Help running SC4 on Windows 11

[Karumaas 0]

Hello, all. I've been trying to get a bunch of older games running on my laptop, and SimCity 4 is simultaneously probably the best-supported and the most annoying to deal with (it's why we love it...)

Anyhoo, every time I load up the game, it gets through the intros and straight to the splash screen, then promptly crashes/closes with no errors or anything else. The logs are very technical (and I have an IT certificate.) I should be able to get this old beast running but something about it all is eluding me...

I have the 4gb patch, NAM, SC4Fix, and SC4GraphicsOptions installed on an otherwise fresh Steam install. It worked flawlessly on my old Windows 10 laptop but it simply refuses to get to the actual "game" part of the game lol. I've even tried switching between my two graphics adapters (onboard graphics and dedicated graphics). I've tried every command line hook I can, every compatibility setting... nothing works.

Has anyone else had this problem? I can provide logs if needed.

System Specs:

ROG Strix Gaming Laptop

Windows 11

12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900H   2.50 GHz

16gb RAM

Nvidia Geforce RTX 3070ti laptop GPU (main graphics card)

Intel Iris Xe Graphics (onboard card)

[Ulisse Wolf 4,405]

You need to follow this guide if you want to corectly configure SC4 on modern hardware

 

[Karumaas 0]

On 4/30/2024 at 6:15 PM, Ulisse Wolf said:

You need to follow this guide if you want to corectly configure SC4 on modern hardware

 

I lucking fove you lmao. This works PERFECTLY. This set of files needs to be at the top of the Google search for real. Thank you muchly.

[Karumaas 0]

Well... this is weird. Game runs perfectly fine now... until I actually start building a city. Even on the smallest map it seems to bug out shortly after a few buildings are built. Sometimes it'll freeze my whole computer, sometimes it'll just crash, but it's always whenever all the interesting stuff starts happening.

[Karumaas 0]

Well... I am dumb. Deleted my entire post because I'm half asleep and on the verge of tears trying to get this to run.

Basically, everything I need to install is installed. I've got the graphics fixes, Voodoo, CPU options, everything. Everything was working splendidly until I actually started building my city. Now it just freezes whenever I load into the game, or whenever I start placing a building or road. It even hard locks the PC so I can't even enter task manager, so I have to do a hard restart.

I'm at a loss. I've been at this continuously for the past five days, and on and off again for months. Everyone has been so helpful so far but I'm still just so tired. Is this game even capable on running on my laptop? Is this a lost cause?

System Specs:
ROG Strix Gaming Laptop
Windows 11
12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900H   2.50 GHz
16GB RAM
NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3070ti laptop GPU (main graphics card)
Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics (onboard card)

As usual, i can post logs if anyone needs the.

[amrdonna77 14]

Have you found a fix ?  I'm at the exact same situation as you. 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,405]

On 02/05/2024 at 9:09 PM, Karumaas said:

Well... I am dumb. Deleted my entire post because I'm half asleep and on the verge of tears trying to get this to run.

Basically, everything I need to install is installed. I've got the graphics fixes, Voodoo, CPU options, everything. Everything was working splendidly until I actually started building my city. Now it just freezes whenever I load into the game, or whenever I start placing a building or road. It even hard locks the PC so I can't even enter task manager, so I have to do a hard restart.

I'm at a loss. I've been at this continuously for the past five days, and on and off again for months. Everyone has been so helpful so far but I'm still just so tired. Is this game even capable on running on my laptop? Is this a lost cause?

System Specs:
ROG Strix Gaming Laptop
Windows 11
12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900H   2.50 GHz
16GB RAM
NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3070ti laptop GPU (main graphics card)
Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics (onboard card)

As usual, i can post logs if anyone needs the.

 

7 minutes ago, amrdonna77 said:

Have you found a fix ?  I'm at the exact same situation as you. 

First download the new dgvoodoo version which is available here

Then since you are using a laptop and therefore have two GPUs (Integrated and Dedicated) you need to access the Nvidia Control Panel and force the use of DgVoodoo and SC4 in using the dedicated GPU. There is currently an Italian-language video tutorial available on how to do this procedure (Please note: This tutorial is outdated as it was made before the DLL era. You just need to follow the part about the NVIDIA Control Panel)

 

[Ken Barbie 3]

Hello. I'm not able to fully understand. Is there already a solution to the problem? Thank you in advance.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,405]

50 minutes ago, Ken Barbie said:

Hello. I'm not able to fully understand. Is there already a solution to the problem? Thank you in advance.

