Software or Hardware?

[D2629 3]

I was just wondering. I have played sc4 for a couple of years now, and i have flicked between software and hardware rendering but i don't understand the difference. I can see no difference in game speed or graphic quality. Maybe it's just that i don't have an eye for good graphics but i'd like to know which is best for me to run. Thanks in advance for taking the time out to post a comment.

[JakeMD 107]

If you don't have vista, then software is the best choice. Many vista users find that running in software is slow, buggy, and just plain awful, but hardware mode works great. I myself have found that running sc4 in hardware mode in vista improves performance a lot.

[D2629 3]

Thanks! that's helpful 'cos i run vista.I hope i can get better gameplay now! What is the actual systematic difference though?

[JakeMD 107]

I think the only difference is some graphical ones, like black and white icons, but I haven't noticed many others.

[D2629 3]

I didn't even notice that! oh and thanks again.

[weatherdrew 4]

I will jump in here since I have run into this issue. Hardware mode attempts to load a hardware rendering driver from the game and utilize your GPU for rendering. Software mode offloads this instead to the CPU on your motherboard.

I am running Vista Ultimate 32bit and actually found that the game did not support my graphics card natively (like many of you out there which have newer GPU's). Using Hardware mode with the shadowing turned up at all caused choppyness and very sluggish movement issues.

I'm running a high end custom box (Dual 4.5GHz's at 1.8GHz bus speed) and found that turning software rendering on, which offloads some of the graphics rendering duties back onto the processor, actually increased game performance dramatically, even with shadowing enabled. I seem to be the exception rather than the rule in this instance, as many of you have noticed opposite effects.

If you take a look at the "Graphics Rules.sgr" file in your Simcity 4 installation directory, there are directives which somehow, link different video GPU's to rendering code (drivers possibly) in the game. If you look closely, you will see that many newer GPUs are not listed, meaning the game will load a default driver by default (slow) when using Hardware mode. I don't however fully understand the relationship the file has with regard to rendering though, so I can't advise on how to better your experience.

[JakeMD 107]

So is there some way to make the game load newer drivers?

[north country dude 202]

Originally posted by: weatherdrew I will jump in here since I have run into this issue. Hardware mode attempts to load a hardware rendering driver from the game and utilize your GPU for rendering. Software mode offloads this instead to the CPU on your motherboard. quote>

Yep.

I'm running a high end custom box (Dual 4.5GHz's at 1.8GHz bus speed) and found that turning software rendering on, which offloads some of the graphics rendering duties back onto the processor, actually increased game performance dramatically, even with shadowing enabled. quote>

Yes, but whether a machine has a multi-core CPU or not shouldn't matter as the game(.exe) carries its own process scheduler, needed for DOS/Win31/9x support, which is why it can't spread across the cores of newer multi-core machines.  It appears to the machine as a single process that cannot be divided.

If you take a look at the "Graphics Rules.sgr" file in your Simcity 4 installation directory, there are directives which somehow, link different video GPU's to rendering code (drivers possibly) in the game. If you look closely, you will see that many newer GPUs are not listed, meaning the game will load a default driver by default (slow) when using Hardware mode. I don't however fully understand the relationship the file has with regard to rendering though, so I can't advise on how to better your experience.quote>

I looked at "Graphics Rules.sgr" with Notepad++ and what I found were rules and "partial rules" on how to handle some of the more problematic GPU's of the day. Here's an excerpt:

# The Radeon series has a very slow path for partial

   # depth buffer copies. This has apparently been

   # fixed for 9500 and later models in the latest drivers,

   # but cannot be fixed on previous Radeons because of

   # hardware limitations.

   # NOTE: disabling this rule unnecessarily may lead to

   # very poor graphics performance.

   partialRule "Radeon"

      stringMatch cardIdentity "*Radeon*"

      

      partialRule "SlowSubrectDepthCopy" -any

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*7?00*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*8?00*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*9000*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*9100*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*9200*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*9300*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "*9400*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI, Radeon"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI, Radeon VE"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI, Radeon Mobility"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI, Radeon FireGL"

         

         # results in special low-impact scrolling mode.

         property noPartialBackingStoreCopies true

        

         # try to reduce the number of dirty rects.

         property dirtyRectMergeFrames 8

        

         # use black and white cursors. The Radeons seem

         # to work with colour for a while, but in low

         # memory situations revert to flickering.

         option $Cursor $CursorBW

      end

   end

   partialRule "Kyro"

      # still doesn't work great -- has problems

      # minifying textures in zoom 1.

      stringMatch cardIdentity "*Kyro*"

     

      property useSecondStage false

      option $CloudsFog       $Off

      option $Waves           $Off

   end

   partialRule "Poor color cursor" -any

      stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*128*"

      stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*Rage*"

      stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*Mach*"

      stringMatch cardIdentity "S3*"

      stringMatch cardIdentity "Trident*"

      stringMatch cardIdentity "3dfx*"        # The banshee reportedly works, but this is simplest.

      stringMatch cardIdentity "Intel*"       # 815E is BW only.  845+ is unknown but to be safe....

