Sim City 2000 fails to load

[stylon]

So I've just installed Sim City 2000 on my A1200 running 3.1.4.1. I double-click the icon for the game and absolutely nothing happens.

I load SnoopDOS to see what's going on and notice it's trying to load cybergraphics.library and failing.

No idea why it is doing this as I obviously don't have a GFX card - just using standard PAL screenmodes.

Any ideas how I can fix this please?

[Firestone]

If I remember correctly, you can hold down the shift-key while doubleclicking the SC2000-icon and it will pop up a screenmode-requester....

[stylon]

Originally Posted by Firestone

If I remember correctly, you can hold down the shift-key while doubleclicking the SC2000-icon and it will pop up a screenmode-requester....

Hey thanks for the quick reply!

However for some reason that is not working. No requester pops up?

[Firestone]

Can you post the full snoopdos log for us to see?

[stylon]

Sure - not much to see though. Log is the same whether or not I hold shift before trying to run it.

Thanks.

[gulliver]

I was going to upload it to Aminet. But I am ver busy ATM. So here it goes:


Overview
--------

The popular Maxis SimCity 2000 game has a bug that presents itself on
some systems ONLY the first time the user launches the game. A black
screen appears and nothing else happens.

You have a simple workaround for this issue:


You can do it manually with an HEX editor by opening the game's "res1"
file and jumping to offset 0AE725 and when there, replace the existing
00 00 00 values with 02 90 04 for PAL or 01 90 04 for NTSC.


Background
----------

SimCity 2000 only the first time it launches, will open up an asl
requester to let the user choose the screenmode, and then it will
record that selection on the "res1" file inside the SimCity2000
drawer.

It seems someone at Maxis screwed up only just a tiny bit somewhere in
the asl routine, and the end result is that the game may not be able
to run for the first time under some versions of the asl.library to
set the screenmode.


License
-------

You may do whatever you want with this, but you cannot blame me if
things go wrong.


Now go and enjoy the game.

[Firestone]

Strange.......
Here is mine from a working Sc2000.....

Count   Process Name     Action     Target Name                                          Options          Res.
-----   ------------     ------     -----------                                          -------          ----
1       [6] Workbench    ToolType   CLI                                                                   Fail
2       [6] Workbench    ToolType   REXX                                                                  Fail
3       [6] Workbench    ChangeDir  HD5:Business/SimCity2000                                                  
4       [6] Workbench    ChangeDir  SYS:                                                                      
5       [6] Workbench    ToolType   TOOLPRI                                                               Fail
6       WBL              ChangeDir  HD5:Business/SimCity2000                                                  
7       WBL              Load       HD5:Business/SimCity2000/SimCity2000                                  OK  
8       WBL              ChangeDir  SYS:                                                                      
9       SimCity2000      ChangeDir  HD5:Business/SimCity2000                                                  
10      SimCity2000      Open       HD5:Business/SimCity2000/res1                        Read             OK  
11      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/geneva.font         Read             OK  
12      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/geneva/11                            OK  
13      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/geneva.font         Read             OK  
14      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/geneva/12                            OK  
15      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/geneva.font         Read             OK  
16      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/geneva/16                            OK  
17      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/geneva.font         Read             OK  
18      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/geneva/18                            OK  
19      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/monaco.font         Read             OK  
20      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/monaco/9                             OK  
21      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york2.font      Read             OK  
22      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york2/12                         OK  
23      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york2.font      Read             OK  
24      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york2/11                         OK  
25      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york2.font      Read             OK  
26      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york2/8                          OK  
27      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york.font       Read             OK  
28      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york/12                          OK  
29      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york.font       Read             OK  
30      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york/15                          OK  
31      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york.font       Read             OK  
32      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york/17                          OK  
33      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york.font       Read             OK  
34      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york/21                          OK  
35      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york.font       Read             OK  
36      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york/22                          OK  
37      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york.font       Read             OK  
38      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york/26                          OK  
39      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york.font       Read             OK  
40      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/new_york/44                          OK  
41      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/simcity.font        Read             OK  
42      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/simcity/13                           OK  
43      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/simcity.font        Read             OK  
44      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/simcity/7                            OK  
45      SimCity2000      Open       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/simcity.font        Read             OK  
46      SimCity2000      Load       Spill:Business/SimCity2000/fonts/simcity/18                           OK

Do you have any monitordrivers in devs:monitors/ which can have anything to do with a graphicscard?

And what are the specs on your A1200? (accelerator, RAM etc etc).
Have you tried different versions of this game, and did it work before?


EDIT: Oh gulliver came aboard, and I think he's probably right!

[stylon]

Thanks guys I managed to sort it with your help, especially Gulliver.

I didn't have much luck with the Hex editor method - kept locking up my Amiga when trying to load the Res1 file. I was using FileX which is the first editor I grabbed off Aminet - didn't bother trying any others after this.

So I then tried swapping over the asl.library as suggested (after I finally managed to track down a Workbench 3.0 disk!) and this did the trick. Renamed the current file, copied the old file over, rebooted (didn't work until I did this) and then up popped the screenmode requester when I ran the game.

Running it in PAL:Hires Laced - guessing I'm stuck with it only using about 70% of the available screen?

[gulliver]

Great!

Now remember to replace that asl.library with the original.

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by stylon

Thanks guys I managed to sort it with your help, especially Gulliver.

I didn't have much luck with the Hex editor method - kept locking up my Amiga when trying to load the Res1 file. I was using FileX which is the first editor I grabbed off Aminet - didn't bother trying any others after this.

So I then tried swapping over the asl.library as suggested (after I finally managed to track down a Workbench 3.0 disk!) and this did the trick. Renamed the current file, copied the old file over, rebooted (didn't work until I did this) and then up popped the screenmode requester when I ran the game.

Running it in PAL:Hires Laced - guessing I'm stuck with it only using about 70% of the available screen?

You can try to select a NTSC screen mode. Hold down the SHIFT key when you double click the EXE. There was a patch on Aminet I think to update the original program. Might want to see if you need to do that.

[rygar]

http://aminet.net/package/game/patch/SimCity2000pch

There was 2 versions:
SimCity2000 Englisch: Patch aus dem AmiNET!
SimCity2000 Deutsch: Patch von der AmigaPlus

[stylon]

Could someone please remind me of the syntax needed to apply the patch?

I've got 2 files in the archive: spatch and simpatch but can't figure out how to get it to install via the shell.

[Firestone]

There is a script included in the archive (Simpatch):

spatch SimCity2000
delete SimCity2000
rename SimCity2000.new SimCity2000

Just copy everything to your SimCity2000-directory and type:

spatch SimCity2000

I guess this will create the Simcity2000.new-file in the script, which is the patched version.
It will look for the SimCity2000.pch-file, apply it and write a copy named SimCity2000.new

....or you can run the script in the SimCity2000-path:

execute SimPatch

Make a backup of everything in case anything goes wrong of course

[stylon]

Thanks, the 'execute SimPatch' did the trick in the end. Other than a few bytes increase in file size I didn't notice any difference. At least hopefully it will save me from a crash or glitch down the line somewhere.

I wasn't offered any new screenmodes when I held-down shift. But on the bright side - that feature does actually work now whereas it didn't before (unless I switched the asl.library to an older one).