zyon2101

Hello! I'm not entirely sure if this is the correct place to post about these issues I've been having, please let me know if I should move this somewhere else. I've been having issues runnning SimCity 4 as of lately that I couldn't find answers for online even after looking for hours everywhere. Here's what's been going on: Im trying to play the game in 2560x1080 (my native resolution) and I've been using dgVoodoo for that. However, I noticed that if I run the game in fullscreen mode (used to use the SC4 Launcher, migrated to the SC4GraphicsOptions dll mod a while back) Rivatuner reports the graphics API being used as "DD", which Im fairly certain means DirectDraw, instead of the DirectX12 API I configured in dgVoodoo. In this state the game operates fine but with stuttering and not-so-great (but playable) FPS. Things change if I change any of the graphics settings though: - if I set dgVoodoo to any other DirectX version other than DX12, the game immediately falls back into Software rendering during launch - if I set the game to Windowed/Borderless in GraphicsOptions.ini, and use any DirectX version other than 12, the game still falls back to Software rendering - if I use the same settings as above, but using DirectX 12, the game runs perfectly fine and at high FPS with barely any stuttering, but it inevitable crashes after a few minutes of playing However, sometimes it's just the game that crashes, and some other times it also causes my graphics driver (Im using a desktop Nvidia GPU) to crash as well, ether freezing my PC for a second or outright causing a BSOD. Things I've tested trying to resolve the issue: - Changing the window mode setting for dgVoodoo between Fullscreen and Windowed (no difference) - Forcing and unforcing Vsync (no difference) - Disabling Rivatuner (no difference) - Updating drivers (no difference) - Running DDU and doing a clean driver install (no difference) - Changing the resolution used in the dgVoodoo config GUI to my specific monitor resolution instead of "Unforced" (no difference) - Using an older version of dgVoodoo (no difference, latest version also made no difference) - Disabling fullscreen optimizations for SimCity 4 (no difference) - Using DirectX 12 feature level 11.0 in dgVoodoo - getting rid of all downloaded assets and running "Vanilla" (not counting NAM, SC4Fix, and the popular dll mods for CPU core count and the aforementioned GraphicsOptions dll) - The crashes also happen regardless of simulation speed or if the game is minimized or not, and seems to always occur roughly 5-7 minutes after I enter a map inside a region. Only other wrapper I've tested so far other than dgVoodoo2 was DxWrapper which works ok but performance leaves a bit to be desired vs dgV and also frequently crashes during zoom-ins/zoom-outs. Unsure if this is relevant as well, but my PC specs are: Ryzen 5600X, 32GB of RAM, and an RTX 3070. Game is installed in a HDD (not an SSD). This issue doesn't happen in any other game I own, regardless of play time, API it uses, or anything else, seems to be exclusive to SimCity 4 using the specific settings I mentioned above. Anyone else experienced this before? Or at least know something about it? Any info will be greatly appreciated!

Good evening, I've recently cleared my entire plugins folder and decided to use SC4PAC exclusively to manage it (save for a few exceptions like CAM 2.5 and NAM) and performance in my current modpack (855 packages! Dependencies included) is quite abysmal. Scrolling has stuttering all over, zooming in or out takes ages while the lots are being re-rendered, loading into even a small 30k pop city takes almost 10 minutes, and demolishing large buildings freezes the game for several minutes. All of that left me wondering, can a large number of plugins or maybe a combination of specific plugins cause such a loss of performance? For reference I've already followed the usual guides that involve installing dgVoodoo (Also tried dxWrapper with similar results), the DBPF loading DLL mod, turning off Shadows (alleviates the issue mildly but it's still quite unbearable), using a custom Graphics Rules.sgr file, etc. etc.

Ah whoops, I guess I should've mentioned this but I am actually running Windows 10 The Windows 7 appearance comes from a program I use for styling called WindowBlinds, though I excluded the game from being styled by it to avoid any sort of compatibility issue.

Im already running both the CPUOptions and DisableFPSLimits DLL mods, with CPUOptions configured to set the game to High priority. One test I've done is to change the game's affinity from my Core 0 to my Core 2 (which would be the first thread of my 2nd physical core) since Ryzen Master tells me that's my fastest core (with the 3rd core being my second fastest) and I noticed some minor improvement but I can't really tell if it was placebo or if it actually made a difference. As for drivers, I was running version version 572.83 previously Specifically because of all the complaints coming from people that updated to their latest drivers, though I haven't had issues with the latest one so far. Game ran the same both on old drivers and new drivers.

Hey there! I'm not entirely sure if the props I downloaded are that high resolution (most of them are from mattb325 if that's any indicator). As for my graphics drivers and hardware: Im running an RTX 3070 driver version 576.02 (screenshot attached), with no issues whatsoever in other games. I've attached 2 screenshots of my dgVoodoo configuration as well. I've tried changing some settings around like Fast Video Memory Access or using a different DirectX version but it made no difference.

