game crash after 3 seconds of gameplay?!

[toga333]

I have been trying all day to remedy this problem. I have purchased "SimCity Box" and Installed only Simcity Societies (not "Destinations" expansion). Everything works fine up until the gameplay actually starts, then the game crashes to the desktop and a box indicating that "SimCity Societies has stopped working...do you want microsoft to search for an answer"...

I have updated my DX driver, my Nvidia driver and installed Patch #5, same result every time! Crash, usually within 10 seconds. Please help! I really hope I haven't wasted $40!

[Javokis]

Are you sure you have the newest driver? Your DXDiag says you're using version 163.71. That's really really old. Try this driver:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvist...5.19_whql.html

Version 175.19 is the newest as of this post. It wont completely fix the crashes, but should allow you to play at least 30-45 minutes.

[Manni]

Javokis is right, your "new driver" is from september 2007..............

Did you also install directX 9 on top of your vista directX 10 ???
If not then do so

your hijack-file is clean.

check it yourself here: http://www.hijackthis.de/en

[toga333]

I downloaded the "most recent" driver, then tried to download the Directx9, however DirectX9 would not install since i had a more current version of it already running. Tried the game...same story, crashes and "a program casued the program to stop working appears". Same story differnet day, boy am I'm frustrated !

[Manni]

The "most recent" driver which you`ve downloaded...............did you pick the right one for vista 32/64bit? (I wish people would mention the versions so this guessing ends!!!)

What about finding a fresher sounddriver?

Have you defragged you enormous c-drive yet?

Are you sure you have installed directX 9 version from June 08?

Are you running the game as "admin"?

Have you tried playing without active firewall and virusguard (norton?? ) ?

[Manni]

....one more for toga333............

does the folder you have installed the game in look like this:
SimCity™ Societies ???

If so you can start from scratch again. That "TM" is messing up the game. This has been mentioned here in the fo some 4 dozen times..............

When installing create a folder named: SimCity Societies

[panikattak]

@Manni

I have had it both ways and my experience is it doesn't matter. Neither way seems to affect my game's stability. Granted, Windows isn't known for handling those characters in all instances, but for what Societies does do, it doesn't seem to be a problem.

I'm not saying to toga333 not to try this, but I don't think it will matter either way.

[Manni]

You might be right panikattak...all is possible or not.

I have made the experience with Tilted games to "clutch at any straw"............
Apart from that..............I wonder if toga333 is using a driver-cleaner when changing drivers............

[toga333]

Well I have done everything Manni had recommended on his list (took over 4 hours to defrag!) I am still getting the same crash, I see I'm not the only one too. The next post talks about the same issue I'm having so maybe it's a "SimCity Box" issue.

Just one last question, how do I play as "admin"?

This very well may be the last straw if the game doe not work. I can't believe I've wasted almost a day combined trying to play a game I'm not sure I'll even enjoy

[toga333]

Well I figured out how to use the game under "admin" user...same result. I think I going to throw in the towel, no game is worth this much aggrevation. What really iritates me is that my computer is pretty good (at least I think so), and now I have $40 game that doesn't run....great!

[Manni]

Originally Posted by toga333

took over 4 hours to defrag!

doesn`t surprise me!
Your partition C is 466.6 GB`s in size. Why don`t you cut that into smaller partitions?

Normally when I install a huge game I defrag the partition beforhand AND after install...................

[Keith]

Have you tried the AMD Dual Core Optimizer utility?

AMD Dual-Core Optimizer - The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer can help improve some PC gaming video performance by compensating for those applications that bypass the Windows API for timing by directly using the RDTSC (Read Time Stamp Counter) instruction. Applications that rely on RDTSC do not benefit from the logic in the operating system to properly account for the affect of power management mechanisms on the rate at which a processor core's Time Stamp Counter (TSC) is incremented. The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer helps to correct the resulting video performance effects or other incorrect timing effects that these applications may experience on dual-core processor systems, by periodically adjusting the core time-stamp-counters, so that they are synchronized.

His problem may just be the fact he is an nividia dx10 native card with vista sp1, which there is some issue with nvidia drivers on vista that make the card choke on dx9 applications.There is really no way around it until nvidia or microsoft makes a fix.

But there is two last thing you can try, although i didn't use it because i havn't boot into windows in a while, is you can try the lowest settings of the game, LOWEST.

The 2nd thing you could do, since your hard drive is pretty big anyways, is too dual boot with xp, and im sure you game would work on xp.Its safe, if you know what you are doing.

I am suffering the same issue as you are, and i found xp to make a differnce, but i had to delete xp off my hard drive for a few reasons.