guide How to run SimCity 4 Natively above 1920x1080 in Hardware Mode!!!

[Turnstyled 539]

I don't know if this is allowed. Feel to remove it if it is not. The developer of dgVoodoo2, dege, is very active. I searched "SimCity 4 dgVoodoo2" and I found this GitHub issue in which dege offers a patched SimCity 4 executable that fixes color banding when running SimCity 4 in fullscreen mode. I have run the NAM installer's executable patch over it and everything seems to be working fine. I have also used the Graphics Rules Maker from SimsNetwork to add my graphics card to Video Cards.sgr and I am running SimCity 4 through dgVoodoo2 in 4K. This is all being done in Windows 10 20H2.

https://github.com/dege-diosg/dgVoodoo2/issues/3

[Kloudkicker 4,565]

12 minutes ago, Turnstyled said:

Graphics Rules Maker from SimsNetwork

You got that to work, cool. I could not, but I didn't try very hard, was to busy at the time.

Glad to hear you have everything else running smooth also. 

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

22 minutes ago, Turnstyled said:

I don't know if this is allowed. Feel to remove it if it is not.

Since we are not hosting the file directly, it's prolly a gray area. Let's leave it for now and if EA contacts us, we can remove your linky then.

-Officially decided by Cori & CB

[Turnstyled 539]

Cori and CB, thank you so much.

[Turnstyled 539]

I did it! I got SimCity 4 running across two 4K monitors for a total resolution of 7680 x 2160!

It was laggy. I had a low in-game framerate. A word of caution: I use the minimize button remover mod. Upon minimizing the UI, I could not get it back. Now, for how I did this!

I made use of dgVoodoo2 previously mentioned in this thread. I'm certain that dxwrapper would work. I see that the author of dxwrapper, elishacloud, just released a new version of it yesterday. I don't know which of the two is better.

Other than dgVoodoo2, I made use of DxWnd, a utility that can run nearly any game in a window, and DisplayFusion, a paid program for multi-monitor management.

As for why I didn't use Nvidia Surround, I had tried it and I couldn't set my monitors to dual 4K. My horizontal resolution was going to be 3840 and my vertical resolution was going to be 1080. While trying to troubleshoot Nvidia Surround, I had tried to add a custom resolution using a utility called Custom Resolution Utility; however, it would not let me create a resolution of 7680 x 2160 to Nvidia Surround and it would not let me create a resolution of 3840 x 2160 for my both of my 4K displays.

Please find below the settings that I had set in DxWnd to make this work. I apologize for the tiny text in the title bars. My monitors had gone through many resolution changes while I had been testing this.

I changed the Window initial position & size to a width of 7680 and a height of 2160. Don't worry about the x and y coordinates. Make certain that "Run in window" is checked and that "Fullscreen only" is unchecked. Because I run SimCity 4 elevated, I had checked "Acquire admin caps". Under "Path:", select your SimCity 4.exe executable and under "Name:", name what you want to call this task. I named it "SimCity 4".

Under "Command line:", I had entered my command line flags. They are: -CPUCount:1 -CPUPriority:high -w -Intro:Off -CustomResolution:enabled -r7680x2160x32 -d:DirectX -Cursors:fullcolor  -UserDir:"D:\SC4Folder\"

I had selected "modal" under "Window style" and under Screen resolution, I had selected "All". Further under "Screen resolution". I had checked "Custom resolution:" and "Initial resolution". The initial resolution that I had entered had been 7680 x 2160.

This is an added bonus! Under "Keyboard handling", I had selected "Intercept Alt-F4 key". Now, I can close SimCity 4 by entering "Alt-F4"!

Below is the trigger that I had created in DisplayFusion.

The trigger is: When a SimCity 4.exe window is created, span it across all monitors.

What if you have more than two monitors? I do, but I had disconnected my other monitors while I had been trying to figure this out. Well, the creator of DisplayFusion, Binary Fortress Software, had me covered for when I'll reconnect them! Below is a link to their forums in which a user had asked how to span a window across some monitors, but not all monitors:

https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/span-across-certainspecific-monitors/?ID=03f7b639-1316-489d-9f94-7c1a972c4479#8

In case that thread gets lost, below is a screenshot of that post:

Should you have two 4K monitors, I hope that my instructions can work for you!

DxWnd can be found on Sourceforge at https://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/ and DisplayFusion can be purchased at Binary Fortress Software's website or on Steam.

