Graphics driver probelems?

[Mcht1227 0]

I've been running SC4 dlx on my laptop for years, with occasional issues that were easy to fix. No problems whatsoever until yesterday, I tried running the game and got the 'graphics card failed to initialize" dialogue, followed by "simcity 4 will run with graphics driver when next launched." Well I relaunched the game, but the normal cursor appeared smaller and the fill color was black, not gray like it usually is. The loading icon is no longer the sc4 hourglass, it's the OLD windows hourglass icon. This time it crashed to desktop before the city tile I chose was loaded. My graphics config is already custom to my computer; custom resolution set, intro movie is off, cpu count set to 1, and openGL is enabled. (or maybe it's DL, can't remember right now). I tried switching to hardware rendering mode, which fixed the cursor and the loading icon, but the in game graphics were SCREWED up. I switched back to software and the cursor went black, the loading icon went back to the windows hourglass from the 90's... I updated my patch a few months ago, and there were absolutely no changes made to my system before the problem started. Any thoughts? 

 

By the way, I'm running on win7, I've taken care of the security update issue already. 2gb ram, 64-bit, AMD E-300 APU with AMD Radeon HD 6310 graphics at 1.3GHz.

[rsc204 21,804]

If you are running on software rendering with only 2GB RAM under Windows 7, perhaps a lack of free RAM is your problem. With this setup Virtual Memory is inevitable, how much free space does your hard drive have? Otherwise, try rebooting the PC, shut down anything in the System Tray (Bottom right icons) that you can. And before doing anything else, see if SC4 runs any better.

If DirectX works (albeit with issues), then you need to check your graphics settings, probably it's just a case of entering the correct GPU in a config file. Running under DX should help because without it the GPU is passing it's work to the rest of your system. Including loading all the graphics into RAM instead of the video RAM.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ Good points.  2GB RAM is generally ample with W 7 provided you are not cluttered up with background apps.  A browser being active might be a great convenience, but with a game like this it is a PITA, and should be closed, and the same with any e-mail client.

The other thing that might help is to take virtual management away from Windows and set it to maximum.  This will require you to boot your machine (cold boot from power off) after you've done the settings.  The last time I did this was on XP, and the max. virtual file at that time was 4095MB (4 GB) in a file with extension *.swp.

My Linux system uses a separate partition for swap space, and currently it is 20 GB.

[Mcht1227 0]

I think I sort of understand what you are getting at, although I must admit I'm not a techy of any sort. I am familiar with some of the lingo but I don't think I'm able to do what you've suggested with my limited technological skillset. Are there good tutorials or instructions you can think of that I might consider looking into? Perhaps ones for the layman?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Try your help system under virtual memory management.  This is just a matter of setting a number and a switch.