Vehicle traffic freezes in 911FR

[starzfan31]

I play the open play, not the missions, and within about 15 min of playing, every road on my map is totally packed with cars sitting and goin no where. Its like they all freeze and none of my emergency vehicles can get anywhere. there are no traffic signal issues that ive been alerted to nor are emergency vehicles blocking any of the roads. I dont get it. I tried to find patch 1.3 in english so i may install the la mod 2.5, but every patch i find is in french or dutch. where on earth can i get the patch in english???

[MikeyPI]

911:FR comes patched to 1.3 in all versions far as I know... What you are experiencing is a bug that is caused by the fact that well, most of our computers are massively more powerful than the original game intended them to be.... So what happens is the lights end up changing so fast maybe one car gets sent through the light, then it holds them, this allows them to stack up and then they get stuck... The easiest fix for this is to edit the timing of the lights in the editor, the last number by default is 2 I believe, try setting this to 4 and it usually behaves better, you must do this to all traffic LIGHT objects. Click on a light with the left mouse button open it's properties and simply change the name of it, then press ok... Do this with every light on the map and then save the map and you should no longer have this issue.

[Renal]

911:FR comes patched to 1.3 in all versions far as I know... What you are experiencing is a bug that is caused by the fact that well, most of our computers are massively more powerful than the original game intended them to be.... So what happens is the lights end up changing so fast maybe one car gets sent through the light, then it holds them, this allows them to stack up and then they get stuck... The easiest fix for this is to edit the timing of the lights in the editor, the last number by default is 2 I believe, try setting this to 4 and it usually behaves better, you must do this to all traffic LIGHT objects. Click on a light with the left mouse button open it's properties and simply change the name of it, then press ok... Do this with every light on the map and then save the map and you should no longer have this issue.

I'm sorry but I don't think I understand, do I really need to open every map I might want to use in the editor (which I'm not sure I know how to anyway) select every traffic light through which a car might want to pass at any time and edit it's settings because my game is four(?) years old?

And why isn't this a problem in LA Mod?

[MikeyPI]

Because simply put, the LA mod puts more of a load onto a computer, and if I recall correctly Hoppah used different timings for the lights... This issue usually only presents on freeplay or MP based gameplay, not on missions... Take like a game that was built in the days of 98SE and try to run it on your computer today, the game will move far too fast to actually be playable, that is the fate that the rather old EM4 is starting to face more and more... As our computers have gotten better, we've gotten better video cards (more memory on them) higher ram, and more CPU, you can use other programs to reduce your speed, run on a single core instead of on your dual or quad cores... Sometimes this will help reduce the game speed enough for it to work correctly.

It sounds harder than it is to adjust the timing on the lights, on my NY mod I had to adjust the light timing because all of us developing it have fast computers and I noticed this issue on the original freeplay map.. Only other option I can think of is to increase the speed at which vehicles travel on the pathing so they can go through before the light changes but that would not look right compared to the emergency vehicles... All you do is click on a light pole, then at the bottom you can see a properties button, change the last number on EACH light pole to 4 and hit okey... then save the map and exit the editor.

[Renal]

Because simply put...

Thanks.

[starzfan31]

Actually it does do it on the LA mod. That is the one I always play, and within 10 min of play, every street is so clogged that none of the emergency vehicles can go anywhere. If we must get into the files to change something, can ya kinda give us a walk thru of how to do that? I would hate to screw up my game. thanks.

[MikeyPI]

Yeah this issue is related to the fact we all these days are having pretty fast computers compared to what the game was designed to run on, some people have more "capable" comps than others some will experience this issue easier, some won't have it at all because their comps are more bogged by the game it's self...

Open the Editor:

Load the modification you wish to tamper with (if the original game is what you wish to alter, simply create a new mod)> On the top menu bar you will see Modifications all mods are listed there, select the one you want to work with..

Load the map you wish to edit (most likely it'll be freeplay.e4m)> On the top menu bar you will see map menu, you want to pick open map.

You will find in the menu it opens to find the map it'll have a directory listing it should read this when the map is selected:

mod:Maps/freeplay.e4m

Now that the map is open simply start roaming the map, preferably in a systematic way IE bottom left corner and work your way right or up till you've gotten all that connect on that screen, move over one screen and repeat going down etc....

Look for traffic lights, they are all labeled in red in the editor so it makes finding em kinda hard but if you look you can see em... Not all intersections have lights, so note that, only lights are what you're tampering with.