Edit: I switched to dxwrapper. It's working. I don't know if performance is better than with dgVoodoo2. I want to say that it is, but my brain told me that the user interface was lagging too much and that performance was poor with dgVoodoo2. Either way, I'm not noticing lag in the automata with dxwrapper. It's perfectly playable.

Edit 2: The issue that @makar0niasty had with the black lines under closer zoom levels was what I had thought to be normal earlier in this thread. I had said that I had presumed that it had been the grid lines being huge at 4K. I do not see these black lines using dxwrapper; however, I see them using dgVoodoo2. dxwrapper is definitely what I will use for the time being. My dxwrapper.ini file is attached below.

dxwrapper.ini

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

Very nice instructions for how you accomplished this.

 

2 hours ago, Turnstyled said:

Upon minimizing the UI, I could not get it back.

Instead of clicking that minimize button, you can use the NumLock key to hide and unhide the UI.

[Turnstyled 539]

9 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Instead of clicking that minimize button, you can use the NumLock key to hide and unhide the UI.

Thank you! I decided to play in 4K again because my two 4K monitors are on separate tables, so they're not aligned. I think my mind was just playing tricks on me because the game didn't feel slower when I had played in 4K again compared to when I had played at a resolution of 7680 x 2160.

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

I always wonder why there are so many peeps gather around here and with passion for SC4 remains insatiable despite the growth of its age. I got the point until I saw these unselfish sharing, and I know it still will continue due to people like @Turnstyled they won't disappear, The spirit of constant exploration and the desire for intellectuality won't disappear. I love this special game, Thank you @Turnstyled! 

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[Turnstyled 539]

@Raymond7cn You're welcome!

Just in case, I just tested both monitors at different refresh rates. For the sake of wanting things to work, I had them both at 60 Hz. I set my primary monitor back to 144 Hz and I kept the secondary monitor at 60 Hz. It still works!

[Turnstyled 539]

Just as I couldn't click to reenable the UI when running SimCity 4 over 2 4K monitors, using the scrollwheel of my mouse to scroll through menus does not work when using this method.

Now, I'm not shilling for DisplayFusion. I've seen that there other multi-monitor management applications out there such as UltraMon. Nonetheless, I posted on the DisplayFusion forums with a few questions as to how to handle things if you have more than two monitors as I have.

https://www.displayfusion.com/Discussions/View/hiding-multi-monitor-taskbar-as-a-trigger-and-more/?ID=5c35bc37-7617-4b12-af69-20f55739f766

Below is a screenshot of the discussion. I won't be including the support specialist's name in case they wouldn't want that.

 

[jabezscratch 159]

I downloaded the necessary files and followed the instructions set out in this post and got my SC4 (GOG version) running well at 2560x1440.  However, I didn't like the "region glitch" graphical issue addressed in another post so I switched my command arguments back to a 1920x1080 resolution and the game loads to my region in that resolution but crashes (CTD) when I try to load any city.  Noobish question but to go back to a "less than 1920x1080 resolution", do I have to delete/replace the three files (2 dll and 1 ini) or do something else?  I should note that I've gone back to the 2560x1440 resolution and still get CTDs when trying to load any city.  I'm just not that technically knowledgeable about this kind of stuff and would appreciate any help.  Is the easiest approach to uninstall my GOG version and re-install?

[rsc204 21,866]

On 17/06/2021 at 3:40 AM, jabezscratch said:

Noobish question but to go back to a "less than 1920x1080 resolution", do I have to delete/replace the three files (2 dll and 1 ini) or do something else?  I should note that I've gone back to the 2560x1440 resolution and still get CTDs when trying to load any city.

If you are still having problems, yes if you remove the wrapper, you should remove the files you added into the INSTALL\Apps directory. Whilst the DLLs reside there, Windows (DirectX) will use the modified versions instead of the default versions shipped with Windows.

That doesn't fully explain the CTDs though, you need to look at restoring your previous settings to exactly how they were before. Reinstalling might be tempting, but then you have to start all over again, there is nothing that can't be fixed without reinstalling. Some setting must be different from when it was previously working, you just need to get the old setup back.

[Kloudkicker 4,565]

On 6/16/2021 at 9:40 PM, jabezscratch said:

I switched my command arguments back to a 1920x1080 resolution and the game loads to my region in that resolution but crashes (CTD) when I try to load any city.

