Guaranteed SimCity 4 on Windows 7 Fix - 1 Step

[johnnyx10 0]

A MAC? Uh, no. Just a desktop I built.
Gigabyte P55-USB3
i5 2.67
8GB RAM
GTS-250
Win7 64-bit

Installed the VM last year after I got bitter with SimCity3K crashing into infinity. No crashes since. And if it ever does: big whoop. It's a virtual machine. Just reboot it and fix the problem or restore to a backed up image

This would also help runjonah1 maintain an 'untainted' OS. Hope it helps someone out.

Oh, I don't use any mods or plugins.
 

[bltsandwich 8]

I've tried all of the above, but nothing stops it from crashing. I run Win7 64bit Home Premium, and although running it with the CPU affinity helps it run a little smoother, it still crashes.

 

Maybe in some instances it's the plugins we have installed. I've had problems with running SC4 even on WinXP when I first played the game. It would crash for no reason. Looking at the exception reports that the game used to give out made no sense (to me, at least), and so when I looked it up back in the day, it was found out to be the plugins. Maybe that could be the reason it crashes as well?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

To avoid having to set affinity all the time add the -CPUcount:1 option to your command line (target).

 

There is no avoiding the occasional crash in this old game.  You can delay the inevitable for hours and hours however by doing an internal save every quarter of an hour or so.  The internal save (CTRL+s) seems to garbage collect and reset the queues.  I am pretty sure that there is a fatal off-by-one error in the queueing logic somewhere.  Maybe more than one.  New fast machines can provoke this much more often than the machines the game was written for.

[johnnyx10 0]

A MAC? No way. Although I confess I have OSX installed on the VM (call me bi-curious) along with XP (for games) Win8 and Ubuntu for work.

i5 2.66
Gigabyte P55-USB3
Nvidia GTS 250
8GB RAM

 

VirtualBox has been the solution to all the older games I know and love. Hope it helps someone here. And would definitely help the guy above who needs an 'untainted' OS.

 

Oh, no mods or tricks up my sleeve. Straight up vanilla install.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

What do you mean vanilla?  From disks or downloaded.  If from disk did you get the general bug fix patch?  Oh, and is it Deluxe or just the old SimCity 4 without rush hour?  All these questions would be answered in one swoul foop if you would post the version number of the game you are running.

[johnnyx10 0]

Straight off the install CD onto VirtualBox XP virtual machine. No updates, no patches, no mods.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You are, therefore, missing the EP1 patch.  You can get it at SC4Devotion.  Just open the site and scroll down to the EA support button.  Click it, accept the agreement, then read carefully to choose the version of the patch you need to get to version 1,1,638.  After that, you might want to proceed to the BAT page and pick up the patch to version 1,1,640.  Without EP1 the game is very buggy.

 

When running on a virtual machine, this thread is sort of inapplicable.  Perhaps it would have been better to start a new topic.

[Armchair_Pigeon 6]

On my Windows 7 PC, simply only allowing Simcity 4 to run on a single core has stopped all crashes. SC4 is installed in the x86 file. However, my account has admin privileges.

(Note: Setting SimCity to run on core 0 causes it to crash, other cores work fine.)

[Marsbar18896 1]

Hey everyone I've been trying solutions today for just short of 12 hours now and I'm getting pretty Pi***d. As you can imagine none have worked so far so im trying on here. Also to let you all know im not the best with general PC knowledge so some solutions may be in a foreign language to me aha If so i'll let you know. 

 

My Situation: 

I have a copy of SC4 deluxe edition which comes with 2 discs. (Disc 1 is red & Disc 2 is Yellow) I have installed them both successfully yet the game will not play no matter how I run it. I get the image of a bridge followed by a black screen, this screen has just my mouse located on it. The screen flickers to my desktop and back before finally closing and returning to me desktop.  

 

Patches: 

I have installed the correct EP1 patch (Europe, I live in the UK) so my game version is currently 1.1.638 (I believe this is correct?) I have not installed the BAT update yet as I don't think its essential to play to the game. Let me know otherwise. 

 

I have tried: 

Reinstalling the entire game (x 4), running in safe mode via msconfig, updating video & sound drivers, changing compatibility mode to xp sp2 & xp sp3, what the OP did, changed security options on the maxis folder to full control and adding virtual memory. I believe I have missed a few things out that I have also tried but I'm not sure what they where exactly. 

