SimCity 4 on Boot Camp

[countermoon 46]

I tried to run SimCity 4 with Boot Camp. This was the Steam version of SimCity 4 using 32-bit Windows 7—but 64-bit Mac OS Sierra. That may have been a problem, I don't know. If you bought the Mac version, you can download the Windows version for free.

I tried running it with NAM and without, but it didn't seem matter. The problems must be in the game, maybe how it interacts with the graphics card. Unlike Windows, Mac users usually don't upgrade drivers. I couldn't load my cities, the big ones that were crashing, but I could start over, beginning with the tutorials. I found the biggest annoyance was the resolution. Although the Mac version filled my screen, playing at any resolution, the Windows version was limited to versions which narrowed the screen, with large black boxes on each side.

I can run the Mac version until I reach around 40,000 people. That's when the crashing begins. At that point I have to start a new city in a new tile.

These comments pertain to NAM 37 and NAM 38, which was recently released and which I installed on both the Mac version and Windows boot camp version. NAM seemed to work better on the Mac. But the Mac version of SimCity 4 still has some quirks, such as

1) Fireman are always unhappy. I keep getting messages about them at the bottom of the screen. I maxed out their pay and created more stations, but still they complain and the message never goes away.

2) At some point you get a helicopter for your large medical center. The audio is loud and annoying, and sometimes it never goes away no matter where you are on the map. I tried flying the helicopter far away from the map but the sound was still there. I had to turn off the audio.

3) Another audio problem: I think it's the train sound or tracks or streets being laid down. A loud grinding sound. Occasionally it will remain on and continue even after the streets and track have been laid down. You can't turn off this sound either. I dislike the birds near the garbage, and I wish I could turn them off, but at least I can move away from them.

4) Indestructible buildings. Well, I thought they were. I discovered if you place a larger item on them, like a passenger station, then bulldoze the station, both objects will disappear. Sometimes. Sometimes stations are the indestructible object, and placing a station onto a station doesn't work. A stranded station still registers visiting passengers.

5) Disable the auto align edge option. Otherwise the game will devastate your city.

6) There seems to be a lag when you place a new water pump. Plenty of pipes, everything blue, pumps say they are powered—except the buildings quickly go dark because they aren't getting water. When things go bad in SimCity, they go bad quickly. Your city will be devastated, and it's almost like starting over. My solution is to create a new water pump and let it run briefly before bulldozing the old one.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,571]

3 hours ago, countermoon said:

I couldn't load my cities,

Cities saved in the 64 bit Mac version of the game are not compatible with Windows versions of the game nor even with the old 32 bit Mac version. You can go from the old 32 bit format of any to the new 64 bit Mac, but not the other way around.

 

3 hours ago, countermoon said:

1) Fireman are always unhappy. I keep getting messages about them at the bottom of the screen. I maxed out their pay and created more stations, but still they complain and the message never goes away.

In what way are they unhappy? What is the specific message you see?

 

3 hours ago, countermoon said:

2) At some point you get a helicopter for your large medical center. The audio is loud and annoying, and sometimes it never goes away no matter where you are on the map.

That's a known issue for some peeps. There's the Helicopter sound silencer mod to fix that.

 

3 hours ago, countermoon said:

3) Another audio problem: I think it's the train sound or tracks or streets being laid down.

This is also a known issue some times. I made a Silent Road and Rail Construction mod attached to this post that fixes that.

[countermoon 46]

I played the Big City tutorial in the Boot Camp Windows version for a couple hours. Things seemed to go very well. I had a ton of money. But when I returned later the game crashed on loading. So for my setup, the Mac version is still more stable. Plus, the Mac version fills the screen while the Windows version doesn't.

I've played around with the audio and graphics settings (in both versions) on the assumption that these might make the game less demanding of resources, but it it doesn't matter. Still get crashes.

[countermoon 46]

I did some searching and found a possible fix for Windows users. It involved going into Launch Options and adding commands to set the resolution and restrict your computer's core to 1 on the assumption that SimCity was made before computers had multiple cores and has trouble dealing with them. It's a good thought that seems to have worked for a lot of people.

