How to STOP the Crashes!

[oceanassassin]

EDIT: Much easier way has been brought to my attention by the awesome Slovenian89: In your library section, right click on SimCity 4, click properties and then under the general tab click on Launch Options and then type -CPUCount:1

This does the exact same thing that I just described below. Thank you. :)

How to stop the CRASHES: (must be done everytime you launch the game unfortunatly)

-Start the game as usual. (This method can be done from anytime during the game but the sooner the better. Well let the game load at least first. lol)
-Alt tab out of the game and start the Task manager
-go to the Processes tab and find SimCity 4
-Right click on it and click on SET AFFINITY
-Make it so only one CPU is checked. ('They' say the game isn't optimized to run on a multicore system so setting it to use only one core makes it more stable)
-Press OK and go back to game.

I found this on a web site a long time ago and It has NEVER froze again for me unless I forget to do this. There was some reason about how the game isn't optimized to run on multicore processors or something. All I know is it works.

And YES, you have to do this EVERYTIME you run the game. It's a hassle but it's better than it freezing.

[slovenian89]

Setting the Launch Options to include -CPUCount:1 does the same thing, you won't have to set it everytime you play then.

[oceanassassin]

Originally posted by slovenian89:

Setting the Launch Options to include -CPUCount:1 does the same thing, you won't have to set it everytime you play then.

Thank you, I just edited my main post but left in my instructions just incase. lol

[Grezz]

I've loved isometric strategy games since I was young, and was really looking forward to playing this, but it just quits while trying to load a map. I've tried both the above solutions multiple times, but still no luck. Can anyone offer help?

[SoulDestroy]

My thanks to the first two posts. Wasn't much of a problem for me, but it does get annoying sometimes.

[Spirit Musicorum]

Odd. I recently aquired the game and running on a quad core, not a single crash to date and i never had to do any of the above.. maybe a recent change in the Install files corrected it?

[Twelvefield]

I doubt that. You probably just have one of the lucky computer configs that doesn't confuse the game. My rig is the same way, it runs the game better than 10 years ago.

[guitarwiz1]

I've tried every fix known to man, and it still crashes. It ran good for a couple of days, but once my population reached around 5000 it would start crashing again.

Sometimes it would crash to desktop. Other times it would just freeze, and I would have to hard start my computer. The worst ones though were the freeze and BSOD (blue screen of death.)

It's a shame too. I really liked playing this game when it first came out.

[Lighthouse_Rockstar]

Just save often. I found that it's more likely to crash if it's not saved.

[Bruno]

Why aren't they patching this game if it's unstable?

[Pelen]

Originally posted by Mad zoidberg:

Why aren't they patching this game if it's unstable?

Because it's ancient.

[BasaraJP]

has anyone tried using it in a virtual windows XP? graphs are old enough that it might work ok there. Buying and if I have problems I will test it on VMWare

[Heisenberg |RTP|]

Originally posted by slovenian89:

Setting the Launch Options to include -CPUCount:1 does the same thing, you won't have to set it everytime you play then.

when you do this, does the computer go back to using all the cpu cores after the program gets closed? I imagine yes, but just to be sure

[Heisenberg |RTP|]

Originally posted by Lighthouse_Rockstar:

Just save often. I found that it's more likely to crash if it's not saved.

That's how i do it, i save often, but usually my first crash is my only crash, it comes pretty early on, and usually always when i zoom out and large parts of the city get shown it freezes up and shuts down without saying anything, then i can usually go for awhile without crashing, but nothing sucks more than making a street grid or subway/ water pipe grid, then losing all that data

[☏COLDCALL☏]

i likes to freeze

[shane.dono13]

SC4 was created before our PC's were running high RAM and is set at a low rate as default.
In your browser look for SC4 "4gb_patch.exe".....theres a number of sites still coding for Simcity 4 and they will have the patch.
Once you have it run the patch and apply it to the SimCity4.exe file found here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps
inside the apps folder is the SimCity4.exe file....if you run a different OS find the Simcity4.exe file and apply the patch.. Good luck