PC too powerful to run SC4?

[Ulisse Wolf 4,461]

14 minutes ago, KillerChicken said:

Sorry for necro'ing this. I have Windows 11 23H2 with an AMD Ryzen 9 7950x @5.70Ghz, 64GB DDR-5200 and an RTX 2080Ti. I also have legacy rendering installed and enabled in windows. I cannot get hardware acceleration working on SC4 Steam edition even when using dgvoodoo. When I launch the game, it says error initialising direct draw, but loads up in SW mode anyways. I also tried running in Vulkan with DXVK, but it just crashes to desktop.

To solve this problem you have to force the use of the Nvidia GPU on both SC4 and for Dgvoodoo 2. You have to go into the Nvidia control panel to do this

[QuantumChicken 89]

14 minutes ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

To solve this problem you have to force the use of the Nvidia GPU on both SC4 and for Dgvoodoo 2. You have to go into the Nvidia control panel to do this

How do I do that? Just to add, I have disabled the IGPU in the BIOS. I decided to run at 1080p instead of 1440p. I have no issues with that res.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,461]

9 minutes ago, KillerChicken said:

How do I do that? Just to add, I have disabled the IGPU in the BIOS. I decided to run at 1080p instead of 1440p. I have no issues with that res.

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5035/kw/nvidia control panel/related/

[QuantumChicken 89]

50 minutes ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5035/kw/nvidia control panel/related/

Still happening. It is quite clear that Micro$courage did something with windows 11 23H2 as I never had this issue with 22H2 and earlier. I think I will just use my windows 98se machine with 2GB of ram and a GeForce FX 5500 PCI.

[QuantumChicken 89]

I installed windows server 2022 21H2, and the dgvoodoo HW mode works perfectly. It IS a windows 11 23h2 issue.

[Pruciak 0]

Tried to run SimCity 4 on my computer. Done all the steps in the Ulisse Wolf video guides. The game runs but I have some issues. Once I start it with CPU:1 parameter the game stutters when I move the camera. When i start the game without the CPU:1 parameter the game runs silky smooth when I move the camera but sometimes when I try to save it freezes. Any ideas what to do to have smooth camera movement without freezing while saving?

[Ulisse Wolf 4,461]

3 hours ago, Pruciak said:

Tried to run SimCity 4 on my computer. Done all the steps in the Ulisse Wolf video guides. The game runs but I have some issues. Once I start it with CPU:1 parameter the game stutters when I move the camera. When i start the game without the CPU:1 parameter the game runs silky smooth when I move the camera but sometimes when I try to save it freezes. Any ideas what to do to have smooth camera movement without freezing while saving?

Those videos are to be considered as old method. Currently, it is recommended to use the Mod DLLs that allow a slight increase in performance

[Pruciak 0]

Thank you very much! Downloaded the DLL mods and the game works great! I fount this forum topic on google and didnt notice there was a sticky with mentioned DLL's on main forum page. For anyone stumbling on this post here is the link to the DLL mods:

Although there is an error in the installation description of DLL mods. You don't need to put them in the plugins forlder in game installation location but instead in the plugins folder that is located in documents/simcity4/plugins.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,461]

32 minutes ago, Pruciak said:

Thank you very much! Downloaded the DLL mods and the game works great! I fount this forum topic on google and didnt notice there was a sticky with mentioned DLL's on main forum page. For anyone stumbling on this post here is the link to the DLL mods:

Although there is an error in the installation description of DLL mods. You don't need to put them in the plugins forlder in game installation location but instead in the plugins folder that is located in documents/simcity4/plugins.

Actually it is not an error but it is the path where the Mod DLLs including the Background mod should be installed. 

[Daeris 1,116]

On 2/11/2024 at 11:08 AM, Ulisse Wolf said:

Those videos are to be considered as old method. Currently, it is recommended to use the Mod DLLs that allow a slight increase in performance

Hi @Ulisse Wolf,

Do you have a link or guide to the new method?

I fired SC4 back up today hoping to try and start back up my CJ, but I forgot that my fps was tanking on my new 3070 card. I was going to follow the other method you outlined for the dgvoodoo wrapper, but seems like there might be a better method recommended now?

