!Zone: S!Zone/SZONE.BIN/faq04.txt

Text File | 1995-08-14 | 17KB | 394 lines

=========  F R E Q U E N T L Y   A S K E D   Q U E S T I O N S  =========



SimCity 2000 FAQ APPENDIX - Part 4

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have access to the World-Wide Web, see the latest HTML Translation
and Update of this document by Michael Hanson:

    URL = http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~hanson/simcity_2000.faq.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Appendix 1 (Solving Problems)

Growth
 Lower taxes
   Improve roads/transportation system
   Improve water system
   Intersperse zones
   Improve land values
   Build airports (Commercial)
   Build seaports (Industrial)
   Build connections
   Lower pollution/crime/traffic
   Improve education/health
   Pass Legalized Gambling ordinance (Commercial)
   Pass Tourist Advertising ordinance (Commercial)
   Pass Business Advertising ordinance (Industrial)
   Pass City Beautification ordinance (Tourism)
   Pass Annual Carnival ordinance (Tourism, Commercial)
   Pass Nuclear Free Zone ordinance (Residential)
   Remove Nuclear Free Zone ordinance (Industrial)
   Remove Parking Fines ordinance (Residential)
   Remove 1% Income Tax ordinance (Residential)
   Remove 1% Sales Tax ordinance (Commercial)

Land Value
   Build parks, trees, water
   Build recreational zones
   Build educational zones
   Build police, fire, hospitals
   Pass Pass City Beautification ordinance
   Pass Homeless Shelter ordinance

Pollution
   Pass Pollution Control ordinance
   Increase tax rate on polluting industries
   Build a water treatment plant
   Lower traffic
   Use light industrial instead of heavy industrial
   Use solar, hydro, wind, microwave, fusion power
   Move poluting buildings to edges of map

Traffic
   Build more roads and highways
   Build mass transit
   Pass Parking Fines ordinance
   Intersperse different zones (build R close to I, C)

Crime
   Build police stations
   Pass Anti-Drug Campaign ordinance
   Pass Neighborhood Watch Campaign
   Use more light zoning
   Build prisons

Unemployment
   Zone more industry and commercial zones
   Remove Pollution Control ordinance, if in place
   Lower industrial and commercial tax rates

Education
   Build Schools, Colleges
   Build Libraries, Museums
   Pass Pro-Reading Campaign ordinance
   Give tax breaks to high-EQ industries

Health
   Build hospitals
   Pass Public Smoking Ban ordinance
   Pass Free Clinic ordinance
   Pass Junior Sports ordinance
   Pass CPR Training ordinance

Appendix 2 (Adjusting Difficulty)
Money cheats
   Using one of the previously mentioned methods for getting
   more money is the simplest way to make things easier. You
   don't have to worry about balancing the budget and you can
   lower taxes to zero.

No disasters
   Disasters can be quite, well, disasterous, for a young city.
   It's not a good a to leave a city running overnight without
   turning the disasters off. For one thing, even if you had
   good fire coverage, you'd probably lose a lot of your city
   to fire. In addition, most power plants need to be replaced
   every 50 years, so, soon, everyone would be out of power.

Starting Level
   Changing the starting difficulty level changes the amount of
   money you start with, the frequency of disasters, and the
   level of external demand for your manufactured products.

Starting Time
   Later starting times are easier because of the increased
   availability of inventions and the increase in external
   demand.

Terrain Editing
   It's much easier to build a city on flat ground - and you
   can do all the flattening you want, at no cost, in the
   terrain editor. You can also add waterfalls for use with
   hydro power.

Riverless hydro plants
   This source of power is not very realistic, however, it does
   not pollute, is fairly efficient, and does not need to be
   replaced every 50 years. Just place a drop of water on any
   slope, and build a hydro plant there.

Artifically watered pumps
   Water pump efficiency can be artificially improved by
   placing drops of water next to them.

Disconnected roads - roadless city
   By not building full road systems, it is possible to
   keep traffic down, however, it's not very realisitic.

Heavy/Light Density Zoning</h3>
   If you're interested in building a city with a large
   population, you need to use mostly heavy zoning. A more
   realistic city (N.Y. and Hong Kong excepted) would
   have heavy to light zoning in a ratio of from 25/75 to
   50/50.

Appendix 3 (Mac Technical Problems) from 1.1 Updater
   Section not included in this Windows document.



Appendix 4 (IBM Technical Problems) from the Maxis BBS

 *****THE MAXIS EMERGENCY TOP TEN LIST FOR SIM CITY 2000*****

 Technical Support is totally overwhelmed at the moment answering
 Sim City 2000 questions.  Here are the top ten questions we are
 getting and the fixes for each one.  Hope these help to get you
 up and running!

