How to configure SC4 to work with your new hardware

[CorinaMarie 29,922]

@lousuan

From a different thread, but this might be the next step in gathering info:

On 7/4/2017 at 3:33 AM, rsc204 said:

<snip> ... get a copy of the Configuration Log, to do that, find the file:

MYCOMPUTERNAME-config-log.txt

Located inside the Apps subfolder of the Installation folder of SC4. By default that would be:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\

Copy/Paste the first few sections down to the end of the "Numbers" section into a post here. Please also let us know which version of Windows you are using.

If your SC4 isn't from Steam and you have trouble finding the file let us know which version of the game you have and we can go from there.

[rsc204 21,868]

17 hours ago, lousuan said:

My new laptop has two graphic card: Intel(R) HD Graphics 630 and GTX 1050 Ti.

I have tired this guide, modified the two file, but nothing changed. The game still runs on Intel(R) HD Graphics 630.

Modifying this file only helps SC4 to get the right driver settings recognised in game. SC4 doesn't natively recognise dual-gpu setups being an older game.

So if you are using a desktop, SC4 will use whichever GPU your main monitor is plugged into. But for laptop users, you need to use the NVidia Control Panel application to force the NVidia card to be used when running SC4:

See under "Graphics" for full details of how to do that. Note these instructions should be similar for Windows 10, although written for Win8.

[lousuan 0]

On 10/07/2017 at 11:59 PM, CorinaMarie said:

@lousuan

From a different thread, but this might be the next step in gathering info:

If your SC4 isn't from Steam and you have trouble finding the file let us know which version of the game you have and we can go from there.

I bought it from Steam. Here's the config-log:

Quote

Log generated on 7/29/2017, 15:01

Flags
-----
hardwareDriver = false
DXT = true
fullscreen = true
MMX = true
FPU = true
backingStore = true
forcedFSAA = false

Strings
-------
userName = lousuan
appName = SimCity 4
version = 1.1.641.0
osVersion = Windows NT 5.1
computerName = LAPTOP-9A7MHP9B
CPU = GenuineIntel
sglDriverName = Software
sglDriverVersion = 1.0
driverName = igdumdim32.dll
driverVersion = 0.0.0.0, GUID: D7B78E66-1A5B-11CF-9573-2731ABC2CD35
cardName = Intel(R) HD Graphics 630
cardVersion = Vendor: 8086, Device: 591b, Board: 11271025, Chipset: 0004
cardIdentity = Intel, HD 630
soundDriverName =
soundCardName = 主声音驱动程序
buildType = Release

Numbers
-------
cpuSpeed = 2495
memory = 1024
freeMemory = 1024
screenWidth = 1920
screenHeight = 1080
screenBPP = 32
videoMemory = 128
textureMemory = 128
textureStages = 1
bogoFPS = 0
bogoMPPS = 0

Mod Edit: I've snipped the irrelevant parts of the config log, it's very long and doesn't help to diagnose the problem.

[lousuan 0]

On 2017/7/11 at 4:42 PM, rsc204 said:

Modifying this file only helps SC4 to get the right driver settings recognised in game. SC4 doesn't natively recognise dual-gpu setups being an older game.

So if you are using a desktop, SC4 will use whichever GPU your main monitor is plugged into. But for laptop users, you need to use the NVidia Control Panel application to force the NVidia card to be used when running SC4:

See under "Graphics" for full details of how to do that. Note these instructions should be similar for Windows 10, although written for Win8.

I have tried this guide too. 

FIRST: Follow the steps in the above "Desktop" section to add your card's info to the game's files.

This combo is now popular with laptops. Both cards are used, and the NVidia one is supposed to take over for heavier graphics tasks. Unfortunately SC4 is too old to work with this switching mechanism, and it can be a pain to get it to use the NVidia graphics card. As mentioned in the Intel section, integrated HD Graphics 4xxx don't run SC4 very well.

The first step is to manually set SC4 to use the NVidia card in the NVidia control panel. Right-click on your desktop and click "NVidia Control Panel." On the left menu, choose "Manage 3D settings." Click "Add," navigate to the SC4 EXE, and select it. Then set it to use the NVidia card rather than Intel HD Graphics. (Image of this)


This option alone may work. If it doesn't, continue:

In the NVidia control panel, go to the top bar (with File, Help, etc.), and click the "Desktop" menu. Check "Add'Run with graphics processor to context menu."Then right-click the SC4 icon,"Run with graphics processor,"and click"High performance NVIDIA processor."If your computer rudely informs you that you don't have permission to do that, you need to disable Windows User Account Control temporarily.

