Sim Societies crashes

[Martypops1]

Are there any known bugs?
Game crashes after 10 minutes, games freezes, music continues though
Have downloaded patch, no diferent
Any1 any suggestions?

[Ermie]

Originally Posted by Martypops1

Are there any known bugs?
Game crashes after 10 minutes, games freezes, music continues though
Have downloaded patch, no diferent
Any1 any suggestions?

What are your computer specs? Do they meet the minimum requirements?

[Martypops1]

Specs -
Pentium 4 3.0ghz
Ram 1.0gb
graphics card - Nvidia Geforce FX5700LE 128mb
Directx - 9.0c
Running on XP

hope this helps

usingtask manager -
pf usage is steady at 1gb
SimCitySocieties.exe is using 407,544 k memory usage

[Ictena]

Hi There,

I also have the patch installed and same as you the game crashes very freqently. Doesn't matter what I'm doing. Once when creating a map, 2 times during the tutorial, there is no logic to my actions at the time and the crash.

Of one thing I'm realy sure, it is not a pc spec issue. I have a powerfull (but not overly expencive) next gen PC not even a month old, running on Vista 32 Bit, Quad core 4x2.6Ghz, top of the line Nvidia card, and so on.....

I'm also curious as to why the game is crashing.

[The Star Hermit]

Hi Martypops1 and Ictena, welcome to the forums.

Sorry to hear you are having problems with the game crashing, I'd recommend you read through the article What can be done when the game locks up or freezes? in the EA database in the first instance, if the information doesn't help then I'd recommend you click the CONTACT US tab on the support site to contact the team directly for further help.

I hope it's sorted soon.

[Kill Bill]

Originally Posted by The Star Hermit

Hi Martypops1 and Ictena, welcome to the forums.

Sorry to hear you are having problems with the game crashing, I'd recommend you read through the article What can be done when the game locks up or freezes? in the EA database in the first instance, if the information doesn't help then I'd recommend you click the CONTACT US tab on the support site to contact the team directly for further help.

I hope it's sorted soon.

I did that but it dosen't help. Does yours crash?

[greenpanther]

The patch and the advice from EA support don't help. Any other suggestions? I'm really enjoying this game and its frustrating to have it end randomly all the time. Thank goodness for quicksaves.

[tomichacide]

Having the same problem but not quite as often. Everything is up to date on my PC, got the patch. I'm running on an Atlon duo core, with 3GB of Ram, and a Radeon X1300 (512MB). So the specs are fine.

It occurs generally when interacting with the game, in the sense that if I leave the town Idle, just racking in the simoleons, it would run forever I suspect. Stupid things, like going into the building gallery, or opening a building/sim card...

I lowered graphics quite alot, the game is a hell of a ressource eater, changed sound settings like recommended by EA, and even made sure nothing was in the background, not even an antivirus. Yet I still get these total freezes every hour or so. Extremely annoying given the fact that nothing will un-freeze it, not Alt+Tab, the Start button, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Alt+F4, Alt+Esc, nothing but turning off my computer the way you're not supposed to: staying pressed on the power button.

[PopStarBabezyJ]

NEED HELP!!! SimCity Societies keeps CRASHING!!! tryed the pach, but don't think it's working! Its getting really hard to like this game!

[Roo]

Originally Posted by The Star Hermit

Hi Martypops1 and Ictena, welcome to the forums.

Sorry to hear you are having problems with the game crashing, I'd recommend you read through the article What can be done when the game locks up or freezes? in the EA database in the first instance, if the information doesn't help then I'd recommend you click the CONTACT US tab on the support site to contact the team directly for further help.

I hope it's sorted soon.

I can't press any keys on the keyboard what-so-ever once it hangs as described above. Even Caps Lock\Num Lock doesn't make the corresponding light go on.

The mouse moves around still & the music continues. Then it goes totally black (in fact the monitor actually reports "No signal") & I have to "button" the pc to turn it off. Nothing in Problem Reports either, no mention of it crashing at all.

Annoyed is an understatement. I shall contact EA support to see if they can help at all.

[ladycashel]

My game keeps crashing too...

[coupe69]

I too am having severe problems with this game. I have had various crashes from just locking up and being able to ctrl+alt+tab and end process in task manager to having to hard reset my machine, something I really don't like doing to often when i'm running a RAID 0 config

It seems to be getting worse the bigger the city gets. I have got to the point now where it only lasts a matter of a few minutes so have had to give up playing it for now and hope EA come up with a solution. I have no problems with any other games only this one.