After you get the wrapper files straightened out, load up the region and check your video settings. Make sure you have Hardware rendering is turned on. Sometimes it can get switched and needs to be returned to Hardware. HD plugins require it to be on Hardware mode and can cause a crash if not.

[jabezscratch 159]

On 6/24/2021 at 8:14 AM, rsc204 said:

If you are still having problems, yes if you remove the wrapper, you should remove the files you added into the INSTALL\Apps directory. Whilst the DLLs reside there, Windows (DirectX) will use the modified versions instead of the default versions shipped with Windows.

That doesn't fully explain the CTDs though, you need to look at restoring your previous settings to exactly how they were before. Reinstalling might be tempting, but then you have to start all over again, there is nothing that can't be fixed without reinstalling. Some setting must be different from when it was previously working, you just need to get the old setup back.

Thanks for your response and suggestions.  Prior to your post and out of frustration after trying some potential fixes, I just uninstalled my GOG version then re-installed it and, as often happens with a full re-load, it worked and the game loads/plays perfectly.  It's a shame because I got my game going at a 4K resolution (I have a 4K monitor) and it ran smoothly, even on my bigger cities (large tile w/ ~800,000 population).

[jabezscratch 159]

On 6/24/2021 at 3:29 PM, Kloudkicker said:

After you get the wrapper files straightened out, load up the region and check your video settings. Make sure you have Hardware rendering is turned on. Sometimes it can get switched and needs to be returned to Hardware. HD plugins require it to be on Hardware mode and can cause a crash if not.

Thanks for your response.  Per my previous comment, I just ended up re-installing my GOG version and it seemed to fix everything.  The game is back working smoothly with no crashes.  It's too bad I couldn't keep playing it at a 4K resolution or even something a bit lower but I didn't really like the region glitch (the graphical issue that puts a bar across the bottom of each city) because I play my region as if it were one big city and it just looked awful and, in turn, ruined my illusion that I am building an actual city (LOL -- yes, I have issues!).

[Turnstyled 539]

I just enabled DLDSR in the latest Nvidia drivers (511.23). DLDSR is Deep Learning Dynamic Super Resolution. Whereas Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) has allowed you to scale the resolutions of your games past your display's resolution since around 2014, DLDSR adds a "deep learning" element to it. Nvidia claims that at 2.5x scale, DLDSR has the visual fidelity of DSR at 4x scale, but with a much smaller performance hit.

2.5x 4K (3840x2160) is 5760x3240. SimCity 4 runs just fine at that resolution using dxwrapper! I tested all my city builder games at 5760x3240. The SimCity 3000 Unlimited menu, the City Life 2008 UI, and the SimCity Classic UI are very blurry. Is it because the UI is so miniscule in each game or is it Nvidia's "algorithm?" I'm going to see if I can provide feedback to Nvidia on this. Also, I can't run Tropico 4 without setting it to windowed mode and then, setting it to my display's resolution once I'm in a map. Tropico 4 has that problem at 4K resolution, though. I posted a thread on the Cities: Skylines subreddit about this. My thread pertains to Cities: Skylines: https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/s5xq8g/someone_was_asking_about_nvidia_dldsr_in_cities/

Now, about SimCity 4. I'm going to really have to compress my screenshots! My screenshot of Timbuktu is over 10 megabytes, but the screenshots of my city in progress, Perlita Place (named after my amazing friend's dog Perla) range from about 30 to 40 megabytes!

If some of those screenshots look VERY similar, I was wondering why it was taking so long to take a screenshot. As a result, I used the screenshot utility in quick succession multiple times. It was taking so long because the screenshots were up to 40 megabytes!

As you can see, the UI is somewhat blurry. That's clearly not @hugues aroux's fault. His blue UI mod is amazing! It seems to be a problem with older games and 2D content. Like I said, I'll see if I'll be able to provide Nvidia feedback on this.

[Turnstyled 539]

I'm going to double post to say that I ran normal Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) at 8K. SimCity 4 will run at 8K with dxwrapper and I have screenshots that can prove it, but what is the point if the UI is so miniscule that you can't play the game? That is where image scaling will come in. I have a utility that I bought on Steam called Lossless Scaling. It's paid software, but fret not! You'll probably be able to make do if you don't pay! Look into Magpie on GitHub as another solution (https://github.com/Blinue/Magpie) or IntegerScaler by M. Tanalin (https://tanalin.com/en/projects/integer-scaler/). As far as I'm aware, IntegerScaler doesn't currently have a graphical user interface.

