Having performance issues with SC4 on Vista

[Moneywell 0]

This is first time I have installed SC4 and Rush Hour on Vista and I am having performance issues--its very sluggish. This never happend to me before on XP (with average computer specs) and I highly doubt it is my present computer hardware ( Intel Core @ Quad Q9300 @ 2.50GHz, 4GB of RAM and a GeForce 9800M GT). This of course, believe it or not, is the first time I have installed the patches so maybe there's a link...I doubt it. Anyways I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this on Vista and if theres a way to fix it, thanks.

Moneywell

[Tysons4 68]

software rendering should give you a boost...

[SC4BOY 20]

Anytime software rendering gives you a "boost" you have not properly installed and configured your video drivers. The reason it was put in is that way back when SC4 was being released there were a fair number of TOTALLY SUCKY video cards out there (and /or there were problems in the drivers released by the manufacturer.. most of this was cleared way back.. ca 2006) and you could bypass that by software rendering. If you have even the most nominal modern video card (even an on-the mobo card) it will outperform the core as it relieves the core of doing the rendering.. (that's why you even have a video card.. )

The only other occasion is that you just don't have the basic skills or interest in finding the real problem with the configuring of your drivers, etc. If you're doing it because of that, that's fine, but NEVER tell people that that is the "best" or "improved" or "boosted" setting for the game please.

[A-Train 0]

Hey dude, I have even higher specs than you and I too am running sluggishly and I am running Vista. I can't figure out why -- My computer should be EATING through this game and tearing it up, but I am laggin like crazy.

[Suburban Daze 0]

I'm having a similar problem to the original poster, except I'm using Windows XP. My hardware configuration is as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 2.2GHz (single-core)

ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics

2GB RAM

Windows XP Pro (fresh install)

I remember reading somewhere (possibly even on this forum) that the problem might lie with the "Graphics Cards.sgr" file, as this list doesn't include newer graphics cards. I don't know how to add my card to the list.

I love SC4, and have owned it since it came out. It seemed to run better on my old Dell with a 1.6 GHz P4 and a GeForce 2!

[chocolate_city 93]

First off Vista sucks... I think you can get Windows 7 Beta for free still I'm not sure... but if you can't I would recommend these few things.... Get the latest drivers for your rvideo card... get the latest DirectX 9 I think that August 2009 is out... If your card uses DirectX 10 get that latest driver... defragment your hard drive .... I have Sim City My Documents folder on a different hard drive than my C drive.... then try Control ALT Delete and look in the task manager and see if you have a lot of programs running in the background... this is what usually causes my game to lag... if you're not sure how to do this and what program to stop running DON'T do it.. Hope that helps

[Ryusuke516 1]

Actually Windows Vista is WAY better than Windows XP, and i have never had a problem with running SC4 on my 2 Vista comps. The specs of the first one (i gave this to my parents), 4GB DDR2 @ 800Mhz Ram, Geforce 9600GT with 512 Mb DDR3 video ram, Intel core 2 duo @ 2.53Ghz, and the second one, 12GB DDR3 @ 1600Mhz Ram, Geforce GTX 285 with 2 Gb DDR3 video ram, Intel core i7 @ 4.5 Ghz (over clocked); and both computers have windows vista home premium 64bit on them and they both run SC4 without any issue. Also i have upgraded an older computer to Windows 7 Release candidate (which was like $10) 32-bit and wondows 7 runs SC4 better than XP and this computer (the one that i am using to post this message) has 4Gb DDR @ 400mhz Ram, nvidia Geforce 9500 GT 1 GB DDR2 video ram, Pentium 4 at 3.4 ghz.

Also people with older ATI Redeon grphics cards below Radeon HD 4650 would have trouble running SC4 too, but the newer ones have no problem and ATI is getting better recently.

Remember, both windows vista and windows 7 were designed for computers with higher specs, but vista was released too early with a lot of bugs and had too high expectations with computer hardware. Also what i can say about Windows 7 is that it is Vista with "XP mode" feature for older computers, but windows 7 is not rushed like vista. All the bugs for vista is fixed now and Vista is better than XP even though i hated vista when it first came out, i hated going back to XP when my hard drive on my other computer crashed (NOT VISTA'S FAULT, actually winRar did it) i couldn't stand XP that i got the release candidate.

