unityx

Searched, google too. I am sure this has come up before. Street lights just dont come on for ANY type of roadway. I went so far as to clear the Plugins folder, create new roads and cities. Deluxe edition. Pretty sure I have all my updates. Most building light up with exception being some medium residential. But I do have one build type on, Euro. So its not a plugin issue and I dont think its an install issue. Overall not a huge deal I guess.

Ok, so at this point this is just to help others. In the directory for the application, which is program files/maxis/Sim City 4/apps, there is an ".ini" file. Mine was only showing info to direct the app to the location of two directories. Below I added: [Graphics Drivers] OpenGL =SimGLRef.dll, C4554841 Software=SimGLSoft.dll,7ACA35C6 D3D7 =SimGLDx7.dll, BADB6906 [Current Graphics Driver] ;Driver = C4554841 ;OpenGL Hardware ;Driver = 7ACA35C6 ;GRPoly Software Driver = BADB6906 ;DX7 Hardware What one can do is basically play with the above. The "Current Driver" is the one to adjust. ONE can be selected. Putting a ";" before the line disables it. When I tried GL things were better and it ran in 32 bit like before, but I had a LOT of display issues. Totally non playable, which is odd considering its OpenGL. Then I went DX7, like I have it above, and it dropped to 16 bit so there is some graininess. Which frankly players have been finding out they are running 16 bit and had no clue. So it probably wont bother most. But my shadows came back and I have clouds in city view (region always had working clouds) It is also running in hardware mode. Now I am going back to the graphic rules to see if I can force more visual options including 32 bit. But its late, so another night. What a fuss to get the game looking and running right!

Well its looks like its just a case of the PC version of the game not wanting to tax the graphics card. Its a 945 mobile after all. Anyway, the Mac version seems to be much more forgiving. I edited the graphics rules.sgr and had no luck getting the game to even render shadows or clouds in city view. For those who know the config file, this is what I need to figure out how to combat in the rules file - which I dont think is possible. Rules ----- applying standard software Options ------- Visual Effects current: 3 recommended: 0 Cars/Sims current: 3 recommended: 0 Shadows current: 3 recommended: 0 Atmospheric effects current: 1 recommended: 0 Water effects current: 1 recommended: 0 Software/Hardware current: 0 recommended: 0 Cursor current: 1 recommended: 0 VariableSpeedAutomata current: 0 recommended: 0 Translucent UI current: 1 recommended: 0 Graphic Detail current: 3 recommended: 0 Building Load Speed current: 3 recommended: 0 Texture Quality current: 3 recommended: 0 Properties ------- forcesoftwaredriver = false renderdynamicview = true renderstaticview = true renderwatereffects = true rendercloudsandfog = false forcepointsampling = false forcebilinear = false forcenoalphablend = false forcenoalphatest = false rendershadows = false renderdecals = false usesecondstage = false forcedebugtexture = false renderparticleeffects = true renderflorashadows = true renderterrain = true showupdateregions = false usecursoreffects = true drawlottextures = true drawlotfoundations = true drawlotwalls = true forcetexturerepeat = false usescreenshake = true renderui = true useupdaterectclipping = true usevertexbuffers = true showboundingboxes = false useoverlayculling = true rendersnapshot = false noaddsigned = false nopartialbackingstorecopies = false usescreenflash = true renderautomata = true preferopaque = false displayalertborders = true drawlotopaquetextures = true useviewcleanup = false doautozoomandrotationchanges = true viewoffsety = 0 viewoffsetx = 0 texturebits = 32 lodoffset = 0 shadowdebug = 0 maxparticlestarget = 10000 particlelodoffset = 0 effectprioritylevel = 5 backingstoremaxzoomall = 5 backingstoremaxzoombuildingsprops = 5 backingstoremaxzoomterrain = 5 backingstoremaxzoomflora = 5 shadowquality = 2 minvehiclezoom = 3 minpedzoom = 4 cursortype = 1 depthoffset = 2 debugtexture = 0 dirtyrectmergeframes = 4 sounddetail = 2 buildingvariety = 2 buildingloaderspeed = 1 modellodoffset = 0 stringtexturecachesize = 1024 particleeffectslod = 5 splattexturescale = 50 texbindmaxfree = 2 particledensity = 1 particledamping = 0 particlescale = 1 lightingupdatedelta = 0.0001 shadowmodelthreshold = 12 demolishmodelthreshold = 12 rendermodelthreshold = 6 rendermodelthresholdscroll = 40 particlesizethreshold = 300 maxvehiclepct = 1 maxpedpct = 1 opaqueuialphavalue = 0.55

Display settings? As in the in-game? All set to high. Everything is on. Only issue is that it only wants to run in software mode. Frustrating. On the Mac it "just works". And really its the same machine, I am just booting into Windows!

You are correct. But I am talking about street lights, not stop lights or whatever one calls them (here they are called "stop and go lights").

If you are on an Intel Mac you can NOT render a region with large cities, only medium and small. Sucks big time. I have a massive region, I think the biggest you can go, and ALL my cities are medium in size

TEG, vast improvements with the 10.5.7 update or is the iMac new. I have not updated to 10.5.7 as of yet.

Same issue here. Seems thought that the customer count does not influence much is anything. I have NAM, most of mine have low counts but everything is developing nicely.

What are your system specs. The fastest speed is supposed to be the one where the computer is pushed without limit. But with weak system specs I have seen the game fall flat on its face. Also in large cities or with many plug-ins the game can crawl at times. Demand may be high so people should be moving in. But double-click the demand graph and see exactly which level of residential is in demand. You could be zoning all low residential but have high residential in demand.

Thats what I was figuring. Dang

Cool, keep us updated. I did similar things but still had issues. In fact the UB patch usually made things worse. Maybe I should apply the patch and in conjunction with the new OS updates issues may be more resolved...

Wow, not even going to read all this. (thats all that needs to be said) As much as I am ticked about game play. I would not sue! First for night lighting. It works fine! Only bats added by other users do not function. The included buildings provided with the game work fine. This is like suing Toyota beacuse my after-market Alpine deck wont plug right in! The game as shipped functions fine with lighting. Aspyr has MET the requirements here. Performance. Its Intel related - read the system requirements. The game was not originally setup to run on Intel based Macs. This is also why the current patch for Intel based is BETA - as in unsupported but a gesture of good will. Although the patch seems to do nothing. And the game is old. Your again trying to say that no matter what advances or change in hardware happen the game should still be supported and work? How many years should a software publisher HAVE to update software to continue to make it work? Maybe I should sue Aldus for not making there apps work in OS X on my Intel iMac? Its called reason - learn to use it or you will be the joke at your school. Like that one guy who sued the dry cleaners for a half million for loosing his pants. I think a game this old has met its reasonable end of life long ago.

I dont think its an Apple issue, I think its an Aspyr issue and how poorly cobbled the game was assembled.

Ya, I get that too at times. What is really annoying is that many of these issue do not develop right away, they come after some game play time. Is that true for others?

Is everyone here running Intel Macs? If not, 10.5 does not apply as the issue. I do believe is a 10.5 issue in conjunction with certain cards IF people are indeed running Intel hardware with the latest 10.5.