SimCity Laggy on Windows 8

[ashley123 2]

Hi there, just going to say sorry if i'm double posting. going through 221 pages can take some time..
Anyways I installed SimCity 4 a few days ago and got the basic addons such as NAM. It ran brilliantly on my old laptop but I have upgraded to a faster model

Inter Core I7 3rd Gen
8GB of Ram
Nvidia GeForce GT 640M

I should easily max this game out right?
I've read something about software rendering and hardware rendering that it makes a load of difference but i'm not to sure because its sort of conflicting views. Also I wanted to ask about these region patched SKU1 and 2 etc. Which one do I need for UK? I believe its 2 but I have no idea where to find it.

So just to clarify, I would like to know if there is a way to make my game faster without the screen lagging everytime I move it.

And secondly if I need a SKU patch for uk, if someone would be kind enough to post me a link.
Thanks in advance
Ashsha123


 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If your game is showing less than 1,1,638 as the build level, you do indeed need that patch.  It is on the STEX, here.  Pick the second one.

 

With a multicore processor you also need to tell the O/S that the game is solidly single threaded.  Add <one space>-CPUCount:1 after the final quote in your short cut target line, and don't forget to click on apply.

 

<one space> ::= press the space bar once.

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

The game will lag in big cities, and also if you have processor-intensive settings (like Shadows) turned up.  It doesn't really matter if you have an Intel Celeron or an i7--the game can only use one core at a time.  Same for RAM.  The latest NAM included a patch that increased the game's usage from 2 to 4 GB, but your 8 GB won't help that much.

 

It's the game design that's slowing itself down, not your computer.  Patching the game, using hardware rendering, and taking the other steps (some mentioned above, others found in threads like this one) can help.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The game is a typical simulation of its era.  One big loop that visits each object including things such as trees, shrubs, lamp-posts, buildings and, of course, the generated Sims each time around.  There are a couple of co-routines that fire periodically like the pathfinder which runs at intervals and eats even more processor.  This results in an exponential curve on processor usage.  When you cross the knee of the curve for your CPU, the processor demand becomes nearly infinite and it is surprising that the game runs at all with say, 1,000,000 Sims plus all the accessory stuff present.  Actually, in that situation, because of CPU limitations, it could be said to crawl.

 

Pauses in the screen presentation are due to there being no CPU cycles left to get the updates to the GPU.

[ashley123 2]

Well setting it to One CPU instead of 8 definitely helped and turning the shadows on low really improved it. Appreciate all the help, love to get back to Sim City. Thanks once again!