Hardware Vs. Software Rendering - Glitches when using Hardware

[Gilley7997 0]

First of thanks to all the contributors to this site, it has been very helpful.

I received the Sim City Box for christmas as I hadn't played Sim City since 3000 and just wanted to have a little fun.

I installed SimCity 4 Deluxe on this machine and put the latest patch from Maxis in the game:

Intel Quad Core Q6700 (2.66 Ghz)

4GB 800 Mhz Ram

Windows Vista 32 bit. (SP2)

BFG Nvidia 8800 GTS OC 512MB Graphics card.

Trend Micro Internet Security also runs on this machine.

I have already reformatted and reinstalled the latest drivers for all hardware on the machine. (The machine was in need of it anyway, and I like to clean things out every now and then.)

No Additional Game Mods have been installed.

I start the Program from my Desktop Shortcut with the following switches, which I give credit to simtropolis for assisting with:

-f -intoff -CustomResolution:enabled -r 1680x1050x32

DXDiag Reports no issues.  Of course it also reports that DirectX11 is installed.

Here is the issue.

I have all the Gaphics Options turned to High (Except Shadowing as I was experiencing the crash to desktop issue, which after setting this to low hasn't occured.)

When Rendering is set to hardware, I have issues with Automata.  Vehicles and Sims will partially be there and then not and then come back. (This is not the normal Automata fade.  As when these partially disappear you can still hit an invisible car in U-Drive-It mode.)  Also when looking at a Windmill Power Station, the rotating blades of the windmill will cut out the image behind it, and it will never return.

I also noticed when watching the Performance Tab of Task Manager, that even on a brand new city, with population under 5000, one of the 4 CPU's will basically be 100% pegged while the simulation is running.

When I set the rendering to software mode, I have almost flawless gameplay currently.  (I worry about larger cities though, as I have only played in small maps learning how to fit highways and ramps and roads, and neuances of the new version of Sim City before I try something large.)  The other thing I noticed is that the game doesn't appear to peg a single processort when I'm using software rendering.

Under the Hardware Rendering, even turning the graphics options down or changing the resolution to a standard square (i.e. 1024x768x2) had no effect on the Graphical Glitches.

Thanks for any input on this one.  If I need to give you any more information just ask away, I'm willing to try anything on this one.

[Gilley7997 0]

I did some playing with this tonight.....And I have the system running fairly smooth on Hardware with Low shadow settings.

These are the command line options that I am using:
"C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -f -Introff -CustomResolution:enabled -r1680x1050x32 -CPUCount:4

In the Nvidia control panel I created a Program Setting profile for Sim City 4 with these options:

Anisotopic Filtering: Off
All Antialiasing Options: Off
Maximum pre-rendered frames: 0 (Leaving this at the suggested 3 caused me issues)
Multi-dispay/Mixed GPU acceleration: Single Display Performance mode (I have dual monitors so forcing this to singe helped)
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic: Off
Texture Filtering - Negative LOD Bias: Clamp (This setting was also causing issues)
Texture Filtering - Quality: High Quality
Texture Filtering - Trilinear Optimization: On
Threaded Optimization: On
Triple Buffering: Off  (This was an absolute requirement to have off)
Veritcal Sync: Force Off (This was also an absolute requirement to have turned off)

If anyone has any other suggestions or observations as to why these settings cause issues,  or gives this a try as a solution let me know, Hope it helps someone else.

[SC4BOY 20]

Excellent work and good post... perhaps this will help others with problems!

[Frosteeze 0]

Funny, i have the same problem when setting it to hardware setting. At first i tried using the Disappearing buildings fix but that just creates lag.

The clue must be in graphics rule.sgr, but so far i have no clue what it is. But shadow settings doesn't crash me. Maybe that has something to do with DirectX as i have the old DirectX 9. Also my CPU usually goes 100% too, that is normal with me as i experience no lag while alt+tabbing.

I too am using GeForce 8800 GTS. Unfortunately I dont have nvidia control panel thing. Can you tell me more about that?

[Gilley7997 0]

Originally posted by: Frosteeze

I too am using GeForce 8800 GTS. Unfortunately I dont have nvidia control panel thing. Can you tell me more about that?quote>

Well I believe it should be default installed as part of the driver installs when downloaded from the Nvidia Website.

It can be accessed in two ways on most machines:

First:

1)Right click on your desktop

2)Choose Nvidia Control Panel

Second:

1)Right Click on Desktop

2)Choose Properties

3)Go to the Settings Tab

4)Click the Advanced Button

5)There should be a Tab in this Window that is named your specific Video Card.  Go to This Tab

6) Click "Start the Nvidia Control Panel"

These are the steps as I am looking at them on a Windows XP machine.  I didn't put the exact Vista steps as I don't have that OS in front of me right now, but they are nearly the same.

