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

[Kloudkicker 4,565]

Is that what it is. I noticed that forever and was going to ask sooner or later but now I know. It will do that the very first time I save a large city tile. But only the large ones. No mater if I even not named it, just save. But than last night I noticed for the first time the maxis international airport had lost its ground texture while loading the map only. In the city its fine and in region view the airport is OK but for the glich along the bottom and always on the bottom of the map. But after applying the dxwrapper  the airport was OK. Than I was checking things today and its back while loading city. Weird shit

[Durfsurn 539]

1 hour ago, BallOpener said:

Great find @Durfsurn! It works quite well!

I hope that someone can find a fix for the region view glitch where if the game's resolution is over 1200 and you save the city, the game fails to render out the rest of the city (because of the game's limit) leaving you with a half or 2/3 finished rendering of the city in region view. Basically, to fix this I have to move to a lower resolution below 1200. 

Here's an image if you don't know what it is:

[image removed]

Yep, see my reply here: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=18734.msg535641#msg535641

[rsc204 21,869]

11 hours ago, Durfsurn said:

Can you elaborate on this issue? dxWrapper does include some tools around Dinput that I would be happy to look into fixing. A video would be super helpful to understand what the problem is .

8 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Details are in the [Solved] SC4 double click issue on Windows 10 thread. Note that the [Solved] was added because @Terring found a workaround on 17 July, 2020 in that thread. (Basically the kludge is to hold down the right mouse button while simultaneously placing the props.) I believe the ideal fix is that just regular left clicking would handle the prop placement like it does on all previous versions of Windoze.

(And since I don't use Win 10, I might have some of this wrong. Other peeps will post the correct info if so.)

Basically it's as Corina states, when placing MMPs specifically, (actually I suppose it could affect all flora, I have to check if the same is true for Tree Controllers, but it's harder to see). But in essence, if it's a multi-stage MMP, the first click will produce the 1st item, but subsequent clicks skips the next item, so you in essence only get the 1st, 3rd, 5th and so on. This has been widely reported as a Win10 issue and was not present to my knowledge in earlier builds of Win10, I believe it came with one of the 2018 updates.

Yes, holding the right mouse button, then left clicking does allow you to cycle through all items correctly without this skipping. But this is kludgy, because placing many MMPs whilst holding down the RMB is fraught with the potential to start scrolling the screen at any moment. I assume somewhere it's WDM or DInput related, no idea why it only seems to occur with MMPs though.

So I figured, let's see if the included DInput would actually solve the problem, switching it on is pretty much the same as for DDraw. One simply needs to make the following change to dxwrapper.ini:

Dinputto8                  = 0

changes to

Dinputto8                  = 1

And sure enough, in a VERY brief test, this has resolved the MMP issue too. I will do some further testing here and report back. I'm going to make a special MMP and attach it here, the props will be a number standing vertically, so you can easily see the 'Item Number' in the MMP and whether they are coming in order or not.

But yeah, it seems we can override the system's DirectX and make use of a more compatible one with this wrapper. Not to mention, I've no idea what, if any, modifications or "hacks" may be employed with the DInput API, since we know the DDraw files are modified.

[Durfsurn 539]

I can confirm this fixes it on my end too. I was going to wait to do a full write up but yes that is the correct methodology.

It is also recommended to turn Handle Exceptions = 1.

EDIT:

After messing with the settings for a fair while, I cannot solve the region preview bug. However there is light at the end of the tunnel, this page here seems to indicate that we may eventually be able to take full advantage of the Dd7to9 = 0 functionality, once the 3D conversion has matured, until then everyone's best option is to run sc4 at a lower than [ * x 1200 ] resolution for saving preview images. Also here is a link to my .ini file however I believe most of the options I have turned on currently have no effect on the game: https://pastebin.com/78bg1e26

[Kloudkicker 4,565]

So not sure what happened but I seems I may have messed something up.  I had dxprapper working with and with out the launcher(using the command line thru steam after launcher was removed). I used -2560x1440x32 -intro:off -CPUPriority:High CPUCount:8. Removed launcher to get the fast card settings to happen. Played the game  both ways, than nvidia had an driver update and so I let it. Forgot to test game at this point. After wards I than messed around with a few settings in the wrapper, just the Dd7to9 and DDrawCopmt and SingleProcAffinity. The last one was after removing the cpucount command. I tried the game and it would not start. removed the settings and nothing game wont start but tries. I noticed the dxwrapper log was much shorter. I'm scared I did something wrong. Removed the wrapper and still no go. Than I thought what about that driver update, hum. Did a system restore to remove the update, and still nothing. A hour later, I removed the commands from steam and than the game would now start. So than I put back the dxwrapper but it is not working , cause no report made. And the resolution will not work anymore, back to low. Can someone turn on the high beams, please, I cant see what I did wrong. 

Thank you, and sorry I'm a pain.