     

      option $Cursor          $CursorBW

   end

   partialRule "NoAddSigned" -any

      # this shows up as odd zone colours.

      stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*128*"

      stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*Rage*"

      

      property NoAddSigned true

   end

   partialRule "Not Slow GeForce"

      # We don't want the 'fast card' rules to apply to these GeForce cards, though possibly to other GeForce cards.

      stringNotMatch cardIdentity "*GeForce 256*"

      stringNotMatch cardIdentity "*GeForce2 *"

      partialRule "Fast card" -any

         # We run well on these cards, so up the defaults.

         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Geforce*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Quadro*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*9700*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*8500*"

         stringMatch cardIdentity "Matrox*Parhelia*"

         partialRule

            # Enable 32 bit graphics if user has decent computing power.

            # Paul P: My tests have shown that my GeForce uses less memory in 16 bit mode than 32 bit mode.

            atLeast memory          256

            atLeast cpuSpeed       1000

            option $ScreenDepth   $Depth_32

         end

         partialRule

            # Enable more cars and sims if user has decent computing power.

            atLeast memory          256

            atLeast cpuSpeed       1400

            option $CarsSims      $High

         end

         partialRule

            # Enable more visual effects if user has decent computing power.

            atLeast memory          256

            atLeast cpuSpeed       1600

            option $VisualEffects $High

         end

         partialRule

            # Enable more shadows if user has decent computing power.

            atLeast memory       512

            atLeast cpuSpeed    2000

            option $Shadows    $High

         end

        

         partialRule

            # Enable clouds and fog if user has decent computing power.

            atLeast memory          256

            atLeast cpuSpeed       1000

            option $CloudsFog     $On

         end

         property dirtyRectMergeFrames 2

      end

   end

end

# For figuring out what kind of card we are

sinclude "Video Cards.sgr"quote>

The section highlighted in red show a partial rule that allows any of the cards listed within that family to run under the "Fast card" defaults. See below:

Processing stops after a rule if the rule matches.

   Partial rules continue processing.

   A rule with -any is accepted if any of its conditions are

   met -- the default is that all conditions must be met.quote>

The "Video Cards.sgr" is used by the program to determine what kind of GPU is present in order to select what graphics options it should present, or recommend, to the user.

A complete reading of the Graphics Rules.sgr shows that selecting "Hardware" render does exactly that, all rendering is done by the user's GPU drivers. What the program is trying to determine is this: "Is this computer fast or slow? then set properties for fast or slow computers. Is there a GPU card?, IF yes, Is it a Fast card or a Slow card?, THEN set properties for a Fast or Slow card, ELSE end with default properties for NO GPU.".

Anything within the Family of fast cards meets the criteria for "Fast card", so the "hardware render" option can be recommended.

from SWAT MEDIC... So is there some way to make the game load newer drivers?quote>

It doesn't need to, you already (or should) have the latest drivers for your GPU card, the program just wants to know the answer to this question: "Your drivers or mine?"

But more specifically, yes, you can edit the Graphics Rules.sgr to include your GPU family if it is not included, but read the entire program carefully, it wants to know if the GPU can handle certain things and how it handles them.

[Livin in Sim 83]

Hi, all,

My card, ATI 9700, is on the list of "fast" ones.  However, at the moment, hardware runs a bit slowly, especially on a large tile.  It seemed to run faster before my son updated the drivers for the card.  Software runs fast, but shadows are horribly blocky, and all in all, it just doesn't look as good.  I sometimes develop in software, and take pictures/enjoy city in hardware.  I wonder if I could go online and find the older drivers and override the new?

Have fun.

--Liv

Oh, and I meant to say, thanks for the nice explanations, weatherdrew and NCD! 