After forcing the game to run on the NVidia card once, I personally was able to double-click the SC4 icon normally and it has always used it ever since.

I changed Nvidia Control Panel setting, still nothing changed.

And then I try the following solution then I got an message:

Steam Error: Application load error 5:0000065434.

I can't start the game either.

[rsc204 21,868]

That could be for one of two potential reasons, but I'd guess the sudden appearance of the error suggests SC4 is using the NVidia card now, or at least trying too. However, I note from the config.log you are running the game in software rendering mode. For the NVidia card to work, you need to be running in DirectX rendering mode. It may be that changing the rendering mode will resolve the problem, in the Steam Library find SC4, right click it and select "Properties", then click on "Set Launch Options". Add the following into the box that appears:

-CPUCount:1 -d:DirectX

Note that's two commands, whatever happens you'll want to keep the first one "-CPUCount:1" You may need to alter the second to "-d:Software" to reinstate software rendering, if DirectX doesn't work with your setup.

If DirectX doesn't work straight away, you could try changing the drivers for the NVidia card. I don't necessarily mean updating them either, often in cases like this an older driver may actually be more likely to work. Sadly that comes at the cost of playing newer games, where a later driver is usually better. But if you can't get it going, you'll have to revert the changes made to the NVidia control panel and allow SC4 to run once more on the Intel card. You should be able to utilise DirectX with the Intel card also, frankly for an old game like SC4, it's probably sufficient for most people to use that setup. Although there can be a better experience when using a dedicated card, it's not always possible due to the myriad of potential compatibility problems playing a 14-year old game on the latest hardware.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

6 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Although there can be a better experience when using a dedicated card, it's not always possible

Indeed... The HD630 GPU embedded in your Intel CPU should be way more powerful than anything that existed when the game was finished, so it should be sufficient to render max detail, effects and animation in SC4. However, that's only true if you can get the game out of software rendering mode. If you have lag, it's probably in the modeling or software rendering.

With the HD630 handling SC4 for you, you could leave your nVidia card and driver tuned to your more demanding modern apps. That way you could have the best of both worlds.

[rsc204 21,868]

37 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

The HD630 GPU embedded in your Intel CPU should be way more powerful than anything that existed when the game was finished, so it should be sufficient to render max detail, effects and animation in SC4.

Whilst that may seem true, you still have to factor in the limitations of using shared memory and other issues. You could apply that statement to the Intel HD4600 graphics chip of my machine, however the reality is that my NVidia (750ti) outperforms it, even from a basic render quality standpoint. By comparison the Intel chip is a little sluggish. I say that as a fan of the Intel embedded GPUs, to a point they do allow gaming without a dedicated card, but it just doesn't perform that well with SC4. Of course your mileage may vary with the 630, but I really do think it's more to do with the speed of rendering textures into shared-RAM than anything else, since V-RAM would be much quicker.

SC4 is absolutely not one of those applications where I'd "leave my dedicated card for more demanding apps". But where the choice simply doesn't exist, it's certainly a more acceptable compromise than software rendering.

[lousuan 0]

On 2017/7/30 at 0:21 AM, jeffryfisher said:

Indeed... The HD630 GPU embedded in your Intel CPU should be way more powerful than anything that existed when the game was finished, so it should be sufficient to render max detail, effects and animation in SC4. However, that's only true if you can get the game out of software rendering mode. If you have lag, it's probably in the modeling or software rendering.

With the HD630 handling SC4 for you, you could leave your nVidia card and driver tuned to your more demanding modern apps. That way you could have the best of both worlds.

Well the game is lagging when zoom in or zoom out. I think using my dedicated card will solve this problem, and that's why I'm here. I know HD 630 is much op than all graphic card when the game was finished. 