Follow this tutorial

 

[Ken Barbie 3]

thank you very much

[JulianMIA 1,403]

Has anyone else experienced a significant performance reduction running SC4 after the installation of the new Windows 11 24H2 build update that just came out?  The game now will almost not run - grindingly slow with constant stops.  Apparently, this is an update you cannot uninstall so I'm just trying to see how this has affected anyone else? 

[Propfam 2,287]

8 hours ago, JulianMIA said:

Has anyone else experienced a significant performance reduction running SC4 after the installation of the new Windows 11 24H2 build update that just came out?  The game now will almost not run - grindingly slow with constant stops.

Me too, on my bro's laptop. He's using a laptop with 3050 6 gigs and it's a Lenovo LOQ more specifically. It has some issues with the mux switch so when I force the laptop to use the 3050 and set dgvoodoo accordingly, it flies, tho with some unfixable minor stutters.

[Plowmoon 3]

On 2/19/2025 at 5:18 AM, JulianMIA said:

Has anyone else experienced a significant performance reduction running SC4 after the installation of the new Windows 11 24H2 build update that just came out?  The game now will almost not run - grindingly slow with constant stops.  Apparently, this is an update you cannot uninstall so I'm just trying to see how this has affected anyone else? 

I have the same issue. Updated to 24H2 a few days ago, game was running fine and smoothly before. Since the update, the game is still playable but the the performance has massively reduced. The game now randomly freezes, motions have a small delay and especially when building something the game freezes for a second before the action is executed, the music also lags. I am using a Dell Latitude 3540 laptop. The issue is persistent also after restarting and I haven't done any other changes on my system besides the update. Would be very thankful if anyone happens to have some ideas how this could be fixed.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,405]

2 hours ago, Plowmoon said:

I have the same issue. Updated to 24H2 a few days ago, game was running fine and smoothly before. Since the update, the game is still playable but the the performance has massively reduced. The game now randomly freezes, motions have a small delay and especially when building something the game freezes for a second before the action is executed, the music also lags. I am using a Dell Latitude 3540 laptop. The issue is persistent also after restarting and I haven't done any other changes on my system besides the update. Would be very thankful if anyone happens to have some ideas how this could be fixed.

What CPU and GPU do you have?

[Plowmoon 3]

8 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

What CPU and GPU do you have?

Thank you for the quick reply
I have a Intel i5-1335U CPU with integrated Iris Xe GPU. 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,405]

7 hours ago, Plowmoon said:

Thank you for the quick reply
I have a Intel i5-1335U CPU with integrated Iris Xe GPU. 

You have to install a wrapper for you to have compatibility with SC4 and Intel GPUs

Try Dgvoodoo and if it doesn't work then try this wrapper

https://github.com/elishacloud/DirectX-Wrappers

[Plowmoon 3]

On 2/23/2025 at 8:06 PM, Ulisse Wolf said:

You have to install a wrapper for you to have compatibility with SC4 and Intel GPUs

Try Dgvoodoo and if it doesn't work then try this wrapper

https://github.com/elishacloud/DirectX-Wrappers

I am already using Dgvoodoo, before I installed Dgvoodoo as a wrapper the game would'nt even start, I got a CTD directly after the logo. After I installed Dgvoodoo everything was fine and smooth until the 24H2 update. So I believe that the wrapper is still working because even tho the performance is horrible rn, I don't get any CTDs like before I installed a wrapper. The lags also start right in the region view before I even loaded any city so I don't think it is just because my cities are becoming too big and complex (and I am very sure my laptop should be able to handle it anyways if there wasn't any other issue).

[Ulisse Wolf 4,405]

47 minutes ago, Plowmoon said:

I am already using Dgvoodoo, before I installed Dgvoodoo as a wrapper the game would'nt even start, I got a CTD directly after the logo. After I installed Dgvoodoo everything was fine and smooth until the 24H2 update. So I believe that the wrapper is still working because even tho the performance is horrible rn, I don't get any CTDs like before I installed a wrapper. The lags also start right in the region view before I even loaded any city so I don't think it is just because my cities are becoming too big and complex (and I am very sure my laptop should be able to handle it anyways if there wasn't any other issue).

