SimCity 4 and Intel H D 4600 graphics

[Old Guy 0]

Good people, have a Dell desktop with I5-4460 @ 3.20 GHZ, 64 bit OS. Windows 10 and 8 GB RAM, Intel H D 4600 graphics. Will SimCity 4 run on my system or would I be wasting my time and money, not to mention becoming highly frustrated by trying to make this work? I will be 72 years young, or there abouts on July 28 and really do not want to do more than install SC4 and go about playing the game. I'm guessing that the H D 4600 graphics might be a stumbling block, if so what would be a "reasonably priced" alternative? Also will I actually need a CD to install/run SC4 or could I install from a purchased download.

Many thanks for your assistance and advice.

Old Guy

[catty-cb 4,393]

I use a Celeron single core 64-bit All-in-Desktop with 8gb of ram and Intel graphics to play SC4, remember the game was made back in 2003 so it wasn't designed with modern computers in mind

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

3 hours ago, Old Guy said:

Also will I actually need a CD to install/run SC4 or could I install from a purchased download.

For Vista on up to 10 you specifically want the digital download version because patch KB3086255 prevents the SafeDisc thinger from running which the disc based version of SC4 requires. While there are ways around this they get more complicated for each later Windoze version. As for which digital version you do not want one from Origin. They reverted to selling the unpatched and unpatchable version. The absolute best comes from Gog.com. Here's the linky. If you aren't in a hurry, they have it on sale a couple times per year for $4.99.

For your graphics card question, I'll leave that to our more techy gurus.

[twalsh102 1,601]

You will need to install from a purchased download, as the disc version will not install / run under Windows 10.  It's an issue with the DRM that EA placed on the disc versions of SC4.  It's no longer supported in Windows 10.

If you have a disk version, some people have reported being able to talk Origin out of a free download, but success has been spotty.

If you haven't purchased a digital download version yet, do NOT purchase a copy from Origin.  Origin has switched back and forth at random between digital versions of SC4 that can be updated, and versions that can't.  The problem seems to be the DRM that Origin places on their downloads.  At present they are apparently selling versions that CAN'T be updated.

People that have been able to talk Origin out of a free download have reported that they get a version that CAN be updated

Purchase your copy from GoG or Amazon, as they offer SC4 downloads without any DRM.  Currently SimCity 4 Deluxe is $19.99 at GoG, and on sale for $4.99 at Amazon

As far as the Intel HD 4600, most people have been able to make Intel Integrated Graphics work.  You may need to experiment with drivers a little.  Start with the latest Intel driver.  If that doesn't work, you may need to try earlier versions.  If I remember correctly what other have posted, the latest driver seems to work well. 

As @catty-cb mentioned, your specs for CPU and RAM are probably overkill, given the age of the game.

[rsc204 21,808]

As a fellow HD4600 user, I can tell you it works just fine with SC4. That's not to say you'll get all the graphic bells and whistles of a dedicated video card, but it's certainly viable. For the longest time the drivers wouldn't work, but then out of the blue Intel fixed that with a update some time in 2015/2016.

11 hours ago, Old Guy said:

really do not want to do more than install SC4 and go about playing the game

You know in an ideal world, it would just be that simple. But I'm sorry to tell you, trying to run a 13 year old PC game on new hardware, it's never that simple. If you want a plug and play gaming experience, there's a thing for that, it's called a console.

That said, if you put aside 30m to an hour, you should be up and running without a huge amount of problems. You need to setup/configure a few things manually to run on a new system:

• Tell the game to run on only one core of your CPU, because it will CTD a lot otherwise. If you buy a digital version from GoG, this is there by default.
• Probably update the graphics card info manually so SC4 correctly recognises it. Can't say for sure, you just have to try it first and see.
• Highly Recommended: Install the I-HT fix to prevent problems with your game later on. There are a bunch of other fixes to the game that Maxis never addressed too, but this is the most important.
• Highly Recommended: Install the NAM, just the basic Traffic Simulator is all you really need, the rest is optional.

That's not a lot of effort for what you can get out of such an expansive game experience like SC4 if you ask me. Not to mention all the information and help you may need will be here if you need some assistance to make those things happen.