CTD with win 7

[ScorpyCFS]

Hey guys, I'm new here but got hooked rather quickly even though traditionally I've never been a train junky but I suppose I am a bit of an empirialist. Spending money to expand my empire.
Anyway, the crux of the issue. I'm playing with a fairly beefy rig, and running windows 7, however, I am consistently having CTD once things start getting a bit busy in game. The times when crashes occur seem to coincide with placing items such as stations or deleting track, but only late game. I am running 4 gigs of system memory plus an extra gig on the graphics card so unless SMR has some serious memory issues or leaks, I can't see how it could be running out of memory. I am running the 1.1 patch
Any help would be appreciated.
Ta

[ScorpyCFS]

Just an update, I crashed after scrolling around the Australia map for a short time which is a massive map leading me to believe there's a memory problem somewhere. But this shocks me due to the amount of RAM I am running (Slightly tweaked for better performance).
If anyone has any ideas, I'd be much appreciative.

[karsten]

SMR is a 32-bit application without LARGEADDRESSAWARE, not able to see and use more than 2 GB on any Microsoft OS (32 or 64 bit), no matter how much RAM is installed.

An excellent fix for this problem under Vista was provided by Perunga in this thread His explanation is a bit concise, so read the following posts as well.

Memory crashes also happen under XP, just not as often because XP uses less RAM. Windows 7 uses more resources and will cause the problem earlier/more often, just like Vista.

The fix worked perfectly for me under Vista, and it would be great if you could test it under Windows 7 and tell us the results.

EDIT:
The patch folder is no longer available for download. I have found a copy on my harddisk, so if anyone wants to try it under Windows 7 ...

[Jancsika]

Under Vista I had a lot of trouble with the Australia map.
I have tested it for Bobby and here are some remarks that I made, that might be helpful:

Finally, figured out how to play large maps.
There are a few tricks that will save on the system resources.
1 Kept the trains under 20.
2.Kept the tracks under 9000 miles.
3.Once the item in the scenario goal was achieved, deleted the Train and the train station.
4.Also deleted the unused train tracks. Redid the track if there were too many signal structures or small pieces of tracks.

Also I got CTD-s when over scrolling with my mouse the edge of the map.(On all The maps!)


On the other hand: I can play Mudskippers (also a large map) without any crash from start to finish.
Jancsika

[karsten]

Also I got CTD-s when over scrolling with my mouse the edge of the map.(On all The maps!)

Jancsika, have you ever tried patching SMR with the Perunga patch? It is a bit of a hassle, but once it works it really makes a tremendous difference to SMR performance - even the free-fly camera does not crash as easily.

[ScorpyCFS]

Yep, that's a fix. Played the Australia map harcore without any hassles whatsoever. Ta

[Lowell]

So the same fix for Vista works for Win 7 also?

[Jancsika]

have you ever tried patching SMR with the Perunga patch?

No I have not, but I will,
Is this the so called SMRI patch?
That's the only one I could find.
Jancsika

[karsten]

No, its not the SMRI patch, SMRI was a bunch of good maps that could be installed together. SMRI was a neat idea at the time (hello Warll!), but it is largely superseded by SAM/CIC maps these days.

The Perunga patch allows SMR to use more than 2 GB on machines with more memory. It has wonderful effects in Vista (if, say, you have 3GB or more). Since Vista and Windows 7 are supposed to be much more similar than XP, and since it works with both XP and Vista, I assume it could well work under Windows 7. I don't have time to fiddle with Windows 7 at the moment (even though I have a free copy that came with my new computer), so I have not tested it yet.

The only requirement is that you read through this thread carefully from beginning to end, because the initial instructions were hard to understand.

[Jancsika]

........and also, I suppose, that every time the game is reinstalled, the patch needs to be reinstalled.
Well, that's life.
I had that patch somewhere, and have forgotten about it.
Jancsika

[karsten]

Not really. The patched .exe can be copied to whereever it is needed - mainly when moving to a new computer. Basically, reinstall, Firaxis patches and then replace the railroads.exe with the Perunga patched copy from your old computer.

I very rarely reinstall anyway. The last time was when my SMR disk cracked and I had to buy a new one - but even then I had to reinstall only because I was moving to a new machine at the same time - core i7 with 3GB and Vista.

[Jancsika]

Here is a post on the same subject by WardII and was posted on this forum. The link is broken, that's why am reposting it.
Jancsika

Correction!!I had to remove this post, because there were several broken links.
It was in the original Wiki. Maybe Ward II can check it.It was written by Zorander and modified by Ward II.

[Jancsika]

According to Anandtech, Microsoft had a “Hotfix” out dealing with this problem and the way I understand it it was incorporated in Vista Service pack #2.
http://anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3060
Jancsika

[ScorpyCFS]

Whilst it is preferable for the issue to be fixed externally, I highly recommend that anyone with win 7 having the problems I mentioned try the mentioned solution in this thread. I have not had a single crash since patching the exe. The only point I need to make is the linked file is no longer available so one will need to google search for a 3GB_Enabler to download in order to work this problem.
It was really cool to see the massively long tracks crossing the Australia map, 30 odd trains on the go, all graphics on high at 1920x1080 and 0 crashes. It should be noted that I do run 4 gigs plus an extra gig of dedicated on the video card so some still may have issues unless they're careful with their resources.

[Jancsika]

It looks like I have to eat crow.
The problem is apparently with my machine and not with Australia SAM.
Jancsika