Is this a windows 8.1 problem or a game problem?

[jynksie 0]

Ever since I upgraded my laptop from windows 8 to 8.1, Sim City 4 hasn't been working correctly. I've gone so far as to strip the game of all its plug ins and add ons and  simply running the sim city 4/ RH in its original form via download from origin. The pic below will show you that I can no longer get the game to follow the flow of traffic via roads, its just lines going every which way. The red circle indicates that my intersections are now blanks. As my city grows, the more elaborate the city view, the less the game is able to show it's graphics.
 

 

I would assume this is less the game itself and an issue between windows 8.1 and my graphics drivers? I have a samsung series 7 [780z5e-01ub] running intel 4000 and an AMD 8700 series HD Radeon Graphics driver. I just am unsure how to determine if the game itself is incompatable w/ windows 8.1, or if it's my computer. Either way, I have to assume windows 8.1 is the key to the dysfunction, no?

[MandelSoft 2,769]

From the looks of it, the lines are NOT going everywhere. I think the game simulator has found a way to connect the sims to the right jobs, just not the exact route to the job. What you see is a direct origin-destination connection.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It might take several Sim-years for the pathfinder to settle down.  Put your plugins back.  You for sure need the NAM.

[jynksie 0]

Except, all these things were working before the upgrade to windows 8.1.

 

What I have found so far in my search is that sim city 4 is not supported in windows 8.1 as the graphics drivers are beyond what sim city 4 can work off of. I wasn't sure if I was having a driver issue, or a game issue, it is appearing to be that Sim City will only work in "software mode" in windows 8.1. When I do this, everything works as it should again. If I revert back to windows 8, the game works in directX mode because the drivers support the game.
 

If anyone knows of how I can get it to work in windows 8.1 in direct x mode, please guide me! I wonder if sim city 4 will no longer be a viable game once windows 8.1 becomes the standard?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, it may very well be that this is the case.  Microshaft are notorious for not supporting legacy software.  The game hasn't changed in over 10 years so I would expect advanced systems may not be able to handle it.  The answer may be one of two things depending on your real need for a computer and some applications:

 

1.  Stay on windows 8.  If you can't then:

 

2.  Override the UEFI code for windows boots and install a version of Linux in dual boot.  SC4 runs fine in XP decor with the wine executive layer present.  Everything having to do with Linux is free and supported if you choose the right distribution.  I am using Ubuntu 13.10 with wine 1.7.4 (which is a beta).  The current public release of wine is 1.6.

 

Solution No. 2 means you have to be a little more computer savvy than the average user these days, but it can be done.

 

Another thought just occurred to me:  Are your graphics drivers set so that 3D options are marked 'application selected'?  If not, they should be, as SC4 needs them all turned off.

[Cyclone Boom 16,851]

In terms of software compatability, Win 8 and 8.1 shouldn't be that different. After all, 8.1 is more of a service pack than a completely different system. From Microsoft's website, this page reveals SC4 should be compatible.

I'm not too familiar with the upgrade process (from 8 to 8.1). Did the game need to be reinstalled, or was everything preserved? The thing is, if SC4 worked fine before on the same PC, it points more to a graphics driver / settings issue. Are there any driver updates from Samsung? These might help the situation. Or like Nonny said, something may have been reset in your graphics control center.

[NCGAIO 562]

Win8.1 brings a new version of the WDDM (1.3) with modifications to support Direct3D 9 hardware which may be causing the incompatibility.
 
By definition  after WinXp that  was the last SO. to allow management of virtual memory on the video card by own driver, compatibility with the techniques employed in SC4 for accelerating the providing of the frame buffer for the video is  compromised.
 
I'm not sure if worked on your system but you can try the application compatibility explained here.
 
 How to Run Older Programs under Windows 8

[scott1964 138]

I'm running Windows 8.1 and have no problems.

[Xyloxadoria 1,099]

Clearly there are no problems at all and your sims just somehow got jetpacks. 

[NCGAIO 562]

I'm running Windows 8.1 and have no problems.

 

Well ... good for you. Unfortunately this does not help anyone in trouble!

 

What is the machine?

What is the processor?

Which is a  graphic card?

This sharing memory with the RAM system?

The game is running in software  or hardware mode ?

The scrolling view is soft?

Your files. Sgr were updated?