[D2629 3]

So as I am using a notebook PC (running an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Mobile Technologies (i'm sure this is not dedicated but i know almost nothing about graphics cards) and 2 Intel Core T5500 processors, both running @1.6GHz) Would you suggest I ran on software or hardware? Btw SC4 is the only game I run, so before i rush out and buy a new graphics card and processor, is it worth it?

[weatherdrew 4]

Thanks for the clarification "north country dude" - I have never been sure if this file actually loaded additional control mechanisms into the game when utilizing hardware modes or not.

I did experiment around a bit when I first ran into this but was never able to get the hardware rendering rules correct for my GPU, which is an nVidia 9600GT - plenty of horsepower for a game of this age. As a result I ended up having more success offloading the processing to the CPU, for whatever reason.

One thing that might be interesting to try is a collaborative effort by the community to come up with an updated "Graphics Rules.sgr" which can be used as guidance for persons having hardware trouble, if it has not been done already. This template could then be tested by various users and feedback could determine the effectiveness of the changes, and it looks like your recommendations above can get most people going in the right direction.

By the way, glad to be of some help "Liv", although there are plenty of other experts around here who could have probably given just as much information!

[Dukat 2]

Before my old mainboard broke I ran the game on hardware mode. I wanna bet, though I can't check it for obvious reasons. That was a GeForce 6800. Now I got an ATI Radeon 4850, but I get about 2 frames on hardware mode. I have to switch to software to make the game run properly on a large city tile. Any help would be appreciated.

[weatherdrew 4]

The file "Video Cards.sgr" actually helps the game identify the video card onboard the computer, which I would assume is then uses in the "Graphics Rules.sgr" file to load the presets for detail, shadowing, etc.

I located the identifier for an nVidia 9600 GT thru some Google searching and added a HEX to String mapping in the file:

#

# ID to video card mappings

#

vendor "NVidia" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de

card 0x0622 "NVidia GeForce 9600 GT"

end

I then went into my "Graphics Rules.sgr" file and made sure I had a rule which would match the above driver mapping (there was already one present):

partialRule "Fast card" -any

# We run well on these cards, so up the defaults.

stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Geforce*"

stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Quadro*"

stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*9700*"

stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*8500*"

stringMatch cardIdentity "Matrox*Parhelia*"

Upon restarting the game I verified that all the detail settings were at their highest level with hardware rendering and 32 bit color selected. However, with the shadowing set to Medium or High, I get terrible performance scrolling or manipulating terrain, among other things. Disabling it (set to low) however brought the performance back immediately and the game played quite well.

I have also tried turning the rendering option to Software and turning the shadows back up, and this works - except there appears to be a slight difference in the hardware rendered shadowing at High vs. the software shadowing at High, whereas the hardware rendered version appears more detailed.

Like many of you out there, I do run the game using a custom resolution option in front of a Windows Shortcut that sets the resolution correctly for the monitor. I have tried using smaller resolution settings but was still unable to get the smooth performance I see when shadows are disabled.

I have yet to find a proper solution to this issue, as my machine and GPU should easily be able to handle the game at it's full settings.

[north country dude 202]

Hmm,...oh! Cool beans on find that hex mapping for your card! How did you find it?

I have a GeForce 8600 GT with 1gb and haven't really noticed any problems except a slower scroll speed, but I was wondering,...have you looked in your NVIDIA control panel?

Under the option tab for Manage 3d settings, is a menu for Program Settings,...Sim City 4.0 is listed and you can set many of the Card features there,...What do you have yours set at?

Ansiotropic filtering.....global(app controlled)

Antialiasing-Gamma correction....global(on)

Antialiasing-Mode....global(app controlled)

Antialiasing-Transparency....global(off)

Conformant Texture clamp....global(use hardware setting)

Extension limit....global(off)

Force mipmaps.....global(off)

Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration....Single display performance mode

Stereo -Display mode....global(use vertical interlace mode)

Texture filtering- Ansiotropic sample optimization....global(off)

                            -Negative LOD bias....global(allow)

                            -Quality......Quality

                            -Trilinear optimization.....global(on)

Triple buffering.....global(off)

Vertical sync.....global(3d application)

Above are my settings, any suggestions?

The idea about a modified ".sgr" file for newer graphic cards is a good idea, but how would you get an updated list of Hex mappings,...possibly by requests?,..ie; "my card is a #####, please add my Hex mapping to the list."

Just an idea.

[mproca 0]

is there any way to introduce shaders into the game?