On 2017/7/29 at 5:52 PM, rsc204 said:

That could be for one of two potential reasons, but I'd guess the sudden appearance of the error suggests SC4 is using the NVidia card now, or at least trying too. However, I note from the config.log you are running the game in software rendering mode. For the NVidia card to work, you need to be running in DirectX rendering mode. It may be that changing the rendering mode will resolve the problem, in the Steam Library find SC4, right click it and select"Properties", then click on"Set Launch Options". Add the following into the box that appears:

-CPUCount:1 -d:DirectX

Note that's two commands, whatever happens you'll want to keep the first one "-CPUCount:1" You may need to alter the second to "-d:Software" to reinstate software rendering, if DirectX doesn't work with your setup.

If DirectX doesn't work straight away, you could try changing the drivers for the NVidia card. I don't necessarily mean updating them either, often in cases like this an older driver may actually be more likely to work. Sadly that comes at the cost of playing newer games, where a later driver is usually better. But if you can't get it going, you'll have to revert the changes made to the NVidia control panel and allow SC4 to run once more on the Intel card. You should be able to utilise DirectX with the Intel card also, frankly for an old game like SC4, it's probably sufficient for most people to use that setup. Although there can be a better experience when using a dedicated card, it's not always possible due to the myriad of potential compatibility problems playing a 14-year old game on the latest hardware.

Maybe I should just give up and use HD 630. it seems under DirectX mode I still can't get the game running on Nvidia card, and I don't want to change the driver for Nvidia card now. Thank you guys.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

My video card died last week, so I bought a newer (still used) model and repeated the steps in the OP for the first time in over two years. Even though I am still running Win-XP, the displays did not match exactly. I found the key card info by launching the NVIDIA control panel and selecting Help -> System Information. The device ID there started with NVIDIA's familiar 10DE prefix, so I took the next four characters to be the hex code for the card. This I added to Video Cards.sgr.

YMMV

[Angry_Bubble 52]

Hello guys, I have something new for you. According to several things I saw in this topic I modified the Graphics and Video .sgr files and inject the windows versions 10, 8/8.1 and 7 and almost all the desktop video cards of the last 10 years of AMD/Nvidia.

I already tested here with Geforce 210 and R7 250 and in both the game was very fluid, of course in AMD the fluidity was even greater, but even so in 210 the game was very good.

Anyway, I will still make the file for Intel HD Onboard.

For AMD, unfortunately I did not get the IDs of VEGA 56 and 64, HD 4xxx and Rx 300 ......

Nvidia has all the cards from the 8400 GS onwards released to date today.

Another thing, I tried windows 8.1 without compatibility mode and it worked quietly even in full screen mode.

ITS ONLY DESKTOP VIDEO CARDS!

AMD.rar

 

Nvidia.rar

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

When EA wrote that sgr file, it needed to generalize it to be used by thousands of unknown machines of varying power. When one of us writes it, s/he writes it for exactly one known computer that is almost certainly "fast" by SC4's standards.

Therefore, the simplest tactic is to gut the entire file, leaving only the simple conclusion that your card is fast. No more ID research, no more frustrations with exact matches -- just tell SC4 the answer that works on your machine.

What could possibly go wrong? (he asks anxiously)

[Angry_Bubble 52]

I tested the .sgr files just showing my boards as well these ones I did with a complete package, and saw no performance difference. If they wanted, the user can edit these files and erase all the others, leaving only the card that he had, and with this he will see that the same card can have several ID's (GTX 1060 that I remember is one, I have 5 different ID's ), and it's good to leave them all.

[CorinaMarie 29,922]

14 hours ago, Angry_Bubble said:

According to several things I saw in this topic I modified the Graphics and Video .sgr files and inject the windows versions 10, 8/8.1 and 7 and almost all the desktop video cards of the last 10 years of AMD/Nvidia.

I very much like this idea.

My cursory scroll thru each of your Graphics Rules.sgr and Video Cards.sgr looks good. This will be ideal for peeps who don't care to jump thru all the hoops themselves. The difference in load speed of a singularly tweaked set and your full set is prolly measured in microseconds since it would read it all, use what it needs, and not take up any extra memory.

 

14 hours ago, Angry_Bubble said:

I will still make the file for Intel HD Onboard.

Once you have that done let's consider how best to make peeps aware of this and ease their pain of using it.

Ideally we need a step by step guide with images for peeps who are not computer savvy. It should walk them thru making a backup copy of the two original files and adding the two appropriate files from those you've tweaked. I would highly suggest packaging as .zip rather than .rar files. Windoze itself can handle normal zips, but rar requires 7-Zip or the equivalent.