[Ulisse Wolf 4,461]

5 minutes ago, Daeris said:

Hi @Ulisse Wolf,

Do you have a link or guide to the new method?

I fired SC4 back up today hoping to try and start back up my CJ, but I forgot that my fps was tanking on my new 3070 card. I was going to follow the other method you outlined for the dgvoodoo wrapper, but seems like there might be a better method recommended now?

Follow this guide.  Just read the readme and you can have SC4 perform better than before. Make sure in the SC4CPUOptions to set the priority as high

 

[Daeris 1,116]

19 minutes ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

Follow this guide.  Just read the readme and you can have SC4 perform better than before. Make sure in the SC4CPUOptions to set the priority as high

 

Thanks!

Are you saying I should set this highlighted portion to High?

[Ulisse Wolf 4,461]

48 minutes ago, Daeris said:

Thanks!

Are you saying I should set this highlighted portion to High?

Yes

[Daeris 1,116]

Thanks again @Ulisse Wolf!

Update on my progress:

I've installed the following, and for the most part the game feels pretty darn good. Definitely the best since I've installed my 3070.

• 4GB Patch - already had this installed
• SC4CPUOptions - set priority to High
• SC4GraphicsOptions - I've applied BorderlessFullScreen, not quite sure what feels best yet. I love being able to alt-tab out of my game and keep it up!
• SC4Fix - already had this installed... hmm, but maybe I should update? I think my last install was after latest update here.
• DgVoodoo 2 - Pretty straightforward actually. I dragged the sc4.exe onto the 4gb patch. Not sure if that was actually needed since I already had 4gb patch installed, but still did it just in case.
• Startup Performance Optimization DLL for SimCity 4 - initial load time is very very fast now
• Transparent Texture Fix DLL - installed this just in case
• SimCity 4 Disable FPS Limits - Definitely seeing uncapped fps on region screen at least

 

As I mentioned, everything for the most part is feeling pretty good, but I am still noticing a few possible issues:

1. When moving the camera (with arrows or mouse), I still seem to see some stuttering. Whatever it is, it seems like it's related to moving the camera. I experience this both on region view and city tiles. It's not unplayable, but a bit of a frustration whatever it is.
2. In city tiles, my fps is doing a little better, but something still seems slightly off. I would expect with the fps limits disabled, I'd see very high fps, but I'm seeing fps ranging from like 25 to 80-ish or so. But what's weird is, it doesn't "feel" like I'm only getting 25fps. It feels better actually. Really it's just when I'm moving the camera does fps feel a little weird. Also in region view I think I get like 600+ fps now that I've disabled limits. I would however expect to get more than 25-80fps in my city tiles, as my tiles are very undeveloped right now in this region. It's pretty much just a few dirt roads and small villages.

 

Those are the only issues I'm really still seeing. Not totally unplayable, so I think I'll at least try to resume my CJ, but if anyone has any insights or tips to help me improve the above issues plz let me know.

Oh also PS: After installing all these new changes, I've totally removed my Steam Launch Option line that I had applied.

PS 2: I'm learning maybe I need to configure my dgvoodoo. After installing it I didn't see instructions on how to configure it further.

[Daeris 1,116]

Ok, think I figured it out!

I found out how to configure my dgvoodoo, and I saw another user post a thread referencing similar issues to what I was experiencing. They changed their Output API to Direct3D 12 and that seemed to help them. I did the same, and I can confirm it's also completely fixed my camera stuttering issues!

I noticed there is a Direct3D 12 (feature level 11.0) and (feature level 12.0) --> Anyone know how those are different?

I also switched my Adapter to specifically use my 3070.

I do notice my Appearance is set to Full Screen, even though I have BorderlessFullScreen applied on my SC4GraphicsOptions ini file. I think the game launches in Borderless Fullscreen for me as I would prefer.

Really that only leaves my #2 issue which was that in city tiles I seem to be getting a range of FPS from like 25-100 (seems to have gone up after configuring my dgvoodoo). But what's weird is that the fps feels fine. Feels way better now that my camera isn't stuttering when I move it. I wonder if my fps counter is lying to me in this instance for some reason?

If anyone has any tips to better configure my dgvoodoo to maximize performance even more, please let me know! Or if anyone knows what weird trickery is going on with my fps counter while in city tiles.