Except me.

But I have an unusual setup. This isn't a vanilla Win 7 setup. It's boot camp on a custom i7 iMac with an AMD card.

[countermoon 46]

When I was reinstalling the game, I had a thought about a possible source of error: the location where the game installed, where NAM is installed, and so on. This is ambiguous and worth considering.

First, you have a choice. When installing, Steam offers the option of where to install. So where?

Steam probably detected that I bought the Mac version and that I am running a Mac. Steam installs Mac versions of SC4 in your Documents folder in a folder called SimCity 4. This is odd, because most Mac Steam games are not installed here. In fact, this is the only one. Should it be different for Boot Camp? I don't know.

Windows versions of SC4 can be installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SimCity 4 Deluxe. Within that folder is a Plugin folder, a Regions folder, etc. But I find on starting up the game again, Steam will put SimCity files in my Documents folder even if I have already installed it in the steamapps folder. Thus creating the possibility of confusion, duplicate files on so on. Then when it comes time to install NAM, where does that go? You have to be consistent with your installation, I guess. That's also true of applying the 2GB patch and running the Traffic Simulator tool.

NAM has a lot of files, slowing down launch time, so you can do a custom install in NAM or remove files later with the included compiler. So far this hasn't made a difference for me. As soon as my city become sufficiently large, the game crashes and I can no longer load that city. But I can start another city and play it until it gets too big.

Mac users rarely mess with drivers. Windows users know all about them, and it can be a real pain. You go to Device Manager, ctrl-click a file, then click update driver. From there you have other things you can try if it fails. You can use a program like the open source Snappy Driver, which will read your computer, then offer a choice of drivers to download. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. I was able to update my ATI 6700 card driver, but whether it helped or hurt I don't know. Probably didn't matter.

This makes me reflect on how nutty computers have become. So many permutations and configurations have turned troubleshooting into a complex obstacle course. It's tempting to think that one smart programmer, given the freedom and resources, could solve these problems for us and bring SimCity 4 into a more usable state for more people. But it's hard to say. Programming is hard. Changes occur more frequently than when SimCity was written, so it's harder for programmers to keep up.

 

[countermoon 46]

>CorinaMarie On the Mac version (not Boot Camp) one of my cities has the message "Fire Department Morale Law" scrolling at the bottom. Never goes away. There are other messages, but that one never goes away. I haven't seen that bug in any of my other cities.

[CorinaMarie 29,571]

@countermoon

I found the code for it:

------------ Advice record ----
--Fire Department Morale Low, Tempers Flare
a = create_advice_safety('4a2437d0')
a.trigger  = "game.g_fire_strike_chance > tuning_constants.STRIKE_HIGH and game.g_fire_station_count > 0 and game.g_fire_strike == 0" 
a.frequency   =  tuning_constants.ADVICE_FREQUENCY_MEDIUM
a.title   = "text@8a3abafbFire Department Morale Low, Tempers Flare"
a.message   = [[text@ca3abb04I'm tellin' ya, Mayor, things in the Fire Depa]]
a.priority  = tuning_constants.ADVICE_PRIORITY_HIGH
a.mood = advice_moods.BAD_JOB
a.effects = { effects.POOR_FIRE_COVERAGE, effects.UNHAPPY_SIMS }

So, it would seem that funding for at least one Fire Station is less than optimal and therefore the chance for them to go on strike is high.

 

Scroll thru all your Fire Stations in the Master Fire Protection Budget and see if any of them are set low:

[countermoon 46]

I'll take a look. But I usually have only one large fire station with the pay cranked up all the way. I can build ten fire stations and max the pay, and they still complain. What's wrong with these guys?

Something else I noticed. If I boot into MacOS and play my Steam version of SimCity 4, the copyright date is 2014. If I boot into Windows 7 via Boot Camp and play the Steam version of SimCity 4, the copyright is 2003.