Hope that helps, if you don't have these options, I would suggest going to Nvidia's Website and downloading the latest driver.

[north country dude 202]

Great Post. While your solutions may work for some, it seems that many of the problems with Hardware Rendering can be solved by modifying the "Graphics Rules.sgr" and/or the "Video Cards.sgr" files.

More information on this can be found in this discussion: Topic Title: Software or Hardware?

                                                                                                             Topic Summary: Which is the best renderer and why?

                                                                                                             Created On: Feb-12-2009 05:04 PM

If you read the entire post you will find a wealth of information on how the SC4 files recognize different types of video cards and which ones work best. Included amoung several posts are links to utility programs that will help you optimize your graphic cards. Also included are links to help optimize for Windows Vista based systems and multicore based processors.

Hope this helps.

[Frosteeze 0]

No wonder, in vista it seems that the control panel is in the program files/nvidia corporation

Thanks for the help Gilley!

[Gilley7997 0]

Just as an Update:

I did make the changes to the Video Cards.sgr and Graphics Rules.sgr files as mentioned above.  It didn't have any affect on game play.

I still had to run at my above listed settings.  Which is fine.  The game is running smooth.

I can turn the Shadows up and take pictures if I want to, but having them up during game play in the U-Drive-It mode just makes it choppy.

Thanks for the help and suggestions!

[AliRemix10 0]

i dont get it why did you writed that DX11 is installed when you have Nvidia 8800GTS. Its pretty messed up

[Frosteeze 0]

Well i have basic vista so i have DX9

I tried my video card on an older computer, with a slower processor and different RAM type. It worked great and had none of the disappearing cars, pedestrians, etc. glitch. But if i used it on my newer comp, with a slightly faster single-processor, it has the glitch.

Oh and Gilley, it appears that the glitch is back even when i used your settings.

[Slimdude 0]

I've been experiencing the same kind of problems with my graphics setup.  I've got an NVidia GTX 260, and I've edited the graphics and video card rules, but the choppy scroll lag continues. I would really love to use the hardware renderer, so is there anything else I can do?

Here are my system specs that are relevant to this topic:

OS - Vista Home Premium x64

Memory - 4GB Corsair DDR2 1066

Vid Card - GeForce GTX 260 Core 216

SC4 Deluxe with all patches and updates

[TomSe001 0]

I also had graphical issues, several actually.

Also had problem with the cars and moving parts (partially) disappearing on me. I did notice a change between nvidia driver version as well.

Started out and tested all without any mods and clean install and then I tried several of NVIDIA's latest drivers.

I constantly set the graphics in the nvidia panel to 'highest quality' (which for me solved the disappearing cars/windmills stuff).

Between driver version 191.07 and 195.xx I noticed another change in graphics.

With the later drivers, I got all kinds of graphical corruption but with 191.07 it all went away and I can play SC4 with all options set to high (except shadows because HIGH = VERY SLOW SCROLLING).

SO in short, what works for me (on windows 7 x64) is installing driver 191.07, set overall quality to HIGHEST in the nvidia control panel and start up the game with following shortcut:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C START "Simcity 4" /high /affinity 1 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -CustomResolution:enabled -r1680x1050x32 -f

Give me great stability, good graphics, no crashes (so far).

I have a GTX285 (asus),4GB RAM corsair (reaper) and an intel QX9650 .

Hope it helps others

TomSe.

[Slimdude 0]

Yeah, I have the latest drivers for my card too, but it seems like the shadows in the game are causing the problems. With shadows off, the game is lag free and smooth as silk when scrolling. This is with hardware rendering enabled. But once the shadows are turned on, the lag returns, making the game unplayable on hardware.   

I was wondering if there was a shadow-related setting within the the graphics rules that could be altered to allow for smooth scrolling when they are set to "high", and when using hardware rendering.  If not, then I guess software rendering is my only option. 

One more thing:

In software mode, I'm noticing stuttering when the game transitions from day to night, and vice versa.

Don't know what's causing that. 

[kingdiz_55 12]

What's the point of adding a "-CPUCount:4" to the command line settings? What does it do?

[howietje024 1]

it's the number of CPU cores u use,

[Mister Giggles 310]

BFG Nvidia 8800 GTS OC 512MB Graphics card.

Strange. I have the exact same card, also with the latest drivers, and I have no graphical problems on hardware.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

What's the point of adding a "-CPUCount:4" to the command line settings? What does it do?

for this program it should be -CPUCount:1. This means that your dispatcher will not try to use the other cores on this program. Other stuff can run on the other cores.

Multi-core is a cop-out to give apparent throughput when the technology in use cannot go faster for an individual processor. Single programs in general won't use multiple cores unless they are written specifically to do so. It does, however, make it possible for background tasks to run without affecting other things. The CPU count parameter says that this program can only be time-sliced on one CPU at a time. That is, it is single threaded so save your trouble.