Please Help!!!

[rose12 0]

Hello!

I've got a little problem with Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition.

on my old computer the game worked ok. ( pentium 4 2,4 GHz, GF 7600 GS 256 MB)

when I bought a new computer my problem appeared. Instalation process was perfect, but when I started a new game in new city it all became wrong. The game and graphic was wery slow. When I shot down the shadows the game was a little faster but just a little. Sim City should work perfect on my new computer (Intel Core2 Duo 2,66 GHz, Radeon HD 4830 512 MB)

I don't kno what to do and why is that so? Please HELP!!!

[k808j 0]

I can't remember where I saw the post but SimCity4 was created in 2003 so it can't properly run on the newer computers.  Someone please correct me if this info is wrong.

[Porter 68]

Personally, I've had the problem with the shadows on ANY new ATI graphics card. Unfortunately, I don't know of any fix for it as of this time. Only thing I could do was personally switch from ATI to an Nvidia.

As for the processor issue, its a relatively easy fix. SC4 really truly HATES multi core processors. The game was designed back in the days of P4s and Athelons. To circumvent this issue, right click on your game icon and go to the properties menu. In the target field press space and type the following:

-CPUCount:1

This forces the game to only use one core, and should speed up the game quite a bit. I'd also suggest using the '-Intro: off ' as well, seperating each line with a space. This will allow the game to skip the intro, and should help loading times as such.

Hope that helps!

Jacob

[rose12 0]

ok. thanks. That intro trick helped but I sill don't know where to type -CPUCount:1 . could you tell me step by step how to do it?

[Porter 68]

Just like you did the Intro: off. Add a space between them when entering the code in.

Jacob

[tungston 19]

Originally posted by: k808j I can't remember where I saw the post but SimCity4 was created in 2003 so it can't properly run on the newer computers.  Someone please correct me if this info is wrong.quote>

 

I run the game sucessfully on 2 newer, high end computers.  A Intel Core2Quad, and a Core2duo, I have never needed to limit the processor to one core on either of those.

[north country dude 202]

Originally posted by: tungston

Originally posted by: k808j I can't remember where I saw the post but SimCity4 was created in 2003 so it can't properly run on the newer computers.  Someone please correct me if this info is wrong.quote>

 

I run the game sucessfully on 2 newer, high end computers.  A Intel Core2Quad, and a Core2duo, I have never needed to limit the processor to one core on either of those.quote>

That may be so, but, the game carries its own process scheduler. SC4.exe is a single process that cannot be divided.

 

quoted from mott,

The game gives the UI a generous amount of CPU time no matter what.  You can do something that causes the pathfinding and demand/desirability engines to fall into a near-infinite loop, and the UI won't "lag."  Just because your game *seems* to be running OK, doesn't mean it really is.quote>

Also, the game will run differently in software and hardware render modes.

Originally posted by: k808j I can't remember where I saw the post but SimCity4 was created in 2003 so it can't properly run on the newer computers.  Someone please correct me if this info is wrong.quote>

Consider yourself corrected. It runs very well on the newer machines and if your graphics card is set up correctly, you can use the hardware rendering with the graphics options set to maximum without any slowdown.

Originally posted by: rose12 ok. thanks. That intro trick helped but I sill don't know where to type -CPUCount:1 . could you tell me step by step how to do it?quote>

This link should help solve your problem:

Vista, Dual Core & SimCity 4: How to make them cooperate

[tungston 19]

That may be so, but, the game carries its own process scheduler. SC4.exe is a single process that cannot be dividedquote>

Like I said, all cores are being used, if you add the individual percentages they total more than 100%, the quad core close to 200%. 

[grbac80 5]

Same here, Core2Duo on a laptop and both cores working for SC4.

[north country dude 202]

Originally posted by: tungston

That may be so, but, the game carries its own process scheduler. SC4.exe is a single process that cannot be dividedquote>

Like I said, all cores are being used, if you add the individual percentages they total more than 100%, the quad core close to 200%. quote>

Originally posted by: grbac80 Same here, Core2Duo on a laptop and both cores working for SC4.quote>

Great! I didn't say it couldn't be run on multiple cores, just that SC4.exe is a single process, or thread. On many of the newer multi-core systems this isn't a big problem, but for rose12, this may have been a problem.

The link I provided earlier should help users who are having difficulties getting SimCity 4 to work with multi-core CPUs and/or the Vista operating system.

Again, tungston and grbac80, what work's for you, may not work for many others. SC4.exe is still a single process thread. On some higher end systems this process can be spread across multiple processors, sometimes it results in speedier performance, and sometimes it does not. On some systems, it is actually better to have SimCity 4 run on one dedicated CPU.

The most common problem users have with SimCity 4 running on a multiple core system is a CTD while zooming the display in and out with the mouse wheel. Other problems include slow or erratic performance, and/or "choppy" scrolling.

SimCity 4 was originally designed to run on single core CPU based systems for maximum compatibility at the time (2003). It is most stable on single core systems.

More often than not, the problems some users experience with multi-core systems can be solved by "forcing" SC4.exe into a uni-processor mode. Other methods include the use of program switches and small applications that can adjust how much processing each CPU does ( SMP Seesaw ).

SMP Seesaw is a utility for dual-CPU or dual-core computers that controls how Windows balances the compute load between the two processors. By default, Windows balances the processing load to both CPUs as evenly as possible among all programs. SMP Seesaw provides a convenient means to change the processor affinities for all running programs at once. In particular, the most common use is to dedicate one of your processors to a single program, thereby improving the performance or responsiveness of that program.quote>

You can also set the affinity of a program permanently by using imageCFG.exe (here)

from Wikipedia,...

Processor affinity is a modification of the native central queue scheduling algorithm. Each task (be it process or thread) in the queue has a tag indicating its preferred / kin processor. At allocation time, each task is allocated to its kin processor in preference to others.

Processor affinity takes advantage of the fact that some remnants of a process may remain in one processor's state (in particular, in its cache) from the last time the process ran, and so scheduling it to run on the same processor the next time could result in the process running more efficiently than if it were to run on another processor.quote>

Why do some Core 2 processors have problems and others don't? See the section marked "Chip Bugs"  here. Not all Core 2 processors are alike it seems.

Quick and Easy articles relating to "software lockout" on multi-processor based systems(some white papers attached)

Software Lockout

Symmetric Multiprocessing(SMP)

(see Advantages and Disadvantages)

Task parallelism

Parallel slowdown

Process(computing)

Why Vista is different from earlier versions of Windows:(from Scheduling(computing))

Windows NT-based operating systems use a multilevel feedback queue. 32 priority levels are defined, 0 through to 31, with priorities 0 through 15 being "normal" priorities and priorities 16 through 31 being soft real-time priorities, requiring privileges to assign. 0 is reserved for the Operating System. Users can select 5 of these priorities to assign to a running application from the Task Manager application, or through thread management APIs. The kernel may change the priority level of a thread depending on its I/O and CPU usage and whether it is interactive (i.e. accepts and responds to input from humans), raising the priority of interactive and I/O bounded processes and lowering that of CPU bound processes, to increase the responsiveness of interactive applications. The scheduler was modified in Windows Vista to use the cycle counter register of modern processors to keep track of exactly how many CPU cycles a thread has executed, rather than just using an interval-timer interrupt routine. Vista also uses a priority scheduler for the I/O queue so that disk defragmenters and other such programs don't interfere with foreground operations.quote>

So, in the interest of helping the average user out who is having problems getting SimCity 4 to run on multi-core CPU based systems, with or without a Vista operating system, I would suggest trying out the this tutorial, first.