How to make Sim City 4 Compatible with Modern Computers

[PiperRTW 0]

For anyone having trouble getting sim city 4 to work on modern machines, watch this video

[rsc204 21,865]

Hello and welcome to the forums, I realise you are trying to help others, but there really is nothing new here.

Setting SC4 to run on a single-core should be sufficient to stabilise it for most people, provided you've patched the game (Steam and most online versions are pre-patched).

Here (I had no audio), I see that software rendering is selected, however, this is not typically necessary and will give you an inferior game experience if you use it. SC4 requires compatibility with parts of the Direct X 9 code that it would seem are slowly beginning to not be supported by new GPUs/Drivers, most problems seem to come when used with Win 8+ too.

Ideally, you want to run Direct X rendering for the best possible experience, if you get graphical issues then switch to OpenGL, if this also won't work, check SC4 is actually recognising your GPU correctly, in the Apps folder of SC4 deluxe should be a file WINDOWSUSERNAME-config-log.txt. If your card is listed here with the correct name at this point you may have to use Software Rendering if all else fails. When you do this it forces the CPU to additionally take on the job of the GPU, slowing performance and making your game incompatible with so-called HD mods in the process.

However, often using an older driver has fixed this problem for many users, or in the case of unrecognised cards, adding your card to the list of GPUs manually will solve the problem. This is a must for ATI cards, due to a flaw in the routine that decides if your card can handle the game or not, it assumes all ATI cards can't. Also note that Intel integrated GPUs seem to lack support for SC4 running Direct X, some users report Open GL will work, but personally I couldn't get satisfactory results with mine.

[QuantumChicken 89]

I use windows server 2008R2 (faster than windows 10) with the ATI customization. That works for me. Thanks for your efforts though, much appreciated.

[PiperRTW 0]

Hello and welcome to the forums, I realise you are trying to help others, but there really is nothing new here.

Setting SC4 to run on a single-core should be sufficient to stabilise it for most people, provided you've patched the game (Steam and most online versions are pre-patched).

Here (I had no audio), I see that software rendering is selected, however, this is not typically necessary and will give you an inferior game experience if you use it. SC4 requires compatibility with parts of the Direct X 9 code that it would seem are slowly beginning to not be supported by new GPUs/Drivers, most problems seem to come when used with Win 8+ too.

Ideally, you want to run Direct X rendering for the best possible experience, if you get graphical issues then switch to OpenGL, if this also won't work, check SC4 is actually recognising your GPU correctly, in the Apps folder of SC4 deluxe should be a file WINDOWSUSERNAME-config-log.txt. If your card is listed here with the correct name at this point you may have to use Software Rendering if all else fails. When you do this it forces the CPU to additionally take on the job of the GPU, slowing performance and making your game incompatible with so-called HD mods in the process.

However, often using an older driver has fixed this problem for many users, or in the case of unrecognised cards, adding your card to the list of GPUs manually will solve the problem. This is a must for ATI cards, due to a flaw in the routine that decides if your card can handle the game or not, it assumes all ATI cards can't. Also note that Intel integrated GPUs seem to lack support for SC4 running Direct X, some users report Open GL will work, but personally I couldn't get satisfactory results with mine.

Not entirely true tbh.

Without explicitly setting this game to run on single core, I couldn't load it from steam. Perhaps it might be patched, but all I got was a black screen without this customisation. When I did manage to load it, I started to build a city and there were graphical glitches everywhere, fuzzy lines and weird shapes. I had these graphical problems until I set it to render software. Setting clouds to low will also be very beneficial for most players regardless of graphic card.

Each player has a different set up, this worked for me pretty good. I am running windows 8.1, icore 5, 4G Ram, HD4000 graphics card.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Just a reminder for everyone.  Unless you have a fully functioning GPU with DirectX you can get a considerable saving (speed up) by turning off side issues like clouds and waves, and set shadows to the lowest setting.  It really depends on whether you want acceptable play or eye-candy.

[rsc204 21,865]

Hello and welcome to the forums, I realise you are trying to help others, but there really is nothing new here.

Setting SC4 to run on a single-core should be sufficient to stabilise it for most people, provided you've patched the game (Steam and most online versions are pre-patched).

Here (I had no audio), I see that software rendering is selected, however, this is not typically necessary and will give you an inferior game experience if you use it. SC4 requires compatibility with parts of the Direct X 9 code that it would seem are slowly beginning to not be supported by new GPUs/Drivers, most problems seem to come when used with Win 8+ too.