[north country dude 202]

Good news on this! I've found a neat little utility that will find all the data on your current GPU, including the vendor identifier and card identifiers,...it can be found here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1333/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.3.2.html

Run the utility,...on the first tab is a box marked "Device ID" the first set of hex code is the Vendor ID followed by a dash, then the video card ID.

for example, Device ID 10DE-0401,...so,...0x10DE is the vendor code, 0x0401 is the card ID.

Just edit the Video Cards.sgr file with your cards identifier as shown in weatherdrew's post above.

[Telordya 0]

Nice find guys! Here's my machine spec:

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

Pentium 4 3.2 GHz HT

ASUS P8P800 SE

2 GB RAM

Windows XP Pro SP3

I just added this line to the "Fast card" section in the "Graphics Rules.sgr" to get it work:

stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*9800*"

It runs really smoothier than Software mode but I am missing the shadows, they were nice. Like weatherdrew, I had to set shadows to Low to get it playable. If someone finds another "fix" to get shadows at High, let us know.

[north country dude 202]

Originally posted by: Telordya Nice find guys! Here's my machine spec:

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

Pentium 4 3.2 GHz HT

ASUS P8P800 SE

2 GB RAM

Windows XP Pro SP3

I just added this line to the "Fast card" section in the "Graphics Rules.sgr" to get it work:

stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*9800*"

It runs really smoothier than Software mode but I am missing the shadows, they were nice. Like weatherdrew, I had to set shadows to Low to get it playable. If someone finds another "fix" to get shadows at High, let us know.quote>

Hmmm,...another fix?,...well I'm just shooting in the dark when it comes to ATI Radeon cards here, but,...I need to ask, "Is there a control panel type application that comes with the Radeon?" The best place to look would be in Control Panel.

The reason I ask is this; For many nVidia type cards, there is an application that lets you set your hardware settings for the video card. It also lets you set profiles for each application that will use it.

In one of my previous posts here, I found it under the "Manage 3d settings" tab, and I list each of the video cards features,...some things are turned on, some are application controlled, and so on.

If this is the case with the ATI Radeon cards,...maybe you could experiment with some of the settings and find which works best. Or maybe someone with more knowledge of this type of card could offer some advice?

[Telordya 0]

Yes, there is the Catalyst Control Center where we can adjust some 3D settings. It's pretty limited though, compared to the nVidia Control Panel. I'll try to tweak some settings and I let you know if there is something positive.

[Telordya 0]

I found a nice utility named ATI Tray Tools : http://www.guru3d.com/article/ati-tray-tools-/

There is really more tweaks that can be done for 3D with this tool. Maybe we could disable some features introduced in new drivers that break SimCity 4 compatibility. However, there are too many of them and I don't know what they all do. They have names like "VolTxEnable" or "Enable Raster Guardband". We'll need a real specialist to understand all this.

[Sunagwa 0]

Well I tried the fix mentioned in the post and it worked for my ATI 4870 card...but...still very poor performance and I have to keep shadows off. The game seems to regonize my card now but still runs better in software mode (with cars turned off).

I have been playing games for many years and have never run into a developer making a game in this way. Mabye it's just the way the engine runs but I have played games older and close to the age of this one and I get extreme performance due to my newer computer.

I can't imagine that Nvidia cards would work any better as it seems to just be the way the game was designed. Sure you can make it recognize your card, but like what happened with mine, depending on how fast your CPU is your likley going to be better off sticking with software for rendering. And even if hardware works out for you, if it's a newer card your going to at least have to turn off shadows to get it to a playable FPS.

I played this game originally on a Radeon 9700 Pro with a much slower CPU and I got MUCH better performance then this. I know, it's sad really, it's such a good game!

Bottem line, you can try the fix in this post, it could help depending on your situation. But the problem is deeper then just recognizing the GPU. The game itself has some sort of design flaw beyond my tech knowlage and unless you have older hardware or they decied to patch the game we are screwed.

System I tested this on:

Core 2 DUO@3.8Ghz

4Gig DDR2@1066Mhz

Radeon HD 4870 1024MB

Asus P5Q Pro

WinXP Pro 32Bit

[north country dude 202]

Originally posted by: Sunagwa

Well I tried the fix mentioned in the post and it worked for my ATI 4870 card...but...still very poor performance and I have to keep shadows off. The game seems to regonize my card now but still runs better in software mode (with cars turned off).

I have been playing games for many years and have never run into a developer making a game in this way. Mabye it's just the way the engine runs but I have played games older and close to the age of this one and I get extreme performance due to my newer computer.

