Can You Have Too Many Plugins

[doug_w]

Just getting back into playing SimCity 4 after many years away.

My question is is it possible to have too many Plugins loaded ?

[Unconstantean]

Hmm dunno, it depends on the system specs. I have over 6GB of plugins.

[mattb325]

In general yes, your system specs play a huge part in the ultimate size of plugins your machine can handle.

Thankfully, there are a couple of things you can do to extend it beyond the machine specs:
1) Download the datpacker and datpack folders (usually 180MB per folder is a good size)
2) Download the latest version(s) of the NAM and use the 4GB patch

These will greatly increase the ability for you to have a large plugins. For example, my machine has only 4GB (Win 7) and I have over 5GB of plugins and everything works perfectly (load time = about 3 minutes). If I didn't do the above two steps, I would probably have serious issues at around 2GB worth of plugins.

[MushyMushy]

I can back up the fact that the system specs are very important, so the answer is really dependent on your machine.

Originally I had a Win XP tower with 2GB of DDR2 RAM and had issues with more than a single GB of plugins.
Then I had a Win 7 laptop with 6GB of DDR3 RAM and it got bogged down with my 5GB of plugins (not datpacked)
Now I have a Win 7 tower with 32GB of DDR4 RAM, as well as an SSD. It runs like a dream even with 8GB of plugins. Having an SSD makes a huge difference.

[dyoungyn]

I have been playing SC4 since it's inception and over the years, my plugins have grown and changes from better and better PC. 

Right now, my plugins are 8.37 GB and game loads fine.

I am using the newer downloaded version of SC4 and have a I7 3.4GZ, SSD, 16GB of memory with a GETFORCE Video card with 4GB of memory. 

I really never considered the size limitations for SC4 Plugins and SC4 was created as a 16 bit game which is just shy of DOS a very simple system and file size is nothing more then numbers; nothing more than what a 16 bit system could handle. 

[mgb204]

Put simply, you need ideally the following things to load a larger plugins suite without issues:

- A 64-Bit O/S
- 4GB of System RAM (absolute minimum), ideally 6/8GB
- To have activated the "4GB Patch" for the SC4 executable (handled automatically if you install NAM)

Every last one of those solutions all do exactly the same thing, which is ensure there is sufficient RAM for the game to run, with the O/S in the background. If your CPU can't keep up, you'll get some serious lag, similar with the GPU side of things. But, if you stray into Virtual Memory SC4 will just break, it really can't handle that well at all. Whatever you do, SC4 is never going to be able to use more than around 3GB of system RAM, since it's a 32-bit application. In-practise I've never seen more than 1.6GB memory needed for my plugins suite of around 5-6GB. Bear in mind that Windows needs probably at least 1GB to run, more depending on what else is in the background, like Anti-Virus etc. Then consider too that some RAM will almost certainly be used for your videocard, even with a dedicated card, Windows pools it's memory with the system.

Now, what would happen if you really pushed the boat out? Well you'll come up, I suspect, against some serious memory issues. I've known people with 13GB+ plugins folders, but almost every one I know who's gone that far has to deal with major instability. But the only way to really know is to try it on your machine and see how far you can go.

[doug_w]

Really appreciate all the replies, many thanks. Food for thought and maybe a new computer