UPDATE: I figured out that I what I did. Completely forgot to put in the ddrwa.dll file. Pretty dumb, and even after saying I'm not dumb, to funny. LMAO. I looked it over I don't know how many times and just now looked at it on a full stomach and a good night sleep and then hit me. I need to stop stay up so late and doing installs and settings adjustments. But its all good, I seem to always learn something different along the way so beside the time waisted I'm little smarter in the end. Now ill try and install the driver again now I know its working. Wisk me luck, please lol. 

  Edited September 30, 2020 by Kloudkicker  
Update

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

Hiya @Kloudkicker, I'm still trying as well, My laptop has dedicated (GeForce 1050ti) and indicated (intel630) Graphics, I have set Nvidia control panel with sc4 and those two rule files (after a fresh reinstalling of GOG SC4), I tried @Durfsurn's configuration first, when Dd7to9 = 0 and D3d8to9 = 1, The SC4 ran with indicated card (Intel), After i set Dd7to9 = 1 and D3d8to9 = 0, Then SC4 ran with dedicated card (GeForce), whereas popped up an error : "could not initialize Direct Draw" and then came crashing down when entered a city. Maybe an issue of Nvidia's driver, Anyway, I will give it a try later.

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[watercitymadero 806]

wow great, thanks, this game never cease to amaze me 

[Durfsurn 539]

Dd7to9 does not work with SC4, this is almost certainly due to the fact the 3D driver calls haven't been fixed/re-mapped. You will always get a DirectDraw error.

I'm also not convinced D3d8to9 actually does anything to SC4.

[Kloudkicker 4,565]

3 hours ago, Raymond7cn said:

After i set Dd7to9 = 1 and D3d8to9 = 0, Then SC4 ran with dedicated card (GeForce), whereas popped up an error : "could not initialize Direct Draw" and then came crashing down when entered a city. Maybe an issue of Nvidia's driver, Anyway, I will give it a try later

Yes I ended up with that also. That was after I realized MY biggest mistake. It was when I made that config file I f'ed up and did a save as. Der tee der. It made it a .txt file. I learned by now how to make it a .ini file. So every thing I tried last night never would work because of the resolution was to big without the dxwrapper working. Causing my CTD on start up. Removing the command lines was the last set in undoing it all. Than I didn't some how put the ddraw.dll file back in, trying to get SC4 running on native res.  The driver is probaly just fine,  I just need to slow down and sleep more. LOL. But now I got it all straight and just taking a breather :") 

[Flann 1,709]

Just popping in to say thanks to OP for posting this.  Just got my game running at 2560x1440p and it looks amazing.  That is all.

[makar0niasty 8]

That is a great find - thank you!!! 4k finally works

 

Quote

Dd7to9 does not work with SC4, this is almost certainly due to the fact the 3D driver calls haven't been fixed/re-mapped. You will always get a DirectDraw error.

I'm also not convinced D3d8to9 actually does anything to SC4.

Same here...ddraw error with Dd7to9. As for D3d8to9  I am not really sure does anything neither...Colors look somehow darker/reddish perhaps, and the very first time i've have run it with this option on, it would smudge heavily on scrolling and one of the ship models has shown pink colors. But the game promptly crashed on the attempt to take a screenshot, and could not reproduce it afterwards.

[Kloudkicker 4,565]

Hay @makar0niasty, 

That's good news you have 4K now. 

7 minutes ago, makar0niasty said:

Same here...ddraw error with Dd7to9.

As far as this goes, you should check these posts by @Raymond7cn. Hopefully good news awaits us. 😁

 

 

[makar0niasty 8]

1 hour ago, Kloudkicker said:

Hay @makar0niasty, 

That's good news you have 4K now. 

As far as this goes, you should check these posts by @Raymond7cn. Hopefully good news awaits us. 😁

(...)

 

Thanks! We shall wait indeed

I am currently running with the below set to 0 and it works fine.

DDrawCompat = 1

DdrawResolutionHack = 1

 

I am on Win7 / AMD Vega though.

 

EDIT: Just played around with dgVoodoo ver 2.7 - it works in dx8 mode, dx9 sadly crashes. Changed VRAM to 2048 MB and resolution to 3840x2160 in the CPL.

EDIT 2: Enabled antialiasing at 8x. game runs fine, though dunno if i can see the difference

EDIT 3: Enabled anisotropic filtering at 16x. Same result as above though.

EDIT 4: dx9 works - turns out I did not copy all dll's when I've tested it earlier

EDIT 5: Disabled anistropic filtering and antialiasing (back to "App driven") . Sadly it seems to cause some graphical glitches in places - black horizontal and vertical lines appearing (see attached screenshot)

EDIT 6: dgVoodoo led me to another gem - ReShade. It loads fine (configured as dx10, as per PCGamingWiki). Now the question is to find the right shader settings

[Propfam 2,315]

On 6/10/2020 at 5:21 PM, makar0niasty said:

EDIT 6: dgVoodoo led me to another gem - ReShade. It loads fine (configured as dx10, as per PCGamingWiki). Now the question is to find the right shader settings

So, you want to run SC4 with shaders? That's very good idea.