 Q. I loaded the program but when I go to run it (by typing
    SC2000) it gives me a message that I don't have enough memory
    even though I've got 4 megabytes of RAM on my system.
 A. The problem happens because out of 4 megabytes of memory,
    there isn't enough available to load the program.  When your
    computer starts up, it loads other programs into that memory.
    The easiest way to get around this is to make a bootdisk and
    start your computer with it instead.  See your SIMCITY 2000
    ADDENDUM & QUICK START GUIDE pg. 6 and the "HOW TO MAKE A
    BOOTDISK" section at the bottom of this document.

 Q. I try to start the program and get a message, "Microsoft
    compatible mouse not found".
 A. The program requires that a mouse driver be loaded in memory.
    If you do have a mouse driver loaded and the program still
    doesn't find it, make sure that it is at least version 8 or
    higher by the Microsoft version numbering system.  If you have
    an older version of a mouse driver, you will need to update
    the driver version by contacting the manufacturer of the mouse
    OR by contacting the store where the computer was purchased.

 Q. I get a message, "The video card you've selected is not found.
    Please re-install and verify that your video card is
    supported."
 A. Sim City 2000 needs a SVGA video card in order to display the
     640 x 480 - 256 color video resolution.  The video card needs
    to have at least 512K of video memory.  Some cards may need a
    VESA driver to be loaded prior to running the program and
    since there are many different video cards, there are many
    different VESA drivers for each card.  If you aren't sure
    which video card you have, try loading the UNIVESA.EXE driver
    as this driver supports a wide variety of video cards. You
    can load this driver by typing,

    "C:\SC2000\VESA\UNIVESA\UNIVESA " and pressing the "Enter"
    key.

    This will load the VESA driver for the video card.  If this
    VESA driver isn't the correct one for your video card,
    contact the manufacturer of the video card to determine what
    the correct VESA driver is.  To find out whether or not you
    need to load a vesa driver for your video card, go to the
    C:\SC2000 sub-directory and type " INFO " and press enter.

    This will display information about your system.  Press the
    spacebar twice to get to the third page of the info program to
    find out whether your card has a VESA driver loaded.  If it
    tells you that the following VESA modes are supported then you
    won't to load one. If it says "Either your card does not
    support VESA or there is no driver loaded", this means that
    you have to load a vesa driver for the video card.

 Q. I have a SOUND BLASTER type sound card and it fails when I try
    to select it for sound effects.  Whats going on in Dodge?
 A. The earlier SOUND BLASTER cards used an IRQ setting of 7.  The
    new ones, however, now use IRQ 5.  We are looking for IRQ 7
    and if your card fails you probably have it set differently.
    Try running the install again and this time, when the sound
    card fails initialization, click on the CHANGE SETTINGS button
    and change the IRQ setting to the number 5.  Then click on the
    CONTINUE button and this should make the program accept the
    sound card.

 Q. I try to run Sim City 2000 and when I do I get some weird
    UNEXPECTED INTERUPT - ERROR 35 message.  I'm really confused!
 A. This means that you have an ATI video card.  You must run a
    program before starting Sim City 2000.  Type " MW_ATIUP " and
    press the "Enter" key from within the SC2000 sub-directory.
    Once you do this it will return you to the C:\SC2000 prompt.
    Now type SC2000 and the program will run fine.

 Q. I have a DIAMOND VIPER video card and I can't get the program
    to work with it.
 A. All you have to do is type " VPRMODE VESA " and press enter.
    This will load the vesa driver for your video card.  If you
    get a "Bad command or filename" message then you need to be in
    your VIPER subdirectory before you run the VPRMODE VESA
    command.  Also, make sure that Sim City 2000 is set up for
    VESA Super VGA graphics.  (You can check this by running the
    INSTALL program from within the SC2000 sub-directory.)

 Q. I run the installation program and when it gets to the type of
    video card I have, the program locks up.
 A. The installation program is trying to figure out what kind of
    video card you have in your computer.  Sometimes it conflicts
    with a program and that will cause the installer to lock up.
    If you have DOS version 6.X, you can do a clean boot by
    pressing the F5 key when the "Starting MS-DOS" message
    appears.  This will bypass your configuration files and then
    run the installer again.  It will work fine now.

 Q. I have OS/2 and I want to run Sim City under it.  I tried
    doing all of the memory stuff but still can't get enough free.
    Please tell me it's possible.  -Gooie
 A. Dear Gooie....Yes! You can run it under OS/2.  All you have to
    do is select a DOS FULL-WINDOWS session.  Once in DOS, go to
    the SC2000 sub-directory and type " SC2000 NO_MEM_CHK " and
    the program will run.  You should only do this if you have at
    least 6 - 8 Megabytes of memory though because with four you
    won't have enough.

 Q. I play the program and during a certain point, I get a "STACK
    OVERFLOW" message and the system dies an ugly death.
 A. Ouch!  This is a little problem (or bug) that has surfaced on
    some machines.  We are currently working on a fix and believe
    that the new version of the DOS Extender that we are using
    will fix the problem. In the meantime, contact MAXIS technical
    support and ask to have you name added to a list.  We will
    contact you when a solution is found. I hope it is really soon
    because I know you are dying to play this wonderful product!

