CoriBoom Please Help - Game Locale and Language Check

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

SC4 Global Locale Inquiry

 

Request for Quick Game Test

 

The future of our MZ City Halls Panel (and others) are in your hands!  

 

Background

While working on stuff for ModPacc Zero, we've learned that our extended data display query panels need to be aware of the player's local language because that determines how numbers should be formatted. (Thanks to @TheMurderousCricket for testing our 1st Beta - All 3 City Halls Fixes + 1 for ModPacc Zero where this need was discovered.)

How You Can Help

We've created a special ploppable lot which will show the information we need to know per language. Please download the file attached at the end of this post, plop it in your game, take a screenshot, and post that here. Then also, please reply with what Operating System your comp uses, the language you have your comp set to, and the language you use when running the game.

We have tested by setting the game to every language it supports, but a key question is if the returned info is always the same or if it changes based on the OS's language or not. So, for instance, will it return Portuguese_Brazil.1252 as we see it or Português_Brasil.1252 as we suspect? We need to know because our code will look for an exact text match to determine how to proceed.

Note: If the locale name contains any special characters (those above ASCII 127) that part will get truncated which is why our panel also shows the byte values of the complete text string.

 

Languages to Test With

The following are ones we need to know listed in the hex code order the game uses. We'll edit this post to indicate which have been done.

• 0x01 - English (US) - Done  
• 0x02 - French - Done  
• 0x03 - German - Done  
• 0x04 - Italian - Done  
• 0x05 - Spanish - Done  
• 0x06 - Swedish
• 0x07 - Finnish
• 0x08 - Dutch
• 0x09 - Danish
• 0x0A - Portuguese - Done  
• 0x0E - Japanese
• 0x0F - Korean
• 0x11 - Chinese (Simplified)
• 0x12 - Chinese (Traditional)
• 0x13 - English (UK) - Done  
• 0x14 - Polish - Done  
• 0x15 - Thai
• 0x16 - Norwegian

 

What to Report in Your Post

1. Computer Operating System used
2. Language used by your comp
3. Language used by SimCity 4
4. A screenshot of our Query panel (after plopping the lot)

 

Samples

Here's mine for US English:

 

And CB's for UK English:

 

Once you install our file in your plugins, it will appear at or near the top of the Rewards Menu. Simply plop it and the Query it.

 

Thanks in advance.

-Cori & CB

 

The File to Download:
MZ - os.locale Display Info Lot - v1.0.dat
 

[gwada971 1,891]

@CorinaMarie  and @Cyclone Boom  Parallels Virtual Machine Windows XP SP3 - Language used by the computer: French - Language SimCty 4: French

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

CoriBoom...

My only concern is that the language settings alone may not be the element which decides how the numbers are displayed.

Bear in mind that in my initial test I received a correct number representation without changing either the software or the OS language settings...

I'm glad you didn't give up on this project. Keep trying and do your best. Of course, you can always count on our help. Just take your time. 

P.S.: I volunteer to check Polish on XP and 8.1 (10 maybe if crazy enough?) but I need you to tell me how I can change the game's language. Do I need to reinstall the game to pick a new language? I hope not...

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

11 hours ago, gwada971 said:

@CorinaMarie  and @Cyclone Boom  Parallels Virtual Machine Windows XP SP3 - Language used by the computer: French - Language SimCty 4: French

That's perfect. Thank you so much for testing! We really appreciate it and is precisely what we're looking for.

 

2 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

My only concern is that the language settings alone may not be the element which decides how the numbers are displayed.

We wondered that too, but then our tests indicated that the game language does indeed affect how the numbers are formatted.

Here's the data we gathered in a spreadsheet:

 

2 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Bear in mind that in my initial test I received a correct number representation without changing either the software or the OS language settings...

Yes, that's true. Although for most people, they're less likely to change OS settings to English format for how numbers are displayed.

 

2 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

P.S.: I volunteer to check Polish on XP and 8.1 (10 maybe if crazy enough?)