 

Obviously not everyone has the same installation settings for hardware and software and therefore can happen even on identical machines that old applications maybe run in different form!

 

 

Compatibility is not always a simple thing ...

 

Samsung Series 7 Chronos 780Z5E review

Have one of these. Great until I "upgraded" to Windows 8.1. from Microsoft. The upgrade replaced the Samsung version of the video driver and now the AMD Radeon 8800 card software does not work. AMD say their version of the driver is not compatible with the Samsung hardware and Samsung support does not offer specific Windows drivers. So, cannot adjust brightness of display and alter anything else. If you buy one, don't upgrade to Windows 8.1!

.

CanItGetWorse 

• 23 days ago

 

so...

 

Note: Problems with the techniques employed to accelerate screen presentation in SC4 already been clarified by Paul Pedriana and more recently by Andre Willmot then they exist and appear under certain circumstances  therefore is a problem for some and not for all.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The problem is solving this remotely without full information.  When you crash you get an Exception Report placed in your Exception Reports folder.  Each crash produced both a mini-dump and a text version of the same.  Choose the latest text version (*.txt), open it in notepad and select the first 20 lines of the file.  Paste these lines (only) in your next post and we can at least see what the game thinks happened.

 

These dumps are not much use, but we can at least see if there is anything unusual in the dump header.

[NCGAIO 562]

Sorry friend but in that a report of failures would help here?

 

The game is running so  believe that in nothing.

 

But if the user can make it then post the start log  to know if the graphics card is being recognized as well as exactly to what parameters is working .

 

The file in question is in the folder / Apps in the directory installation simcity 

 

Hd (x) :\ ....... \ Maxis \ SimCity 4 Deluxe \ Apps -  and its name is

 

[user]-config-log.txt -  where "User" is the name of the user responsible for the game installation.

 

It would be good to put in both conditions with Win8 and Win8.1.( ie after and before WDDM 1.3)

[jynksie 0]

According to Samsung support, the game is defaulting to render graphics using directX, whereas I -SHOULD- be using "software-mode".  I have 8GB of RAM w/ 2.1GB of VRAM using an i73635qm CPU 2.40GHZ and an AMD 8700 Radeon HD graphics driver. In software mode, the game is as stable and as smooth as can be, but I was under the impression that software mode would eventually make the game drag? .... part of the issue here may simply be that technology has finally outsmarted me!

 

 

Here is my exception report:
 

Exception time: 11/12/2013, at 00:32:04.
Exception code: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION.
Current thread ID: 7108 (0x00001bc4).
Version information:
Application/module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps\SimCity 4.exe
Application/module version name: SimCity 4
Application/module version: 1.1.641.0
System version: Windows NT 6.2
System memory: 4096 Megabytes total, 4096 Megabytes free.

Exception module:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps\SimCity 4.exe.
Exception address: 0x0065ee40. Section:Offset: 0x01:0x00257e40.

Registers
   EAX: 0018f608
   EBX: 0018f60c
   ECX: 00000000
   EDX: 000000c1
   ESI: 00000000
   EDI: 13f4019c
   CS:EIP: 0023:0065ee40
   SS:ESP: 002b:0018f5d0  EBP:0018f607
   DS:002b  ES:002b  FS:0053  GS:002b
   Flags: 00010246

[Lot Creator 304]

Have you tried to redo this same thing on another city map, or replace the intersections? It could also be that the update might have corrupted some files such as the city save or the NAM, you could try to do a re install of NAM if you want to be sure. For me it looks like a code or corruption rather than a graphical glitch, since everything 'seems' to run. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Your dump shows a completely normal digital download deluxe system running Windows 8.  The program has done a branch to zero, which is an exception (programs that do this in supervisor state cause a boot).  So the game itself is in a panic.

 

The question is why?

 

This is a legacy game written before computers had fancy graphics processors and multiple cores.  It is doggedly single threaded because that's what the technology was at the time.  It does not expect and cannot handle any GPU hardware mode 3D controls so these must either be off or set to 'application selected' or equivalent so that they will be turned off when not requested by the loading program.  It is also sometimes necessary to tell the operating system not to try to multi-dispatch the program and for this reason one should add the option -CPUCount:1 to your command line (target) when starting up the game.

