Bugged cars

[LeCerq 29]

New computer, SC4 reinstalled (GOG) but I'm getting these unexpected "hatched cars", also happening to the smoke in my power plant.

What could be causing these bugs?

[rivit 3,391]

I'd call it a graphics problem - running in DirectX? are gfx drivers on the new machine up to date? - anything else that moves in-game look wrong (other than smoke)?  Does it go away? Try changing the graphics options in game around to see if you can pin anything/pattern down. 

You'll have to stay patient - its a new one here to see this look on vehicles and it may take a little while to pin it down. Looks like a good candidate for the Oddities thread.

[LeCerq 29]

Video board is NVIDIA Geforce MX 330, all drivers up to date.

I noticed these weird hatched glitches only in street cars and smoke from the Power Plant.

I'll try to poke stuff around here and see what happens! Keep you guys noticed. Thanks!!

[rsc204 21,806]

49 minutes ago, LeCerq said:

Video board is NVIDIA Geforce MX 330, all drivers up to date.

Is it being used by SC4 though?, you probably need to double-check.

Pretty much every Intel and most AMD CPUs now come with in-built graphics (GPU), if you have a dedicated card such as yours, it will be in effect a 2nd GPU. SC4 is quite old and was never designed with multiple GPUs or displays in mind, so it will always use the default or first of each connected to your system. In other words, most likely the in-built GPU is actually being used when you play SC4, in the case of an Intel CPU, that means there are compatibility issues with the drivers that result in some oddities. Even though you probably don't need the extra power, from a compatibility perspective NVidia tend to have better legacy DirectX support, so would be the optimal way to run SC4 on such systems.

Find the folder where SimCity 4 is installed, then open the Apps folder that resides there, inside you should find a file MYCOMPUTERNAME-config-log.txt. Copy/Paste the contents of this into a follow-up post and we will be able to see exactly what SC4 is detecting/using.

There are solutions for most of these problems, between some manual setup tweaks to using special 'compatibility' patches for DirectX, known as Wrappers, so the odds are good it can be fixed.

[LeCerq 29]

You got it. Thanks a lot.
 

Spoiler

Log generated on 6/17/2021, 18:18

Flags
-----
hardwareDriver = true
DXT = true
fullscreen = true
MMX = true
FPU = true
backingStore = true
forcedFSAA = false

Strings
-------
userName = lecer
appName = SimCity 4
version = 1.1.641.0
osVersion = Windows NT 5.1
computerName = DESKTOP-MQGQVN9
CPU = GenuineIntel
sglDriverName = DirectX
sglDriverVersion = 2.0
driverName = igdumdim32.dll
driverVersion = 0.0.0.0, GUID: D7B78E66-D909-11CF-9873-012AAEC2CD35
cardName = Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics
cardVersion = Vendor: 8086, Device: 9a49, Board: a011028, Chipset: 0001
cardIdentity = Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics
soundDriverName = 
soundCardName = Driver de som primário
buildType = Release

Numbers
-------
cpuSpeed = 1689
memory = 1024
freeMemory = 1024
screenWidth = 1024
screenHeight = 768
screenBPP = 16
videoMemory = 128
textureMemory = 128
textureStages = 4
bogoFPS = 0
bogoMPPS = 0

Rules
-----
applying Sound
applying high sound detail
applying City Detail and Day/Night Settings
applying City Detail and Day/Night Settings>
applying low computer power
  option 9 = 1
  option 13 = 0
  option 15 = 1
applying Texture Quality and Building Variety Settings
applying Texture Quality and Building Variety Settings>
applying high memory
  option 3 = 3
  option 14 = 3
applying Variable Speed Automata
applying default
  option 10 = 1
applying Standard hardware
  option 0 = 1
  option 1 = 1
  option 2 = 1
  option 4 = 0
  option 5 = 1
  option 8 = 1
  option 7 = 1
  option 6 = 1
  option 11 = 0
  option 12 = 0
applying Standard hardware>
  option 1 = 2
applying Standard hardware>>
  option 0 = 2
applying Standard hardware>>>>
  option 4 = 1
applying Standard hardware>>>>>
  option 11 = 1
applying Two stages
applying Lotsa vidmem
applying Poor color cursor
  option 7 = 0
applying Not Slow GeForce

