Help with SC4Launcher not working

[ChronicHiker 4]

New Development: After following this guide on how to play SimCity 4 at higher resolutions than 1920x1080, my SC4 launcher is suddenly working! The graphical settings aren't perfect, there are definite glitches when playing at resolutions higher than 1920x1080, but something about following that guide got the launcher to work in general. I'll update my findings when I have time. This is just the short story.

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Hi, newbie at modding SC4 here, so go easy on me! (Just picked the game back up a couple of days ago after around a decade of not playing).

 

I can’t seem to get the SC4 Launcher to work. I’ve followed YouTube tutorials step by step and nothing has worked yet. When I go to launch the game it’ll just get stuck and not actually open. It’ll appear in the menu bar, and if I hover over it it’s just black. Clicking into it does nothing.

I’m running Windows 10. Is there something obvious I’m missing? So far I’ve only launched the game from Steam with success.

  Edited October 8, 2020 by ChronicHiker  
New Developments

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Hiya, @ChronicHiker.

We've split your post off into its own topic for greater visibility since it's related specifically to the SC4 Launcher program. (You will need to re-follow the thread so you get beeped for new replies. The move tool doesn't do that itself.)

 

11 hours ago, ChronicHiker said:

Hi, newbie at modding SC4 here, so go easy on me!

Sure thing. We were new once too and there are a zillion threads and topics on Simtropolis, so as staff we pop in now and then to help organize things. No worries.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

On 10/6/2020 at 9:54 AM, ChronicHiker said:

When I go to launch the game it’ll just get stuck and not actually open

Sounds like you have a DVD version, which uses archaic analog-signal disk-level DRM, which Win-10 does not support. There are many threads here discussing options. The three basic paths are:

1) Redeem your disk for a patched digital version from Origin (EA).

2) Pay about $4.99 for a patched, DRM-free version from GoG the next time SC4 goes on sale (and gives props to Simtropolis along the way).

3) Reinstall SC4 on an old machine running Win-XP (SP3) or Win-7 Pro (SP1) and then copy all of your plugins + regions (every SC4 thing under MyDocuments) there.

Your choice depends on what resources you have and how many weeks you can wait for GoG to run its next sale.

[ChronicHiker 4]

13 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

Sounds like you have a DVD version...

I just bought SC4 Deluxe Edition on Steam about a week ago. This wouldn't be using any sort of disk level DRM would it?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 hour ago, ChronicHiker said:

I just bought SC4 Deluxe Edition on Steam about a week ago. This wouldn't be using any sort of disk level DRM would it?

The Steam version does have some form of DRM, but it's not the one to worry about like the SecDrv.Sys of the physical media.

Also, I believe the Steam version has its own launcher so using a different one might be rather complicated. (I have the Gog version and I do all my tweaks by passing parameters in the target line of the shortcut so I've no idea if there is a good way to bypass Steam's launcher.)

[ChronicHiker 4]

Interesting development: I followed this guide on how to get SimCity 4 to run at higher resolutions than 1920x1080, and that actually got my SC4 launcher to work. So it had something to do with the graphical settings.

It's not perfect, there's still some quirks, and some definite graphical glitches at resolutions higher than 1920x1080, but for whatever reason, following that guide got the launcher to work. I'll have to write up my findings when I have more time, but for now that's the short story.

[rsc204 21,808]

On 09/10/2020 at 1:08 AM, ChronicHiker said:

So it had something to do with the graphical settings.

I'm sure it was, but to be clear, use of the launcher will not have made any difference to such problems. If using a modified DDraw (DirectX) implementation is working for you, this fits very much with your GPU having compatibility issues with SC4. Since SC4 was designed for a now archaic version of DirectX, it certainly would appear that some of the newer cards/drivers from Nvidia are starting to have problems. For example, my GTX 960 is just recognised and works, without any configuration at all. But I'm hearing problems from a lot of 10xx users and above.

See this thread here, sometimes you just need to force SC4 to recognise your card correctly. But if that fails, I'd look at following the thread you linked to, as it seems there is a good chance that this method will be further developed in future, so you may not be stuck with problems forever.

Also note that whilst SC4 runs optimally only using the DirectX Hardware Renderer, the way Windows and your drivers communicate vary when running in either Windowed, Full Screen or Borderless Windowed mode. This means that if you are having problems with one of those settings, you may find using another works better for you. Typically the most reliable is Full Screen, since SC4 wasn't developed at a time when people expected to switch between games and apps.