Street lights are a no-go

[unityx 1]

Searched, google too. I am sure this has come up before. Street lights just dont come on for ANY type of roadway. I went so far as to clear the Plugins folder, create new roads and cities. Deluxe edition. Pretty sure I have all my updates. Most building light up with exception being some medium residential. But I do have one build type on, Euro. So its not a plugin issue and I dont think its an install issue. Overall not a huge deal I guess.

[Tysons4 68]

street intersections get stop signs.... road and street intersections get stop signs... road x road gets stop light

[unityx 1]

You are correct. But I am talking about street lights, not stop lights or whatever one calls them (here they are called "stop and go lights").

[Tysons4 68]

check your display settings... may need to be turned up

[unityx 1]

Display settings? As in the in-game? All set to high. Everything is on. Only issue is that it only wants to run in software mode. Frustrating. On the Mac it "just works". And really its the same machine, I am just booting into Windows!

[unityx 1]

Well its looks like its just a case of the PC version of the game not wanting to tax the graphics card. Its a 945 mobile after all. Anyway, the Mac version seems to be much more forgiving. I edited the graphics rules.sgr and had no luck getting the game to even render shadows or clouds in city view. For those who know the config file, this is what I need to figure out how to combat in the rules file - which I dont think is possible.

Rules

-----

applying standard software

Options

-------

Visual Effects current: 3 recommended: 0

Cars/Sims current: 3 recommended: 0

Shadows current: 3 recommended: 0

Atmospheric effects current: 1 recommended: 0

Water effects current: 1 recommended: 0

Software/Hardware current: 0 recommended: 0

Cursor current: 1 recommended: 0

VariableSpeedAutomata current: 0 recommended: 0

Translucent UI current: 1 recommended: 0

Graphic Detail current: 3 recommended: 0

Building Load Speed current: 3 recommended: 0

Texture Quality current: 3 recommended: 0

Properties

-------

forcesoftwaredriver = false

renderdynamicview = true

renderstaticview = true

renderwatereffects = true

rendercloudsandfog = false

forcepointsampling = false

forcebilinear = false

forcenoalphablend = false

forcenoalphatest = false

rendershadows = false

renderdecals = false

usesecondstage = false

forcedebugtexture = false

renderparticleeffects = true

renderflorashadows = true

renderterrain = true

showupdateregions = false

usecursoreffects = true

drawlottextures = true

drawlotfoundations = true

drawlotwalls = true

forcetexturerepeat = false

usescreenshake = true

renderui = true

useupdaterectclipping = true

usevertexbuffers = true

showboundingboxes = false

useoverlayculling = true

rendersnapshot = false

noaddsigned = false

nopartialbackingstorecopies = false

usescreenflash = true

renderautomata = true

preferopaque = false

displayalertborders = true

drawlotopaquetextures = true

useviewcleanup = false

doautozoomandrotationchanges = true

viewoffsety = 0

viewoffsetx = 0

texturebits = 32

lodoffset = 0

shadowdebug = 0

maxparticlestarget = 10000

particlelodoffset = 0

effectprioritylevel = 5

backingstoremaxzoomall = 5

backingstoremaxzoombuildingsprops = 5

backingstoremaxzoomterrain = 5

backingstoremaxzoomflora = 5

shadowquality = 2

minvehiclezoom = 3

minpedzoom = 4

cursortype = 1

depthoffset = 2

debugtexture = 0

dirtyrectmergeframes = 4

sounddetail = 2

buildingvariety = 2

buildingloaderspeed = 1

modellodoffset = 0

stringtexturecachesize = 1024

particleeffectslod = 5

splattexturescale = 50

texbindmaxfree = 2

particledensity = 1

particledamping = 0

particlescale = 1

lightingupdatedelta = 0.0001

shadowmodelthreshold = 12

demolishmodelthreshold = 12

rendermodelthreshold = 6

rendermodelthresholdscroll = 40

particlesizethreshold = 300

maxvehiclepct = 1

maxpedpct = 1

opaqueuialphavalue = 0.55

[unityx 1]

Ok, so at this point this is just to help others. In the directory for the application, which is program files/maxis/Sim City 4/apps, there is an ".ini" file. Mine was only showing info to direct the app to the location of two directories. Below I added:

[Graphics Drivers]

OpenGL =SimGLRef.dll, C4554841

Software=SimGLSoft.dll,7ACA35C6

D3D7 =SimGLDx7.dll, BADB6906

[Current Graphics Driver]

;Driver = C4554841 ;OpenGL Hardware

;Driver = 7ACA35C6 ;GRPoly Software

Driver = BADB6906 ;DX7 Hardware

What one can do is basically play with the above. The "Current Driver" is the one to adjust. ONE can be selected. Putting a ";" before the line disables it. When I tried GL things were better and it ran in 32 bit like before, but I had a LOT of display issues. Totally non playable, which is odd considering its OpenGL. Then I went DX7, like I have it above, and it dropped to 16 bit so there is some graininess. Which frankly players have been finding out they are running 16 bit and had no clue. So it probably wont bother most. But my shadows came back and I have clouds in city view (region always had working clouds) It is also running in hardware mode. Now I am going back to the graphic rules to see if I can force more visual options including 32 bit. But its late, so another night. What a fuss to get the game looking and running right!