I believe a good starting place would be a new topic of it's own called (something like) The All Encompassing Graphics Rules.sgr and Video Cards.sgr Files. Feedback would be encouraged where anyone who chooses to test the files could report back with their OS and Video Card info and (hopefully) give a thumbs up that it worked. Once established that it does work for all (or at least most peeps) then we could (at the staff level) add a message banner a top each page of this thread to direct peeps to the new solution.

-Cori (doing the admin thing)

[Angry_Bubble 52]

  11 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Once you have that done let's consider how best to make peeps aware of this and ease their pain of using it.

Ideally we need a step by step guide with images for peeps who are not computer savvy. It should walk them thru making a backup copy of the two original files and adding the two appropriate files from those you've tweaked. I would highly suggest packaging as .zip rather than .rar files. Windoze itself can handle normal zips, but rar requires 7-Zip or the equivalent.

I believe a good starting place would be a new topic of it's own called (something like) The All Encompassing Graphics Rules.sgr and Video Cards.sgr Files. Feedback would be encouraged where anyone who chooses to test the files could report back with their OS and Video Card info and (hopefully) give a thumbs up that it worked. Once established that it does work for all (or at least most peeps) then we could (at the staff level) add a message banner a top each page of this thread to direct peeps to the new solution.

-Cori (doing the admin thing)

Good ideas, I think it probably will not work with some people, but from what I've tested here I have good news.

[rededarsho 4]

hey guys it seems i found a solution to get NVIDIA mobile chip work on SC4. i repeat its mobile 970m. it was simple. i went to wine3d3 site. downloaded their wrapper, copied DX7 files in my app folder and booommmm! im sure my laptope uses nvidia form 1.performance 2.dedicated nvidia led and 3. visuals. after many years of agony, im now enjoying SC4. and i cannot believe it.

[Salthos 3]

Howdy, 

Hope I'm not necroing the thread or anything... just wondered if someone to could me input my GPU string into the files. I've tried a billion combinations but I have no idea what the correct one should be. I get an instant CTD when I try to run with hardware rendering. I already downloaded the AMD file linked above but as stated, it doesn't have my series of card in there.

So, my GPU is a Radeon R9 390. The image I will have uploaded is how it's written in my Display Settings. I've tried about 10 different combinations of how to write it in both documents and it just won't work for me.

The one I thought would definitely work is written like this in Graphics Rules: stringMatch cardIdentity "AMD*R9 390 Series*"

and like this in Video Cards: card 0x67B1 "Radeon(TM) RX 390 Series"

I've also tried the launcher found on SimTropolis to no avail.

Any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time!

[rsc204 21,868]

CTDs with hardware rendering will not be solved by telling SC4 about your GPU. It's systematic of a more serious compatibility issue which means you'll probably have to run in Software Rendering to get SC4 working. You might try a different driver revision, but modern cards that don't support DX7/9 features may simply never work under DirectX for SC4.

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

2 hours ago, Salthos said:

I've tried a billion combinations but I have no idea what the correct one should be.

Hi Salthos,

Welcome to Simtropolis!

I'm just going to base this on my own personal experience with editing the Graphics Rules for SC4. This technique may not work in everyone's case, but what I've found is to open up the config file which the game automatically creates upon startup. This is named in the format:

<ComputerName>-config-log.txt

Located inside:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps

(Or the equivalent path depending on your game's installation.)

This contains a snapshot summary of how SC4 recognises your system. It's divided into sections, and the info is logged each time according to the rules and settings applied when the game is launched. There are 2 inside the "Settings" header which describe the graphics card recognised:

• cardName = <Name>
• cardIdentity = <Name>

For me, both of the above were the same. What I did was copy this <Name> over to the Graphics Rules.sgr file present inside the game's installation folder. Then as per the instructions in this topic's initial post, I added it under the rules to specify what is a "Fast card".

In the format of:

stringMatch cardIdentity "<Name>"

Then I saved the file and started SC4. (It may need copying back in and editing outside of Program Files due to permissions.)

To confirm my graphics card was recognised as a fast card, I then opened up the config file and checked for these lines:

applying Fast card
applying Fast card>
  option 12 = 1
applying Fast card>>
  option 1 = 3
applying Fast card>>>
  option 0 = 3
applying Fast card>>>>
  option 2 = 3
applying Fast card>>>>>
  option 4 = 1

Without my rule present, this does not appear.

