Big City crashes

[BlisteredVista]

Hi,
the game runs well until the city starts to become large with 500+ people. I find I can play the game as long as I don't pan the camera/screen around the city, as soon as I do, crash to desktop.
I did search the forum but didn't find a problem exactly like mine although the city lag post came close. Would having plaza's and roads underneath buildings really cause it to crash? Although thinking about it, this problem doesn't really appear until I've started filling the empty spaces in the city with plain 'plaza'..
I've recently started playing the game again after the latest patch release and had forgotten what a good game it is although this crash problem was never an issue before..
Any advice is greatly appreciated..:)

I've included some screenshots for example, especially one on the left.. Would all that plain plaza cause a crash? (especially under buildings) It's only when cities become larger than the ones I've provided that the crashes occur..

[Kiya]

Hi and welcome :)

Your city isn't that large yet, and your system seems very nice too. So, perhaps a save game (an ank. file) could tell us more. Please post it using the 'manage attachments', you'll see it while replying.

[Herodotus]

I had exactly this problem on El-Lahun.
I wanted to plain-plaza the entire top and sides of the quarry & pyramid plateau (so the whole mountain was white) to speed up the labourers but if I did too much plaza-ing the system crashed to desktop.
In the end I just gave up excessive plazas

[BlisteredVista]

Hi, thanks for the quick replies.. It's interesting that Herodotus found the same problem and perhaps there is a bug with too much 'plazaring' (snigger)
Anyhow as requested I'll include a save from a game that gives me the crash if I pan the view around too much (focusing on the city).. I did try and open the file using notebook (not sure why) but they still run..
Thanks once again..

[Kiya]

I tried to have a look at your city but it crashed on me in seconds even though I did manage to pause it first. :D I remember seeing earlier pics of a city almost completely 'plaza-ed'. Perhaps this crashing is something that came with the enhancement? I personally don't care since I don't like too many plazas anyway. I use them sparingly for the top elite areas.

[Caledorn]

This is exactly the same issue I've been having. I haven't linked it to plaza's - and I tend to plaza-ify my entire city core! Perhaps I should try to play a large city without plazas.. Hm.

Ref. thread with savegame : Pi-Ramesse CTD at specific map point (http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17151)

[Tinkerbell]

This is really weird. xlr8's Asyut save here (http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?p=196144#post196144) is plazaed, even the cult temple. I took this save to victory with no problems.

On your save, Caledorn, I crashed when I scrolled to your Cult Temple.

I don't plaza my cities, either.

It looks like we might have a pattern here, but not an always thingie?

[BlisteredVista]

Much thanks for all the input! It would seem that too much plaza does indeed cause problems. It's a shame as I like to beautify my cities as much as possible rather than just leave it original ground. I'm going to try the current scenario (I'm playing the second of the medium campaigns) without all the usual stuff I add in and see if that helps any.. I'll report back with any findings..

I checked out your save Caledorn and eventually got exactly the same type of crash (CTD) that I've been discussing here. So it must be something to do with the plaza... I notice that in the thread you posted one of the devs suggested lowering the graphic settings.. Maybe i'll try that but part of me thinks why have a good graphics card if you can't use it.. Anyway I'm starting to digress.. I'll try what I suggested above and then post back..

[Tinkerbell]

I just tried your save, BlisteredVista. The first time, immediately pausing. I was able to scroll around & it did not crash until I hit your cult temple.

Second try, I went off pause & did not crash if I avoided your cult temple. I even went totally around your city & the river (avoiding the CT location). Then, I even got to the cult temple w/o crashing. I took these images.

Then, I tried to get a full city image with tilt & it crashed. Both tries, the crash happened within a few minutes of loading.

You have a huge city, spread out with LOTS of plazas, including walls. I figure your population count at 726 using 3.2/per family, not very large at all. Your save definitely has more plaza's than xlr8's save I linked above.

FYI :)

[BlisteredVista]

Hi Tinkerbell,
yup I would get the same, I can move around the city (the outside), and all of the above but like you when I try to tilt or take a city shot near the cult temple, bam, CTD (although like you this wouldn't always happen)! When I plan a city I try to think ahead allowing space for statues, stele and anything else that will raise my prestige. I should also mention that I paint watercolours so my artistic side tends to kick in lol..
My current city build is not getting so much of the white plaza and in doing this I hope to get around the CTDs (which only happen when I use lots of white plaza to fill in blank spaces).. Fingers crossed...:)


BTW I may be asking a dumb question here but what does the figure '3.2/per family' relate to?