Left click on the traffic pole it's self and on the bottom menubar you will see "properties" this will open the object properties interface:

it will read as follows:

traffic_2_2_1 or something similar....

We need to change only the last number within the string, leave everything else as it was...

click on the object name bar you will get a cursor, backspace out the last number which for the example was 1 it might be 2 I can't remember the default number, then type in a 4 so that it reads as follows:

traffic_2_2_4

Press OK then move onto the other lights that make up the intersection ensuring all of them have 4 as the last number in the sequence DO NOT CHANGE ANY OTHER PART OF THE NAME!

Once you've done this to the whole map in question, simply on the top menu click Map and select save map from the menu and press OK, overwrite the exiting map and exit the editor.

[M1 Tanker]

I changed them all to from 2 to 12 in the new NY Mod and it fixed all my traffic problems

[MikeyPI]

The number will vary depending on computer speeds etc, but for an average user a number between 4 and 6 should be sufficient without making lights too lenghty

[starzfan31]

Mark me stupid..lol. But where it the editor??

[MikeyPI]

It'd be a shortcut in the start menu that the game sets up for you, it is linked to the em4.exe but the game when it installs gives you an editor shortcut if correctly installed.

[starzfan31]

mine was a digital download from amazon.com i dont see any shortcuts except for the game itself and i see no editor in the games file, there is however, the manual for the editor. ugggggg

[M1 Tanker]

Make a shortcut and add the -editor like this. em4.exe -editor

Mine is from Amazon too. Took about 30 minutes to figure it out and 30 to edit the map. Here is a hint, leave the lights in the far NW corner of the map alone.

On speeds, I tried 4, 8 and 12. 8 Worked too, but 12 gave a good flow without the start/stop they sometimes do at the light.

[starzfan31]

that doesnt work either. computer says the editor does not exist. wth. are there like a hundred different versions of this game floating around? everything folks tell me to do or find either doesnt exist or doesnt work. like the modinstaller. no matter how many times i download and install the game, it still always says it is corrupt. this is totally redic. ugggggggggggggggggggg

[MikeyPI]

"Game Directory\EM4.exe" -editor

[starzfan31]

i see no game directory file.. nor does that come up if i run a search.. i give up. this is nuts.

[starzfan31]

Then again, your post doesnt tell me where to search.. are the quotations part of the file name? how bout a simple, plain english explanation as to where this silly thing is hidden.

[MikeyPI]

How bout you check your attitude at the door, you're on your own now you want to be a smartass fix it yourself GAME DIRECTORY is pretty easy to figure out... I mean where you installed the stupid game to? Make sense now.... Learn to check your attitude when you ASK for help or don't ASK at all... Get the point?

[starzfan31]

How bout you check your attitude at the door, you're on your own now you want to be a smartass fix it yourself GAME DIRECTORY is pretty easy to figure out... I mean where you installed the stupid game to? Make sense now.... Learn to check your attitude when you ASK for help or don't ASK at all... Get the point?

Check your attitude, asshole. I didnt give attitude, and no, that file does NOT exist on my version of the game. And you learn to check your attitude or dont bother to respond to those asking for help. Jackass. Im a former police officer, so dont act like some high and mighty dickwad because you are a mod or whatever on this pissy site. Thus, to you sir, I say, blow it out your ass. Have a lovely weekend.

[starzfan31]

BTW, on win vista 64 bit, it doesnt install it into a "game directory" file. So sorry to shatter your obvious lack of knowledge of the OS I am using. Ban me, do whatever you feel you need to do as the advice I have gotten off of this site has been utterly useless, as it has been for many other users, judging by the posts Ive read.

To those of you who arent rude and who actually try to be helpful, I say have a Happy Easter.

[MikeyPI]

God you're a moron you know that, both the other user and I gave you the stupid SETTINGS FOR YOUR SHORTCUT you have... You have the game shortcut no? Probrably your "retired cop" self stole this game, so you know what you don't really deserve help.... I'm sorry that apparently where you're a former cop from where they lack the intelligence of a common sense user of an operating system, because guess what? I have 64X too.. GAME directory is referring to C:\Program Files(x86)\ whatever the hell your game installed under...

The other guy even gave you the SHORTCUT info to input you just didnt listen, and when it came time for my post you wanted to be a dumbass... So go blow a goat if you don't get it now because all you've done is make local cops look like complete idiots..

And I will have a lovely weekend never you worry=)