Sounds great, and that'll help us very much too!

Basically, we are looking for comps where the OS language and the game language are the same. If possible to test on more than one computer that'll add extra assurance, though it probably doesn't make any difference for which OS. Our aim with this testing is to definitively determine the language codes the game defines. Then in the Lua code we'll add conditional checks for this, so then each gets formatted for the data panel accordingly. We will build in a fallback too, but ideally that isn't necessary. By a fallback, this would revert to the English format should another locale (language) not be detected.

So basically (borrowing a phrase Cori likes to use), there's no need to jump through a lot of hoops with this.

 

2 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I'm glad you didn't give up on this project. Keep trying and do your best. Of course, you can always count on our help. Just take your time. 

Thanks!  We're glad too, and do greatly value the support and encouragement (and testing) from you and others.

 

2 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I need you to tell me how I can change the game's language. Do I need to reinstall the game to pick a new language? I hope not...

Rest assured, there's absolutely no need to reinstall the game at all. (And we specifically don't encourage this, unless having a spare comp.)

There seems to be 3 ways:

1. Automatic language detection via one's computer system settings.
    
2. Using the -l:<Locale> command line startup switch. Replace <Locale> with a supported language. Polish would be:  -l:Polish
   Note: From our testing, not all are supported however using this method.
    
3. Editing in the registry, but not recommended unless you are confident in there. (This is what we did for our own testing.)

Ideally since most people would not change from their system language, this is going to be the most common scenario. Of course, we invite you (and anyone) to post the info we've requested however it's obtained.

[rsc204 21,808]

Win7 German:

Win10 German:

Doesn't look like the OS affects things. What happens then if we use the UK English Regional settings in Windows, but keep the German version of SimCity 4? You get an identical screenshot (how many such shots should I upload?). Conversely if you keep the OS as German, but use the English setup for SC4, again you get the same results as above.

I was using Location, which doesn't seem to affect things, but Formats do, see update below.

Hope this helps, happy to check things if need be.

Update, so I can invoke the change from UK English to German, seemingly not controlled by the game-language, but by setting the "Formats" in Region and Language:

Everything else including the OS Language (UK English) and the language for SimCity 4 (US or UK) is set to English. Yet, I get the os.locale() Text = German_Germany.1252 with this setup. If I change the Formats to UK English, but switch the game to German, once more my UK settings appear. When I saw using US English for SC4 kept my UK setup, I realised the game isn't controlling this after all.

So formats changed to Polish, but still running English OS/Game:

So I'm pretty sure that's found the roots of how this is controlled.

[rsc204 21,808]

33 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

So formats changed to Polish, but still running English OS/Game:

However, if I run the game in Polish, now regardless of the Windows formats, it's Polish, so maybe there is more than one thing at play here?

Just to add to the mix, running the game in English (US), keeps the UK setup from Formats. If I change the Formats (windows) to US English, then I get US English in-game.

So in some cases the language used (by SC4) seems to invoke the change, but in others it requires changes to Windows' Region and Language setup to do so?, seems much more complex than at first glance.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

@rsc204

Thanks for doing multiple tests.

The key thing we are learning is that the return text string matches what we see when we changed the game language to German. (In other words it doesn't have deutsches or Deutschland in it.) This makes sense as it would complicate the programming everywhere if relying on this check and that did change too.

 

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

So in some cases the language used (by SC4) seems to invoke the change, but in others it requires changes to Windows' Region and Language setup to do so?, seems much more complex than at first glance.

Based on your experiments, I did several new tests and there does seem to be certain combinations of changes which give different results.

• Any change that will affect the os.locale text string in the game requires completely quitting the game and re-launching it.
• Overriding the game language via a command line parameter takes precedence over the Region and Language Format setting.
• Overriding the game language via a registry edit also takes precedence over the Region and Language Format setting.
• Changing the Region and Language Format setting will override only when the game language via the registry matches the OS language.