[Dragonstar 53]

At first I want to thank @Durfsurn for this High-Res solution :-)

In my first try I installed the files like in the prescription, but I forgot to change the graphic mode in the launcher from Software to DirectX and ended up that I couldn't start the game anymore. So I deinstalled and reinstalled it and now I switched in the launcher to DirectX and everything went fine. But the Framerate with DirectX in 2560x1440 is lower than with Softwaremode 1920x1080 (My System Intel i5-7200U and Nvidia GTX 950M, and I did bind the sc4.exe with the Nvidia GPU in the Nvidia Settings), so I will stick with the former graphics setting in the future.

But a great way to play the game in highest sharpness for Systems who can handle the load :-)

[rsc204 21,869]

On 24/10/2020 at 10:19 AM, Dragonstar said:

But the Framerate with DirectX in 2560x1440 is lower than with Softwaremode 1920x1080

On 24/10/2020 at 10:19 AM, Dragonstar said:

But a great way to play the game in highest sharpness for Systems who can handle the load :-)

I think you may be jumping to false conclusions here, if your system by design supports WQHD, I'm certain performance in SC4 should not be an issue. To put that into perspective, I can play 1080p on a Nvidia GTX 750ti and push the game in terms of mods, with a full NAM controller and HD textures everywhere. Sure, slowdown does come eventually to all systems, but the one thing SC4 isn't stressing is your GPU. It was designed for the GPUs on sale in 2003 and earlier to work with it, even with the additional load of modding, you don't need a fancy GPU to run SC4 well, even in higher resolutions.

In my experience, it is far more likely that there is something regarding your setup of SC4 that is behind this problem.

On 24/10/2020 at 10:19 AM, Dragonstar said:

I did bind the sc4.exe with the Nvidia GPU in the Nvidia Settings

Right, but is SC4 actually using the Nvidia GPU, because the slowness suggests to me it might not be. It can occur that despite setting this, your hardware/drivers refuse to force the dedicated GPU to be used. That can be easily checked, goto the Install folder for SC4, then open the Apps subfolder and find the file MYCOMPUTERNAME-config-log.txt and open it. Near the top it should state which rendering mode is being used, DirectX (Hardware) or software, in addition to the detected or in-use GPU.

Whilst you are checking the log file, copy/paste it's contents into a reply here, it gives us a lot of useful information to troubleshoot issues. For example, even if your Nvidia card is being used, has SC4 been set to run with the "Fast Card" profile? If not, performance will be borked on the assumption your hardware can't handle the pressure, which of course would be nonsense. Usually this kind of problem is solvable if you are willing to put a little bit of work in.

 

[Dragonstar 53]

Quote

I think you may be jumping to false conclusions here, if your system by design supports WQHD, I'm certain performance in SC4 should not be an issue. To put that into perspective, I can play 1080p on a Nvidia GTX 750ti and push the game in terms of mods, with a full NAM controller and HD textures everywhere. Sure, slowdown does come eventually to all systems, but the one thing SC4 isn't stressing is your GPU. It was designed for the GPUs on sale in 2003 and earlier to work with it, even with the additional load of modding, you don't need a fancy GPU to run SC4 well, even in higher resolutions.

You are right that SimCity of course doesn't stress GPU's very much, even Intel integrated ones. The problem is, that the GPU isn't working regularly with the SimCity 4 Workload within modern structures (DirectX 9 and above). It is more the case that it emulates the Graphics Workload and this can slow down even a modern systems a lot. It is the same with emulators. For example I have Gran Turismo 3 and 4 till today. I wish I could play them well on my Intel i5-7200U and GTX 950M with the Emulator PCSX2, but no way. Only with the lowest possible resolution I get more than 30 Frames per second and this looks like a mess. And the Playstation 2 was published 2001, so of course even my Intel intergrated graphics has way more power than the Playstation 2 GPU, but the Emulation is it, what demands so much computing power. It's similar with SimCity 4.

Quote

 

In my experience, it is far more likely that there is something regarding your setup of SC4 that is behind this problem.

Right, but is SC4 actually using the Nvidia GPU, because the slowness suggests to me it might not be. It can occur that despite setting this, your hardware/drivers refuse to force the dedicated GPU to be used. 

 

You are right! At the time of my posting I believed that SimCity was using the GTX 950M, because of the binding in the NVidia Settings. But later I found out, that SimCity is always using the integrated Intel GPU, regardless of my modifications of the Graphics Rules.sgr and the Video Cards.sgr. This is a common problem with NVidia GPU's with Optimus Technology like my GTX 950M. 

Quote

 

Right, but is SC4 actually using the Nvidia GPU, because the slowness suggests to me it might not be. It can occur that despite setting this, your hardware/drivers refuse to force the dedicated GPU to be used. That can be easily checked, goto the Install folder for SC4, then open the Apps subfolder and find the file MYCOMPUTERNAME-config-log.txt and open it. Near the top it should state which rendering mode is being used, DirectX (Hardware) or software, in addition to the detected or in-use GPU.

