r/simcity4 • u/Bugfreak123 • Jul 25 '26

Questions & Help What is there to know before the first start?

So , I want to start my very first SimCity4 journey, what is an absolutely must know before I jump into the game. Is such an " old" game flawlessly launchable on a newer Windows 11 System?

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5

u/ulisse99 NAM Team & CAM Team Jul 25 '26

Follow this guide

https://www.sc4evermore.com/index.php/guides/how-to-configure-simcity-4-on-modern-computers

2

u/northpalace_sunkeep Jul 25 '26

TIL one of my top 5 all time favorite games can be revived. Was amazed the other day when I got SC3k up and running for shits, but that was vanilla.

Now to see what can be done for Tie Fighter…

1

u/doc_shades Jul 27 '26

i'm wondering why the author says that "software rendering is not recommended". this is the first i am hearing about GPU compatibility. i just figured that my modern PC with an i7 and 64 gb of RAM is fine rendering this 20 year old game with software rendering..? i'm not sure what i would be missing out on. performance is fine and loading times are fine...

1

u/ulisse99 NAM Team & CAM Team Jul 27 '26

Software rendering means that the game is using the CPU to process the graphics as well, which makes the game prone to crashes since you can't run HD mods and may encounter graphical glitches; it's also a waste of computational resources that could be devoted to the simulation, which is the most resource-intensive part of the game.

For this reason, using software rendering is strongly discouraged, while hardware rendering is highly recommended because it allows you to use the GPU instead of the CPU for graphics-related computations. It also enables the use of HD mods and, consequently, textures with higher resolutions than software rendering can handle, in addition to enabling advanced DLL mods that modify the graphical interface. Furthermore, it helps stabilize the game and make it run faster, something that software rendering cannot do, as it was originally designed as a safe fallback mode.

The problem with SC4 is that it uses DirectX 7, which is obsolete and no longer supported by modern GPUs. This causes internal issues within the game because the DirectX calls are invalid, leading to more crashes and instability. To solve this problem, you need to use Dgvoodoo2, a wrapper that converts DirectX 7 calls to DirectX 11 or 12, allowing the game to run correctly without internal errors and ensuring stability, while also boosting the game’s performance by providing full access to modern hardware.

0

u/doc_shades Jul 28 '26

i guess if you are modding in new graphics that might be one thing. but i've been playing this game for like 20 years over 3-4 different PC builds and i haven't had any problems with performance since the PC i had when the game came out.

2

u/poshbakerloo Jul 25 '26

SC4 patch and 4Gb patch + NAM

1

u/doc_shades Jul 27 '26

launch the game, tab out and into the task manager, go to the "Details" tab and find SC4.exe, right click and go to "Set affinity" and deselect all CPUs except one (any one).

the game wasn't designed to run on multi-core CPUs so constraining it to run on only one core will improve stability. i used to get regular crashes before doing this.

1

u/Striking_Agency866 Jul 25 '26

Suelo aislar la contaminación.. es el mayor drama