"EA Games Challenge Everything"

[neville_bartos]

Well I challenge Simcity4 not to crash to desktop every 2 mins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, someone else must also be suffering from this?!? My city only has a population of 170k yet my game constantly crashes. I don't know what my system spec is but i can run the Call of Duty 5 so I can't imagine that it is a system issue.

Is this a CAM problem or EA being there usual corner cutting selves and making a game that is riddled with bugs?

[choco]

my guess is your plugins folder has conflicts, or you're hovering a puzzle piece over a TE lot.  you have NAM installed?

[46Bit]

There are some newer hardware configuration's that Simcity 4 just won't work on altogether, and some (eg: 8800gtx graphics cards) that some people (like me) can use successfully with it, but others even with identical hardware cannot. It's hit and miss really - the newest hardware is just so different to what the game was built for 6 years ago it's a miracle it still works for so many people, from people on Windows 98 all through to people on Vista, even 64-bit vista and 64-bit xp at that.

That said, hopefully your problem isn't the hardware you've got. Try renaming your My Documents -> Simcity 4 -> Plugins folder (so disabling all of your plugins) and see what happens. If it doesn't crash when you then load it up, it's a plugins issue, if it does, then it's something else.

[shovelmonkey]

sc4 used to crash on me quite frequently as well. I read somewhere that the game doesn't like dual (or triple core in my case) processers. When I start my game I let the region load, alt tab back to desktop, bring up task manager and look in the proccesses for the simcity4. Right click, choose "set affinity" and disable all but one CPU. I also set priority to high, just for giggles. It's worked like a charm and the game no longer crashes.


EDIT -- I am running 64bit Vista and a 64bit AMD triple core system, not sure if it helps or not...

[choco]

^+1

my dual core laptop used to crash as well.  never had a problem after setting the affinity.....

[FrankU]

Well, there are indeed some bug issues..... The forums are full of that. But crashing the game is usually not because of an EA bug. It can be, as said above, a hardware issue, with which I cannot help you. It's definitely not a CAM issue. So many people, like myself, have CAM installed without any problem. But it can also be a faulty plugin that makes your game CTD.

My advice:
1. As stated by 46bit: try to play without any plugins. Does it still crash? Then it's a hardware problem.
2. Does it not crash, then move half of your plugins back into the plugindirectory. Does it crash? The faulty plugin is in this set. Does it not crash: then the faulty is in the other half.
3. Take half of the plugins from the guilty half and see again if it crashes. Repeat this. This way you can find the faulty plugin. Delete it. It's some kind of work but not too much.

Probably you can remember what time the first crashes appeared. The faulty plugin must have been installed around that time. So your older plugins are quite certainly not the problem.
Another thing: my experience is that plugins from PEG's site and from the LEX are flawless. Simtropolis gives access to everyone, which is democratic, but not everyone knows how to edit files in the correct way. Although usually they are ok. Other sites I don't know about.