Whilst you are checking the log file, copy/paste it's contents into a reply here, it gives us a lot of useful information to troubleshoot issues. For example, even if your Nvidia card is being used, has SC4 been set to run with the "Fast Card" profile? If not, performance will be borked on the assumption your hardware can't handle the pressure, which of course would be nonsense. Usually this kind of problem is solvable if you are willing to put a little bit of work in.

 

Like I mentioned above, I did many modifications in the graphics rules.sgr and the Video Cards.sgr, but nothing worked. But I read many times from similiar attempts from Laptop Users with Optimus GPU, so it's normal that I can't force SimCity 4 to use my NVidia GPU instead of the integrated Intel one.

partialRule "Fast card" -any
         # We run well on these cards, so up the defaults.
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Geforce*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Quadro*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*9700*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*8500*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "Matrox*Parhelia*"
		 stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX950M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX 950M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "GeForce*GTX*950M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce*GTX*950M*"
		 stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX950 M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX 950 M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "GeForce*GTX*950 M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce*GTX*950 M*"
		 stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX 950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "GeForce*GTX*950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce*GTX*950*"
		 stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX 950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "GeForce*GTX*950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce*GTX*950*"

vendor "NVidia" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de
   card 0x1b1d "Riva 128"
   card 0x0008 "NV 1"
   card 0x0009 "NV 1"
   card 0x0010 "NV 2"
   card 0x0018 "Riva 128"
   card 0x0019 "Riva 128 ZX"
   card 0x0020 "TNT"
   card 0x0028 "TNT2"
   card 0x0029 "TNT2 Ultra"
   card 0x002a "TNT2"
   card 0x002b "TNT2"
   card 0x002c "TNT Vanta"
   card 0x002d "TNT2 M64"
   card 0x002e "TNT Vanta"
   card 0x002f "TNT Vanta"
   card 0x00a0 "TNT2 Aladdin"
   card 0x0100 "GeForce 256"
   card 0x0101 "GeForce 256 DDR"
   card 0x0102 "GeForce 256 Ultra"
   card 0x0103 "GeForce 256 Quadro"
   card 0x0110 "GeForce2 MX"
   card 0x0111 "GeForce2 MX DDR"
   card 0x0112 "GeForce2 Go"
   card 0x0113 "GeForce2 Quadro"
   card 0x0150 "GeForce2"
   card 0x0151 "GeForce2 Ti"
   card 0x0152 "GeForce2 Ultra"
   card 0x0153 "GeForce2 Quadro"
   card 0x0170 "GeForce4 MX 460"
   card 0x0171 "GeForce4 MX 440"
   card 0x0172 "GeForce4 MX 420"
   card 0x0173 "GeForce4 MX"
   card 0x0174 "GeForce4 Go 440"
   card 0x0175 "GeForce4 Go 420"
   card 0x0176 "GeForce4 Go 420"
   card 0x0178 "GeForce4 Quadro4"
   card 0x0179 "GeForce4 Go 440"
   card 0x017a "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x017b "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x017b "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x01a0 "GeForce2 Crush11"
   card 0x0200 "GeForce3"
   card 0x0201 "GeForce3 Ti200"
   card 0x0202 "GeForce3 Ti500"
   card 0x0203 "GeForce3 Quadro"
   card 0x0250 "GeForce4 Ti4600"
   card 0x0251 "GeForce4 Ti4400"
   card 0x0253 "GeForce4 Ti4200"
   card 0x0258 "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x0259 "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x025b "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x02a0 "GeForce3 XBOX"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX 950M"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX950M"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX 950 M"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX950 M"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX 950M"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX950M"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX 950 M"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX950 M"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX 950"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX950"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX 950"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX950"
end

That I am able to start SimCity 4 in hardware mode (DirectX) is only possible for me because of the Direct X wrappers. Fortunately I read @Raymond7cn Thread "Newbie Thought's" where he made experiments with different DirectX Wrappers. The following post should be made sticky here, because it is a Gamechanger for laptopusers like me.
 

I tried all three Wrappers and the DDrawCompat is clearly the fastest on my system. The voodoo's one was the worst (although this wrapper forced my SimCity 4 to use my NVidia GPU) and the elishacloud Wrapper from this topic can display WQHD (2560x1440), but is slower than the DDrawCompat. Without DirectX Wrapper SimCity won't start, therefore I played just in software mode in the past, before I read this topic and after that of Raymonds. And 1920x1080 in software mode was a little bit faster than 2560x1440 with elishacloud DirectX Wrapper, but not much. DDraw Compat is by far the fastest for me, but it can't start with 2560x1440.

But even if elishacloud would be as fast as DDrawCompat I would still play in 1920x1080 because of the tiny UI in 2560x1440. SimCity 4 is too old for UI Scaling and although you have an advantage of the more field of vision with the higher resolution, it is a little bit to stressful for me to read the interface. 

