Graphics at a million miles an hour

[pacman 0]

Hi all, newb here.

Love SIm City 4 and the Rush Hour expansion. Didn't even think that there'd be a community. Am very excited about it, but I have a major issue that is preventing me from playing...

Recently installed a new vid card - XFX 7600 GT.

Updated to latest nVidia drivers today.

On reinstalling SIm City 4 and the Rush Hour expansion (havn't played it in a while), I can run the program ok, but I get some weird graphics problems, as follows:

1) Clouds flicker - they don't just billow in and out like they're suppoed to, but kind of flicker and spin in circles very quickly.

2) Animations are rapid and jerky (this is probably the same problem that I'm seeing with the clouds). For example, cars will race along the street, and then slow down for a fraction and then speed up again. Same with the animations involving building.

Basically it's as if everything races at a million miles an hour and then for a fraction of a second (every second or so) things are at a normal pace. It's insane, and makes the game unplayable.

I've tried running SC4 without the RH expansion. I've also tried reinstalling the previous graphics drivers. No luck.

My system specs are fine (excessive, if anything), and I don't have this problem with other games (that I've tried today too).

Any ideas would be much appreciated. I can't bare not to be able to play this game again.

[pacman 0]

Well, it looks like I've resolved this for myself, although I'm not convinced this is the best solution. I stopped the crazy animations by running the game in Windows 98/ME Compatibility Mode.

To do this, locate the .EXE, right-click it and select Properties. Then select the Compatibility tab. The rest is easy.

[tungston 19]

Try setting the game option to software rendering for the graphics, if that solves it you can suspect the driver. I have ATI Radeon, and can't use the latest drivers, or I have to use the software rendering.