Sim City 4 Sluggish

[Ryden123 0]

Hey guys, i just recently started getting out some of the older games, i found sim city 4 deluxe edition and installed it, and update it.  First thing i noticed was on the region view, scolling is sluggish, no matter how i scroll. I clicked on one of the cities and the game runs so slow, its impossible to play. Ive mucked about with the settings but nothing changes. The rig im running should be able to handle this game;

Windows xp sp2

amd duel core 3800+

2g ram

radeon x1900 xtx

I recently updated direct x but that did nothing. I have the latest drivers for my video and audio too. Any help would be appreciated.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Try running with only one processor for SC4.  Set your processor affinity for one or the other of your processors.  This is done using the task manager.

Also, make sure your Virtual memory is maxed.  4096 for XP, 4095 for Vista.

[Ryden123 0]

I did what you said, making it run from 1 processor didnt seem to affect gameplay. Although increasing my page file did, although it still lags really bad, i noticed that software mode runs better than hardware mode, which dosnt make much sence to me.

*edit* Just a note, This is the only game that has this problem. I am running brand new games flawlessly (i am a gamer). Ive been mucking about with compatibility modes and cannot solve this. This is really getting on my nerves lol.

**edit** Nope, no matter what i do, i cant get this to run properly. I just then started a new city, to just see how it went starting from scratch, and from there its still so laggy its unplayable. I dont understand how this can be >_<.

[zzsim 3]

Unfortunatly SC4's performance, unlike that of other games, can't be improved greatly by adding in the latest hardware. I recently upgraded my computer from a P4 @ 2.4ghz, 512mb ram, and an Nvidea 6200 graphics card, to a computer with 2gb DDR2 ram, a P4 @ 3.2ghz, and an Nvidea 8800gts, and ingame it acually runs alittle worse than it did before with the same size plugins folder. The only area I noticed an improvement in was loading times which went from 5 minutes on startup to under a minute (with full plugins folder). Also, outside of this fact, I've read in some places that the newer ATI graphics cards have problems running SC4 (driver issues maybe), which would explain why you are getting better performance with software rendering.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

OK.  Make sure all the handy features in your graphics system like AA and AF are set to application selected.  SC4 doesn't use nor understand any of them.  If they are on, it gets confused, and may even crash.

[Ryden123 0]

Yeah, i always have them set to application seleceted. Otherwise it causes problems, ive always set it to application settings. Im concluding that it must be the ati drivers, as ive been reading about that they dont seem to work with sc4. I guess im going to have to give this game a skip which is a shame because i really miss playing it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

With a fast machine like that, you can probably play with Software Rendering.  You might be surprised at how well it runs.

[tagtag 12]

I've got a similar problem.

I had an old computer, had just the min. specs for the game to run and it ran fine. With my new computer (3.46 ghz, 2 gb ram) the game is slow as Christmas. It's unplayable. Sometimes it doesn't even load.

Any ideas what it might be?

[Ryden123 0]

Yeah, ive been playing it in software mode, alot better than hardware mode. Its a shame though cause i can notice the differences. Im gonna look about on more forums to see if anyone else has the same problem as me.

[tagtag 12]

How do you play in software mode and how do you shut off aa and af? There's just no excuse for this game to run this slowly on ths computer and it makes me mad.

[Interchange 0]

Would it make sense to have the exact specifications that were out when the game was first released?

[tagtag 12]

And the processor thing, I'm not seeing anything in vista's task manager that gives that option.

[Elukka 0]

Try updating your display drivers. Or, if it's just the new drivers that cause problems, then reverting to older drivers might do the trick.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Originally posted by: tagtag How do you play in software mode and how do you shut off aa and af? There's just no excuse for this game to run this slowly on ths computer and it makes me mad.quote>

Your control panel should have an applet for controlling your video display.  Just find the entries for these options and set them to application selected or whatever the equivalent of that is.

To set software mode open the game, go to options, set it, quit, and reopen the game.

[tagtag 12]

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to do this. 

My new computer has Vista.  And I don't like it.  I can't figure out how to do any of the things that were so easy on XP.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Still has a control panel.  Works the same way.  Vista is NT6.0, so just follow you nose.

[tagtag 12]

I changed to software mode.  Everything is fine.

I did some looking and Intel actually has something on their webpage about this.  The game only runs in software mode with the graphics accelerator I have.

Who knew? (You guys apparently).

Thanks for the help.

I'm still a bit surprised about one thing--with the same size plug in folder as on my last computer, the game won't run.  I had to delete a lot.  Which, again, is surprising given that this is supposed to be a superior computer.