DirectX crashes on startup, do I have to use a Wrapper? (Win7, Nvidia RTX)

[tavernfly 0]

Was feeling nostalgic and purchased SC4 on Steam recently, but I cannot get it to load using DirectX on my system.
Game tries to start, screen goes black, and a second later crashes to Desktop.

I've tried running the game with OpenGL, and successfully made it to Region View with no issues, leading me to believe the crash is a DirectX problem.
(I don't know much about OpenGL, but it can't display the game properly for me once a city tile is loaded. Get extreme game-breaking graphical issues beyond trailing/tearing.)

System Info:
- Windows 7 Professional
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (16Gb VRAM, latest drivers)
- Intel Core i7-8700K
- 32Gb RAM

Game Info:
- SimCity 4 Deluxe purchased through Steam
- NAM 42 with 4GB patch installed
- Launch options I'm currently attempting to run the game with:

Quote

-CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -intro:off -d:DirectX -CPUPriority:high -CPUCount:1

I was going to try following the steps in this post: "How to configure SC4 to work with your new hardware", but it seems NVIDIA GeForce is already on the "Fast card" list in Graphics Rules.sgr (although it's written as "NVidia Geforce," dunno if that's case sensitive) ...and I was unable to find a hex code (like "0x9442") for my GPU under System Information or Properties, to add to the Video Cards.sgr list.

At this point, is there anything else I can try besides using a Wrapper?
EDIT: Still crashing on startup the same way with DDrawCompat installed (tried multiple versions, installed correctly to the Apps folder)... Also tried trimming down launch options to just -CPUCount:1 and -intro:off... I'm at a loss, at this point.

[rsc204 21,869]

13 hours ago, tavernfly said:

I don't know much about OpenGL, but it can't display the game properly for me once a city tile is loaded.

The OpenGL renderer was not really finished, as such it typically causes problems, although apparently some have made it work. To run SC4 at it's best, you really need to get DirectX working and I suspect you will need a Wrapper, it seems most of the modern NVidia cards/drivers have removed some support for legacy DirectX functions that are imperative for SC4 to run.

Note that changing the Graphics Rules/Video Card files will not fix anything, this just ensures the card is detected so the game uses the correct settings with it. You are right that most NVidia cards get correctly detected without any need for editing them, to see what SC4 has found, check the MYCOMPUTERNAME-config-log.txt file in the install dir for SC4/Apps folder. In fact if you could post that file as an attachment, it might provide some valuable diagnostic information.

It does seem like you've been troubleshooting all the usual suspects, although I would keep your Plugins folder empty, just move the existing one somewhere safe for now. Keeping that out of the equation whilst troubleshooting your current issue, will prevent it affecting the results you are seeing.

That you got things running in OpenGL mode, I suspect software (-d:software) would work too, pretty much rules out most issues and points squarely at your graphics card. A combination of hardware, drivers and WDDM functions determine which modes it can support. I'm a little surprised to see your system runs Win7, given how new it is and I wouldn't rule that out as a potential issue. But if the wrapper is not helping, I'd start by trying another, they all work differently under the hood, maybe another plays better with your setup. Otherwise I might try to find older drivers for your GPU, you might find that helps for SC4, but might come with performance penalties for other apps you use. But otherwise I don't really know of anything else to suggest that you've yet to try.