Maybe, a little off-topic for the SimCity 4 forums, but I think it relates enough because I cannot run SimCity 4 above 4K on my 27-inch 4K monitor and find myself able to play it. SimCity 3000 Unlimited is not 3D. I tried running it at 1440p, or 2560x1440. 2560 goes into 5760 (the width of my DLDSR resolution) 2.25 times and 1440 goes into 3240 (the height of my DLDSR resolution) 2.25 times. My Nvidia graphics card supports integer scaling. At 1440p, selecting integer scaling in Lossless Scaling seemingly does nothing when I'm running SimCity 3000 Unlimited. It's in 3D games where it counts.

At 1440p in City Life: 2008 Edition, everything is seeable and readable. Things are blurry, though. Lossless Scaling gives me the choice of using AMD FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) and Nvidia Integer Scaling. With both, I could set the sharpness between 0 and 10. I found that with my setup, Nvidia Integer Scaling looked better to me than AMD FSR did. Nvidia Integer Scaling mostly got rid of the blurriness for me. It's not a perfect solution, but I'm more than satisfied with it.

For SimCity Classic, all I had to do was right-click my shortcut for the executable file and under the Compatibility tab and click "Change high DPI settings." In the window that popped up after I clicked "Change high DPI settings," I selected "System (Enhanced)" in the dropdown menu under "High DPI scaling override." This option is available in Windows 10 releases from the past few years and Windows 11. Unfortunately, the fix is not so easy for many games.

Edit: For reference, this is what Lossless Scaling currently looks like. I just hit the default hotkey of Ctrl+Alt+S while in-game and it applies the selected scaling method for me!

Edit 2: Nvidia Image Sharpening looked oversharpened to me in City Life: 2008 Edition when setting the sharpening slider in Lossless Scaling to 10. I was satisfied by setting it to 5.

I hope that you can understand what I'm trying to say. We're not going to move past 4K computer monitors for a while, but when we will, there will be solutions for SimCity 4.

[Eggman121 1,052]

I was just looking at this literally the other day and came across the program suggested above.

There is an open source alternative Called  "Magpie" however

I would have to get a copy of Lossless Scaling to find a comparison but I think the program Magpie for scaling is just as good for the purposes we need.

Thanks for bringing this to the communities attention @Turnstyled This will be really useful for people who would like to use a scaling program for high DPI monitor.

-eggman121 (NAM Team Member)

[Turnstyled 539]

@Eggman121 You're welcome! I agree that a free and open-source solution is a better recommendation for the community than a commercial solution.

Edit: Besides that, you need a Steam account in order to use Lossless Scaling. You cannot use Lossless Scaling separately from Steam. That's highly unnecessary.

[Zeratai 84]

Hello, I managed to run SC4 with 4k resolution, but the UI looks so small, is there a way you can make it bigger so you can see it better?

[rsc204 21,866]

Whilst I believe it would be possible to create a larger version of the UI, more suitable to very high resolutions, to date no one has created such a mod.

[Digicoma 18]

Hi Everyone,

 

I apologize in advance and that I am not very experienced with the DXWrapper.  I have used the dgVoodoo2 driver successfully before in that I had achieved great looking graphics on my 4k monitor.  The only problem is the UI was too small to effectively use.  So, I was hoping to move to DXWrapper because I've heard good things.

I tried to set up DXWrapper and again got great graphics, but was unable to see my UI very well on the 4k monitor.

After reading this thread it seemed I learned that things like choosing a different launcher can make a difference on how one's display is (perhaps).  So, I was hoping someone could either help me configure my DXWrapper and help me understand which launcher I should choose, or at least give me a good enough understanding on what to do with DXWrapper that I could figure out a way of getting SimCity 4 Deluxe to work the way I want it to visually.

My goal is to get a 2560x1440 display within my 4k monitor.  I figure if I can do this, I will adequately be able to see the UI, and all will be well.

In case you need to know my GPU info, it is a Radeon 5950XT.  

 

Finally, I have the Steam version of SimCity4 Deluxe

 

So, if anyone could let me know what I need to know what to do with DXWrapper, and perhaps which launcher to use and what settings I should configure it to I'd be most appricitive.


Thanks in advance.

 

p.s. If this is the wrong forum to ask this question, please let me know which forum I should ask it in.