Now here's where it gets interestingly odd. Maybe this depends on card types, but strangely I didn't even need to specify the name in my Video Cards.sgr file. Then when I did so (using what I'm convinced was the correct syntax), evidence of the fast card rule being applied was nowhere to be found. So I wonder if this might be worth a try? As in to use the identity as outputted in the config file, and then maybe this removes the need to edit the master list for it to work.

[Salthos 3]

Thanks very much for the help.

I've tried your suggestion but unfortunately I've not had any luck with it. My config file outputs the strings like this:

cardName = AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series
cardIdentity = ATI, Radeon(TM) RX 390 Series

And I've tried multiple ways of writing those inside my Graphics Rules, and I've also tried taking out my entry in Video Cards to no avail.

I think, as rsc204 has said, if I'm getting a CTD just for running the game with hardware rendering regardless of what else I do, then maybe the game just won't work with my card. It's a shame too because software rendering is basically unplayable if I ever want to scroll out or something, as it takes about 10 seconds to load every time I move. 

And due to the CTD, my config file doesn't get updated, which means I'm stuck with software rendering or... nothing.

I might be getting a new PC in a few months so maybe I'll have some more luck with that... not that newer hardware will help but, you never know!

Unless there's any other suggestions on how I can fix my issues, I think I'll have to pass on SimCity 4, as much as it breaks my heart... nothing quite fills the satisfaction of city building quite like SimCity 4 does. Although if there's any games out there that do, I'm all ears!

Thanks again for all the help - I really appreciate it.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

I think you can delete the config file to start over from defaults. You can choose rendering mode in your command-line arguments that start SC4. While you're at it, make sure you're running with only one CPU (multi-core execution being another cause of CTD).

Realize that what you're doing in the SGR files is automatically selecting some in-game graphics settings such as rendering detail, number of automata etc. You're not selecting a card-driver, so it isn't strictly necessary to ID your card perfectly. All you need is to arrive at the right settings, so you can be blunt about it. The original files were written to make decisions on any machine; you just need your version to make the decisions you want on your machine.

Finally, research the drivers available for your card. There might be an older one that supports DirectX 9. If so, then downgrading could solve your CTD. I've seen other players here dedicate an older machine to SC4 because of incompatibilities with the newest hardware (drivers) and Win-10 (and any Win cursed by the KB-something update).

[rsc204 21,868]

2 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

I think you can delete the config file to start over from defaults.

That's not how it works, it's not a config file you can edit, it's simply a log of the last used settings.

2 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

Realize that what you're doing in the SGR files is automatically selecting some in-game graphics settings such as rendering detail, number of automata etc.

Yes and no. There are a bunch of pre-sets for performance/detail that are selected based upon the detection of your GPU. If SC4 thinks your GPU is not very good, but that isn't actually true, performance will be messed up. By forcing SC4 to detect and use your card as a "Fast Card", you will get the best performance. Generally this is especially necessary for ATI cards, because by default all ATI cards not correctly recognised will be set as if the card isn't very good.

2 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

The original files were written to make decisions on any machine; you just need your version to make the decisions you want on your machine.

Insomuch as they are a list of all the known hardware and vendor IDs from the time of release. But of course, today they are woefully out of date. That said, the Vendor IDs haven't changed so most Intel, NVidia and ATI cards are at least known to SC4. Sometimes it helps to give explicit information though, if the auto-detection doesn't work out.

2 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

incompatibilities with the newest hardware (drivers) and Win-10 (and any Win cursed by the KB-something update)

Win10 is ironically not less compatible, but more compatible with SC4 and older games. Updates to the WDDM system which are only available on Win10, actually mean you've more chance it will work, not less. Of course, if the hardware or manufacturer's driver has disabled a legacy feature needed by SC4, usually for better performance on modern titles, you could be out of luck. As for the KB update, that's not a curse, simply a removal of a driver to validate DRM for the disk-version. It's super-easy to work around it, provided you aren't using Win10. But if you have a digital edition, it's a non issue.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

20 hours ago, rsc204 said:

22 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

I think you can delete the config file to start over from defaults.

That's not how it works, it's not a config file you can edit, it's simply a log of the last used settings.

I didn't suggest editing the file, I suggested removing it. However, if it's not even read for effect, then it doesn't matter at all.

