Sim City 4 on a new PC

[Tommo 0]

Hi, i'm about to buy a new PC, and the main "gaming" components are: Intel core2duo E6700/6600 DDRII 2x1Gb ATI X1950 Pro Vista Premium 32 bit I want to use on it also SimCity4 Deluxe. At a first look it should work just fine, but i have some doubts, because my current Ati X800 Pro was really slow with it... when using simcity it ran slower than the Software render... X1950 pro hasn't the same compatibility bugs with SC4 or i have to buy an Nvidia? And i'm afraid that Vista could have some compatibility problems with a 2003 game... Thanks for any reply, Tommo

[DarkEldar 6]

Your probably better off getting a computer with a Nvidia graphics card they have more compadibility with Maxis games, theres no problem with

vista and sc4 it has been proven to work.

[coolotter88 2]

maybe it's slower on software render with an ati card because vista is also using some of your CPU?

[dadyrghluv 8]

also could be slower due to CPU power. GFX cards aren't everything in SC4, although they help considerabely, u can never go wrong with a good strong CPU with SC4 for pathfinding reasons and whatnot.

[Tommo 0]

Well, i come from a Pentium4HT 3,0 Ghz so i should see a big advance with a E6700, that should be one of the best processors around... My doubt were about the VGA card... my old one, because of a bug, was really slow. A screen filled with buildings could drop the framerate at 5-4 fps... So your advice is to buy an NVIDIA? AN 8600 GTS could be a good choice? Considering quality/price is much better the X1950... it's an hard choice... @coolotter88 it can't be, because i never used vista... it was slow on XP, and software render was FASTER that hw render... while the VGA worked great with any other game.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It doesn't matter if you have a $10,000 video card with its own 2GB frame buffer.  The only thing to remember is that SC4 is a "legacy" game.  It doesn't understand any advanced graphics card options, not even anti-aliasing.  Make sure all the options on your new graphics card are set to application selected.

With a multiprocessor, set the affinity for one cpu for SC4.  If you have a 64 bit machine, and it runs funny, use the 32 bit or XP compatibility mode.

SC4 will eat any processor you give it.  It cannot use more than one.  The other big parameter is memory, both real and virtual.

Any newer machine should run SC4 like a bat out of hades, but you do have to have lots of RAM.  With Vista, I recommend 1.5 to 2GB of RAM, and set your virtual memory to 4095MB.

[mikey.bruin742 0]

Hi, I got a new computer with vista home premium (but it has a crappy graphics card) for some reason it won't install on the second disc, and there are no scratches plus ive used it before. any ideas on how to fix this?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you read my message immediately above, you see what there is to know.

Now a note from your friendly moderator.  By using your e-mail address as your screen name you have exposed yourself to unscrupulous persons who may attack you over the net.  The whole point of the screen name is to hide your real identity.  I suggest you send a PM to dirk and ask him to either change your screen name or to remove your account.  You should re-register with a good screen name that doesn't give anything away.

N_O_Body (a.k.a. A Nonny Moose)

[Tommo 0]

Hi, i bought that pc, with a E6600, 2gb ddrII 800mhz, and an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512.... but i kept Windows XP.... And it's SLOWER than before! After updating the drivers, and pasting the Gb of plugins and cities i get 4 fps on a 400k city.... Oblivion maxed out runs at 50+ fps.... Fortunately in Software mode Sim City 4 is really fast also on maximum settings, in the same city the fps are 20-30, nearly without lags. So it think that there isn't a way to get a good (decent) perfomace on an ATI card newer than 9200?