I believe for the other languages we still need to know, it'll prolly be most informative when tested how one naturally uses their comp without needing to make any changes to the OS language, Game language, or the Windoze settings for date and numeric formats.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

@gwada971

What is the real digit grouping for large numbers for you? When I set my game to French I see this:

Does that match your game? The thousands separator as a dot?

The reason I ask is in when I change the numeric format to French (France) in Windoze it shows the digit group separator should be a space. Which is correct? And if the space is really the correct way, but the game insists on using the dot, would it be better for our detailed data panels to show it wrong with the dot to be consistent with the rest of the game?

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

7 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Using the -l:<Locale> command line startup switch. Replace <Locale> with a supported language. Polish would be:  -l:Polish

I checked it and the game still launches in English.

Are we sure that SC4 has even been translated into Polish...?  Or is it just a placeholder?

Oh come on guys! Don't you know there is a "language setup" .exe in the GOG version? You need to do better next time. 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

10 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Are we sure that SC4 has even been translated into Polish...?  Or is it just a placeholder?

When I use that parameter, I see this in the game:

 

I'm certain that's not English.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

4 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

When I use that parameter, I see this in the game:

 

I'm certain that's not English.

Oddly, I did not.  But the .exe helped.

I'll capture a test lot screenshot in a moment.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

I thought this is going to be fun and informative. But nooOOOooo! You just had to make that lot payable!  

Here are your results. Also, see anything familiar in this pic? 

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

You just had to make that lot payable!  

We set the high cost of §1 to plop it just to annoy you.   And it'll cost you §1 per month to keep it or §1 to bulldoze. Prolly better exit without saving to avoid the financial hit.

 

5 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Here are your results.

Thanks for testing.

 

6 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Also, see anything familiar in this pic?

Indeed. There is a Village Hall plopped.

[AOM1550 27]

hi :3

look

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

I'm gonna mention @Raymond7cn here, coz I reckon he will probably help with the Chinese end of things next time he turns up.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

10 minutes ago, aom1550 said:

hi :3

look

Thanks!

Can we assume both your computer operating system and the game are set to Spanish? (Seems evident from the pic, but we just want to be certain.)

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

OS: Windows 10 

OS Language: Italian

SC4 Language: Italian

 

 

[gwada971 1,891]

@CorinaMarie  Hi, sorry for the delay!

[AOM1550 27]

6 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Thanks!

Can we assume both your computer operating system and the game are set to Spanish? (Seems evident from the pic, but we just want to be certain.)

yes,

OS: Win10 Spanish, Chile, LatinAmerican

[rsc204 21,808]

12 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Oh come on guys! Don't you know there is a "language setup" .exe in the GOG version? You need to do better next time. 

It is not sufficient just to alter the registry or the command line to change languages, you also must have the equivalent language folder present, inside of which there needs to be a SimCityLocale.dat file. Interestingly, whilst it is this file that contains the actually localised files, you can use any combination of Language folder/Locale files. For example you could have a folder German here, but inside it use the US English SimCityLocale.dat file, the game would then be in "German" mode, but all text would remain in English.

Only GoG to my knowledge have included such a utility to alter the language, although the original disk versions offered these options during install. But Steam & Origin editions tend to be US English only, the same is true of the Mac version, on a Mac there is no way to invoke another language that I am aware of either.

13 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

it'll prolly be most informative when tested how one naturally uses their comp without needing to make any changes to the OS language, Game language, or the Windoze settings for date and numeric formats.

It shouldn't make any difference if this is the user's normal Windows setup or if they changed it. Since Windows 7, although for Win7 only the Ultimate edition, Windows can change languages on the fly by downloading the relevant data. If you compare that to Vista and earlier, where you needed a special language copy of Windows and to change it you'd need to clean install a new OS, things are much easier these days. But the key point is that a German version of Windows say, is identical to the English one, just with a different language pack installed.

