SimCity 4 lag issues

[okelhemin 0]

I installed the deluxe edition off of steam but whenever I play the ga 10.0.0.0.1 me I get extreme lag. I have a windows 8 laptop, with a de 192.168.1.254 dicated graphics card. Anyone have a solution to this?

[rsc204 21,869]

Often with dual-GPU laptops, the dedicated GPU will not be used for SC4, the game was created long before such things became a staple of most laptops. As such, the game will only look at which GPU the system offers, typically an Intel iGPU.

Under Program Files (x86)\Steam you will find the install folder for SC4, open the Apps folder here. Then look for a file MYCOMPUTERNAME-config-log.txt and open it. This will list the last used configuration for SC4, including which videocard is being used. There have always been driver problems with Intel’s GPUs and SC4, which could well explain the performance issues.

There should be an option in NVidia control panel to force the dedicated GPU on a per game basis. Try enabling that for SC4, after running the game check the config log again to verify if the switch has actually worked. If not, then NVidia probably disabled this feature for legacy DirectX games in their driver, an annoying and common problem. If that’s the case, you may need to use a Wrapper to force things, dgVoodoo2 allows you to override the GPU and display to use when running games.

See here for step-by-step instructions for setting up dgVoodoo2 which I posted previously.