LeFail

Hi! This is my first post here so bear with me if you need more information than I'm giving you I'll start off with my Specs: XP Pro (x86/32-bit) E8400 Core 2 Duo @ 3.0GHz 4GB OCZ 1066 RAM ATI HD 4850 And Sim City 4 Deluxe I have the latest video drivers. Because 32-bit XP does not recognize 4GB RAM, I manually set my page file to make it recognize approximately that much. 3GB is what it normally detects. Now the problem: This is not my video, but after the 0:13 mark is where I have my problem, what is shown IS the problem It happens when running the game in hardware mode (not software). Another funny thing happens when I load into a city: the clouds and fog have little 100% transparent squares in them, shown in the attached picture. I have tried disabling one core by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL and setting the affinity to CPU0, but this doesn't work. EDIT: The point of this thread is to run the game in hardware mode, not software. Software mode has already been tried, and I dislike it. Thank you.

Well, still nothing found. Does anyone have a 2x00 series ATI card that runs the game just fine? It's odd that it doesn't like the two latest DX10.1 cards... EDIT: I found someone with a problem on a 2600: http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=91717&highlight_key=y&keyword1=sim%20city So it's not the functionality of DX10.1 that destroys the game, it's something else...

You tried changing/updating sound drivers? Do you have an external (bought separately, like a Sound Blaster) or internal (like Realtek) sound card? I have a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer that causes one of my computers to blue screen 75% of the time on reboot. When the blue screen flashes up, try to find a file name as quickly as you can. The file causing the blue screen should be shown there, so getting that file's name will help us identify the problem.

Originally posted by: TV-VCR Originally posted by: LeFail Originally posted by: TV-VCR I have heard of quite a few people running Simcity 4 fine on 4870 cards (drivers), but it seems the 4850's drivers don't like simcity... or whatever.quote> The fact that it works on the 4870 series cards and that it doesn't work on the 4850s is flat out stupid. That is, it's most likely a driver problem, since the only difference between the two cards is that one card has GDDR5 memory, while the other (buggy) has GDDR3.quote> A bit grumpy I see? I already said it was a driver problem. There is no need to call what I said "flat out stupid." Screwballl: That's really odd. I have SC4 set to hardware rendering and I have an 8800GTX, and SC4 runs great. Not disagreeing with you however.quote> Sorry, I meant that the reality that it doesn't work the way it should is stupid, not that you told me it. The rage was directed at the driver developers, not you Update on the problem, changing the "support DXT textures" to off does nothing to help the problem.

Originally posted by: rtil Originally posted by: LeFail squares in the fog that's being displayed on top of the "out-of-boundary" area.quote> change the rendering mode from 'hardware' to 'software' in the options. this also might make the game run a lot faster. be sure to reset SC4 after you change these options. you should notice a big difference in performance.quote> That's the whole point of this thread. I don't want to run the game in software when I know it's perfectly capable of doing it in hardware mode. And no, I don't notice any performance increase in actual game play, in fact, everything but scrolling deteriorates. Originally posted by: SC4BOY Another thing is to turn OFF in your video driver ANY AND ALL advanced settings ..it's a known problem with SC4 as it was written before any shading, aliasing, etc.. make it as simple as possible.. that probably will stop the problem.. also you should not have to run in software mode.. yoor hardware is more than advanced enough to run SC4 fine.. Inside SC4 nothing there needs to be adjusted to your particular card.. be sure you have "transparency" set to on.. sounds like you may have it off in the game settings..quote> I have never enabled any advanced settings, to my knowledge. Is the "support DXT format textures" option supposedly advanced? AA and AF are always enabled in-game for me, never through the drivers. I also have all the options in-game enabled, when I run both in software and hardware. Lowering them in hardware makes no difference. Originally posted by: TV-VCR I have heard of quite a few people running Simcity 4 fine on 4870 cards, but it seems the 4850's drivers don't like simcity... or whatever.quote> The fact that it works on the 4870 series cards and that it doesn't work on the 4850s is flat out stupid. That is, it's most likely a driver problem, since the only difference between the two cards is that one card has GDDR5 memory, while the other (buggy) has GDDR3. Originally posted by: sithlrd98 As far as I remember....ATI and SC4 don't get along.quote> Funny that you mention that; I've owned three ATI cards and none of them have worked well with Sim City 4. LUEshi, thank you for posting your driver version. It will save me from upgrading to it from 8.7. So that rules out the only two drivers available for the card.

Originally posted by: Tony Resta : English Boss Oh ok, thanks, sorry for wasting your time guys lol, i thought it was a problem with my game.quote> It's not a waste of time if it's on the forums

Originally posted by: Tony Resta : English Boss Thanks for your reply mate, i think i get it now, sorry if i proved a bit dumb, because it has been a long time since i started a new region so i couldnt remember the demands being so low. But is it normal that nothing apart from a few houses build because ive tried adding water and power but nothing.quote> Yes, demand is supposed to be low, so the number of houses that will build will initially be low.

Originally posted by: TV-VCR Most likely it's a graphics problem, not a CPU problem... does anyone else here own a 4850 and get the same problem? There's a possibility it could be a bug with card. It could also be overheating for all we know.quote> I know it's not overheating, I've done testing on my own. It takes 6 hours of consistent 3d rendering (game-playing) to overheat this card when the fan isn't properly regulated. Every five seconds it speeds up to bring the temperature below 50ºC, then speeds down, and repeats. The temperature never exceeds 68ºC, and an overheating temperature for this card is 75-80+. To monitor the temperature, I use Asus Smart Doctor. It also controls the fan speeds. It runs games like CoD4 on max settings at 1680x1050 (minus AF and AA) at 90+ fps, and Crysis on high in DX9 at a constant 40+. What could cause the squares in the fog that's being displayed on top of the "out-of-boundary" area.

I fail to see a problem here. In your new city, you have no connections to any surrounding cities. The demand graph in your second picture is perfectly normal. In the fourth picture, your demand graphs are skyrocketing due to you being connected to an adjacent city. If that adjacent city has a good population, your graphs will normally be like that. Is that what you're looking for? Or did I miss something?