I can't imagine that Nvidia cards would work any better as it seems to just be the way the game was designed. Sure you can make it recognize your card, but like what happened with mine, depending on how fast your CPU is your likley going to be better off sticking with software for rendering. And even if hardware works out for you, if it's a newer card your going to at least have to turn off shadows to get it to a playable FPS.quote>

I run SC4 in 'hardware mode',...my system is a AMD Athlon64 @ 2.2Ghz and 1Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce 8600 GT with 1Gb, Windows XP Media Center SP2...Sim City 4 settings as indicated in the reply above, all hardware settings for the game are 'high', including Shadows,...with no lag at all.

I use the latest NAM('Z' mode simulator) with all associated NAM type plugins(RHW, SAM, and STR), all God-mode type plugins for flora and fauna, and assorted game changing Mods,...again, no lag on my system, until I use the Radical Ordinance Mod, then there is a slight slowdown.

So for me, which plugins I use and how many there are(currently 1.4Gb), will affect performance, slightly.

I played this game originally on a Radeon 9700 Pro with a much slower CPU and I got MUCH better performance then this. I know, it's sad really, it's such a good game!

Bottem line, you can try the fix in this post, it could help depending on your situation. But the problem is deeper then just recognizing the GPU. The game itself has some sort of design flaw beyond my tech knowlage and unless you have older hardware or they decied to patch the game we are screwed.

System I tested this on:

Core 2 DUO@3.8Ghz <( have you tried it in single CPU affinity?)

4Gig DDR2@1066Mhz

Radeon HD 4870 1024MB

Asus P5Q Pro

WinXP Pro 32Bit

quote>

While solving for Graphics Processors is a solution for some with newer Video Cards, I have noticed that many people are having problems getting Sim City 4 to work well with multi-core CPU's. This doesn't mean that it won't work at all, just that all Duo-Core CPU's are not created equal,..for more information with links to data sources, see my reply in this thread.

(I thought XP Pro was a 64 bit OS, but maybe there's a 32bit version as well)

The "design flaw" that you speak of may be that the software was designed to run on backward compatible operating systems in 2003.

System Requirements

OS: Windows XP/Me/2000/98 (Windows 95/NT not supported)

CPU: 500MHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor

RAM: 128 Mb

CD/DVD-Rom Speed: 8x

Hard Drive Space: 1Gb free hard disk space plus space for saved games, Windows Swap-file, and DirectX 8.1

Video: 16Mb video card with DirectX 7.0 compatible driver, 3D accelerated mode requires a supported 3D chipset.

Sound: DirectX 7.0 compatible sound card.quote>

Those were the minimum requirements, six years ago. Note also that running in 3D accelerated mode, ie; Hardware Mode, required a supported 3D chipset, and without that, Software Mode (Open GL) was suggested for optimal performance. Also note that Windows NT based systems are not supported. Windows Vista is a NT based system.

If you open the Graphics Rules.sgr file and read it, you'll see what the problems were with certain video cards and what problems you can expect if you try to run in Hardware Mode with an unsupported 3D chipset.

So, the solutions presented here and in other topics are simply:

1) If you find that your chip set is not listed AND that it no longer warrants the "slow" or "problematic" rating given in Graphics Rules.sgr, try updating that file with your chipset. Don't run SC4 with all of the newer video cards attributes "switched on". Look for "application controlled".

2) If that doesn't work, AND you are running a multi-core CPU based system, try setting the processor affinity to a single processor.

3) If that doesn't work, try updating all your drivers, AND if you are running either Windows XP or Vista OS, you can try setting the OS to run Sim City 4 in Windows 98 mode( I know this works for XP, but, since I won't even touch Vista, I cannot verify that you can set applications to run in backward compatible modes.)

If none of those things work, then you are running an application on a system that it wasn't designed to run on,...expect problems.

[sithlrd98 66]

I see this is still active....I am one of those unfortunate souls running Vista64. I get some strange effects while running in hardware mode(running an n-force 8600GT) fully updated. The problem is that the game is not handling shadows well , but if I run in software , with out clouds and shadows on low , the problem is gone. I have opened up my graphics rules.sgr , and looked around on the net,but I'm lost at adding my card to the list.This is the last hurdle I have with SC4 stuff as I finally got reader to work and since there was a fix done recently for SC4tools handling of FSH files, I can mod again.

Running a quad core AMD Phenom with 6 gigs of ram, the game runs fine otherwise.

This is a post from simpeg with my issue & what I've already done.

