I'm back! (Maybe)

[Tubthumper 499]

Well, all good things must come to an end...

My laptop I had that I was building my region (Tri-Counties) took a major crap and is no more.  Luckily, I was able to get a relatively inexpensive laptop, but it had no OS.  So being the cheapskate I am, and my refusal to give MicroSucks any of my money, I installed Ubuntu onto the machine and got it running - and it runs nicely.  Now, onto getting SC4 installed and hopefully get some addons.

Now I come to this beautiful community. Any tips on how to get SC4 to run on Ubuntu?  I have the .exe file saved from GoG and have Ubuntu (22.04).  I have some experience with Linux, but nowhere near an expert. So, does anyone have any tips to getting SC4 to run on Ubuntu - and most importantly how to get NAM to work as well? Also, if I understand correctly-all other addons should work the same way as with a WIN based install?  TIA and hopefully I can get a region started up again...but sadly I won't be able to continue with Tri-counties as it was lost in the great crash of 2022

[TheMurderousCricket 5,042]

Good to hear you are back. Indeed, I have noticed you've been missing from the forums.

What was this "crap" you mention anyway? A mechanical fault? A virus? Perhaps you could simply get the hard drive to a data recovery shop and get your files back?

[Tubthumper 499]

It was a mechanical crap...the magic smoke in the tubes was let out and once that magic smoke is out no way to get it back in

[Tubthumper 499]

Okay - update on the process...small baby steps here, and hopefully a Linux person can help me out...

I have SC4 running through POL and using Wine 5.0 - however, the virtual desktop is set at a custom resolution of 1920x1080 - which is my computers resolution.  I know how to get SC4 to go to that resolution on MS, but how do I configure it on Linux to run full screen at 1920x1080?  Small victories right now - it is working vanilla - just trying to get vanilla set up nicely right now.  This is what I am talking about. - would like to get this to full screen instead of that part of my desktop showing up.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

"I'M BACK! (Maybe) Well, all good things must come to an end... "

Was wondering why I hadn't had a hankering for a Whopper in a while!

[Ulisse Wolf 4,398]

4 hours ago, Tubthumper said:

Okay - update on the process...small baby steps here, and hopefully a Linux person can help me out...

I have SC4 running through POL and using Wine 5.0 - however, the virtual desktop is set at a custom resolution of 1920x1080 - which is my computers resolution.  I know how to get SC4 to go to that resolution on MS, but how do I configure it on Linux to run full screen at 1920x1080?  Small victories right now - it is working vanilla - just trying to get vanilla set up nicely right now.  This is what I am talking about. - would like to get this to full screen instead of that part of my desktop showing up.

 

 

[Tubthumper 499]

39 minutes ago, ulisse said:

 

 

I saw that - but my newbie Linux self has no idea what "use a command script to start your game and make use of the command line options.  Here is a copy of my script from my ~/bin directory:

#!/bin/bash

date

env WINEPREFIX="/home/john/.wine" \

wine "C:/Program Files/Maxis/SimCity 4 Deluxe/Apps/SimCity 4.exe" \

 -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -d:directx \

 -CPUCount:1 -f &>~/sc4.log

date"

Even means or how to do that...

 

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

Sorry to hear about the computer issues you've had, but I'm glad to hear you're willing to return to the game again. Sometimes it could be seen as a fresh start, and a way to develop upon what you succeeded from your previous setup. Maybe even find ways to build up from there to shape your Plugins more as you aspire them to be. It's quite aptly how @A Nonny Moose provided the answer in the linked topic, as I remember he used to mention about starting over can actually become a blessing in disguise.

Although I'm not (yet) a Linux user here, the "command line options" referred to are what instruct SC4 to start in certain ways.

The list here has an overview of these.

So how you've got this part:

Quote

-intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -d:directx -CPUCount:1 -f

 

It's the same concept as on Windows. This would then tell the game to use a custom resolution. The -f is for full screen, and it makes me wonder whether -w for windowed mode might be needed inside a virtual desktop. I'm unsure about that however, but I believe you're on the right track using a Linux startup script.

The trick will be how to execute it, and also there might be some permissions needed to grant for the script.

Also with this part which is what Nonny posted:
WINEPREFIX="/home/john/.wine"

You'll want to change that to match your username on your Ubuntu system.

I did find a few topics which might be of help additionally:

 

Then also:

How to Run SC4 in Linux

SimCity 4 for Linux

Hopefully some of this info might lead to the solution for you.

Otherwise we might need to seek the advice of @catty-cb and @Handyman who I know have succeeded in running the game on Linux.

[Tubthumper 499]

Thanks - I have looked at other topics I could find - so many of them were for Steam edition or older builds of Ubuntu and/or Wine (which, to be honest I am still dang confused as to *what* exactly wine is...or Linux for that matter!).  Luckily, not a lot has been put onto my Linux system yet - so if I royally screw things up I can always just wipe and restart. 

I will have to check out that process you linked to GoG...maybe I will have luck there.

And yes, a fresh start is nice if a bit annoying. Just trying to hunt down the *must haves* that create a stable game, then can add the ete candy as needed.

[deezedgod 177]

Linux user here (although I use Steam to play the game).

What is WINE? EXE files, like the original SC4 game, can only be played on Windows. What WINE does is it sort of "translates" all of the Windows commands behind-the-scenes to Linux so you can play on Linux. If you use PlayOnLinux (POL), it's running WINE under the hood.

@A Nonny Moose's script should work well enough. All it's doing is getting the location of WINE, then using WINE to run SC4 with a few options passed in.

First, open up a Terminal (don't worry, it isn't that scary) and run echo $WINEPREFIX. Then, open a text editor, paste the script inside, and replace the /home/john/.wine in Nonny's script with what you get from echo $WINEPREFIX. Save the file in your Home directory called something like "simcitylaunch.sh".

Finally, run this command from the Terminal: chmod +x simcitylaunch.sh. This will allow you to actually run the script you've just made. After that, you should be able to double-click on the script to run it...but if that doesn't work, try running ./simcitylaunch.sh from the Terminal.

Hope that helps! Linux takes a little while to wrap your head around, but I've never regretted learning it.

[catty-cb 4,381]

13 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Otherwise we might need to seek the advice of @catty-cb and @Handyman who I know have succeeded in running the game on Linux.

I'm using Linux Mint which is based on Ubuntu, but as I had SimCity4 on Steam in "Steam Play" you can set it to run any windows games you have to run in Linux and Steam takes care of all the fiddly bits including where to add the screen resolution settings

Steam Play Screen

SimCity 4 settings in Steam

As for NAM that should be fairly easy as there is now a Linux installer for NAM 45, thru I'm still using a previous version of NAM so have yet to try it out