I must say although it wasn't what I was expecting as I used to love the old sim cities, I was quite getting into it until the far too frequent crashes started occuring.

Specs if anyone is interested are as follows :-

Asus P5E X38 mainboard,
Intel E6600 C2D @ 3Ghz,
BlalalalaS @ 600/1700
4Gb OCZ Reaper memory 1:1 with cpu,
Elite Pro Xfi soundcard,
2 X 400Gb WD AAKS hard drives RAID 0
NEC DVD writer sata,
Vista hp 64 bit,

All latest drivers and vista hotfixes, I have tried 169.09 crysis beta video driver and the 163.75 WHQL one to no effect. Also tried lowering graphics from ultra to high and then to medium, lowering my resolution from 1680x1050 to 1440x900 and even down to a standard 1280x1024 all to no effect.

My pc is prime95 and orthos 24 hrs stable and like I said before I have no other problems with any other games including the likes of Crysis, COD4, Sega Rally, COH, Colin Mcrae DIRT, Bioshock etc etc most of which I would say are more demanding than this.

Please EA patch quickly or this game will soon be traded.

[Roo]

Originally Posted by coupe69

...BlalalalaS @ 600/1700...

OOOH guys look, yet ANOTHER 8800 card!!! I'm really beginning to think this game doesn't like nvidia GPUs.

Coupe, I contacted EA support tonight with a massive list of things I have tried & sent dxdiag.txt with it.

Please contact EA support via the Support Centre link & the top, then "Contact Us" tab. run dxdiag & attach the file with your question. The more people do this, the more likely they are to realise something is wrong.

Good luck & keep us updated

This is what I told them

My problem:

After playing for around 10-20 miunutes, the game stops responding. The music continues & I can move the mouse pointer around but cannot interact with anything. If I wait for a further 2-3 minutes, my monitor goes black & the "No Signal" message is displayed.

I cannot use the keyboard at all. No keys or combination of keypresses work. The only way I can restart my PC is to "Button it" & press & hold the On/Off button. This results in a disruptive shutdown.

I've viewed the Problems & Solutions log that Vista provides, but can find no evidence of the game or GPU drivers misbehaving. The only entry corresponds with the disruptive shutdown.



My attempts to rectify it:

I have tried various forceware drivers direct from nvidia.
I have tried shutting down ALL background tasks with only the basic services running.
I have disabled Aero on Vista.
I have uninstalled & reinstalled the game.
I have tried the game with & without the patch.
I have checked the defrag status of the HDDs
I have scanned for malware
I have used ccleaner to remove all temp internet files/history/auto complete/cookies etc etc
I have used ccleaner to clean registry of any null/dead entries
I have tried all graphics settings from within the game
I have tried turning off the sound from within the game
I have installed ALL the Vista updates including all hotfixes related to 8800 GPUs
I have removed the 8800GTS card & reverted to a 8600GT card
I have removed 2GB of RAM & tried it with 2GB instead of 4GB
I have unplugged all external devices (USB HDDs, USB DVDRW, USB wireless mouse etc)



I am really at my wits end here.
Please can you sugest something I can try. Other users on your EAUK forums are having the same issues.

Please do not reply with your standard "defrag/shut down background tasks" etc, I am not a novice & as I have stated above, I have tried all of your sugestions regarding game freezes.

I look forward to a response.

[coupe69]

Have written a nice message for the people at EA support to read along with a dxdiag report.

Hopefully will be able to report back tommorrow with what they have to say, although I won't hold my breath

rlow06 I've tried a lot of the things you have although I must admit I haven't been quite as thorough as yourself, as I believe this is clearly an issue with the game and could well be a 8800 compatibility problem.

At the end of the day why should we do their beta testing for them, it's not as if 8800's are a rare card nowadays and yet there are still games being released without decent support for them PES'08 springs instantly to mind although there is now a workaround for that in the form of the kitserver.

It would be interesting to see if anybody else has the same problem that are using a 64bit os with 4gb memory and an 8800 video card ?

[Roo]

Originally Posted by coupe69

Have written a nice message for the people at EA support to read along with a dxdiag report.