 Q. I have a problem and it isn't listed in the list.
 A. If you have any problems that aren't addressed in this list,
    please post (to the Maxis BBS) a message with the type of
    problem you are having and we'll be sure to add it to our
    list!  This list will be revised depending on the types of
    problems you are experiencing.

 This concludes the wonderful TOP TEN question and answer list.
 Thanks for reading it!



Appendix 5 (How to Make a Boot Disk) also from the Maxis BBS

******************** HOW TO MAKE A BOOT DISK *******************

 If you are having problems making a boot disk, take the time to
 browse over this stuff and see if it helps you any.

 1. The BOOT DISK must be in your A: drive to work properly.  A
    boot disk in your B: drive just won't cut the cake; it has to
    be in drive A:.

 2. Make sure your mouse driver is copied onto the BOOT DISK.  You
    need to copy your mouse driver onto the boot disk and it must
    be named either MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.EXE to work in your
    AUTOEXEC.BAT FILE.  If it has a different name, simply type
    the correct name in the autoexec.bat file in order to load the
    driver.  i.e. If your mouse is named AMOUSE.COM, then you need
    to type AMOUSE on the mouse line of your autoexec.bat file.

 3. From the C:\ prompt, type "SYS A:" and press the Enter key on
    your keyboard.  This will copy the system start-up files to
    your floppy disk in the A: drive.

 4. If you need a vesa driver for your video card, enter in the
    name of the vesa driver into the autoexec.bat file.  This is a
    sample of what you need to type: IGNORE THE QUOTES! Don't type
    them, they just surround what you need to type in.

    A:>\"COPY CON AUTOEXEC.BAT"  (type the line and then press
                                  the ENTER key.)

    Once you type this line it will drop you down to a flashing
    cursor that is waiting for you to type commands.  Type the
    following commands that are in upper-case letters and press
    the enter key to drop to the next line:

     PROMPT $P$G
     MOUSE
     C:\SC2000\VESA\UNIVESA\UNIVESA
     C:
     CD\SC2000
     SC2000

    After typing the SC2000 line, press the F6 key on your
    keyboard and then press the enter key.  It should say "One
    file(s) copied" when done.

    Try to restart your computer with the BOOTDISK in drive A: and
    it should boot up into the program.  If it doesn't, see the
    possible errors below to help trouble shoot.

 1. While booting, it gets to MOUSE and says, "Bad command or file
    name". This will happen if you don't have the mouse driver
    (MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.EXE) copied onto your bootdisk or if the
    mouse driver has a different name.  Make sure the mouse driver
    is on the bootdisk AND that it is named MOUSE.COM or
    MOUSE.EXE.  If it is named MSMOUSE.COM or something else,
    rename the mouse file by typing "REN MSCMOUSE.COM MOUSE.COM"
    at the A: prompt.  This will rename the mouse from
    mscmouse.com to mouse.com and it should now work.

 2. If you use the bootdisk and you still get the "The video card
    you have selected is not found. Please re-install......."
    message, this means that you don't have the correct video card
    VESA driver loaded. Please contact your video card
    manufacturer to inquire as to the correct VESA driver to load
    for your video card.

 3. If you get a message "Non-system disk or disk error", remove
    the floppy and press any key.  This means that the system
    (startup) files aren't on the floppy disk.  Once you have
    booted up, go to the DOS sub-directory by typing CD\DOS
    <Enter>.  Make sure you put the boot disk back in the A: drive
    and then type, SYS A:.  This will transfer the system to your
    boot-disk and correct the problem.

    Additional notes:
    You only need to have a mouse driver loaded and, in some
    cases, a vesa driver.  You don't need any type of memory manager
    because we use a dos extender.

    If you have an IBM XGA or XGA2 video card it will switch the
    program into sixteen colors.  We are currently looking into a
    solution that would prevent this from happening thus allowing
    the program to run in 256 colors.

    If you have a Texas Instruments Travel Mate 4000 and can't run
    the program: We have been in contact with the good folks at Texas
    Instruments and are currently working on a fix.

    If you have a Packard Bell computer and are getting "mouse
    trails" where the cursor moves on the screen - You need to
    contact Packard Bell's technical support department.  They have
    found a solution to the problem and are also taking care of the
    method in which to correct it.  (I just wanna say that there
    doing one heck of a good job too!  Especially after going through
    that major earthquake!)  Kudos to the folks at Packard Bell!

    The program makes some heavy demands on the system hardware.
    There is very little out there in terms of standards and it makes
    the development of a product such as this a tremendous job.  Hang
    in there and we'll get you going! Maxis Technical Support is open
    from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. We experience HIGH
    call volumes on MONDAYS and during the later hours of the day.
    If you are having trouble reaching us by telephone, try to call
    earlier in the day or during the middle of the week as this is
    our lowest call volume time.

    Thanks!


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have access to the World-Wide Web, see the latest HTML Translation
and Update of this document by Michael Hanson:

URL = http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~hanson/simcity_2000.faq.html