I think the main problem is Intel completely screwing up their drivers as well as removing compatibility with DirectX 9 and earlier versions which makes the game unstable. Considering that dgvoodoo doesn't work very well for the mentioned reasons I suggest you to use this wrapper and uninstall dgvoodoo

https://github.com/elishacloud/DirectX-Wrappers

[Kel9509 1,357]

Jumping into this thread since I'll be needing to build a new PC ASAP....

This is really making me want to hold onto Windows 10 for as long as possible, even on a newer (not-so-top-of-the-line but still decent) build.  And does anyone have any experience with AMD video cards as opposed to nVidia? I've always used nVidia but do the AMD cards work ok for Simcity4, assuming the wrapper is needed?

[Ulisse Wolf 4,405]

10 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Jumping into this thread since I'll be needing to build a new PC ASAP....

This is really making me want to hold onto Windows 10 for as long as possible, even on a newer (not-so-top-of-the-line but still decent) build.  And does anyone have any experience with AMD video cards as opposed to nVidia? I've always used nVidia but do the AMD cards work ok for Simcity4, assuming the wrapper is needed?

AMD support for SC4 is somewhere between Nvidia's good support and Intel's crappy support.

You can install dgvoodoo and similar wrappers but you should configure AMD Adrenalin for SC4 since it doesn't like power saving settings.

There is a tutorial for AMD users to configure AMD Adrenalin but it seems that AMD has modified the software making the guide almost useless

https://www.reddit.com/r/simcity4/comments/1dxj7w4/comment/lc2gfex/

 

[Kel9509 1,357]

2 minutes ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

AMD support for SC4 is somewhere between Nvidia's good support and Intel's crappy support.

Thanks.  Despite AMD being cheaper and available to purchase, I might be forced to get an nVidia merely because it works better with the games I play.  

[Plowmoon 3]

22 hours ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

I think the main problem is Intel completely screwing up their drivers as well as removing compatibility with DirectX 9 and earlier versions which makes the game unstable. Considering that dgvoodoo doesn't work very well for the mentioned reasons I suggest you to use this wrapper and uninstall dgvoodoo

https://github.com/elishacloud/DirectX-Wrappers

Removing Dgvoodoo and using the wrapper you suggested solved the lagging issue. Thank you a lot for your advice!
Unfortunately this solution produced its own problems. Most animated things and automata look sliced up (example in the picture below) and became a real eyesore after I switched wrappers. Is there anything that can be done to fix this?

[Ulisse Wolf 4,405]

9 minutes ago, Plowmoon said:

Removing Dgvoodoo and using the wrapper you suggested solved the lagging issue. Thank you a lot for your advice!
Unfortunately this solution produced its own problems. Most animated things and automata look sliced up (example in the picture below) and became a real eyesore after I switched wrappers. Is there anything that can be done to fix this?

Check the game settings if they are all set to maximum. If they are not then set them to maximum

[Plowmoon 3]

17 minutes ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

Check the game settings if they are all set to maximum. If they are not then set them to maximum

If you mean the in-game settings, they are all set to maximum.

[rsc204 21,806]

16 hours ago, Plowmoon said:

Most animated things and automata look sliced up (example in the picture below) and became a real eyesore after I switched wrappers. Is there anything that can be done to fix this?

There isn't a one-size fits all solution here and the reasons for that get very complex and technical. Essentially SC4 was built using DirectX 7 and relies on certain parts of that in ways most other games did not, which is why compatibility is always a problem with newer machines. Bottom line your modern GPU can't possibly play SC4 without assistance, which is where the Wrappers come in. How well a Wrapper works for you is based on a number of factors like the specific OS, GPU, Drivers that are in use. Ideally every Wrapper would work for all perfectly, but that's not always going to be the case. It's not like there are only two wrappers, there are a myriad of them out there, but each may perform differently on your machine and the only way to know is to try them all out.

However there may not be a perfect solution as you are absolutely reliant on the Wrapper to make it work. Firstly because your GPU is not DirectX 9 compatible, the last version with legacy DX7 support SC4 needs). And secondly Win 11 stripped legacy support for DirectX from the OS entirely, so how well that works is completely reliant on the GPU manufacturer's drivers.