 

Laptop specs:

OS: Win7 32bit

Processor: Intel Celeron 530 @ 1.73 GHz

RAM: 1GB (765MB usable) 

HDD: 74.5GB (38.6GB free)

DirectX 11

SiS Mirage 3 graphics 672 series 312MB (driver version: 7.14.10.5260)

Realtek HD audio speakers (driver version: 6.00.0001.6083 English)

 

I have not yet tried:

The target line things as I have no idea how to do it let alone what it is xD

 

If anybody has any solutions I haven't yet tried or anything you think may aid me in getting my SC4 to run I would greatly appreciate it. 

Thanks in advance take care. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The game is acting as if your accelerated audio is missing.  Do you have your speakers (if any) unplugged?

 

You might try adding the -audio:off option to your shortcut's target line.  Don't forget to click apply.

[Marsbar18896 1]

Thanks for the reply

 

The game is acting as if your accelerated audio is missing.  Do you have your speakers (if any) unplugged?

 

You might try adding the -audio:off option to your shortcut's target line.  Don't forget to click apply.

Thanks for the reply Moose.

 

The speakers I'm using are the laptops built in speakers, which are working fine with other types of media i.e: Spotify, Youtube ect. This target line thing, what exactly is it and what do I do to add stuff to it? There have been a few suggestions in this thread about adding things to the target line, none of which I have tried however. I have kind of an idea what it is but im not entirely sure and definitely don't want to screw anything up aha. 

 

Thanks again. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well, first of all, understand that I haven't used windows since Vista was announced and it wouldn't fit on my old machine.  I am on Linux.

 

Now, the thing you click on your desktop is called a shortcut or link.  It has properties, and if you right click on it and choose properties, one of the properties is a text-box with a label of Target.  This is, in fact, the command line that the operating system uses to launch your game.

 

As delivered, this will have only the complete file path of the game's executable, enclosed in quotes because it has spaces in it.  Basically it is a console command.  If you name a program in a console command it becomes a command.  Almost every program ever written has command-line options.

 

To add options to the command line, simply move the mouse after the final quote, type one space, then the option.  In this case I suggested turning off the audio to see if that is your problem.  This option is -audio:off

 

Here is my command line, which is not terribly different from a windows one, and the options are the same.

 

"C:/Program Files (x86)/Maxis/SimCity 4 Deluxe/Apps/SimCity 4.exe"  -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -d:software -f -CPUcount:1

 

Which says to my system:  Execute the program in quotes, turn off the silly movie, set up for my 1080p monitor, run with software rendering, full screen, and only use one of my cores, please.  The colours are for illustration only.

 

If you are interested in this level of detail here is the complete list of options.

[0din234 2]

^that help me a lot, i end up running the game on -w windows mode, i dont know why but when i use it on full screen it have so much lag that is almost impossible 2 play for me but in windows mode works fine... 

 

"B:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -w -CPUCount:1  -intro:off

[Marsbar18896 1]

Thank you Moose. 

 

I'll give that a try later today and hopefully we'll have lift off so to speak, if so i'll let you all know with a smile on my face. Thanks for the list of commands aswell I'm sure they'll come in useful, people like you make the community a much better place, thanks again I really appreciate it. 

 

Peace. 

[Marsbar18896 1]

Still can't get it to run the game via target line commands, however, by chance I went and had a look in my attic and BAM theres my old xp laptop which has been running the game with no issues at all for the past 3-4 hours. Again thanks for the advice Moose take care buddy

 

Time to get some mods..  

Peace.

[basileus 8]

I did what sydney_smooth19 said, and for me the game on my windows 7 32-bit pc works really well. Many thanks!

[joedetode 0]

will try ik thus thread has loads of fixes ill try them 1 at a time

[waerth 1]

Well finally got rid of the lag. Whenever I was scrolling or zooming in buildup areas it was lagging.

I have Win 7 64 on a 4 core machine. I never bothered to buy a graphics card though and am using graphics onboard.

SC4 deluxe works great no install problems no need to take special measures. Works fine without assigning it to one core. I did try that but it resulted in that 1 core going to 100% usage. Not healthy imho. So I left it at 4 cores and workes fine (even for 5 hours at a time, longest I played sofar), but lags in build up areas.

After trying every other button and setting I could find in the game, and all of the suggestions in this thread I pressed to change rendering from hardware to software ...... and presto it now runs smooth as silk! That is the only thing I have done.

Thanks for all of the advice here. My advice is try rendering with software

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Since the game is single-threaded, it really doesn't matter whether your set the single processor option or not provided your operating system doesn't fall over its own feet trying to multitask the program.

[dorianestevez 0]

Note: This is in reference to Windows 7 64 bit / 1 step instant guaranteed performance and running with absolutely ZERO CRASHES EVER!

