minimizing game window

[stirfryyou 0]

Hello,

Is there any way to minimize the game so you can use other programs while playing SC4? I can't find any keyboard shortcuts or anything for that, but it seems like it should be possible....

[MrCinatit 30]

howdy, jenny, welcome to Simtropolis.

you can minimalize SimCity4 by hitting your Alt + Tab keys at the same time.

a word of warning, though - SimCity is a RAM hog, and your system might lag a bit running any other programs with the game in the background.

[Oakenshield 1]

Date: 1/4/2005 8:10:10 AM
Author: MrCinatit

you can minimalize SimCity4 by hitting your 'Alt' + 'Tab' keys at the same time.

[MrCinatit 30]

oops. maybe i should take a look at the forum header before making a reply, eh?

[stirfryyou 0]

I know alt+tab works on a PC, but I can't figure out how to do it on a Mac. I tried option+tab but that didn't work either.

[negative352 1]

As you open up SC4, hold down Option and it should open up an options menu. You can make it so SC4 is a Window and when you play the game, the toolbar will be there. You can go to File and Hide Sim City 4 to minimize it. It's a pain when you want to scroll, but that's the way to do it.

[stirfryyou 0]

okay, i did what you said and a box pops up with the title configure sim city 4. it gives you the options to change the resolution, show intro movies, and use 32-bit-Z-buffer. a toolbar at the top also opens up. but when i click ok on the pop up box and the game starts, the toolbar disappears and the game become full screen. as far as i can tell there is no other way to start playing from that screen without the game becoming full screen again.

any ideas?

[chipersboy03 0]

unfortunately, i don't think you can minimize the window in the mac version of SC4 vanilla, I wasn't able to until i got rush hour. if/when you get rush hour, its the option key on startup.

[seas123 0]

here is a good suggestion for all u MAC users out there..use Windows instead..MACS are good for internet but not for big games like Simcity 4 and The Sims 2

[Kakaze 0]

First off it's Mac not MAC.

Second, why do you expect people to go out and buy a completely new system to play a game that works perfectly fine on the one they have already?

You have a brain

[carloscain 0]

Works just fine on my mac... and mine is 3 years old!

[carloscain 0]

If you are using sc4 vanilla if you will. There is a way to enable window mode by editing some code. I can't remeber where I found it though. Just do a google search maybe. sorry I can't be of more help.

[kbooms1w 1]

I THINK this will change the game from full screen mode to a window:

Go to Library/Preferences and find com.aspyr.simcity4.plist

Open that file with text edit, you will see a bunch of lines of code.

Find:

[key]fullscreen-mode[/key]
[string]1[/string]

and change the 1 to 0

Save the file and open the game.

I MAKE NO GUARANTEES THIS WILL WORK, SO TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK, but I'm pretty sure I did it once before...

[ajteshin 0]

there isn't anything called com.aspyr in the library/preferences file. This is not a solution. Gosh, I 'm so disappointed I bought this game in 2003 but my g3 couldn't handle it...just bought a brand new g5, and it still won't work properly.

There's no remedy for getting the window minimized yet.

[Vast_Deathmaster 0]

Date: 10/23/2005 5:39:29 AM
Author: ajteshin
there isn't anything called com.aspyr in the library/preferences file. This is not a solution. Gosh, I 'm

quote>

Under user\library\preferences, there is a plist that starts with com.aspyr

(I'm using the plain vanilla SC4)

However there is one more change that needs to be made before you can minimize (I had this in a previous post in a previous topic)


[key]window-mode[/key]
[string]1[/string]
Don't forget to set Fullscreen to 0 and window-mode to 1
Once I did that I was able to minimize the game. Mind you I didn't try opening Photoshop and iTunes with it in that state

But in this way, you can minimize SC4

[ajteshin 0]

OK. I was able to navigate to this area in preferences...but...all I got was this:

bplist00

[Vast_Deathmaster 0]

Here is my plist file. I changed all the greater-than and less-than to brackets so it is readable here.

When I said plain vanilla I meant I was using the BASIC version of Sim City 4. I do not have Deluxe and I do not have Rush Hour. (yet)

[?xml version=1.0 encoding=UTF-8?]
[!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd]
[plist version=1.0]
[dict]
[key]custom-height[/key]
[string]768[/string]
[key]custom-resolution[/key]
[string]0[/string]
[key]custom-width[/key]
[string]1024[/string]
[key]display.frequency[/key]
[string]0[/string]
[key]display.index[/key]
[string]0[/string]
[key]display.rect.origin.x[/key]
[string]0.000000[/string]
[key]display.rect.origin.y[/key]
[string]0.000000[/string]
[key]display.rect.size.height[/key]
[string]768.000000[/string]
[key]display.rect.size.width[/key]
[string]1024.000000[/string]
[key]display.remember[/key]
[string]0[/string]
[key]first-time[/key]
[string]0[/string]
[key]fullscreen-mode[/key]
[string]0[/string]
[key]intro-movie[/key]
[string]0[/string]
[key]window-mode[/key]
[string]1[/string]
[/dict]
[/plist]

If you look at the part that says fullscreen-mode, it is set to Zero (0) and further below that window-mode is set to One (1).
In the plist file, a Zero means OFF, and a One means ON

So right now in the above plist, fullscreen-mode is OFF and window-mode is ON. Normally it will be the other way around.

[CRMakintosh 0]

Here is MY plist file, full name com.aspyr.simcity4.plist just as you said:

bplist00