The Perfect Computer For Playing SimCity 4

[SMD1990 0]

All right. I have finally after the longest time (I'm talking years) gotten my computer really working. I'm talking CRT monitor quality at least on a SONY LCD TV. I'm stuck with the 800 X 600 resolution while playing SimCity 4. Still, it looks great. Anyway, despite the large amount of money I spent building this used-to-be "beast" of a computer, it still can have problems with the game.

Most if not all of my computer's parts were bought in 2003 (the year of SimCity 4's release). They were, if not cutting edge, the next best thing. Here is what the processor and graphics card are...

Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 (just before the one with HT Technology was released)

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 9800 XT

Anyway, I have plans to upgrade a few parts of my computer. The case will change from a good-sized tower to a horizontal-lying desktop. I'll be more than likely getting a new motherboard. It won't be the most recent but it'll be fairly close. With the motherbaord I'll be upgrading my processor a little bit. I might get a 3.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 with HT Technology. I'm looking at getting a new graphics card as well. I'm certainly sticking with ATI if I do. The card will probably be the X800 XT or X1800 XT. The main issue is the 256 MB of memory or the big 512 MB.

So there are my current plans. Now for the problem and why I am asking you guys what needs to be upgraded...

My computer can basically play any game I give it at the highest settings without even breaking a sweat. Madden NFL 2005 was what I thought it would have trouble with if it was going to. Nope! It played that game like it was nothing! Then there was SimCity 4. My computer is so much better than the family's computer. It was a cheap computer from 2001. Mine was a close to top of the line computer from a couple of years later.

While the performance was better, it wasn't anything like I expected. I ran the game tonight with my computer the best it has ever been. As I said, I finally got it basically working. The problem has always been with getting the image on my TV to look sharp like a monitor. Anyway, SimCity 4 looks absolutely stunning. Even at the little 800 X 600 resolution that I was viewing it in, it was gorgeous! In God Mode, everything runs great. Moving around, zooming, etcetera is all lightning fast. There's no lag or jerkiness. It is great. Keeping in mind that the game runs slower once there is developement, I went to the Big City Toturial to see how the game did there. Ugh! The lag. The jerkiness. They're there! Especially at the close zooms. I'd thought I'd just admire the traffic. For the first several seconds, the game ran about the same as it does on the family computer.

I'm guessing this has a lot to do with the processor. I'm sure getting a faster and more advanced one will help. My question is about how the graphics card's memory effects things. The only real difference between the X800 and X1800 is the memory (and price). Well, there are others. Just nothing important. The outputs are a little differenent. No VGA is on the X1800. Anyhoo, what do you guys think? The X1800 XT cost way more. I'm not sure which to pick. Even how much better SimCity 4 will play I do not know.

So, ummm, please help. I know that was kind of long. I'm sorry. Hopefully some will read it. Also, if this was in the wrong place, sorry. I couldn't decide between here and Bugs & Technical Issues...

[Shinnie02 17]

get 1 gig of RAM! its expensive but its worth it or even better, if u have 2 or more slots (make sure your computer can handle this) get another 1 gig of RAM . Ive got a 3.6 gHZ processor and runs real nicely. Im not sure about graphics cards but all i know is that ive got a gForce 6600.

[greyveil 37]

your graphics card and processor are more than enough for the game (one of my machines match those specs except ram), your RAM however is sorely lacking if you have 256meg, this game is more dependant on ram than anything else, if you can I would upgrade the ram first at least to 1 gig and then see the vast improvement.

hope this helps...

[SMD1990 0]

Yeah, umm... Despite what Windows XP says, I have 1.5 GBs of RAM. It says I have just 1 GB.

Technically, my computer is a good bit past the recommended requirements. I can't remember what they were but I'm sure they were lower than what I have.

I find it strange how much slower the game runs once you have growth. The movement was unreal on God Mode. It was like nothing I had ever seen. Even with the low resolution. Yet, though beautiful after several seconds, the close zooms especially of a slightly developed city have major lags and jerkiness for those first maybe fifteen seconds.

[kaploosh 0]

If you don't care a heck about burning a hole in your pocket, I recommend you get a computer of 2 Gig of RAM, and a processor of 4 GHz. Anyway, try to get a nVidia video card. It's much better than ATI.

[Shinnie02 17]

i dont think computers with 4 gHZ have been released yet :S is there? cause id get one straight away

[jackel.22 3]

alien ware have dual 4gHZ processors but they are like £5000 per computer.

2gb of ram is brilliant for this game i was lucky and they had it on special offer 2gb for the price of 1gb

if you want the ultimate gaming computer get alien ware, it had for £5000 dual 512 mb graphics cards, dual 4gHZ processors, 1 terrabyte of memory, dual 4gb of ram. and the other normal stuff like cdrw etc.

[tomdapom 79]

Originally posted by: jackel.22 alien ware have dual 4gHZ processors but they are like £5000 per computer.

