and save it to desktop to get at the readme and see what you're missing. It takes a while of suffering with boxes, but eventually you'll have DL'ed all but the most obscure dependencies and your boxes will be very rare and easy to handle.

[threestooges]

Welcome to our little corner of the net RiskFactoR. As for your CTD issues, though you've noted that scrolling too fast causes a CTD, what is it you are doing at the moment it crashes? Some CTDs  are caused by hovering certain lots over others (what are known as Transit-Enabled lots... basically early versions of puzzle pieces and train stations that have the tracks running through them... yes even the Grand Central Maxis one does this) and if you hover a puzzle piece over one of these, it'll CTD). Another thing may be a repeat instance of something (like two NAM controllers if you use the NAM) or a file conflict with certain plugins in the same city. There are a few methods to try for each problem, but knowing a bit about what you are doing when the CTD occurs would help diagnose. The game does get a bit touchy at times for any number of things.

Secondly, since you're newly registered to the site, I feel I should mention that, though we are a fansite for an EA game, we don't like to have our members discussing their preference for EA (or any other fansites for that matter). As the game is old and most support from EA has moved from it, discussing it does little to advance the game/community.

Again welcome, and best of luck with finding the problem.

[Diggis]

I wouldn't recommend downloading all the items on the dependency list here.  Firstly I haven't updated it in over a year...   and secondly you won't need half of whats on there.

I would recommend donating to the site and getting the SC4D LEX DVD or alternativly making note of all the lots and dependencies you install and cross checking against them for future installs.

[RisKFactoR]

Thank you all for your prompt replies!

gottago: I figured there had to be a conflict somewhere, which is why I am going through my plugins folder systematically. I'll try those two methods, changing the affinity and looking for the port/airport conflict. Indeed, both of the cities that I can't even seem to play anymore have both an airport, and a seaport. I'll look into that.

threestooges:Thanks for the welcome. I have have been coming to this site almost form the very beginning. I was mostly a lurker, and attempted to create a CJ at one point. Kind of a long story about this new account.

Now, the only transit-type lots that I use and d/l are mostly the sub-busway lot. I have had those forever, and use them extremely extensively. Never seem to have any problems with those. But I'll keep an eye out on this issue anyway. I may have plopped something to do with transit sometime in the distant past.

Also, I apologise for bringing up EA. I was just venting. I normally don't vent, but just getting a bit irritated is all. (Plus, that email didn;t exactly help my mood any...lol)

About deleting the brown boxes: The idea is to catch any files I do not recognize, and are not labeled very well in my plugins folder, and just trashing them. Since there are currently no brown boxes anywhere in my city, any that do appear, I'll just bulldoze them. It will be a way for me to reduce the size of the plugins a bit. I have so many buildings, it wouldn't be a big deal to get rid of one or two that are labled some like this: 0x3x4abghtyskaltrughdmsl.dat

Who knows where the file goes, right?

As for whatI am doing when it CTDs: Nothing, in particular. For the two cities in question, I just sat there at the defauilt zoom level, without so much as touching the mouse. Low and behold, at almost the same exact date, it crashes. Usually after about 10 days of simming or so. That is where I ahve the idea that the problem must be there is a conflict somewhere residing in both of those cities, or else one of my plugin files are corrupted or something. I'll do what gottago suggested first.

Diggis:I may donate to the site. The CD probably comes very well organized, and I can probably just get rid of all of my current plugins, and use the LEX plugins that come with the CD instead, and begin reintroducing some of my older plugins that I liked best back into the game.

As for d/l all the dependencies: I think I may delete all of them, since my dependencies are a bigger mess then the LOT, Mod, and DESC files are. I'll just use cleanitol to catch the dependencies I do need, and keeping those straight.

oh, and btw, if I keep my two cities paused, it doesn;t crash. So either it is a lighting issue (both of them are on the verge of getting dark), or it is a growable issue. If a lighting issue, I suspect it is the port/airport thing now.

[threestooges]

Never heard of the lighting crashing the game before, but if that's the case, then it may be the transition to the night state. You could either turn the night setting on manually and see if it crashes, or use the "Whattimeizit XX:XX" cheat and make it night.

I had an issue with some of my cities which crashed after a few moments of playing (also had a few that wouldn't even load), but that was after migrating things to a new computer and install of the game (things got messy in the process).

The timing of the crashes might suggest a duplicate controller file of some sort (NAM, etc) that the game only likes one of. Granted, while there are many good, old plugins, much changes and things can accidentally duplicate. If you run your cities with an empty folder, will they still crash?

Also, the DVD Diggis mentioned is a nice pack of stuff (and it is really well organized). I highly recommend it, especially if you want to start a plugins folder from scratch.

[RisKFactoR]

ok, that sounds like a plan. I'll get the LEX dvd, and begin rebuilding my plugins from the ground up. What I'll probably do, is just drag my cities/regions/plugins to my other drive, and wipe my HD (It's overdue to be wiped anyway. I usually do it every 3 months, and it's been nearly 6 now.) And yes, it still crashes even after I move my plugins folder completely out.

Also, I did start a new region. I thought I would try building a city in the Fairview tutorial map. I used the SC4 cheat whererufrom to rename my cities. So far, I like where the cities are going, and envision this one to be even better looking than the one that is giving me problems. (Still gonna keep my old region though. Too nostalgic to erase lol.)