Options
-------
Visual Effects       current:   3 recommended:   2
Cars/Sims            current:   3 recommended:   2
Shadows              current:   3 recommended:   1
Atmospheric effects  current:   1 recommended:   1
Water effects        current:   1 recommended:   1
Software/Hardware    current:   1 recommended:   1
Cursor               current:   1 recommended:   0
VariableSpeedAutomata current:   1 recommended:   1
Translucent UI       current:   1 recommended:   1
Graphic Detail       current:   3 recommended:   1
Building Load Speed  current:   3 recommended:   1
Texture Quality      current:   3 recommended:   3

Properties
-------
forcesoftwaredriver = false
renderdynamicview = true
renderstaticview = true
renderwatereffects = true
rendercloudsandfog = true
forcepointsampling = false
forcebilinear = false
forcenoalphablend = false
forcenoalphatest = false
rendershadows = true
renderdecals = true
usesecondstage = true
forcedebugtexture = false
renderparticleeffects = true
renderflorashadows = true
renderterrain = true
showupdateregions = false
usecursoreffects = true
drawlottextures = true
drawlotfoundations = true
drawlotwalls = true
forcetexturerepeat = false
usescreenshake = true
renderui = true
useupdaterectclipping = true
usevertexbuffers = true
showboundingboxes = false
useoverlayculling = true
rendersnapshot = false
noaddsigned = false
nopartialbackingstorecopies = false
usescreenflash = true
renderautomata = true
preferopaque = false
displayalertborders = true
drawlotopaquetextures = true
useviewcleanup = false
doautozoomandrotationchanges = true

viewoffsety = 0
viewoffsetx = 0
texturebits = 32
lodoffset = 0
shadowdebug = 0
maxparticlestarget = 10000
particlelodoffset = 0
effectprioritylevel = 5
backingstoremaxzoomall = 5
backingstoremaxzoombuildingsprops = 5
backingstoremaxzoomterrain = 5
backingstoremaxzoomflora = 5
shadowquality = 2
minvehiclezoom = 3
minpedzoom = 4
cursortype = 1
depthoffset = 2
debugtexture = 0
dirtyrectmergeframes = 4
sounddetail = 2
buildingvariety = 2
buildingloaderspeed = 1
modellodoffset = 0
stringtexturecachesize = 1024

particleeffectslod = 5
splattexturescale = 50
texbindmaxfree = 8
particledensity = 1
particledamping = 0
particlescale = 1
lightingupdatedelta = 0,0001
shadowmodelthreshold = 12
demolishmodelthreshold = 12
rendermodelthreshold = 6
rendermodelthresholdscroll = 40
particlesizethreshold = 300
maxvehiclepct = 1
maxpedpct = 1
opaqueuialphavalue = 0,55

 

[rivit 3,391]

OK thanks, its using the Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics chip as RSC204 suggested. It should be possible to get it to use the NVIDIA card by way of a NVIDIA? settings app wherein you can nominate SC4 to use the Nvidia card by preference. You will know you have succeeded when this log shows that card.

That may fix it straight away, but if not there is still more that can be done to make it run optimally. Could you please show us that log once you've got it using the NVIDIA card.