20 hours ago, rsc204 said:

There are a bunch of pre-sets for performance/detail that are selected based upon the detection of your GPU.

Not the way I edit those SGR files. I ripped out (or trivialized) the detection parts and left just the settings associations that I wanted. I don't need that file to do any thinking when my version needs only to work on my own machine.

20 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Insomuch as they are a list of all the known hardware and vendor IDs from the time of release.

That's the way it's designed, but I'm outside that box suggesting that when one's card is a mystery, go ahead and short-circuit the design. A personalized SGR file doesn't actually need most of what's in them. As long as you can determine what values are being delivered to the 2nd SGR file, then you can force whatever presets you want to become the results of those values in the decision tree. If I understood the SGR file syntax better, I could ignore the input values completely and simply set the settings I want.

My most recent card is undetectable by the card list (I have no idea what card ID it is seeing, so I can't add it to the list). So I chopped my SGR files down quite a bit to bend them to my will, and I stopped chopping as soon as they did what I wanted. (I wanted to play the game rather than persist until my SGR files were minimized).

It's like a Jedi mind trick: You tell it to stop thinking, and then you tell it what answers to spit out.

20 hours ago, rsc204 said:

As for the KB update, that's not a curse, simply a removal of a driver to validate DRM for the disk-version. It's super-easy to work around it, provided you aren't using Win10.

Not quite. The SYS file ships with the disk version of SC4, so the driver isn't missing. What the KB update does is to prevent that SYS file from loading even though you have it. Yes, it's super easy to uninstall the KB update prior to Win-10. Win-10 is very tricky to work around (for the disk version). Since I own the disk version (from "The Box" collection), Win-10 appears as if it is the death of SC4, but you're right that digital versions run well (some better than others -- we all agree that DRM-free GoG is best).

 

[Salthos 3]

I just thought I'd post an update for anyone who has my card.

I had a few more tries and managed to get the game to recognise my card as "fast". For anyone that has an AMD R9 390, I got mine to work by basically adding ALL of these into my Graphics Rules.sgr:

stringMatch cardIdentity "*Radeon*"
stringMatch cardIdentity "*ATI*"
stringMatch cardIdentity "*AMD*"
stringMatch cardIdentity "AMD"
stringMatch cardIdentity "AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series"
stringMatch cardIdentity "*AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series*"
stringMatch cardIdentity "AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series"
stringMatch cardIdentity "*AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series*"

 

And I then added this to my Video Cards.sgr:

card 0x67B1 "AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series"



I'm not sure if one or all of the above made it work but hey... the config file finally recognised it and said it was "applying Fast card>>>>>", so that's good enough for me.

And I found out that the initial crashes I was getting from running the game in hardware rendering was because I had a left over config file somewhere that was trying to run the game in 1440p, something I still cannot manage to do with hardware rendering turned on. I've looked around and not found any help so far... the consensus that I've read seems to be that the game just can't run in anything beyond 1080p with hardware rendering, but if anyone happens to know if it is possible, I'd love to know!

Regardless, I can run the game now in hardware which helps with the performance issues a bit, so that's good.

Thanks again for the help.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

15 hours ago, Salthos said:

I got mine to work by basically adding ALL of these into my Graphics Rules.sgr:

stringMatch cardIdentity "*Radeon*"
stringMatch cardIdentity "*ATI*"
stringMatch cardIdentity "*AMD*"

What do you suppose would happen if you simply replaced all of those stringMatch statements with stringMatch cardIdentity "*"? Anyway, I suspect the one with "*AMD*" or "*Radeon*" is sufficient on its own.

15 hours ago, Salthos said:

And I then added this to my Video Cards.sgr:

card 0x67B1 "AMD Radeon (TM) R9 390 Series"

I suspect that did the trick. Once you get a line in that file with the right "0x####" code, then you're home free. BTW, you didn't need the full card name. If you had called it "My Card" and then created a stringMatch cardIdentity line in the right place in the Rules file with "My Card", the two would work together to trigger the assignment you wanted. And, because your versions of these SGR files are for your machine alone, you can throw away a whole bunch of the other text for other hardware.

[FoxtrotF 6]

On 04.08.2018 at 5:09 AM, Angry_Bubble said:

Hello guys, I have something new for you. According to several things I saw in this topic I modified the Graphics and Video .sgr files and inject the windows versions 10, 8/8.1 and 7 and almost all the desktop video cards of the last 10 years of AMD/Nvidia.