Normally, like you said above, should an integrated Intel graphic GPU perfectly sufficient for SimCity 4. The only reason I can imagine why the game runs faster on dedicated GPU's is that dedicated GPU's have better legacy support, e.g. for DirectX 7. My Intel GPU has for example Tearing problems in all Zoom stages, except the highest one, when I set the graphic effects to high or medium (but no differences in speed!).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wOnLGCk6tdLMW1wkUWFPD9R992mh8tah/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Heu7icDh6Lb-8SHunvsmu8b_sedFROli/view?usp=sharing

They disappear completely when I set them to low. So I have to play without clouds and industrial smoke. These were the only differences i recognised between low and medium/high. Between medium/high I recognised zero differences, but both leads to tearing.

My dream would be a Direct X Wrapper with the speed of DDrawCompat, the possibility for 2560x1440 resolution like with elishacloud and the Forcement of the NVidia GPU like the voodoo and with the cherry of the top without Tearing with Graphics Effects high.

So thanx again to Simtropolis! Without this great site and community I would play to this day in a slow softwaremode without possibility of using HD-Mods :-)

[Kloudkicker 4,565]

Hay @Dragonstar, try using a second monitor, that may force it to use the GPU.

This is from the Nvidia Manage 3D Settings- Global Setting. Here's the link; https://www.nvidia.com/content/Control-Panel-Help/vLatest/en-us/mergedProjects/nv3d/Manage_3D_Settings_(reference).htm *English version*

"Notes:

• • Programs and videos that launch on external displays that are driven by the NVIDIA GPU will always use the NVIDIA GPU rather than the integrated graphics processor. "

 

 

[rsc204 21,869]

I do know of other users who’ve ran into the same issue with not being able to get SC4 to run on their dedicated GPU. It’s not that SC4 isn’t detecting your GPU, it doesn’t even know it exists.

On desktop systems, which GPU is being used, depends on which video output is connected to the in-use display, SC4 only wants to use the first display, so whichever monitor is the default, the GPU it’s plugged into will be used.

Laptops though, have to route both GPUs to the same display that’s built in, so the technology works differently, One of the issues is, these setups look at GPU usage and select the more power efficient iGPU unless the dedicated one is needed. However, setting this in NVidia Control Panel, should mean that the dedicated GPU is ‘offered’ to SC4 when it runs. That your Intel iGPU is instead being detected, is because your system is not using the dedicated GPU to run SC4 as requested. Quite where this comes from, is a little murkier, but indeed when running legacy games, problems and workarounds are par for the course. Do ensure you’ve the latest Intel and NVidia drivers, some information I read suggested the order you install them in is significant, but it really shouldn’t be. But if the drivers were many revisions apart between the two, perhaps they are having problems working together. I also think some PC manufacturers who customise the Intel drivers, may be causing such problems, HP comes to mind here. These modified drivers mean you can’t install the generic Intel drivers, but PC manufacturers rarely bother to update their variants when Intel do. Like finding out your 12 month old Android phone no longer get’s updates, even though the OS is getting regular security updates, because the manufacturer poorly supports it’s products. In these cases, it may be the customised drivers are your enemy, whilst SC4 does run acceptably on Intel graphics, you’d have a much better experience if you can get the dedicated GPU to do it’s job. Ironically this is probably nothing to do with GPU limitations, the drivers are just much poorer when it comes to legacy games support.

Do also check the simple things, for example if your laptop is running off the battery or the Power settings are set such as to preserve power, that may be overriding the setting in NVidia control panel.

If that all fails, hopefully these modified wrappers will provide a solution, but some of them are very complex to setup properly. 

[Dragonstar 53]

@Kloudkicker

I am using a second screen (Dell 23,8" WQHD) as my Mainscreen, but it makes no difference that SimCity is always choosing the integrated Intel HD6200. I even tried to deactivate the HD 620 in the Windows 10 Device Manager, but when I do this my Laptop Screen doesn't work anymore (but my extended second Mainscreen does) and SimCity doesn't start. So I think with deactivated Intel Card SimCity can't find anyGraphics GPU and so won't start. 

But thanks for the hint!

[Dragonstar 53]

@rsc204

Quote

On desktop systems, which GPU is being used, depends on which video output is connected to the in-use display, SC4 only wants to use the first display, so whichever monitor is the default, the GPU it’s plugged into will be used.

Yes, @Kloudkicker mentioned this above and I read it, but like you said, it applies just to Desktop Systems, not to Laptop ones, or just for Laptop Ones, when there is a dedicated and integrated graphics with no technology like Optimus, etc..

Quote

Do ensure you’ve the latest Intel and NVidia drivers, some information I read suggested the order you install them in is significant, but it really shouldn’t be. But if the drivers were many revisions apart between the two, perhaps they are having problems working together.

My Drivers are from May 2020 (from Windows Device Manager)

Intel HD 620: v27.20.100.8281 (19th May 2020)

The newest version from the Intel Website is v27.20.100.8853 from 19th October, but I can't install them, because the system says that these drivers are not validated from my Laptop manufacturer. But I don't think it makes such a difference, because my installed drivers are fairly recent.