See too this section - Options  - this tells you what the settings should be in game for this Intel card (which SC4 thinks isn't that powerful). The NVIDIA card should recommend almost all 3s for the important ones.
-------
Visual Effects       current:   3 recommended:   2
Cars/Sims            current:   3 recommended:   2
Shadows              current:   3 recommended:   1
Atmospheric effects  current:   1 recommended:   1
Water effects        current:   1 recommended:   1
Software/Hardware    current:   1 recommended:   1
Cursor               current:   1 recommended:   0
VariableSpeedAutomata current:   1 recommended:   1
Translucent UI       current:   1 recommended:   1
Graphic Detail       current:   3 recommended:   1
Building Load Speed  current:   3 recommended:   1
Texture Quality      current:   3 recommended:   3

[LeCerq 29]

Couldn't find how to switch to the NVIDIA card, so I opted to the solution that works in 90% of computer glitches: reboot. Not the game, but I rendered the map I was using again (Eaton). Everything works fine now.

Thanks anyway!

[kaldokis 11]

On 6/19/2021 at 11:14 AM, LeCerq said:

Couldn't find how to switch to the NVIDIA card, so I opted to the solution that works in 90% of computer glitches: reboot. Not the game, but I rendered the map I was using again (Eaton). Everything works fine now.

Thanks anyway!

On 6/17/2021 at 5:26 PM, LeCerq said:

New computer, SC4 reinstalled (GOG) but I'm getting these unexpected "hatched cars", also happening to the smoke in my power plant.

What could be causing these bugs?

Hi LeCerq, I'm having the exact same issue and I think we got the same computer. I'd really appreciate if you could explain how you "rendered the map". I'm not that technical and don't quite get how you were able to resolve it. Thanks! 

[rsc204 21,806]

4 hours ago, kaldokis said:

I'd really appreciate if you could explain how you "rendered the map"

Simply by reloading the game, but that isn't really a fix, since whatever is at play here is surely some sort of driver issue. In other words, whilst you might get rid of the problem temporarily, it will keep coming back.

Forcing your NVidia card to be used can be tricky on some Optimus setups (where both Intel and NVidia GPUs exist), it should be as simple as setting it in the NVidia Control Panel software, but that has a habit of not actually doing what it's told. If that's the case, you ideally should install dgVoodoo2, which is a separate App that allows for some advanced configuration, including forcing a particular GPU to be used. There are other performance benefits to using your dedicated expensive GPU with SC4, the Intel drivers just aren't that great with legacy games like SC4. All the info on setting dgVoodoo up should be here, but if you get stuck feel free to ask for help.

[kaldokis 11]

On 8/2/2021 at 9:08 PM, rsc204 said:

Simply by reloading the game, but that isn't really a fix, since whatever is at play here is surely some sort of driver issue. In other words, whilst you might get rid of the problem temporarily, it will keep coming back.

Forcing your NVidia card to be used can be tricky on some Optimus setups (where both Intel and NVidia GPUs exist), it should be as simple as setting it in the NVidia Control Panel software, but that has a habit of not actually doing what it's told. If that's the case, you ideally should install dgVoodoo2, which is a separate App that allows for some advanced configuration, including forcing a particular GPU to be used. There are other performance benefits to using your dedicated expensive GPU with SC4, the Intel drivers just aren't that great with legacy games like SC4. All the info on setting dgVoodoo up should be here, but if you get stuck feel free to ask for help.

Soooo, I finally got around to using dgVoodoo2 and it's FANTASTIC! <3 thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction. Not only are all my cities in gorgeous high def. but all the agents, clouds, smoke, waves are crystal clear! It's like a whole new game! 

  Edited August 30, 2021 by kaldokis  
update

[LeCerq 29]

Kaldokis, I'm a total newbie too, so I resorted to the easiest way out. Later on I found out I had done something wrong while rendering the map I was using and so I considered that was the reason behind those glitches. They never happened again since I re-rendered it.

I was under the impression you're not familiar with the map rendering routine, and if that's the case you can find some orientation here in the forum. Since I barely know the basics I won't even try to go further on this matter. Nice folks like rsc204 and others around here can give you the best hints.

 

[kaldokis 11]

@LeCerq, I'm now using dgVoodoo2 and all my graphics issues are finally resolved. My cities are looking gorgeous! Highly recommend. Only thing is if playing from GOG you need to create a separate shortcut on your desktop from your game's Apps folder.