Likewise, nothing from the game install, determines the language setup used in-game, it all comes from the registry/invoking the command line option. The registry is how both the original disks and GoG's Language Setup program handle things. I know this because the default GoG install is US English (RHD), but I need UK English (LHD). My installers read these language values from the Registry and use them to determine if RHD or LHD is the "Installed" option. Without running the Language Setup, my system still shows as US English (RHD), when my installers are run, even if the game itself is being played in UK English (LHD). The point being the language that's in-use doesn't have to match the setup of the registry.

What I think is more important here, does the game simply support only those regional options that the game supports? What happens if Windows is using a language not supported by SC4?, of course the Locale file will probably still be English, i.e. you see English text and the game is running in 'English' mode, but does this alter the formats of the numbers? If you can be sure formatting only changes for supported languages, you can use offset LTexts to handle localised variants. Hopefully then most peoples needs could be covered by just a handful of the most common formats.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

10 hours ago, rsc204 said:

If you can be sure formatting only changes for supported languages, you can use offset LTexts to handle localised variants. Hopefully then most peoples needs could be covered by just a handful of the most common formats.

By changing the date and numeric Format in Windoze (as you showed in a prior post) we can see the game's Lua return any of them as the locale text string. We'll code how we handle that for all the supported game languages and then if there is no match we'll use the English numbers format. Should anyone report they have a preference for the numeric format, that can be handled on a case by case basis with three short lines of code and we send them a customized version or an override patch for that particular function.

We won't be converting LText files as we are creating a US English version only. Ofc, we welcome anyone to create versions for other languages if they want to. The point of the ModPacc Zero is to fix the bugs of the vanilla game while tossing in some enhancements like CB's extended data display UIs.

[carlosmarcelo 975]

Hi, @CorinaMarie! It took me a while, but I came to pass on my information. 

Test environment
OS Win10 full updated: PT-BR
OS Regional Language: PT-BR
SC4 GOG offline installation version full updated
SC4 Language: PT-BR (*)
I used the game's language change tool that comes with GOG
ZERO plugins

(*) Actually the GOG language tool only presents one option "PORTUGUESE", without distinction of being from Brazil or not, but I believe that this does not influence the decimal and thousands separators.

Follow the image requested below. 

Out of curiosity, I did the same language combinations between SO and SC4 and the results were the same as I reported here.

Attached is the zip file with the 4 images.

Hope this helps. 

 

caso modpacczero cityhalls decimais ptbr query language.zip

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

3 hours ago, carlosmarcelo said:

Attached is the zip file with the 4 images.

Got the pics.

 

3 hours ago, carlosmarcelo said:

Hope this helps. 

Indeed it does.

 

We are certain now that the text strings returned are exactly the same as we've seen in our own tests. This is a really good thing. Thanks to everyone for helping. It gives us the confidence to know we can check these and the local computer's language will not alter what y'all see in the later beta version of the updated detailed City Hall data panel.

[EstEarth202 2]

Hi, I'm playing SimCity 4 in Thai language. I would like to know if help on this topic is still ongoing?

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

Hi @EstEarth202. As you can see in the initial post, help with Thai language is appreciated. However, the authors behind this projects are currently less active than they were before, so you'll probably have to wait a little before you receive any files / text.

@Cyclone Boom, will probably be the one to respond first as Cori is currently on a hiatus.

[Null 45 3,041]

For reference, here is what the game's number formatting code does for each of its supported languages. Interestingly, there are quite a few languages (Portuguese, Greek, etc.) that the game's code can't print negative numbers for, it just returns an empty string in those cases (marked as <Unimplemented> in the list below). Not sure why that is, perhaps the translations were not the only things that Maxis didn't finish.