Geforce GTX 950M v26.21.14.4318 (13th May 2020)

Here NVidia doesn't show on their website which version is recent, but when I search "v26.21.14.4318 Geforce" there comes a couple of results from August 2020, so I think it is also fairly recent.

Quote

Do also check the simple things, for example if your laptop is running off the battery or the Power settings are set such as to preserve power, that may be overriding the setting in NVidia control panel.

I use my Laptop always like a desktop, this means in power supply mode and this mode isn't restricted in any form. With all other games there is no problem with using the NVidia GPU.

Quote

If that all fails, hopefully these modified wrappers will provide a solution, but some of them are very complex to setup properly. 

I am satisfied with my current setup. The DDrawCompact DirectX Wrappers are really fast, easy to install and configure (there is in my case no configuration at all) and has no hassles, except the tearing problems with graphics effects medium/high (unfortunately the missing Clouds and smoke is decreasing the atmosphere/immersion a little bit). But the tearing problems are there in any setup, also with elishacloud and voodoo Wrappers and also in Software Mode, so I think I will have to live with them till I get a new system. But I will check and try from time to time updated versions of the above mentioned Wrappers and will see, if there are improvements with my tearing problems.

Thank you for your help :-)

[I'm Not MentaL 2]

This trick doesn't work with ultra wide monitor, I have a 49" monitor with 3840x1080 screen resolution

[Turnstyled 540]

Thank you so much for this! Just two days ago, I was saying "I'm going to miss this game when we move to 8K monitors!" GitHub has been a boon for getting older games running properly on modern Windows. There are so many utilities, drivers, compatibility layers, and wrappers just for that purpose.

Edit: I had changed the FullScreen value to 1 so that the Windows taskbar wouldn't be above the game on my 4K display.

Edit 2: This is incredible! I just posted this screenshot on the SimCity 4 subreddit. Here, though, I've formatted it to .jpeg and set the output file to be 1,500 KB.

 

 

[Hirman 10]

Hi, I have tried dxwrapper with my PC ( AMD RX5700 GPU ) and 2560x1440 resolution works for me, yet there are still some stutters/lags ( especially when moving the camera ) like in other lower resolutions.

 

I decided to try DgVoodoo with lastest version 2.72 with much better results than dxwrapper. DgVoodo is wrapper which converts DirectX 7 used by SimCity 4 to DirectX 11 or 12.

Download DgVoodo2, unpack it and from /MS/x86 copy files into your SimCity 4 /Apps folder ( where SimCity4.exe is located ). In dgVoodooCpl.exe add SimCity 4 /Apps folder and set following settings:

General -> Output API Direct3D 12.0 ( or Direct3D 11 11.0 if your GPU does not support DirectX 12 - I have tried both and they work )
General -> Adapter to use -> Select your GPU from list
DirectX -> dgVoodoo Virtual 3D Accelerated Card , select VRAM lower or equal to your actual GPU VRAM
DirectX -> Dont select "Disable Alt-Enter to toggle screen state"
DirectX -> Optionally set Texture Filtering and Antialiasing , they both seem to work
DirectX -> Leave dgVoodoo Watermark ( it will be in right lower corner ) to confirm it works, you can disable it later

Add launch options to your SimCity4.exe ( or in Steam if you use that version ), for example for 2560x1440 (change 2560x1440 to whatever your resolution is ):

-CustomResolution:enabled -r2560x1440x32

Start game, use Alt + Enter to switch to fullscreen and enjoy silky smooth gameplay without any lags for any resolution. Hardware rendering also works for any resolution and I have confirmed with monitoring tools that game is using DirectX 12 ( or 11 if you use that ). No any other launch parameters or editing Video Cards.sgr are needed.

In in game settings set rendering to Hardware.

[Durfsurn 539]

Working just as well if not better for me on a 3800X/RTX3080 system. Really amazing work here!

[Flann 1,709]

Unfortunately it does not work for me.  I've 3700X / RTX 2070s.  If anyone has any ideas, shoot.

[junspud 1,070]

On 10/31/2020 at 6:35 PM, Dragonstar said:

You are right that SimCity of course doesn't stress GPU's very much, even Intel integrated ones. The problem is, that the GPU isn't working regularly with the SimCity 4 Workload within modern structures (DirectX 9 and above). It is more the case that it emulates the Graphics Workload and this can slow down even a modern systems a lot. It is the same with emulators. For example I have Gran Turismo 3 and 4 till today. I wish I could play them well on my Intel i5-7200U and GTX 950M with the Emulator PCSX2, but no way. Only with the lowest possible resolution I get more than 30 Frames per second and this looks like a mess. And the Playstation 2 was published 2001, so of course even my Intel intergrated graphics has way more power than the Playstation 2 GPU, but the Emulation is it, what demands so much computing power. It's similar with SimCity 4.