That's good to know, I've also edited my message to bolden the actual fix. I guess now all that's left is getting used to the massive frame drops when zooming in/ou (Most likely due to my massive plugin folder, god bless SC4PAC).

Hello again! My apologies for necro'ing the thread but I've made a discovery that might be helpful for other users here: I've managed to make dgVoodoo work without crashing and with good performance, and the fix is something incredibly stupid: In the Nvidia Control Panel, I changed the power management setting for SimCity 4 to "Prefer Maximum Performance" and that did the trick. Yes, seriously. I can only guess this was happening because I own a relatively modern card (RTX 3070) and in the "Normal" power setting it's clock speeds are reduced when not in full use and I guess that somehow made dgVoodoo act up because of the huge spikes in clock speed. Who knows, what matters is that changing that setting fixed the problem. Hope this helps other Nvidia users here.

Well, over a day later playing around I come with a final report regarding this situation: I decided to remove all traces of dgVoodoo from my game and instead use dxWrapper despite the constant crashes and low FPS it would give me, but I was pleasantly surprised (and kinda confused) to find out that reinstalling my game from zero did something and now dxWrapper works flawlessly with 0 crashes and the same high FPS Voodoo would give me before crashing out. Honestly I don't even know how to begin guessing as to why doing all this seems to have made the game stable but it did and that's all that matters. Thanks everyone for all the help!

Unfortunately it seems my happiness was shortlived, game still crashed after a few more minutes playing, now regardless if it's in Borderless or Fullscreen...

Alright! I bring good tidings, doing a clean install appears to have done something: While DX11 still runs terribly since it apparently still defaults to Software mode, DX12 hasn't crashed so far and now while launching the game on fullscreen mode Rivatuner (which I've reinstalled after confirming it had nothing to do with my issue) no longer detects "DD" as the API being used, instead showing the DX12 API I've chosen in dgVoodoo. I'll be re-installing the plugins I was using prior to see if it makes any difference and keep testing to see

Im using version 641 from GOG

My game isn't installed on the same drive as Windows, the file structure is like: Drive:\Games\SimCity 4 Could that be an issue as well?

I've applied the patch several times already, and as I've mentioned in my first post I've also tried using dxWrapper, but it gives me sub-par performance and seems to crash the game at random when I try to zoom-in or zoom-out in moderately-sized cities, while vgVoodoo doesn't do that when I'm using it in fullscreen mode and when it reverts to "DD" according to rivatuner as explained before Normally I'd be fine dealing with low FPS (it's a 21 year old game after all lol) but the crashes it causes are a big problem

Well thats a relief, I thought I was having issues locally lol

Just tried it, same issues persist (fallback to Software mode when using DX11, crash while using DX12). Leaving CPUOptions on max (High) priority seems to have accelerated the issue, could barely get 5 minutes into the game before it crashed, and changing shadows to medium made no difference either. However, there was a log file right beside the game's executable that I never checked out before and when I did I noticed that it has a field enumerating how much memory and free memory the game thinks my PC has and it says 1024 for both(which most likely means just 1GB), could this be related? I've applied the 4GB patch to the game already (more than once even, just to make sure). I've attached the log file to this post for reference. Edit: re-attached the log file as it seems to have failed to upload the first time. Edit 2: attached inside a zip file as it seems the site doesn't like my .txt file haha CB Edit: Fixed it! LAKELAND-config-log.txt

Hmm, that doesn't fit my situation either. My audio drivers are up to date as per my motherboard's support page, and I don't use any antivirus software whatsoever as I work with IT and their operation constantly interfered with something I was using. No OEM software either as I built this PC myself and the only software I have that could possibly interfere with a game is MSI Afterburner and Rivatuner, which I've already tested disabling and enabling while playing the game and it made no difference.

Am using a Desktop, the Nvidia Control Panel doesn't even have the option to force my GPU for certain games since it's the only GPU I have. GraphicsOptions is configured correctly, using DirectX, my specific monitor resolution, and 32bit color depth. DgVoodoo is also using my GPU, displaying specifically on my only monitor (instead of leaving that option as-is). Applied all settings while running it as admin. Gave the Graphics Rules Maker a try, and it does include my GPU on the .sgr file (also tried checking and unchecking "Force Card as fast graphics card to no effect) , but it makes no difference whatsoever in-game.

Thanks for the help, I've followed that guide to a T (except for using ReShade, and the Transparent Textures/Region Thumbnail fix dll mods as I haven't encountered those issues in my game) but the issue is the same. DX11 forces the game into software mode on launch which tanks my FPS, and DX12 on fullscreen gets detected as DirectDraw while borderless crashes the game entirely. My drivers are already the latest available, and I've mentioned in my first post the issue was present on an older driver, on the current driver, and even after a total clean install using DDU. Moving the game to an SSD made maps load a bit faster but other than that, same issues as before.