Spoiler

English: DirName=English Positive=1,000,000 Negative=-1,000,000 Money=$1,000,000 CodePage=1252
UK English: DirName=UKEnglsh Positive=1,000,000 Negative=-1,000,000 Money=$1,000,000 CodePage=1252
French: DirName=French Positive=1.000.000 Negative=-1.000.000 Money=1.000.000 $ CodePage=1252
German: DirName=German Positive=1.000.000 Negative=-1.000.000 Money=1.000.000 $ CodePage=1252
Italian: DirName=Italian Positive=1.000.000 Negative=-1.000.000 Money=$ 1.000.000 CodePage=1252
Spanish: DirName=Spanish Positive=1.000.000 Negative=-1.000.000 Money=1.000.000 $ CodePage=1252
Dutch: DirName=Dutch Positive=1.000.000 Negative=-1.000.000 Money=$ 1.000.000 CodePage=1252
Danish: DirName=Danish Positive=1.000.000 Negative=-1.000.000 Money=$ 1.000.000 CodePage=1252
Swedish: DirName=Swedish Positive=1.000.000 Negative=-1.000.000 Money=1.000.000 $ CodePage=1252
Norwegian: DirName=Norwgian Positive=1 000 000 Negative=-1 000 000 Money=$1 000 000 CodePage=1252
Finnish: DirName=Finnish Positive=1 000 000 Negative=1 000 000- Money=1 000 000 $ CodePage=1252
Hebrew: DirName=Hebrew Positive=1,000,000 Negative=-1,000,000 Money=$1,000,000 CodePage=1255
Russian: DirName=Russian Positive=1.000.000 Negative=-1.000.000 Money=1.000.000 $ CodePage=1250
Portuguese: DirName=Portuges Positive=1.000.000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1.000.000 $ CodePage=1252
Japanese: DirName=Japanese Positive=1,000,000 Negative=-1,000,000 Money=$1,000,000 CodePage=932
Polish: DirName=Polish Positive=1 000 000 Negative=-1 000 000 Money=1 000 000 $ CodePage=1250
Simplified Chinese: DirName=SChinese Positive=1,000,000 Negative=-1,000,000 Money=$1,000,000 CodePage=936
Traditional Chinese: DirName=TChinese Positive=1,000,000 Negative=-1,000,000 Money=$1,000,000 CodePage=950
Thai: DirName=Thai Positive=1,000,000 Negative=-1,000,000 Money=$1,000,000 CodePage=874
Korean: DirName=Korean Positive=1,000,000 Negative=-1,000,000 Money=$1,000,000 CodePage=949
Hindi: DirName=Hindi Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Arabic: DirName=Arabic Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1256
Bulgarian: DirName=Blgarian Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1251
Cyrillic: DirName=Cyrillic Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1251
Ukranian: DirName=Ukranian Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Czech: DirName=Czech Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1250
Greek: DirName=Greek Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1253
Hungarian: DirName=Hngarian Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Icelandic: DirName=Icelandc Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Romanian: DirName=Romanian Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Latin: DirName=Latin Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Slovak: DirName=Slovak Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1250
Albanian: DirName=Albanian Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1250
Turkish: DirName=Turkish Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=$ 1,000,000 CodePage=1254
Brazilian Portuguese: DirName=Portgese Positive=1.000.000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=$ 1.000.000 CodePage=1252
Swiss French: DirName=SFrench Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Canadian French: DirName=CFrench Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Belgian French: DirName=BFrench Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Swiss German: DirName=SGerman Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Swiss Italian: DirName=SItalian Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Belgian Dutch: DirName=BDutch Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Mexican Spanish: DirName=MSpanish Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Tagalog: DirName=Tagalog Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252
Vietnamese: DirName=Vietnmse Positive=1,000,000 Negative=<Unimplemented> Money=1,000,000 $ CodePage=1252

 

DirName is the name of the directory that contains SimCityLocale.dat. CodePage is the Windows Code Page that the game is using for that language.

[pikachu_SQ 939]

1. Windows 11
2. Korean
3. Korean (* I assume that SimCityLocale.dat come from Deluxe Disc copy. Steam, GOG and EA don't have Korean translataion.)