 

Here is the full discussion of command line options: link

[NCGAIO 562]

  In software mode, the game is as stable and as smooth as can be, but I was under the impression that software mode would eventually make the game drag? .... part of the issue here may simply be that technology has finally outsmarted me!

 

 

A Short Explanation simplistic ( because this is not the place nor would space)

 

basic - Framebuffer - one digital copy in physical memory ( RAM ) of each frame that will be displayed on the monitor so that several different frames per second ( FPS ) result in the moving image . 

 

For the SC4 in software mode realy the processor ( CPU ) makes a mount of  one framebuffer  in the  memory of motherboard ( RAM ) then copies it to the video memory (local or mapped to the video card ) that displays  in the screen in this case the " 3D processing " is performed by the processor ( CPU ) .

 

In hardware mode the CPU "sends 3D processing " to a video card ( GPU ) more efficient to deal with it then she mount the framebuffer in your memory ( VRAM ) more quickly and then displays the screen .

 

At the time of the game's release ( 2003 ) software option maybe meant a delay for processing graphic but guarantee full compatibility to run the game on any PC.... Currently the new hardware devices (+ core CPUs, RAM DDRX, PCIeX bus, etc ...) allow operation mode software much more  faster of course but still slower compared to using hardware appropriate graph.

 

The hardware option was logically much more efficient because it avoided the copy of block (slow) and was more efficient in mounting  the frame.... however for  accelerate the process of putting together a new frame to be displayed, the game uses techniques employing retroactive access to framebuffer to function properly and  this is involved directly in compatibility between that was encoded with the characteristics of the cards graphics  when accessing your memory ( reason of initial problems with ATI cards that had problems with this compatibility.)

 

To get the best possible performance, it is necessary that your graphics card is recognized by the game so it can select the best performance parameters that are configured by the files. Sgr (Details here) but not always compatible with all video drivers.

 

To complete the picture, the changes to the OS after XP (WDDM) have compatibility with these techniques even more complicated (reason for  various problems with game installation in the first  versions of Vista )

 

Now we have real problems with the latest hardware ... compatibility of these techniques with modern processors (APUs) and switching "3d rendering" for dedicated graphic chip (GPU) for mobile devices are more complex things and many times without solution other than running the game in sofware mode  (information here)

 

note:Exception code: 0xc0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION.

 

means an attempt to write about virtual memory already allocated to another process that can have various causes (just copying in any search engine and you see dozens of results )

 

But if it happens only in hardware mode you already have a likely suspect.

As said before it would be useful to post the log file described above

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

On that note, most GPUs these days understand and can directly interpret OpenGL commands.  If the OpenGL section of SC4 had been completed instead of jamming in the UDI section, I think a lot of us would be happier.  The choice seems to have been forced for marketing reasons since UDI wasn't likely in the original specification for Rush Hour.  None of the MySims stuff was in the first edition of SimCity 4, then it all appeared as a rather buggy part of Rush Hour.

 

To increase the longevity of this game, EA/Maxis need only complete and debug the OpenGL section.  I would even pay a fee for this.

[jynksie 0]

Have you tried to redo this same thing on another city map, or replace the intersections? It could also be that the update might have corrupted some files such as the city save or the NAM, you could try to do a re install of NAM if you want to be sure. For me it looks like a code or corruption rather than a graphical glitch, since everything 'seems' to run. 

The picture I provide at the beginning of this discussion was a new city I threw up to test and see if the issue was only in the existing ones. It also had the same issues as the existing ones. I actually uninstalled everything and reinstalled everything game related and got the same end result. I tried to do as much as I could think of before bringing my issue here to you all. So, my sense is, we can rule that out maybe?

 

I even ran the game withOUT add ons or plug ins beyond the basic digital download and still had grpahics and traffic flow connections issue. I uninstalled the SC4 launcher and ran it w/o that as well. At this point, it would assume, it's either my computer and the game not working right together, or the digital version I have from Origin is somehow faulty? Although, I uninstalled and reinstalled the game as well, as part of my process of elimination.

 

Your dump shows a completely normal digital download deluxe system running Windows 8.  The program has done a branch to zero, which is an exception (programs that do this in supervisor state cause a boot).  So the game itself is in a panic.

 

The question is why?