You are right! At the time of my posting I believed that SimCity was using the GTX 950M, because of the binding in the NVidia Settings. But later I found out, that SimCity is always using the integrated Intel GPU, regardless of my modifications of the Graphics Rules.sgr and the Video Cards.sgr. This is a common problem with NVidia GPU's with Optimus Technology like my GTX 950M. 

Like I mentioned above, I did many modifications in the graphics rules.sgr and the Video Cards.sgr, but nothing worked. But I read many times from similiar attempts from Laptop Users with Optimus GPU, so it's normal that I can't force SimCity 4 to use my NVidia GPU instead of the integrated Intel one.

partialRule "Fast card" -any
         # We run well on these cards, so up the defaults.
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Geforce*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVidia*Quadro*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*9700*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI*8500*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "Matrox*Parhelia*"
		 stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX950M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX 950M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "GeForce*GTX*950M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce*GTX*950M*"
		 stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX950 M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX 950 M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "GeForce*GTX*950 M*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce*GTX*950 M*"
		 stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX 950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "GeForce*GTX*950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce*GTX*950*"
		 stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce GTX 950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "GeForce*GTX*950*"
         stringMatch cardIdentity "NVIDIA*GeForce*GTX*950*"

vendor "NVidia" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de
   card 0x1b1d "Riva 128"
   card 0x0008 "NV 1"
   card 0x0009 "NV 1"
   card 0x0010 "NV 2"
   card 0x0018 "Riva 128"
   card 0x0019 "Riva 128 ZX"
   card 0x0020 "TNT"
   card 0x0028 "TNT2"
   card 0x0029 "TNT2 Ultra"
   card 0x002a "TNT2"
   card 0x002b "TNT2"
   card 0x002c "TNT Vanta"
   card 0x002d "TNT2 M64"
   card 0x002e "TNT Vanta"
   card 0x002f "TNT Vanta"
   card 0x00a0 "TNT2 Aladdin"
   card 0x0100 "GeForce 256"
   card 0x0101 "GeForce 256 DDR"
   card 0x0102 "GeForce 256 Ultra"
   card 0x0103 "GeForce 256 Quadro"
   card 0x0110 "GeForce2 MX"
   card 0x0111 "GeForce2 MX DDR"
   card 0x0112 "GeForce2 Go"
   card 0x0113 "GeForce2 Quadro"
   card 0x0150 "GeForce2"
   card 0x0151 "GeForce2 Ti"
   card 0x0152 "GeForce2 Ultra"
   card 0x0153 "GeForce2 Quadro"
   card 0x0170 "GeForce4 MX 460"
   card 0x0171 "GeForce4 MX 440"
   card 0x0172 "GeForce4 MX 420"
   card 0x0173 "GeForce4 MX"
   card 0x0174 "GeForce4 Go 440"
   card 0x0175 "GeForce4 Go 420"
   card 0x0176 "GeForce4 Go 420"
   card 0x0178 "GeForce4 Quadro4"
   card 0x0179 "GeForce4 Go 440"
   card 0x017a "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x017b "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x017b "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x01a0 "GeForce2 Crush11"
   card 0x0200 "GeForce3"
   card 0x0201 "GeForce3 Ti200"
   card 0x0202 "GeForce3 Ti500"
   card 0x0203 "GeForce3 Quadro"
   card 0x0250 "GeForce4 Ti4600"
   card 0x0251 "GeForce4 Ti4400"
   card 0x0253 "GeForce4 Ti4200"
   card 0x0258 "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x0259 "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x025b "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x02a0 "GeForce3 XBOX"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX 950M"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX950M"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX 950 M"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX950 M"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX 950M"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX950M"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX 950 M"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX950 M"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX 950"
   card 0x139a "GeForce GTX950"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX 950"
   card 0x139A "GeForce GTX950"
end

That I am able to start SimCity 4 in hardware mode (DirectX) is only possible for me because of the Direct X wrappers. Fortunately I read @Raymond7cn Thread "Newbie Thought's" where he made experiments with different DirectX Wrappers. The following post should be made sticky here, because it is a Gamechanger for laptopusers like me.
 

I tried all three Wrappers and the DDrawCompat is clearly the fastest on my system. The voodoo's one was the worst (although this wrapper forced my SimCity 4 to use my NVidia GPU) and the elishacloud Wrapper from this topic can display WQHD (2560x1440), but is slower than the DDrawCompat. Without DirectX Wrapper SimCity won't start, therefore I played just in software mode in the past, before I read this topic and after that of Raymonds. And 1920x1080 in software mode was a little bit faster than 2560x1440 with elishacloud DirectX Wrapper, but not much. DDraw Compat is by far the fastest for me, but it can't start with 2560x1440.

But even if elishacloud would be as fast as DDrawCompat I would still play in 1920x1080 because of the tiny UI in 2560x1440. SimCity 4 is too old for UI Scaling and although you have an advantage of the more field of vision with the higher resolution, it is a little bit to stressful for me to read the interface. 