The people who make Wrappers are trying to support the most games/hardware possible, whilst things are constantly changing too. This means updates may resolve issues, especially if such bugs are reported to the developers of the Wrappers. As you've seen, everything was working fine, MS forced an update and things are no longer so fine and everyone else has to catch up as it were, to keep things working.

[Bromman 1]

On 2/28/2025 at 5:00 PM, Ulisse Wolf said:

I think the main problem is Intel completely screwing up their drivers as well as removing compatibility with DirectX 9 and earlier versions which makes the game unstable. Considering that dgvoodoo doesn't work very well for the mentioned reasons I suggest you to use this wrapper and uninstall dgvoodoo

https://github.com/elishacloud/DirectX-Wrappers

Thank you for the link to these alternative wrappers. I am encountering a similar crash on startup on Windows 11. Once I have them downloaded, how do I compile them into a dll file? Do you use Visual Studio to make the file, and then put it in the same folder as Simcity4.exe? I recently got the GOG version of SimCity 4, and I've installed all the recommended Simtropolis performance patches, but I have not been able to get the game to continue past the intro animation. Do you think that the CTD after the title yet before the region screen loads is because of a lack of wrapper, or an issue specific to graphics settings?

Spoiler

 

 

 

DxDiag.txt

[Ulisse Wolf 4,405]

3 minutes ago, Bromman said:

Thank you for the link to these alternative wrappers. I am encountering a similar crash on startup on Windows 11. Once I have them downloaded, how do I compile them into a dll file? Do you use Visual Studio to make the file, and then put it in the same folder as Simcity4.exe? I recently got the GOG version of SimCity 4, and I've installed all the recommended Simtropolis performance patches, but I have not been able to get the game to continue past the intro animation. Do you think that the CTD after the title yet before the region screen loads is because of a lack of wrapper, or an issue specific to graphics settings?

You don't have to compile the dll files because the author makes them available already compiled.

They can be found in the release section which is available here

https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper/releases/tag/v1.2.7500.25

Be sure to install the DLL Dependencies

Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 x86 Redistribute

[Bromman 1]

9 minutes ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

You don't have to compile the dll files because the author makes them available already compiled.

They can be found in the release section which is available here

https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper/releases/tag/v1.2.7500.25

Be sure to install the DLL Dependencies

Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 x86 Redistribute

Thank you for the link. I can tell you're holding a lot together here. I had the Microsoft dependencies working already, so the link led to a repair option, which I completed. This new wrapper didn't solve the crashing after the intro for me, but at least I learned a bit about Github today.

* Are there any other recommended changes before I try reinstallation?

  Edited March 19, 2025 by Bromman  

[Bromman 1]

On 3/19/2025 at 5:44 PM, Bromman said:

Thank you for the link. I can tell you're holding a lot together here. I had the Microsoft dependencies working already, so the link led to a repair option, which I completed. This new wrapper didn't solve the crashing after the intro for me, but at least I learned a bit about Github today.

* Are there any other recommended changes before I try reinstallation?

It looks like reinstalling the game worked for me. I don't know exactly what is different now, but I think that I originally installed or configured DGVoodoo incorrectly, or I did not replace the default graphics DLL. The hardware renders now, so I don't have the artifacts from software rendering.

[Jwoodck 1]

Just purchased my first new computer in over 10 years and really looking forward to getting back into the Sim game. However, I will admit that the amount of information on the forums is quite overwhelming. I had downloaded the program from Steam, EA and GOG. I installed and uninstalled form all three many times which probably caused a lot of my display issues. Either way I was never able to get going. So I uninstalled all three programs, searched my hard drive for anything SimCity and deleted all I could find. Below is my computer setup and looking for the most up to date instructions, best launcher format, I.e. Steam or GOG, etc and any other direction to help out. 
 

Processor

13th Generation Intel® Core™ i9-13950HX vPro® Processor (E-cores up to 4.00 GHz P-cores up to 5.50 GHz)

Operating System

Windows 11 Pro 64

Graphic Card

NVIDIA RTX™ 5000 Ada Generation Laptop GPU 16GB GDDR6

Memory

128 GB DDR5-4000MHz (SODIMM) - (4 x 32 GB)

Storage

4 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 Performance TLC Opal

Display

16" WQUXGA (3840 x 2400), OLED, Anti-Reflection/Anti-Smudge, Dolby Vision™, Touch, HDR 500 True Black, 100%DCI-P3, 400 nits, 60 Hz, Low Blue Light