To the topic, no i don't know what would cause this as i never experience this myself.

[A-Train 0]

No offense, and please don't take this the wrong way,

[comment deleted by tungston. Be civil, that was out of line, and uncalled for]

Anyway, moving on, I found out 2 things regarding SC4 performance and it's worked for me. It hasn't COMPLETELY removed all the lag but it DOES do one heck of a good job:

1) Set the game to software, not hardware rendering (No idea why it works better this way)

2) Turn off (switch to low) shadows.

These 2 things helped a bunch, but no idea why. Hope this helps.

[chocolate_city 93]

[Please stay on topic, direct you comments to the subject, and not to other membrs. tungston]

 In my opinion ... software rendering is never an option...I personally have found that what causes sluggishness is too many programs running in the background at the same time. If you can navigate the Task Manager by depressing CONTROL -ALT - DELETE at the same time you'll bring up the task manager... (this works in VIsta too) look under the tab called PROCESSES... look at all of the programs that are running ... if you look to the right you'll see a lot of numbers ...an example ... svhost.exe 3,400. the numbers represent how much of your memory is being used by that program.. Look down the list and see which ones are the largest in size... Things like alg,exe, svhost,exe smss.exe csrss.exe - explorer.exe lsass.exe .. these are things that shouldn't be stopped... I don't know what programs youlr running but I'm sure that there are several that don't need to running all the time...stop some of these programs and I'm willing to put money on it that your performance will improve immensely

[A-Train 0]

I wonder if SC4 just has a flaw in itself that causes bad performance. All these things that we have to do to try to make the game bearable to play is getting a bit ridiculous. :-\

[SC4BOY 20]

Clearly the methods used in SC4 are not what the normal video card expects to see TODAY.. that isn't odd since it was developed before most of that stuff existed. Further I'm sure that various "optimizations" were made in an effort to just get it to run on the average 2000 pc... not to mention how "conforming" it is. On the other hand, I think ALL the producers of video cards are WELL AWARE of the needs of SC4 and that users expect their cards to WORK on Sc4. In fact if I couldn't get my card to work, I'd go back to my suppliers and press them to make it work. There is simply too large a user base to be ignored. All of them to the best of my knowledge have threads on their support sites dealing with SC4 and with the manufacturers response to those issues. I think everyone who installs SC4 has to deal with the issue in SOME form, some easier than others. The reason it TENDS to work better on nVidea cards than on ATI cards is that Maxis and nVidea actually developed the games video in cooperation (back ca 1998 or so when it was in that stage).. I haven't seen a serious user with an ATI card that couldn't get it to work however. Its a shame that EA has no interest in some form of support, but of course that's the last thing on their mind.. they are way past SC4 and support.. even though they still sell it..

In a way its sort of a chicken and egg thing..

[A-Train 0]

Uh... I have a GeForce GTX 260 and it performs horribly.

[chocolate_city 93]

Ya know... I don't really think it matters what video card or how much memory you have to run your game.... If you have 99 different things running in the background you're clearly going to get poor performance... Personally.. I'm putting together a computer that will only have Sim City 4 or whatever new city building game comes around

[SC4BOY 20]

SC4 is a jealous god!! it DEMANDS ALL of your pc..

[kiros 1]

i have a good pc i think ( intel core 2 duo 2.80ghz \ 3.00gb dd2 RAM \ evga nvdia 260 \ Win7-64bits )

all of my old pc games run way better but sc4 like a lot of users here are reporting it's running slow

i know about pcs and there is no background processing that make my pcs slow or consume

radical amount of power that lead to that

i also have trying to work around some issues like the wide screen size and core compatibility but don't help

-example

("C:\sim city 4\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -l:english -intro: off -CustomResolution:enabled -w -r1024x768x32 -CPUCount:2

i also have try putting -CPUCount:1 but don't help also (i read some where in another post that maybe that helps but don't)

"the ONLY thing that help was changing the render method to Software" that makes the game run fine

but some graphics don't look good so i think its the drivers for newest videocards

if any one know another way to make sc4 run fine under Hardware Rendering please gives us a hint