 

This is a legacy game written before computers had fancy graphics processors and multiple cores.  It is doggedly single threaded because that's what the technology was at the time.  It does not expect and cannot handle any GPU hardware mode 3D controls so these must either be off or set to 'application selected' or equivalent so that they will be turned off when not requested by the loading program.  It is also sometimes necessary to tell the operating system not to try to multi-dispatch the program and for this reason one should add the option -CPUCount:1 to your command line (target) when starting up the game.

 

Here is the full discussion of command line options: link

All of my graphics settings are set to "use application settings" for this game ... the one only that is set at default "AMD optimised" is Tesselation Mode. I have the choice of changing it to "Use application settings" or "Override application settings" . I even changed that to "Use Application Settings" and it made no difference. I also tried setting the CPU count to 1 and still got the same results I am having issues with.

 

Unless I run the game in software mode, the graphics are broken and the traffic flow lines completely ignore the roads and go from house to work, like the original pic shows. I'm baffled. ...and will keep trying any and all suggestions.

[NCGAIO 562]

So come because I was also a little curious .
 
In your image does not see right  what appears where it should be the texture of the intersection , is the terrain texture ?

 
Here is not easy to see if the texture of the street continues to link the two areas, it continues ?
 

 
The interesting thing and its assertion that in software mode the query route appears correctly designed . If you could post the two images would help in some conclusions .
 
Also useful would be an image with the cheat "DrawPath" enabled and if possible  the file I mentioned above on both cases soft & hardware mode  . (Send in PM so the post not get too large)
 
To better understand what happens you could  post a picture of  the area with sure to use only the mod attached below in your plugins folder and replace the PNG textures that are inside the plugins folder in the installation directory of the game. ( Instructions on the txt file )
 
The mod only removes the terrain texture so that appears something like the figure below , after use simply exit the game without saving and remove it and return the original PNG images.
 

 
mod terreno.zip

Background3D.zip

[Cyclone Boom 16,851]

Also useful would be an image with the cheat "DrawPath" enabled and if possible the file I mentioned above on both cases soft & hardware mode . (Send in PM so the post not get too large)

Just a thought:

If too large, the images could be uploaded to Imgur / Imageshack. Then instead of embedding, just link them through a URL here in a post. The page loading times wouldn't be impacted. Also, it might help others (with a similar problem) to find a solution.

[NCGAIO 562]

Certainly ... what i  referred was to post only the log files  by PM because they are long and take the focus of the topic but of course that  images should appear on the page as you same said to help also those who have same problems.

 

Harnessing the post ... In the image below the same fail of intersections appears not to have happened on the road side she was already in the file loaded of the city?

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I am going to step out of this conversation.  I have exclusively used software mode since AMD stopped supporting my chip on the Linux kernel, and I am completely stopped by this graphics card problem.

[NCGAIO 562]

I think you should continue because some of the problems here seems to go beyond graphics  bugs and experienced opinions are never too much!

[artilleryman74 1]

I had the same problem and I solved it this way:

Go to the options menu > graphic options > renderer: software. 

Voilà.

I hope this helps.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ It is easier than that.  With that option you have to restart the game.  To start in software rendering mode just add -d:software to the command line.  It goes after the final quote preceded by a space.

[Thin White Duke 4,072]

I had the same problem and I solved it this way:

Go to the options menu > graphic options > renderer: software. 

Voilà.

I hope this helps.

Thank you so much! I LOVE YOU!!!!!! 

[iwanturmind 2]

I have windows 8.1 an HP Envy m6 with a core i5 processor.  Processor i5-3230M CPU 2.60GHz Installed memory 8.00gb (7.90 GB usable) 64 bit x64-bases processor.  I took two weeks getting all the mods and everything ready to play and when I tried to play the game fianlly the screen is black and is stuck.  I have to reboot my PC every time and can't even access the Task Manager.  I want to play this game I fell in love with years ago and would like to play again.  I'm sorry to say Sim City 5 sucked.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Look around in this forum.  You'll find a number of threads on getting the game to run on Windows 8.1.  Probably what you mostly need is the single processor option added to your target line, but there may be others you need as well.

[iwanturmind 2]

It seems like it's better just to reboot and go back to 8.0 but I will loose all my windows 97 stuff because I dont have the orignal disc so I may just have to buy it.  The other stuff I may have to get again.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Just write all your precious stuff to an ISO DVD before you do anything drastic.