Over time, I've read so many 'fix's' or attempted 'fix's' for installing and successfully running Simcity 4 on a windows 7 PC,

from setting the affinity, or switching to compatibility mode, administrator, or windowed mode.

I've tried pretty much all these and I still had problems, and I know of many players whom simply have held on dearly to the XP operating system, which is now

so far out dated, considering it was released 12 years ago.

The problem people have with installing Simcity 4, rush hour or whichever, is they allow it to auto install in the C:\Program Files (x86) directory, as we know,

any changes in this directory require admin authorisation, and for some reason it just does not work well with Simcity 4.

I simply installed it in C:\Program Files, note that it is not the (x86) directory. This directory has free reign and does not require admin for changes,

anyways the point of all this, is I have now clocked over 120 hours of game play, with over 200 plug-ins, and had absolutely not 1, crash. I have it running on max graphics,

max everything, and it runs perfectly.

This fix is so simple, so extremely basic, I'm not sure why I have never seen it posted anywhere on the net on any site, perhaps this has already been covered, It is something so basic, I would be surprised if it hadn't already. But the main thing is, IT WORKS!

Mechalic

* Note : Please post on here, if this has worked for you as well

 

 

[google search: simcity 4 x64, simcity 4 64bits, simcity win7 ] (it is little trick for google)

 

Hello, Dear community

 

Well, about how is possible to run simcity4 without any problem under windows Vista or Win7 64 bits versions, you need to have Ultimate versions, why? because this only version has a emulate for 32 bits and of course is very recomend check the compatibility with lower XP version, I am running simcity 4 with i3, nvidea gt900, win7 64bits Ultimate, too i am suggest NAM last because inside has little patch to recognize 3 GB of ram (only affect the simcity with patch 1.1.640) same NAM ask for patch to convert from original state to 1.1.38 y 1.1.640 only available with BATUPDATE, and i am suggest to use SimCity Deluxe, because include both version

SimCity Classic and Rush Hour, don´t forget Sim City Launcher

 

I Hope this experience will be helpful for everybody

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

SimCity Launcher is unnecessary.  It is post production software for people who don't want to bother with how to use the command line (target) options. 

 

For the price these days, I strongly recommend going to the digital download version 1,1,641.  Fully patched with diskless operation.

[supergaga 2]

It wont allow me to change affinity on sc4 in task manager

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

It wont allow me to change affinity on sc4 in task manager

Another way is to add the parameter -CPUCount:x to your game's target shortcut. Replace x with the number of cores you wish the game to run. This is somewhat easier than using the Task Manager, as you don't need to change anything once set. It works like a script when the game loads.

 

For example, to use a single core:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -CPUcount:1

 

A list of other commands can be found here. Just remember to add a single space after each one.

[skylar15 3]

My game only really likes to crash sometimes when I alt-tab, never does otherwise, my game is still laggy.

 

EDIT: I should point out however, that I use Windows 8.1, so that may be why my results are different, but 7 and 8 seem similar enough for it to possibly be an issue with both.

  Edited August 22, 2014 by skylar15  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

So why do you want to switch out of the game?  If you do that during a save you are in danger of corrupting your city. 

 

Lag you  will always have with you as the number of objects increases.

[Compdude787 916]

So why do you want to switch out of the game?  If you do that during a save you are in danger of corrupting your city. 

I sometimes switch out of the game when I want to pull up the NAM manual to figure out what the patterns are for draggable wide-radius curves. I still haven't quite memorized these...

 

But I try never to switch out of the game during a save.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Good point.  When you are working with advanced stuff in the NAM, you often have to reference the material.  For that, I can actually switch work spaces (desktops).  Once I get something running in another space switching to it is a keystroke.

[Blade711 24]

So I uninstalled it and tried to re-install it, but it just gets stuck forever at this file: SimCity_2.dat
 
Any help would be appreciated

  Edited September 3, 2014 by Blade711  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If you are coming off CD, it sounds like minor damage to the disk.  Check for thumbprints.  They can be removed by wiping with a lint-free cloth from the centre to the edge, very carefully.  If you have a deep scratch, then you've probably destroyed the disk.

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

My game only really likes to crash sometimes when I alt-tab, never does otherwise, my game is still laggy.

 

EDIT: I should point out however, that I use Windows 8.1, so that may be why my results are different, but 7 and 8 seem similar enough for it to possibly be an issue with both.

 

Depends on how well the computer handles switching between such large programs.  More RAM would help; 8 or more GB of memory should be able to handle tabbing to the desktop.  A good graphics card also helps smoothen the transition between the desktop and 3D game engine.