  Edited March 15, 2024 by Digicoma  
Punctuation and adding that I use the Steam version of SimCity 4 Deluxe

[rsc204 21,866]

The simple answer is don’t have the game run at 4K, the sheer number of pixels involved explains why everything appears so small. When Maxis made the game 1080p was pretty unthinkable and now we can have 4x or more the number of pixels. To deal with that OSs and Apps have something known as UI Scaling, so as the resolution gets higher the UIs scale with it to remain readable. SC4 has no such feature and until such time as someone comes along and decides to remake the UI for higher resolutions, this will remain a problem.

None of this has to do with which Wrapper you use, it’s simply a case of pushing the UI into being smaller as you utilise more pixels. To give an example of the gulf here, a wrapper is needed to run beyond 1200px because DirectX 7 imposes that as the maximum. 

[Digicoma 18]

Ok, Thank you.  I understand.  I played around with resolutions and found that playing 3200X1800 makes a pretty large portion of my 4k monitor be consumed by the game, yet have the UI of the game in the window still be very legible.  It's small - but it is quite legible.

 

 

 

[outdatedSIM 4]

Dear community I cannot find the correct instructions on dxwrapper it seams. SC4GraphicsOptions.log reports:

AM Warning: A DirectX wrapper is required for the resolution you are using.

1) Do I need to rename any file of the 3: ddraw.dll, dxwrapper.dll, dxwrapper.ini?

2) Any specific settings in the ini besides: 

EnableDdrawWrapper         = 1

?

Thank you from the mountain for any help.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,461]

1 minute ago, outdatedSIM said:

Dear community I cannot find the correct instructions on dxwrapper it seams. SC4GraphicsOptions.log reports:

AM Warning: A DirectX wrapper is required for the resolution you are using.

1) Do I need to rename any file of the 3: ddraw.dll, dxwrapper.dll, dxwrapper.ini?

2) Any specific settings in the ini besides: 

EnableDdrawWrapper         = 1

?

Thank you from the mountain for any help.

I recommend trying Dgvoodoo 2 first, as it is easier to configure.

 

[outdatedSIM 4]

4 minutes ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

I recommend trying Dgvoodoo 2 first, as it is easier to configure.

 

Thank you for helping! I will definitely try it. I tried running Blood 2 with it to no avail recently.

I just noticed I copied the wrapper NOT to \Apps subfolder  and now I have ultrawide! So happy. Now back to other mods. Blessed be you kind sir and this community.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,461]

24 minutes ago, outdatedSIM said:

Thank you for helping! I will definitely try it. I tried running Blood 2 with it to no avail recently.

I just noticed I copied the wrapper NOT to \Apps subfolder  and now I have ultrawide! So happy. Now back to other mods. Blessed be you kind sir and this community.

Remember to use the SC4Pac mod manager.

 

[Turnstyled 539]

Ultimately, I decided to run this game at 1440p (2560x1440) on my 4K monitor and to scale it using Lossless Scaling. It's much more pleasant than at native 4K because the user interface is so miniscule. I used the LS1 scaler within Lossless Scaling using Lossless Scaling's own recommendation of a sharpness value of 0 or 1.

Edit: Actually, I'm now running this game at 1080p and scaling to 4K. It's so much easier on the eyes. Integer scaling will work perfectly for SimCity 3000 for me, but SimCity 4 isn't pure 2D like SimCity 3000 is.

[Turnstyled 539]

I just learned of a new wrapper in development to translate Direct3D 7 into Vulkan! It's called d7vk. It's just another potential option.

https://github.com/WinterSnowfall/d7vk

Though it could possibly work on Windows, d7vk's focus is Linux. d8vk, a Direct3D 8 to Vulkan wrapper, was merged into dxvk, a Direct3D 9, 10, and 11 to Vulkan wrapper, a while back. The creator of d7vk states that d7vk won't be merged into dxvk and that "d3d7 is enough of a challenge and a mess as it is. The further we stray from d3d9, the further we stray from the divine.", so support for older versions of Direct3D won't be included in d7vk. 

I was hoping for a wrapper that converts WinG to a modern API because I was under the impression that the Windows 95 release of SimTown uses WinG. Not many games at all used WinG, though. Support for WinG was dropped in Windows 98 Second Edition. Maybe, I can run SimTown using WineVDM, which allows for running 16-bit Windows applications on 64-bit Windows. I'll have to try that.