Hopefully will be able to report back tommorrow with what they have to say, although I won't hold my breath

rlow06 I've tried a lot of the things you have although I must admit I haven't been quite as thorough as yourself, as I believe this is clearly an issue with the game and could well be a 8800 compatibility problem.

At the end of the day why should we do their beta testing for them, it's not as if 8800's are a rare card nowadays and yet there are still games being released without decent support for them PES'08 springs instantly to mind although there is now a workaround for that in the form of the kitserver.

It would be interesting to see if anybody else has the same problem that are using a 64bit os with 4gb memory and an 8800 video card ?

Wonder if it'll work in "Safe Mode"

[Aggression]

I have the same problem with a Nvidia 6510 and I can barley play the game as it goes off as soon as it loads up. It seems Simcity Societies has destroyed the name 'Simcity' and is worse than I expected. I watched clip after clip and the game looked good although the reviews on some sites like Gamespot were very negative. One of my main problems with the game is the disasters are a great dissapointment. One of my favorite aspects of Simcities before hand were th disasters. Where in this they have been replacd with three rather wasted selections that do hardley any damage. Yes, I know the game is about creativity but, the game would be a lot better if it had a greater target audience instead of the younger years, although the graphics are good an improvement to the previous game. It is still missing an awful and I mean A LOT. As with most other EA games I'm sorry to say but, yet again they have brought out another untested game packed full with bugs and errors. Maybe you should start testing the games more thorough, to get better reviews and make a better game for everyone. Patches are good but what about those people who don't have the interenet. Of cause, it would be of greater use to everyone if you just tested the games before release on several different graphics cards and differnt spec computers!

I hope there will be an improvement in the very near future on the inevitable errors as this is all based on the first impressions. I hope the game improves as I play through it.

[Antmanbrooks]

I'm having the same problem, seems the bigger my city gets the more frequent the crashes? I use an Nvidia GeForce 6200, my computer is getting a bit on the old side but very few games experience the same level or freqency of crashes as this does? I have to have my setting set to Low and shadows turned off to have the game even slightly playable. This game seems fun but I'm afraid the speed at which it plays may prevent me from playing even without the crashes!

Oh yeah there's no way I'm contacting EA support as last time I did this over a controller issue with Fifa 08 they were completely uselesss and I solved the problem myself, with the help of kind folks on these here forums.

[The Star Hermit]

Hmm, I wonder if this is the same problem as we saw with The Sims 2, in so much as many players with nvidia or geforce cards experienced unexplained crashing, which turned out to be problems with nVidia driver, even newer versions.

It's still worth anyone experiencing crashing, freezing or other problems to pass the information on to the support teams, the more information gathered about the specific hardware/software being used at the time the more likely they'll be able to track down specific problems.

[coupe69]

Well I've had my response from EA customer service which while admitedly was nice and quick it was also unfortunately not the sort of help I was looking for.

Here's what they said :-

Thank you for writing us at EA Technical Support. I understand that you are currently having crash issues with SimCity Societies. I apologise for your situation, and the inconvenience that this causes you.

First off, please note that the game was not tested on 64 bit systems and is most compatible with 32 bit systems.

With that said, please go over the things below.

Adjust your desktop resolution to 1024x768 for the best compatibility with your game.

How to change your desktop resolution
http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=10710

(hmmm like I don't know how to change my resolution )

If you have raised any video/graphics settings in the game from their defaults, lower them back to their default setting.

Make sure that you have closed any programs or tasks running in the background as sometimes one of the programs can conflict with the game. Background applications such as anti-virus programs are often the cause of conflicts.

· Hold down the Ctrl, Alt, and Delete keys at the same time
· Click the "Processes" tab.
· Click on the gray bar in the middle column that says User Name to sort by user name.
· Do NOT select anything for SYSTEM, LOCAL SERVICE, or NETWORK SERVICE.
· Click on anything besides EXPLORER and TASKMGR for this User Name or other user names.
· Click on END PROCESS
· Repeat these steps until only explorer.exe and taskmgr.exe are open for this user profile.

Don't worry that you are permanently changing your system configuration; these applications will return when you restart your system.
If you receive a warning for any of these, don't worry it is a standard warning message and is expected. Please click "yes" and continue.
If you have raised any video/graphics settings in the game from their defaults, lower them back to their default setting.

