Another glitch in region view

[Deluxe Addict 0]

Just FYI:

 

If you updated your GeForce driver recently and suddenly experience a catastrophic glitch in the region view after saving a city, try re-installing the previous driver version.

 

All recent NVIDIA drivers may be affected.

 

I experienced this on my old rig after installing driver version 340.52 for the GeForce GTS 250 on Windows 7 64 bit. Suspected the driver but didn't verify it.

Bought a new machine in January, equipped with a GeForce GTX 970, driver version 347.09. Installed SimCity and played for a while. No problem.

Updated to version 347.25. Same problem again.

Re-installed 347.09. Problem gone.

 

I'm using SimCity 4 Deluxe, patched to 1.1.638; no mods or tweaks or anything. Use hardware rendering, 32 bit color. Screen resolution doesn't seem to matter.

 

I submitted a bug report to NVIDIA. If we're lucky, they'll fix it. If not - goodbye, SimCity 4. I won't stick to an old driver version forever.

 

Cheers,

Wolfgang

[NCGAIO 562]

Let's put it this way.

From Windows Vista SC4 as other older games are run on emulated environment for the sound; emulation for the DD7, emulation to allocation of memory, emulation on parameters of drivers and now emulation for the 32-bit OS. ie is an application really out-of-date.

Nvidia really has endeavored in compatibility with old games but I do not think it will not last much longer and she will certainly abandon compatibility with all that is before DX9ex.

Also because MIcrosoft and Intel never even care about this and has implemented techniques that begin to make impossible have another solution than software rendering in case of old games as SC4.

This seems to be the final objective to put an end to all dependency problems and failures of video hardware vendors.

Good for the new ... bad for the oldest.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Alas, it is inevitable.  As new games come out wanting ever more fancy GPU features, expect this to happen more and more.  The solution is to maintain some sort of virtual machine running the old software.

[Deluxe Addict 0]

I am not ready to abandon all hope yet.

 

Software rendering also stopped working. The screen is utterly black except for a small rectangular patch of binary noise in the upper left corner. I didn't mention it because there might have been a different reason for this, but it would make perfect sense if there was some sort of addressing error in the legacy interface SC4 uses to access the graphics buffer(s), affecting both read and write operations.

 

• When creating the city preview for the region view using hardware rendering, SC4 lets the hardware do the work and then tries to retrieve the rendered image but gets some random memory content.
• Using software rendering, SC4 does the 3D rendering part but still has to put the resulting image into the back buffer in order to have it displayed on the screen. But if the driver writes the image to the wrong location...

 

I will check if software rendering still works with the previous driver. I'll bet it does.

 

Another thing worth to give a try might be to explicitly select DirectX or OpenGL rendering in order to see if one of them still works. Will check that as well.

[Calvss 27]

Would running with integrated graphics and compatibility mode for winXP SP3 help?

[Deluxe Addict 0]

Would running with integrated graphics and compatibility mode for winXP SP3 help?

Didn't try integrated graphics, but compatibility mode was no help.

[NCGAIO 562]

• Using software rendering, SC4 does the 3D rendering part but still has to put the resulting image into the back buffer in order to have it displayed on the screen. But if the driver writes the image to the wrong location...

 

 

To be clear the application has no longer any direct access to the framebuffer as you mention because everything is managed by the OS

 

Currently there is even problems with portable devices using integrated Intel which does not even provide the shared video memory in the minimum required by the game leaving all the responsibility for a dynamic management of memory made by recognition DX call that in the case of SC4 are obsolete.

 

The Nvidia processes do exactly the same to force the use of GPUs in old games but as said before this support in the drivers is also leaving  of to be observed by manufacturers.

 

As a recommendation to have fewer problems: disable the video introduction; turn off the sound; turn window mode in the game and do not use different resolutions of those native to the game.

 

The link below provides options on the command line to do it.

  

Windowed Mode, No Intro and all the other such choices

[Deluxe Addict 0]

Confirmed - Software rendering works with version 347.09, but not with 347.25. So Nvidia introduced a breaking change in the latest driver.

 

I will try windowed mode and OpenGL rendering as soon as I have re-installed the latest driver, post the results, and close the thread.

 

NCGAIO - I guess you're right, and clearly the end of SC4 will inevitably come - maybe very soon. Nevertheless I'll miss it. Thanks for the link, that seems to be the most exhaustive compilation of SC4 command line options ever.

[NCGAIO 562]

NCGAIO - I guess you're right, and clearly the end of SC4 will inevitably come - maybe very soon. Nevertheless I'll miss it. Thanks for the link, that seems to be the most exhaustive compilation of SC4 command line options ever.

Although I agree in part is worth remembering that is not necessarily the end of SC4 because the game can still run on older environments. (I have no problem running it on a pentium-d XP_sp2)

And as you can see the link below SC4 will always be more than a game and exactly for that reason that still alive so long, then who is included in this category always find a way to run it

Sim City 4: It's Not A Game, It's A Hobby

Here linlk to other related information that may be useful as native resolutions etc ...

 

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/SimCity_4#Availability

Note: The OpenGL option takes the game to rendering by software and the bugs will depend on the compatibility with installed library .

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Where there is a will, there is a way.  You don't have to run Windows all the time.  You can dual boot another operating system to run programs that no longer run on Microsoft's system.  I suggest Ubuntu.  It can be easily dual booted.

 

Non-technical users should be aware that Ubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Debian, and is not exactly for the faint of heart.

[Deluxe Addict 0]

Windowed mode is the answer. Not as cool as Full HD in fullscreen mode, but good enough to continue playing. It even works with custom resolution. I will find out what works best.

 

NCGAIO, thanks for reminding me of the windowed mode, and thanks for the links again. Indeed - it's not a game, it's a hobby.

 

I never thought of keeping old hardware just for playing old games,. Maybe I should keep my old rig with the last working graphics driver instead of giving it away...?  

My wife wouldn't be amused by another dust catcher. Will think about it, though.

[Deluxe Addict 0]

Where there is a will, there is a way.  You don't have to run Windows all the time.  You can dual boot another operating system to run programs that no longer run on Microsoft's system.  I suggest Ubuntu.  It can be easily dual booted.

 

Non-technical users should be aware that Ubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Debian, and is not exactly for the faint of heart.

Yes, that is another option. Though I never really got used to Linux.

 

Slightly off topic: There is yet another option. That is, theoretically.

 

Frontier:First Encounters just came to my mind. You know the story? It was full of bugs and it took a whole round of patches to get it reasonably stable, but some folks just loved it (me, too). Well, DOS faded away and David Braben wouldn't provide an FFE follow-up for almost twenty years. So some enthusiasts just reverse engineered it and provided a DirectX interface.

 

Installed it twice. It really worked. But the second time I installed it, the virus alarm went off almost instantly. On second thought - not an option.

 

OK - problem solved, at least for now. Thanks to all for the support.

 

[EDIT: reverse engineering was the intended term.]

[NCGAIO 562]

My wife wouldn't be amused by another dust catcher. Will think about it, though.

Well ... in this case I obviously recommend staying with the wife and abandon the game of course ! 

 

As you should continue in the forums leave the recommendation to avoid double posting so if you forget something in the last post use the edit option. Ok!

NC.

[Deluxe Addict 0]

 

My wife wouldn't be amused by another dust catcher. Will think about it, though.

Well ... in this case I obviously recommend staying with the wife and abandon the game of course ! 

 

As you should continue in the forums leave the recommendation to avoid double posting so if you forget something in the last post use the edit option. Ok!

NC.

 

 

Got it.

 

Cheers!