Sim City 4, YOINKS!

[Skywatcher]

WTF? SC4 can’t generate random regions? Argh! Oh, well, at least there’s a way around this via the import terrain function. Click here to find out how. Yeah, that’s me as “Region1” there.

[Engywook]

HideoHo - Thanks for the tips. 'cause of your post, I’m gonna give the game another shot, looking forward to trying it out. If I can get past everything stagnating before I even get off the ground, that would vastly improve the experience.

Thing I wonder: what’s the quickest way to wipe out every city in a region? Would it work to replace the region file on the hard drive with the one from the CD? Obliterating every city in a region would be the very soul of tedium.

And if there’s a way I didn’t have to personally attend to every fire…

[Obvious_Guy]

*Originally posted by hazel-rah *
Informal testing by users reports little effect on game slowdowns from adding or removing RAM. This makes sense for a computation-intensive sim game.

That may not be entirely true. If a person doesnt have the minimum amount of RAM, it will use Virtual Memory and then everything will slow down to a snails pace. I agree with you on everything else.

[Skywatcher]

*Originally posted by Engywook *
Thing I wonder: what’s the quickest way to wipe out every city in a region? Would it work to replace the region file on the hard drive with the one from the CD? Obliterating every city in a region would be the very soul of tedium.

Just change the region’s config.bmp.

[Drastic]

After quite a few good hours put into it, I’m in full agreement with everyone calling for a budget-easing patch at the very least. Growing a city just starts to feel like work after a certain point–not good in a game or software toy. I’m also baffled as to why a “scale local budgets to demand” option of some sort isn’t in there, to spare tweaking every single school and clinic and whatnot you slap down.

Also, I still maintain that whoever decided upon their patch-distribution method needs to be shot.

[SolGrundy]

*Originally posted by hazel-rah *
Actually processor speed is what you need most. With graphics like that, there’s no way the game is true 3D, so it’s unlikely to be stressing your videocard. Informal testing by users reports little effect on game slowdowns from adding or removing RAM. This makes sense for a computation-intensive sim game.

Uh, trust me on this one. Whatever “informal testing by users” may report.

For starters, the game is “true” 3D; check out this article on the official site for an explanation of what exactly is going on. The “trick” is that high-poly buildings are replaced with lower-poly models with very highly-detailed textures, and sprites are used when possible. That’s why there are fixed camera angles. One of the common complaints is that “my computer can run GTAIII fine, so why can’t I run SimCity 4 at 90 fps?!?” That’s neglecting that even with the “tricks” in place, you’ve still got an extremely high-poly scene, with enormous textures.

Yes, the simulation is computationally expensive, so your processor speed does come into play. But to do all its simulation, it’s got to have memory for everything that’s being simulated. Plus, of course, all the huge textures that have to get sent to the video card eventually. That’s why RAM is most important. It’s also why you get better performance on smaller maps, and why your performance starts to degrade when you get greater population.

So yes, processor speed is important, but the main things you need are still in the order I originally posted: RAM, then videocard, then processor.

[msmith537]

Wow this game is a great big disappointment.

1. How about some new/better forms of transportation like 4 lane avenues, el-trains, one-way streets, T-Intersections for highways, etc etc etc?

2. How about some futuristic stuff other than the stupid archologies from SC2000 and the fusion/solar plants? Maglev rail, flying cars and those things from Minority Report come to mind.

3. The performance sucks ass.

4. Fix the damn bugs