2gb of ram is brilliant for this game i was lucky and they had it on special offer 2gb for the price of 1gb

[q}if you want the ultimate gaming computer get alien ware, it had for £5000 dual 512 mb graphics cards, dual 4gHZ processors, 1 terrabyte of memory, dual 4gb of ram. and the other normal stuff like cdrw etc.quote>

[bergadario 0]

Hi guys,

i have a question about computer upgrading and performances on the game...right now i have an "old" Athlon XP 2000+ (about 1,7 Ghz), a GeForce Mx 440 128 Mb and 768 Mb of RAM . 

Actually as soon as the city grows, expecially in big size cities, the game gets reeally slow, both for the amount of plugins i have (about 1,5 Gb ) to handle through menus and for the cities itself (i have a quite long refresh time and also think that a city takes about 4 minutes to load and 2 minutes to save a game for a big size city, half filled with buildings ).

This evening i'm going to get another Gb of RAM also for some other reasons rather than the game: do you think will i have any improvement?? I mean some of you said that for the game the RAM is really important...but how much? Do you think this new Gb of RAM will improve my play or not unless i change the processor too?

I know that i should change the whole computer but for now i can't afford this for my little pockets . Thanks for your opinions.

[Asimov 0]

Actually as soon as the city grows, expecially in big size cities, the game gets reeally slow, both for the amount of plugins i have (about 1,5 Gb ) to handle through menus and for the cities itself (i have a quite long refresh time and also think that a city takes about 4 minutes to load and 2 minutes to save a game for a big size city, half filled with buildings ).

Thats more or less the same situation with my PC, and I have a 3,7 GHz CPU. So i'd say, stick to the RAM for the time being, the more the better (I have 1024 MB which is still insufficient), 'cause obviously the CPU is not the important part.

[Firebird 40]

Originally posted by: jackel.22 alien ware have dual 4gHZ processors but they are like £5000 per computer.

2gb of ram is brilliant for this game i was lucky and they had it on special offer 2gb for the price of 1gb

if you want the ultimate gaming computer get alien ware, it had for £5000 dual 512 mb graphics cards, dual 4gHZ processors, 1 terrabyte of memory, dual 4gb of ram. and the other normal stuff like cdrw etc.quote>

*Drools*

bergadario: Sounds good to me. The game really would have a lot of room to play arround in, it just can't do lots of things at once because of the processor.

Asimov: The CPU is the important part. You could have 1 tarrabyte of RAM and if the processsor is an old one, it will still be doing last night's homework the next day when you want it to be playing SimCity. A processor, no matter how good it is, can only do one thing process at a time, it just does each of them the processes you tell it to do really, really, really,really really, really fast.

Hope this helpes.

[SMD1990 0]

Originally posted by: kaploosh If you don't care a heck about burning a hole in your pocket, I recommend you get a computer of 2 Gig of RAM, and a processor of 4 GHz. Anyway, try to get a nVidia video card. It's much better than ATI.

quote>

 

About getting more RAM, I have 1.5 GBs. Despite that, Windows has already said I only had 1.0 GB. It's not the RAM. Unless the motherbaord is the messed up part, it has to be Window jsut not seeing the third one.

4 GHz? Intel only sells up to 3.8 GHz for the Pentium. Unless you are talking about having dual processors, 4 GHz can't happen. I haven't robbed a bank in a while, so, I can't even imagine being able to buy a motherbaord that suppors mulitple processors. Much less my ability to buy more than one new processor. Just one is pushing my budget. $300?! Ouch...

And, yes, I was joking about the whole "I haven't jobbed a bank in a while" thing. Seriously. I've never robbed a bank...

Anyway, as for that comment about the graphic card. That's solely your opinion. I love my ATI card. It was easy to pick out. Plus, with it, I can view computer monitor quality images on my TV. No blurriness. Unless nVidia has there own Catalyst program, it wouldn't even slightly compare to the ATI Radeon 9800 XT.

[JohnMK 0]

2 GB of RAM and a dual core CPU, the fastest of either company, despite that SC4 appears not to be multithreaded.

[shivsood 5]

a sweer video card will help greatly to display the graphics so you can set all the display options to high

[ogreslayer 0]

I'd go with an Athlon 64 if you aren't doing anykind of high-end photo or video manipulation. Gaming right now is not the Pentium 4's bright spot and only the new 65nm chips will avoid making your computer the most efficent space heater that money could buy. 1GB of ram under WinXP should be your minimum. and your graphics card is better than what I'm using (nvidia 5900xt) and while the CPU isn't as good as mine (Athlon 64 3200+) it is not crap either. I run all the detail settings on medium but a 1280x1024

If you are gonna upgrade and plan to run everything on high... go with:

Intel Pentium D 930 (3.0ghz Dual-Core processor) or AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Single-Core) ~$200USD (Sim City 4 is not really optimized for 2+ cores so its not a big deal just depends on if you wanna play favorites)

2GB of ram should be ~200USD also (you will want DDR2-800 for the Pentium D or DDR-400 with the Athlon 3500+)

You will need a new graphics card and honestly if you are worried about outputing to a TV I'd go with the newer technology and get a Radeon x1800gto or a x1800xt... although I perfer nVidia i will not argue against ATIs superior multimedia tech and slightly better image quality, but if you are gonna just use a standard computer monitor save your self the overall driver hassle and get an nVidia card (the x1800s should be around 230-260 and a nVidia 7900gt should be between 280-320). Both cards will come with a dongle to change at least one of the outputs for a VGA connection.