Thanks!

[Null 45 3,117]

45 minutes ago, Daeris said:

I noticed there is a Direct3D 12 (feature level 11.0) and (feature level 12.0) --> Anyone know how those are different?

There is a list of the Direct3D feature levels on Wikipedia with the mandatory and optional items required by each feature level, but the details are probably something that only makes sense to graphics engineers.

2 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

Make sure in the SC4CPUOptions to set the priority as high

Is this required for all users, or only in some cases. If the former, I can change the plugin's default. I chose AboveNormal as a middle ground, but it is unlikely to break anything by changing it to High.

[Daeris 1,116]

Random issue after I've made all these changes. I updated a city tile I haven't updated in awhile. After saving it and returning to region view, I'm seeing a weird effect on the water. When I click back into the city tile, everything looks fine. I'm not understanding what caused this and why it actually looks fine in city tile. Hoping this doesn't mess too much with my ability to get screenshots for my CJ.



Unfortunately this is also showing up in Region Census program:




This is definitely going to impact my CJ. If anyone knows what might be causing this or how I can fix it and/or prevent it please let me know.

UPDATE: Oof, I'm silly and I just overlooked Region Thumbnail Fix DLL thinking I didn't need it. I DID need it. Luckily I had my region backed up, so loaded a previous version, properly installed Region Thumbnail Fix DLL, and now my region is working again! This reminds me how important it is to keep my region backed up as well. Time to do another backup of my plugins folder too!

[camilodiezr 3]

Jumping in to point to a FPS issue I encountered using dgvoodoo and how I solved it: I have a 21:9 monitor and a AMD 6700XT. I wanted to play SC4 fullscreen and followed the  instructions by rsc204

After setting everything and booting up the game, my graphics card went full blast, 1400+fps and 50%+ GPU utilization. I tried hard-capping the fps using AMD Adrenalin's "Chill" feature, but whenever I paused the game or zoomed in and out the FPS went up to the thousands for a few seconds, every single time.

Turns out, dgvoodoo has a FPS limiter built-in (as of version 2.74). To enable it, you first have to right-click on the big yellow banner at the top, and select "Show all sections of the configurations"; you will then see new a new tab next to DirectX called GeneralExt; on the lower right section of said tab, you'll see the FPS option set to 0; change to whatever number you desire (in my case, 30) and that's it!

I'm now a very happy Major, building at 2560x1080 with no issues! Hope this is useful to whomever encounters the same problem in the future!

[simlacroix 274]

Hi, jumping into this... I have some issues with DgVoodoo, so let's recap:
I followed the instructions, I did everything by the book but the game opens in a windows mode, the mouse icon fails to position themselves over each menu so I have to move it further for it to actually select something. Of course the game eventually crashed so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong.

I installed it today, SC4 launcher settings below:

DgVoodoo settings below:

What should I correct? Previously I was having a lot of options given I selected NAM in Ultra, now I wished I hadn't actually deleted the whole thing for I took a lot of time, and patience to go step by step to install it again.

Thanks.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,461]

2 minutes ago, simlacroix said:

Hi, jumping into this... I have some issues with DgVoodoo, so let's recap:
I followed the instructions, I did everything by the book but the game opens in a windows mode, the mouse icon fails to position themselves over each menu so I have to move it further for it to actually select something. Of course the game eventually crashed so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong.

I installed it today, SC4 launcher settings below:

DgVoodoo settings below:

What should I correct? Previously I was having a lot of options given I selected NAM in Ultra, now I wished I hadn't actually deleted the whole thing for I took a lot of time, and patience to go step by step to install it again.

Thanks.

First uninstall SC4Launcher which is outdated and broken and use the mod DLLs which are more efficient. Then if you use Dgvoodoo you have to use DirectX rendering and not OpenGL

[simlacroix 274]

Thanks, I've already corrected that, do you have any guide? I didn't know SC4 Launcher wasn't in use anymore, it seems I lost a lot this half year.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,461]

Just now, simlacroix said:

Thanks, I've already corrected that, do you have any guide? I didn't know SC4 Launcher wasn't in use anymore, it seems I lost a lot this half year.

Follow this tutorial