Oh,and NCD...there is a x64 XP pro , which if I could find the drivers for my board , I would spend the $140 in a heartbeat!

Jayson

[Randomtaskk 1]

Vista Ultimate x64. Full GFX settings in game, on hardware (2 BFG GTX260 OCX Mazcores) with no problems here..

[hdogg 0]

On my old PC i had hardwaremode, but with the Radeon X800 GT card I had then, it never looked sharp enough.

Now on my new PC, its vista with Radeon HD3650, hardwaremode is not possible, so its on softwaremode.

And funny enough, I think the renders look better. So I would say, software is the better renderer.

[north country dude 202]

Originally posted by: sithlrd98

I see this is still active....I am one of those unfortunate souls running Vista64. I get some strange effects while running in hardware mode(running an n-force 8600GT) fully updated. The problem is that the game is not handling shadows well , but if I run in software , with out clouds and shadows on low , the problem is gone. I have opened up my graphics rules.sgr , and looked around on the net,but I'm lost at adding my card to the list.This is the last hurdle I have with SC4 stuff as I finally got reader to work and since there was a fix done recently for SC4tools handling of FSH files, I can mod again.

Running a quad core AMD Phenom with 6 gigs of ram, the game runs fine otherwise.

This is a post from simpeg with my issue & what I've already done.

Oh,and NCD...there is a x64 XP pro , which if I could find the drivers for my board[ do you mean motherboard? what kind? I can try and look. ] , I would spend the $140 in a heartbeat!

Jayson

quote>

Sounds like a sweet system,...except for the Vista part, but that's just a personal preference on my part.

But, to help add your card to the list;

Get this tool located here: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1333/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.3.2.html

"GPU-Z is a lightweight utility designed to give you all information about your video card and GPU."quote>

Run the utility,...on the first tab is a box marked "Device ID" the first set of hex code is the Vendor ID followed by a dash, then the video card ID.

for example, on my card(NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT), Device ID 10DE-0401,...so,...0x10DE is the vendor code, 0x0401 is the card ID.

Since "GeForce" cards are already listed in the Graphics Rules.sgr file,

partialRule "Fast card" -any

# We run well on these cards, so up the defaults.

stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Geforce*"

stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Quadro*"

stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*9700*"

stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*8500*"

stringMatch cardIdentity "Matrox*Parhelia*"

partialRule

# Enable 32 bit graphics if user has decent computing power.

# Paul P: My tests have shown that my GeForce uses less memory in 16 bit mode than 32 bit mode.

atLeast memory 256

atLeast cpuSpeed 1000

option $ScreenDepth $Depth_32quote>

open the Video Cards.sgr file with a simple text editor,...Notepad will do, but Notepad++ gives the actual line numbers,...find:

vendor "NVidia" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de (should start on line 260)

card 0x1b1d "Riva 128"

card 0x0008 "NV 1"

card 0x0009 "NV 1"

card 0x0010 "NV 2"

card 0x0018 "Riva 128"

card 0x0019 "Riva 128 ZX"

card 0x0020 "TNT"

card 0x0028 "TNT2"

card 0x0029 "TNT2 Ultra"

card 0x002a "TNT2"

card 0x002b "TNT2"

card 0x002c "TNT Vanta"

card 0x002d "TNT2 M64"

card 0x002e "TNT Vanta"

card 0x002f "TNT Vanta"

card 0x00a0 "TNT2 Aladdin"

card 0x0100 "GeForce 256"

card 0x0101 "GeForce 256 DDR"

card 0x0102 "GeForce 256 Ultra"

card 0x0103 "GeForce 256 Quadro"

card 0x0110 "GeForce2 MX"

card 0x0111 "GeForce2 MX DDR"

card 0x0112 "GeForce2 Go"

card 0x0113 "GeForce2 Quadro"

card 0x0150 "GeForce2"

card 0x0151 "GeForce2 Ti"

card 0x0152 "GeForce2 Ultra"

card 0x0153 "GeForce2 Quadro"

card 0x0170 "GeForce4 MX 460"

card 0x0171 "GeForce4 MX 440"

card 0x0172 "GeForce4 MX 420"

card 0x0173 "GeForce4 MX"

card 0x0174 "GeForce4 Go 440"

card 0x0175 "GeForce4 Go 420"

card 0x0176 "GeForce4 Go 420"

card 0x0178 "GeForce4 Quadro4"

card 0x0179 "GeForce4 Go 440"

card 0x017a "GeForce4 Quadro"