So basically if you're running a 64 bit os don't bother buying the game because they couldn't be bothered to test it on a 64 bit os

And if you already have brought it please run it on the lowest settings available especially if you have a 8800 and are running it in a high resolution.....

Yeah like I brought a 22" widescreen monitor and a £380 video card to run games at 1024 x 768 if that was the case then I could have saved myself a lot of money and brought a nice cheap dell and a 15" crt

This game hasn't been tested properly and i urge people who were considering buying it to think again especially if they have hardware thats anywhere near recent and decent.

I've sent them the following email and we will see what they come up with

Hi,

I have tried everything you suggested and still the crashes persist.

Unfortunately you don't really make it clear on your cover of your game that this was not compatible with a 64bit os,

if this is the case then I will ask you for a full refund for the game as this is clearly not acceptable.

Like I said in my previous email I have no problems playing any other games only this one am I experiencing these sort of issues.

Please give me details of either
a) how to get my money back for a game that is not fit for purpose or
b) how to get the game working for more than 10 minutes at a time.

Many thanks

Lets hope they come up with a reasonable solution.......

[Roo]

Hey Coupe,

EA sent me practically the same message...

Originally Posted by ea tech

Hello Richard,

Thanks for contacting EA Technical Support! I do apologize for the inconvenience you're experiencing with the game right now. I understand you're having issue with Sim City Socities, and I know how frustrating that is. Rest assured that I would try my very best to assist you resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

Here are some few things I suggest you try.

Every game by default has a minimum resolution required to run. Having a lower resolution or a non-standard resolution rate such as widescreen can cause games to display the graphics improperly or to not display them at all. To adjust your Windows resolution to a game friendly mode, please follow these steps:

1. Open Display Settings by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking Appearance and Personalization, clicking Personalization, and then clicking Display Settings.

2. Under Resolution, move the slider to 1024 x 768, and then click Apply.

• It is advisable to empty the Windows Temp folder.
o http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg...?p_faqid=10705.

Let me know how this goes.

Should you require further assistance about this or any Electronic Arts games in the future please visit our website and review our extensive Self Help knowledgebase (http://support.ea.com).

Thanks!

Glenn A.
EA Tech Support

Well, I did EVERYTHING he said (no harm in trying I thought) & it bloomin worked I've been playing for 1 hour 13 minutes now & so far it's working really well!!!

[coupe69]

So you're running at 1024x768?

[Roo]

Originally Posted by coupe69

So you're running at 1024x768?

Not the game, no. That's still running @ 1440 x 900.

I just changed my desktop resolution to the 1024 x 768 which is a pain as Nvidia's control panel is garbage, but hey, It works!!!

I know what you mean about 64bit Vista. Seems not many people use it & a lot of stuff (Crysis etc) isn't working well on it yet. I wanted to get 64 bit too so I chould chuck 8GB in this machine, but I settled for 4GB even though I can only use 3GB

Try changing your desktop res to 1024x768 & running the game (I didn't even shut down any of the B/G tasks as I didn't really think it would work) & see what happens. I should add that I turned down all the graphics options in the game to low but I'm going to start turning them all up slowly to find the games sweet spot.

Good luck Coupe, hope you get it sorted & keep us posted

[Aggression]

This is beginning to annoy me now. I have re-installed the game, without the patch.

It works for about 5 mins (longer than before.) Untill sticking with just the sound. Although no error message appears and you can still control the computer background and close the game down from the desktop.

I have been playing for a few more minutes and the game itself is quite good although I am still dissapointed with cirtain aspects of the game. Like the disasters, call me evil, but I really liked blowing stuff up!

Is it me or does the patch just add the error message?

[Antmanbrooks]

Originally Posted by rlow06

...Well, I did EVERYTHING he said (no harm in trying I thought) & it bloomin worked I've been playing for 1 hour 13 minutes now & so far it's working really well!!!

I followed the same advice and started a new town, worked fine for about 1 hour 30 mins then as my town got bigger.... yeah you guessed it, more crashes.

[Roo]

Originally Posted by Antmanbrooks

I followed the same advice and started a new town, worked fine for about 1 hour 30 mins then as my town got bigger.... yeah you guessed it, more crashes.

Sorry to hear that.

I've put in about 6 hours so far (alt tabbing between IE7 & SCS from time to time) & so far... so good.



5 hours 10 mins infact - oh how time flies