I already tested here with Geforce 210 and R7 250 and in both the game was very fluid, of course in AMD the fluidity was even greater, but even so in 210 the game was very good.

Anyway, I will still make the file for Intel HD Onboard.

For AMD, unfortunately I did not get the IDs of VEGA 56 and 64, HD 4xxx and Rx 300 ......

Nvidia has all the cards from the 8400 GS onwards released to date today.

Another thing, I tried windows 8.1 without compatibility mode and it worked quietly even in full screen mode.

ITS ONLY DESKTOP VIDEO CARDS!

AMD.rar

 

Nvidia.rar

Thanks! Finally after couple of hours fixing and configuring I was able to run SC4 in directX mode, and not just software on my gtx card, but only in Windows 8 Compatibility Mode.

[nycsc4 5,251]

Hate to bump an old thread, but I've been trying to solve this on my own for over a week now while searching around the forums and haven't had much luck.  I recently bought a new computer and got SC4 up and running and for the most part it's pretty stable, but I am having more crashes than I have in the past, along with some graphical issues.  The computer is a MacBook Pro and I run the game on Windows 10 Home through Apple's BootCamp software (fully separate HD partition with a clean copy of Windows), the stats are in the image posted:

I am using -CPUCount1 and a custom resolution, the number escapes me, but it's the largest one the game can handle.  I use an external mouse and usually get the CTD using the scroll wheel, though I have to get pretty intense with scrolling to cause a crash, more scrolling than you would ever really do in normal gameplay.  The biggest issue so far is whenever I attempt to take a screenshot.  It either crashes as soon as I use the CTL-SHIFT-S command to open the camera, or it crashes as soon as I click to take a picture.  Occasionally I also have lots of buildings and props turn solid black or white, sometimes switching back and forth.  I've even seen the entire screen invert in colors.  Not really sure what else to do at this point.  I've tried the -openGL -directx and other launch options, and those only really seem to make it worse.  Any help would be really, really appreciated.

[rsc204 21,868]

2 hours ago, nycsc4 said:

-CPUCount1

Honestly, the symptoms you describe re: CTDs sounds exactly like that's not working. Note the command is -CPUCount:1 with the colon. If you don't get the syntax exact, it won't work. You can test if it's working or not, by running SC4, use CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to switch to Windows Task Manager. Find SimCity 4 under processes, right click it and select Set Affinity. Only one of the CPU # lines should be ticked, if not, this command isn't being executed.

2 hours ago, nycsc4 said:

a custom resolution, the number escapes me, but it's the largest one the game can handle.

Knowing the resolution would help greatly in knowing if it might be problematic with SC4. It can handle many resolutions, but that doesn't mean they will all work without issue. Anything above x1200 will lead to problems. Using a full HD resolution of 1980x1080 may help, in any case it's worth checking this to see if it fixes the issues. If not, you know the resolution is probably not the problem.

[nycsc4 5,251]

36 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Honestly, the symptoms you describe re: CTDs sounds exactly like that's not working. Note the command is -CPUCount:1 with the colon. If you don't get the syntax exact, it won't work. You can test if it's working or not, by running SC4, use CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to switch to Windows Task Manager. Find SimCity 4 under processes, right click it and select Set Affinity. Only one of the CPU # lines should be ticked, if not, this command isn't being executed.

Knowing the resolution would help greatly in knowing if it might be problematic with SC4. It can handle many resolutions, but that doesn't mean they will all work without issue. Anything above x1200 will lead to problems. Using a full HD resolution of 1980x1080 may help, in any case it's worth checking this to see if it fixes the issues. If not, you know the resolution is probably not the problem.

I do have -CPUCount:1, I just mis-typed it here.  Resolution is 2048x1152x32

[CorinaMarie 29,922]

4 hours ago, nycsc4 said:

Hate to bump an old thread,

While I'm not much help for the real techy parts of your post, I'll just comment on this: No worries at all. We essentially revoked the old rule of not bumping old threads as long as the bump is relevant (which yours is).

[nycsc4 5,251]

I did come back down to 1920x1080 on the resolution and now have my screenshotting ability back.  Hasn't crashed using my scroll wheel either.  Haven't noticed any graphic issues, but those were sporadic before anyway.