card 0x017b "GeForce4 Quadro"

card 0x017b "GeForce4 Quadro"

card 0x01a0 "GeForce2 Crush11"

card 0x0200 "GeForce3"

card 0x0201 "GeForce3 Ti200"

card 0x0202 "GeForce3 Ti500"

card 0x0203 "GeForce3 Quadro"

card 0x0250 "GeForce4 Ti4600"

card 0x0251 "GeForce4 Ti4400"

card 0x0253 "GeForce4 Ti4200"

card 0x0258 "GeForce4 Quadro"

card 0x0259 "GeForce4 Quadro"

card 0x025b "GeForce4 Quadro"

card 0x02a0 "GeForce3 XBOX"

card 0x0401 "NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT" < added this line

endquote>

save and exit, now your Video Cards.sgr file should be updated to accept your card.

But, make sure your NVIDIA control panel is set to run SC4, open it.

Under the option tab for Manage 3d settings, is a menu for Program Settings,...Sim City 4.0 is listed and you can set many of the Card features there,...What do you have yours set at?

Ansiotropic filtering.....global(app controlled)

Antialiasing-Gamma correction....global(on)

Antialiasing-Mode....global(app controlled)

Antialiasing-Transparency....global(off)

Conformant Texture clamp....global(use hardware setting)

Extension limit....global(off)

Force mipmaps.....global(off)

Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration....Single display performance mode

Stereo -Display mode....global(use vertical interlace mode)

Texture filtering- Ansiotropic sample optimization....global(off)

Texture filtering- Negative LOD bias....global(allow)

Texture filtering- Quality......Quality

Texture filtering- Trilinear optimization.....global(on)

Triple buffering.....global(off)

Vertical sync.....global(3d application)

These settings work best on my system, but there are no guaranties that it will work on yours, test it out, play with the buttons,....

Something that more advanced players may want to take a look at near the begining of the Graphics Rules.sgr file:

optionGroup $Shadows

# Sadly, we have no off

# option $Off

option $Low

property shadowQuality 0 # off

property shadowModelThreshold 40

property lightingUpdateDelta 0.2

# option $Low

# property shadowQuality 2

# property shadowModelThreshold 40

# property lightingUpdateDelta 0.2

option $Medium

property shadowQuality 3

property shadowModelThreshold 22

property lightingUpdateDelta 0.05

option $High

property shadowQuality 5

property shadowModelThreshold 12

property lightingUpdateDelta 1e-4

endquote>

# indicates a 'commented out' section. But it seems to me that the numbers for $Low, $Medium, and $High, can be adjusted,...hmmm,...perhaps more testing?

[EDIT] After reading your rant at Peg's,...Jayson buddy, I can only imagine your frustration. I feel for ya. Hopefully, some of what I've imparted here will lead to some insight as to the problems you are experiencing. Let me know.

hmmm, Spell Check doesn't work,...have to resort to my Mk1 Webster's.

[sithlrd98 66]

Originally posted by: north country dude

Originally posted by: sithlrd98

Oh,and NCD...there is a x64 XP pro , which if I could find the drivers for my board[ do you mean motherboard? what kind? I can try and look. ] , I would spend the $140 in a heartbeat!

Jayson

quote>

Its a Asus M2N68-LA(HP#Narra3-GL8E) Of course , the only drivers that HP has are for Vista , and the ones that I have been able to find at Major Geeks (and just about everywhere else)are either for 32bit or may/maynot work with the device(s) firmware#.

Originally posted by: north country dude

Sounds like a sweet system,...except for the Vista part, but that's just a personal preference on my part.

quote>

Yeah , beats the heck out of my other systems(XP2100+ , XP2500+ , each with only 1.5 Gigs ram and FX5200 cards)

Of course I knew somewhat what I was getting into with Vista , just was a little optimistic that I could get it to "play nice" with some of these older programs

Originally posted by: north country dude

But, to help add your card to the list;

Get this tool located here: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1333/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.3.2.html

"GPU-Z is a lightweight utility designed to give you all information about your video card and GPU."quote>

Run the utility,...on the first tab is a box marked "Device ID" the first set of hex code is the Vendor ID followed by a dash, then the video card ID.

for example, on my card(NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT), Device ID 10DE-0401,...so,...0x10DE is the vendor code, 0x0401 is the card ID.

quote>

Yeah , I had already gotten those 2 programsGPU-Z& NP++ , was just a little sketchy on what info was actually the right stuff. Thanks for the in-depth info!

