[SOLVED] SC4 laggy / stuttering on Linux with Bottles

[Han Solo 34]

tl;dr: If you're having performance issue when running SimCity 4 in a Bottle, try changing the Runner to something other than soda.

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I've just recently had to install SC4 from scratch on a new Debian Linux PC. My installation method of choice was installing the GoG version of the game, using a Bottles "Bottle" which was created using the "Gaming" preset. After installing the game, I configured the resolution and colour depth using command line arguments, and installed the latest version of dgVoodoo2. Other than that, I also installed NAM and CAM but the game is otherwise stock.

When playing the game and using right click and drag to move the camera, the game was intially slow to repond and then, when trying to move the camera for a second time, the game would not respond at all. Subsequent attempts would result in the camera either moving a very small amount or moving the desired amount... or not moving at all. It seamed to vary according to when I attempted to move the camera. It was also more severe at higher zoom levels. Clicking on UI elements was much the same story. Sometimes nothing would happen when clicking on a menu item or the exit button.

I tried making various changes to the dgVoodoo2 config. I also tried following @MegaMiku's instructions for gettting dgVoodoo2 working on Linux. I thought I'd found the cause of my issues when I saw that DDraw.dll was not present at all in my WineCFG's Libraries menu (there is a ddrawex entry though).

The next thing I tried turned out the be the fix I was looking for...

I selected the SimCity 4 Bottle. Then under the Options section, I clicked "Settings" and in the "Components" section, I changed the Runner from Soda-9.0.1 to sys-wine-11.0. The change takes seconds and seams to have resolved my performance issues. So my advice to any fellow Linux and Bottles user is, before trying any other more involved or time consuming fixes, try just changing your Runner first.

[MegaMiku 21]

Glad you were able to figure it out in the end! I should mention that the ddraw.dll option doesn't show up in the library menu, but the dll is actually there in the wine libraries, its just not listed adding in the ddraw.dll entry manually will override WINE's own ddraw.dll and get dgVoodoo 2 to run.  

[Lab Rat 15]

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