Normally, like you said above, should an integrated Intel graphic GPU perfectly sufficient for SimCity 4. The only reason I can imagine why the game runs faster on dedicated GPU's is that dedicated GPU's have better legacy support, e.g. for DirectX 7. My Intel GPU has for example Tearing problems in all Zoom stages, except the highest one, when I set the graphic effects to high or medium (but no differences in speed!).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wOnLGCk6tdLMW1wkUWFPD9R992mh8tah/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Heu7icDh6Lb-8SHunvsmu8b_sedFROli/view?usp=sharing

They disappear completely when I set them to low. So I have to play without clouds and industrial smoke. These were the only differences i recognised between low and medium/high. Between medium/high I recognised zero differences, but both leads to tearing.

My dream would be a Direct X Wrapper with the speed of DDrawCompat, the possibility for 2560x1440 resolution like with elishacloud and the Forcement of the NVidia GPU like the voodoo and with the cherry of the top without Tearing with Graphics Effects high.

So thanx again to Simtropolis! Without this great site and community I would play to this day in a slow softwaremode without possibility of using HD-Mods :-)

I also have an Intel GPU and I have the same exact tearing problem as in the second screenshot whenever Visual/Shadows are set past low. Smoke also causes issues. It's anoying as the low setting also hides the radius circle for God mode tools, and some placement highlighters.

I also have this bizarre shadow issue;

I'm hoping I can experiment with this find some configuration or setting which can clear the shadow problem up. AFAICT this seems like some weird super-specific glitch unique to my exact hardware and drivers combination or something, at least I've never seen it anywhere else despite a lot of searching.

I don't expect it to work out but it'd be cool if it did. The casting of shadows is extremely broken for some reason.

[Turnstyled 540]

On 2/18/2021 at 10:58 PM, Flann said:

Unfortunately it does not work for me.  I've 3700X / RTX 2070s.  If anyone has any ideas, shoot.

I don't know if you've solved this, but I have a similar Ryzen/Nvidia RTX setup and I solved my issue being unable to use dgVoodoo2 by deleting my SimCity 4 game directory and reinstalling SimCity 4. My SimCity 4 directory is on a separate drive and thus, it survives Windows reinstallations. I'm now able to run SimCity 4 in 4K with dgVoodoo2. It was especially visible with the Major League Stadium, but on the closest zoom levels, the gridlines are going right through each building. I'm going to assume that that's normal and that because I'm playing the game in 4K, the gridlines and each square are huge.

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

On 31/10/2020 at 11:35 PM, Dragonstar said:

It is more the case that it emulates the Graphics Workload and this can slow down even a modern systems a lot. It is the same with emulators. For example I have Gran Turismo 3 and 4 till today. I wish I could play them well on my Intel i5-7200U and GTX 950M with the Emulator PCSX2, but no way.

If you're still struggling with this I'd suggest a CPU upgrade if possible.  The emulator runs almost every game (admittedly Champions of Norrath is sloooow...) on my laptop running a Ryzen 5 2500U with 16Gb RAM and the built in Vega 8 graphics from AMD.

Did some research from the processor number you mentioned and it looks like the only real option for upgrade for that socket type is a Core i7-8565U. This is all assuming that this isn't one of those pain in the ass laptops that has the processor soldered to the motherboard.

[TogaMasterJohn 711]

On 10/24/2020 at 4:19 AM, Dragonstar said:

At first I want to thank @Durfsurn for this High-Res solution :-)

In my first try I installed the files like in the prescription, but I forgot to change the graphic mode in the launcher from Software to DirectX and ended up that I couldn't start the game anymore. So I deinstalled and reinstalled it and now I switched in the launcher to DirectX and everything went fine. But the Framerate with DirectX in 2560x1440 is lower than with Softwaremode 1920x1080 (My System Intel i5-7200U and Nvidia GTX 950M, and I did bind the sc4.exe with the Nvidia GPU in the Nvidia Settings), so I will stick with the former graphics setting in the future.

But a great way to play the game in highest sharpness for Systems who can handle the load :-)

I once had luck installing just the NVIDIA graphics drivers on a Dell laptop for a friend a year or two ago. The laptop (a Dell Latitude E6420, a bit older than your laptop for sure ) had Intel HD Graphics 3000 (IIRC) and NVIDIA NVS 42000M and it normally requires the installation of Intel drivers first before you can install the NVIDIA drivers.

After an unfortunate hard drive failure, I did the repair and re-installation of everything for him. Once Windows 7 was up and running, before I installed the normal chipset drivers, out of general curiosity I tried to install the NVIDIA drivers first and voila, no issue whatsoever! I didn't bother installing the Intel drivers because my friend did not always enjoy having to manually set each game to run with the NVIDIA graphics and not the slow and not-so-great Intel graphics (he uses the laptop for games).

I would not recommend this setup for most users and there is no guarantee that it would work (it depends on the manufacturer, the hardware, the drivers, and the operating system). However, it is something that one might like to try if quality graphics and performance in SC4 is really important.