Ideally, you want to run Direct X rendering for the best possible experience, if you get graphical issues then switch to OpenGL, if this also won't work, check SC4 is actually recognising your GPU correctly, in the Apps folder of SC4 deluxe should be a file WINDOWSUSERNAME-config-log.txt. If your card is listed here with the correct name at this point you may have to use Software Rendering if all else fails. When you do this it forces the CPU to additionally take on the job of the GPU, slowing performance and making your game incompatible with so-called HD mods in the process.

However, often using an older driver has fixed this problem for many users, or in the case of unrecognised cards, adding your card to the list of GPUs manually will solve the problem. This is a must for ATI cards, due to a flaw in the routine that decides if your card can handle the game or not, it assumes all ATI cards can't. Also note that Intel integrated GPUs seem to lack support for SC4 running Direct X, some users report Open GL will work, but personally I couldn't get satisfactory results with mine.

Not entirely true tbh.

Sorry what specifically isn't entirely true?, I did say "most" not "all".

My point about software rendering is a valid one, however, despite this with a HD4000, I doubt there is a lot you can do about it except to use software rendering. But that is the point I was trying to make, software rendering might be necessary, but don't just think of it as a fix, it's anything but. It's a compatibility mode that you should use when all else fails, the full experience of the game can not be had in Software Rendering. Most users will find DX or OpenGL rendering works just fine with a little bit of effort to get it going, so whilst software rendering is worthy of consideration in relation to this problem, it shouldn't be touted as the best solution either.

Yes if everybody set software rendering SC4 would likely work, but why would you tell everyone to cripple the game experience when most peoples hardware can run so much better, that's a nonsense right there.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I guess it is a matter of what you want out of the game.  I have scripts that can run the game in any of the three rendering modes at the drop of a console command.  My system is a bit antiquated and I am running Linux, but I agree that the best experience is with D3DX, with OpenGL a close second for my system.  Software rendering works well with my system as well, with the exception of the funny rendering of "HD" textures (doesn't crash).

The problem these days with legacy code is that it is on the order of 15 years old and the hardware is far beyond what was anticipated in those days.  The clear result of Moore's Conjecture is that you have to run ever so fast to keep up like Alice's Red Queen, and then you've no guarantee you'll stay in the same place.  Much of this is due to the number of combinations of hardware and software out there, particularly hardware.  It is amazing what can run on some of the pixelated pickles that vendors are putting out there for the unwary consumer.

In the end, this program is going to die of old age.  Probably quite soon with respect to the Windows platform as Microsoft has other fish to fry, and the hardware guys are continuing to cut things down to reduce costs even further.  This is not at all like the 'good' old days when if you purchased a computer you got all the software the system maker had to offer, and if was included in the rather exorbitant price.  You can thank our friends (?) at the International Brotherhood of Magicians for the unbundling of hardware and software.

[PiperRTW 0]

I already tried OpenGL, it didn't help, it only froze up the game and made strange black boxes appear.

If you look at the ratings on Steam, Sim City 4 has very bad reviews, usually based on the fact most people can't get the game to work. It either doesn't load up or the graphical errors appear. Many people are having this problem.

You are correct, perhaps OpenGL might work better for some, but, not everyone is able or willing to spend the time on determining the absolute best method to use. Hardware rendering might make the game look slightly sharper (debatable) and provide the option for HD skins in plugins (no HD texture in vanilla game), but apart from that is there really that much of a benefit. For most cards the game is unstable, but that is to be expected considering the age of the game. 

I bought the game for 2 bucks off steam knowing full well it might not even load. For most, single core setting and software rendering will atleast get the game playable which for many people is really what they want....at least to start with. Perhaps, for those players who are enthusiastic enough about the game can investigate their own graphics cards to determine the best way by using various guides on this website.

I posted my computer specs in the video, people can make of it what they want.

regards

[rsc204 21,865]

If everyone who doesn't know better simply sets software rendering, even though in many cases this is not necessary, they may never know how much better the game can be when it's running properly. It doesn't have to take more than 10-15m to set up the game and get it working well - See here & here, both pinned in this category - , not bad for a 12-13 year old program really. I know in some cases software rendering is necessary, but it's not the default setting either and shouldn't be advocated as such.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

For several years I was stuck with software rendering because of problems with wine catching up with the necessary D3DX calls.  However, since the beginning of last year, the wine development group has improved things by leaps and bounds.  I now have working versions for D3DX and OpenGL (all my versions run from single command scripts), and I only have one copy of the game loaded.  It is just a matter of command line options. 

The last time I did any wine work (a regression debug) there were over 1200 developers working on it world-wide being centrally co-ordinated by the wine group.  This is kind-of like working on an ISO standard.  Everyone has to piss in the soup to get the flavour just right.