Now whether you build it your self or get the system from a store you should look to have those processors at a minimum and that much ram should be more than enough... the graphics cards are alittle extravagant but will last a long time compared to the already ancient x800series

You should also check your bios; XP not seeing the ram is usually a problem with either the board or the ram itself... switch positions of the sticks and see if you only get 512MB, 1GB, or 1.5GB

You should also see about running the game in higher resolutions 800x600 is tame and the overall look at 1024x768 and especially 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 will please you. While actually not being terribly hard for the x1xxxseries cards to run

[StegSC 40]

I do have a question as well, would 768 mb RAM make the game run somewhat smoothly? I'm about to upgrade and I wanted to know.

[hamsterTK 93]

probably. This game doesnt need much, but what it does need is ram. the more the better. I think 512 is the minimum which the game will be playable if you have lots and lots of BATs and Mods(if you are running vanilla or RH without anything in your plugins folder technically you can get by on 128 but its very laggy and crashy).

My laptop currently only has 512 but this summer im looking to upgrade(i cant take my laptop apart but best buy can and i already called them and got prices. I just need to find what the best ram is. I know my computer uses DDR2 SDRAM and just because all the different brands of 1 gig pieces all have same amount of memory doesnt mean  that not all ram chips are made equal, some cant send/recieve data as fast others, but thats about all i know)

[Pixelrage 34]

Right now, I have a 2.8 Ghz (H/T), 1 GB ram and a Nvidia 6800 GT. I still find SC4 to be unplayable and I just uninstalled the game a good 6 months ago, even though it is probably one of the most addictive and fun games I have ever played Before you even comment - I worked on a rather large city in the large sized block, and it came to a point where whenever I zoomed out, the PC would crash real hard [in what appeared to be an attempt to render tons of trees]. I'm hoping to get a dual core system, 2+ GB ram and an even better graphics card this summer, which would also mean that my SC4 days will return once again.

[DJGspinNhitz 7]

I am not sure anything other than the biggest mainframe out there can run SC4 nicely myself. My game takes 10 minutes to load and exit and about 2-4 minutes to save. I make dinner while waiting for the game to start. My laptop has 1 gig of RAM, 2.4 P4, 32 Mb ATI graphics card, 40 gig HD. My home computer is somewhat faster but not much. Off course i should mention I have more than 3 gigs of MODs and Lots. When I had 256Mb of RAM forget it, it wouldn't even load after 2 hours. I am cleaning out my plugin folder now and the SUM helps allot too in reducing the number of loaded files. The Start Up Manager is a MUST have for anyone with a large number of files. (As long as they are sorted of course)

GQ

[Screwballl 196]

I have been playing just fine on my setup which is

AthlonXP Barton 3000+

1GB PC3200

128MB 9600XT

With this game, there have been known problems with newer hardware as the game doesn't recognize it so it notches everything down to its minimum specs and runs like crap...

The newest setup I would suggest for this game and should also run without too many problems is AMD (preferbly an X2) with an nvidia card... This also opens up a larger arena for possible upgrades in the future. Especially since Intel usually requires that certain cpus will only work with certain chipsets so to go from a 3.2GHz with 945 chipset to a newer 3.6 or 3.8 will require a newer 955 or 965 chipset which means new motherboard is required. Almost any socket 939 board will run any socket 939 AMD chip be it 3200+ or 4800+ X2 (dual core).

My suggestions:

Athlon 3800+ or X2 of similar speed or faster

Socket 939 board, better with dual X16 PCI-express lanes

nvidia 6800GT to 7800GT card (single or SLI works great)

SATA hard drive

also a name brand 600W or better power supply is definitely a better choise as well to power all of this.

I myself am planning a major computer build myself in the near future.. I am looking at a dual proc mobo for Opterons, getting 2 dual core Opteron 265(?) cpus and 1GB per core of registered memory. this should work nicely with the game and leave the rest of the cores to handle windows as needed. This I expect will cost around $1200-1500 depending on whats available at the time and if the prices come down by the time I build.

[Pipes 0]

I have a whole lot less problems with the game then i used to, but It is still choppy to me, I find when I overclock the video it does speed up a good deal, but still choppy.

Here are my spec's

MB Abit IC7-G (i875 chipset)

CPU P4 3ghz (E) (socket 478)

RAM 1gb pc 400 dual-channel

VIDEO PowerColor Radion 9200LE (128mb)

HDD WD 2000JB Hard Drive

all inside an Antec Sonata case with Fans controled by an Vantec Nexus fan controler

My upgrade plans are to upgrade the video card in october, hopefully ram will have dropped more by then allowing me to upgrade to 2gb of ram (using only 2 slots is faster and more stable then using all 4 slots). my budget is rather limiting but it still is workable and allows for play. such as an less expensive video card will yeld more chance of the ram, or forgetting the ram and getting a better video. it is a juggling act. I just try to do my reaserch and hope I make the best choice.