[BlisteredVista]

I seemed to have found a solution of sorts..
On the setting 'Rear clipping plane', I moved the slider so it sits in between the 'G' of clipping and 'P' of plane (roughly a third from the end)
On the setting 'LOD Index Modifier', I moved the slider to the same place as the one above. I also altered the scroll speed so it's slower. I tried various settings and these seem to be the best for 'my' set-up. The CTDs seem to have stopped although I've yet to try Caledorns save yet.. In fact I'll try that now..

Yup it ran no problem.. Wooot!!

[BlisteredVista]

I'd been looking through the forum proper and seeing some of the city creations by other users. It's certainly opened my eyes as to the potential of this game. Some of the cities I viewd were incredible and can only hope that I eventually get to create something even half as good..
Great stuff..

[Tinkerbell]

This is an image of my completed city of Daughter of Isis sandbox played entirely on v1.3 (US CD XP Home SP2). World Map is complete.

I loaded it & put it on pause. Then I started painting the entire city with plain white plaza roads, much larger than the city & including every building plus much more.

Population guestimate is 920 assuming 3.2 per family

I almost got it all done when the game crashed. ;)

[BlisteredVista]

Did you read my post above about the fix? I guess if you don't use white plazas much it doesn't really matter but personally I like to use it. Perhaps my style of city will change with experience and I'll do away with all the white stuff but at least I've more or less gotten to the bottom of this particular problem..

[Tinkerbell]

Yeah, I read your post, BlisteredVista. I also read Will Jenning's original post in Caledorn's thread at the time. I was there.

I just wanted to show that I could crash my game if I wanted to as an FYI. My game doesn't crash & I have always had graphics set to max & resolution also.

The question now is this related to Enhanced 1.3?

I am on a minimum computer P4@1.8 with only 1/2G RAM. It took a lot of plazas to crash me, but I admit it happened on pause. Would it have crashed with less plazas if I was off pause & scrolling around? Don't know.

As far as your question about the 3.2/family. You can guess at the population size by adding all the building types on the People Report that have families & multiply by 3.2. that is husband, wife & 1.2 kids. It is a fair average. Older city perhaps 3.4. Then add in the soldiers. Don't count villagers, vagrants, envoys, graduates.

An unhappy stressed-out city can go below 3.0 ;)

[Caledorn]

This is very interesting. In fact, the Pi-Ramesse save CTD'ed in various locations for me - but the single spot where I almost always crashed (I'd say 90% occurence) was the area with the Cult Temple. So I would say there is a fair chance of the crashes being related to the Cult Temple and the Plaza tiles.

I have also been wondering if this crash is related to the 1.3 Enhanced patch - and I believe it must be. I have played CotN since a few weeks after it was originally launched, and I never experienced any of these crashes. Only when I rebought the game from Steam and started playing the 1.3 Enhanced version did these crashes start to occur. Interestingly enough the 1.3 patch also introduced new building models and new plaza tiles.

I will try to play a game where I build a city without plazaing at all (even though it's going to be against my nature of beautification.. hehe) when I get around to it, and I shall report back on my findings. I will intentionally create a large city with at least 12 nobles - I will try to make that 16 or 20 - and see how it turns out.

Hopefully Tilted Mill also has been following this thread, and have some leads as to what they can look for in their code to possibly resolve this problem.

On a sidenote - while I have noticed that some people might not fit in around here - I must say that the community and helpfulness of this community is absolutely wonderful! Thanks to everyone for trying to help, test saves, and provide feedback and possible solutions! It almost makes me wish CotN was some kind of MMO and we could all play together :)

[Herodotus]

...The question now is this related to Enhanced 1.3?...


Maybe not.
My plaza-related crashes were on the El-Lahun contest, which as far as I remember, was at 1.2

[BlisteredVista]

[QUOTE=Caledorn;196237]
Hopefully Tilted Mill also has been following this thread, and have some leads as to what they can look for in their code to possibly resolve this problem.
QUOTE]

Lets hope it's sooner rather than later although I've actually no idea how much work it would take to fix such a problem....:confused:

[Alizeefan]

I didn't have any problems in the campaign untill i reached the final city of the easy ones.I attached a snap shot from one of the first city's.