Originally posted by: north country dude

But, make sure your NVIDIA control panel is set to run SC4, open it.

Under the option tab for Manage 3d settings, is a menu for Program Settings,...Sim City 4.0 is listed and you can set many of the Card features there,...What do you have yours set at?

quote>

All default values , nothing changed.

So , after up dating the video cards sgr. (mine was actually a E-vga Geforce8600GT , so it is 0402) the issue still is present. Before getting this computer , I rarely had any issues and was the one who got the phone calls from co-workers , etc to fix their problems! I don't know why the game or card is handling shadows the way they are(maybe the computer was thrown together on a Friday before a long holiday?) , but since the game is playable in both modes (just don't have shadows in software) and since the issue is pretty insignificant , I guess I'll just have to ignore the strange effects on blank terrain.

Originally posted by: north country dude

[EDIT] After reading your rant at Peg's,...Jayson buddy, I can only imagine your frustration. I feel for ya. Hopefully, some of what I've imparted here will lead to some insight as to the problems you are experiencing. Let me know.

quote>

Thanks for the help and just keep helping others! And since I don't belive I ever thanked you for the cool rail textures.... Thanks for the cool rail textures!

Jayson

[north country dude 202]

Glad to be of help Jayson,...perhaps I could be of further assistance:

Don't use the default settings for the NVIDIA board's "Manage 3d settings",...try the settings I outlined above for the Sim City 4 app only.

If you are still looking into downgrading from Vista to XP/Pro, I've found a few sites and forums where many people have had the same exasperation you have experienced.

In this forum, they provide some links to where you can get some of the XP drivers needed:

http://forums.amd.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=21&threadid=90552

Same here(they seem to be pointing to nVidia drivers?):

http://forums.driverguide.com/showthread.php?t=34945

See message #3 here(first link, not the majorgeeks link):

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?board_id=1&model=M2N&id=20071107104435468&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

And 4 different BIOS for HP's ASUS board here:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?board_id=1&model=M2N&id=20080519032458000&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

If you've already done this search,...then nvm. Try Googling(advanced) Asus M2N68-LA & Windows XP, and you'll see that many people are trying to "upgrade" from Vista to XP on this HP subcontracted Asus board,...makes you wonder doesn't it?

[EDIT] It seems that there are a certain set of drivers you need to put XP in and they are basically these:

(from http://www.squidoo.com/M2N68-LA)

Video driver: Sorry, I don't currently have a pointer to the specific file that's needed. Once you install the chipset drivers (below), go to nvidia's driver download area and use their automatic scan tool, it should point you at the right file.

The other devices as listed in device manager:

"Audio Device on High Definition Audio Bus"

This is a Realtek high-definition audio device.

UPDATE: the following 2 driver downloads no longer work:

slightly older driver from majorgeeks. This is what I used, and it works fine.

Slightly newer driver from realtek. I didn't try this one yet.

But this one is available (as of 6/18/2008, anyway):

Another newer driver from realtek I haven't tried, but it's the same family so it should be OK.

If that link doesn't work, try going to The Realtek site and click on the "quick link" labeled "HD Audio Codec Driver" -- that's where I got this link from anyway.

"SM Bus controller"

I'm not sure what this is, but installing the chipset drivers took care of this for me. The chipsed bundle is here

"Other PCI Bridge Device"

This is actually the on-board network card. It's an nvidia, and the software is in the chipset bundle; install the right chipset bundle and this should work.

"PCI Simple Communications Controller"

This is the modem. Does anyone use modems anymore? Anyway, I got the right driver straight from Windows Update, along with a CPU update. I never saw a CPU update on Windows Update before. Weird.quote>

[sithlrd98 66]

When I said "default" , I was reffering to the values that were automaticly set-up in the Nvidia Control panel , with the exception of changing it to single display performance mode.

I have given up trying to make this run like it did on XP , but since I had never come across that last link (thanks for diggin!), I really think I'm gonna head over to newegg , buy x64XP Pro , and try out those drivers. Worst case senario , I end up buying a new Mobo with Xp drivers! This one is a micro ATX any way with only 4 SATA , and one PCI-e16 anyway , and I already upped the powersupply , have 6400speed RAM (not gonna play many major games anytime soon) and drives , so its still a viable solution. Thanks again!

Jayson

[FUdgeCanKillYOU 0]

I'm running 64-bit Vista with an ATI 3200 HD.

Hardware mode with full graphics options is flawless.

Software mode with full graphics is slower and choppy.