[Solved] Graphics issue with Clouds / Waves / Demolition Smoke

[Gable Patterson 9]

Hi wonderful folks,

My cloud and wave graphics are looking super odd. Was wondering if anyone has any insight. I just installed the latest NAM on my laptop and everything seems to be running really smooth, but the clouds/waves/building demolition smoke look glitchy. Anyone familiar with this issue?

[Ulisse Wolf 4,426]

Surely you are using rendering software. You need to use Hardware Rendering

Remove all launch parameters and follow this guide

 

[Gable Patterson 9]

@Ulisse Wolf, thanks for these! I downloaded and followed the steps (love not having to watch the intro videos now) but unfortunately am still experiencing the issue. Literally everything seems to be working well except clouds, waves, and demolition smoke. I do have hardware checked on the options menu in game instead of software.

I'm running this on an Acer Nitro 5 laptop if that makes a difference. I don't really understand the difference between integrated and dedicated graphics cards, but I think intel i5 is my integrated card and GEFORCE GTX 1650 is my dedicated card.

[rsc204 21,836]

1 minute ago, Gable Patterson said:

I don't really understand the difference between integrated and dedicated graphics cards, but I think intel i5 is my integrated card and GEFORCE GTX 1650 is my dedicated card.

Most PC tasks don't require a lot of GPU power, so firing up the dedicated one is a waste of power, in fact many PCs get by without an additional dedicated GPU these days. The problem is that whilst the Intel iGPU probably is powerful enough to run SC4, Intel's drivers have always been a bit of a problem. As such, to get rid of this problem, you probably need to force the NVidia GPU to be used when running SC4. If you are using dgVoodoo2 (a Wrapper), it will let you select which GPU to use playing SC4.

The NVidia application in Settings (Control Panel) should have the same setting, sadly dumb design/support means it won't ever let you override this setting because it assumes an old game like SC4 doesn't need the extra power.

[Gable Patterson 9]

23 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Most PC tasks don't require a lot of GPU power, so firing up the dedicated one is a waste of power, in fact many PCs get by without an additional dedicated GPU these days. The problem is that whilst the Intel iGPU probably is powerful enough to run SC4, Intel's drivers have always been a bit of a problem. As such, to get rid of this problem, you probably need to force the NVidia GPU to be used when running SC4. If you are using dgVoodoo2 (a Wrapper), it will let you select which GPU to use playing SC4.

The NVidia application in Settings (Control Panel) should have the same setting, sadly dumb design/support means it won't ever let you override this setting because it assumes an old game like SC4 doesn't need the extra power.

This is fascinating, thanks for the context. I did switch the adaptor to the GPU in dgVoodoo2 but no luck yet. Maybe I did the previous step wrong. Going to check if I made a mistake on the Nvidia GPU fix.

Update: No luck haha 

[rsc204 21,836]

Worst case scenario, you should be able to switch these effects off in the Graphics Settings in-game. Most likely your computer is struggling with some of the archaic functions SC4 relies upon, especially when it comes to semi-transparent effects like this. But usually with an NVidia GPU and dgVoodoo2 the issue is resolved. 

[Gable Patterson 9]

19 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Worst case scenario, you should be able to switch these effects off in the Graphics Settings in-game. Most likely your computer is struggling with some of the archaic functions SC4 relies upon, especially when it comes to semi-transparent effects like this. But usually with an NVidia GPU and dgVoodoo2 the issue is resolved. 

Haha I did wonder about that. Honestly not a terrible call. 

I did notice that I'm not getting the dgVoodoo2 watermark yet even though I checked it. So there must be something I'm doing incorrectly. I noticed that in the NVidia control panel it told me that Windows OS now manages which drive gets selected. So I switched the preferred drive to NVidia on there but still no luck (I assume it ignored me). Maybe it is preventing me from adding dgVoodoo2 to SC4? 

 

[Gable Patterson 9]

I think the issue may be that I copied the files incorrectly into the installation folder. I know this is probably an easy step but since I can't find the watermark on the game I just have to assume it hasn't applied yet. Could somebody spell that part out for me? lol

[Gable Patterson 9]

Guys I did it!! Maybe this is obvious, but I had to drag all the contents of the zipped file directly into the SimCity.exe file. Now everything looks great and I'm so excited!!!

 

Thanks for you help @Ulisse Wolfand @rsc204!

[Gable Patterson 9]

[CorinaMarie 29,771]

3 hours ago, Gable Patterson said:

Guys I did it!!

Woot!!

I didn't have any good advice while you were going thru your trials and tribulations, but I'm glad to hear you've got it all resolved now.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,426]

5 hours ago, Gable Patterson said:

I think the issue may be that I copied the files incorrectly into the installation folder. I know this is probably an easy step but since I can't find the watermark on the game I just have to assume it hasn't applied yet. Could somebody spell that part out for me? lol

Since you are using a laptop you have to force the use of the Dedicated GPU for both SC4 and DgVoodoo. Here is the guide on how to do it although the guide is in Italian (Warning: Do not follow the whole guide since it was made in the period before the DLL Mod.)

 

[Jawamanado 1]

@Gable Patterson I'm experiencing the same graphics issue with clouds/steam. I've downloaded every file from the links @Ulisse Wolf gave in the beginning of this thread and even updated my Intel drivers.

What did you mean by "drag all the contents of the zipped file directly into the SimCity.exe file?" Which .zip file?

Thanks!

[Ulisse Wolf 4,426]

1 hour ago, Jawamanado said:

What did you mean by "drag all the contents of the zipped file directly into the SimCity.exe file?" Which .zip file?

Follow this tutorial

 

[Jawamanado 1]

@Ulisse Wolf HOLY COW! This video helped not only realize I was copying all of the mods/files into a totally different folder, but that the video was just a great tutorial.

My graphics issue with clouds/steam/waves is fixed!

Thank you so much!

[rsc204 21,836]

On 10/02/2025 at 6:54 PM, Jawamanado said:

What did you mean by "drag all the contents of the zipped file directly into the SimCity.exe file?" Which .zip file?

It is important that you install (copy) the downloaded wrapper into the correct folder, otherwise the game won’t use it. That location is the same folder where the SimCity 4.exe resides. Specifics in this post: