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Best version of Windows to run this game on?

Started by Fin44850, May 31, 2022, 07:25:13 PM

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Fin44850

I always had luck with Windows 7...is that still the case? I'm about to buy a Windows laptop specifically for SimCity4 and modding. Can anyone make a Windows version recommendation?

Thanks!!
Fin

Tarkus

It depends to some degree on if you're the game off the old discs, or through a digital edition.  If you're on disc still, you'll want to avoid Windows 10 or later, since they don't have the drivers to handle the disc version's SafeDisc copy protection (and you'll also want to avoid Windows Update KB3086255 on Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1, which disables the driver).  If you're on a digital edition, Windows 10 and 11 are safe options.

You'll also want to ensure that your version of Windows is 64-bit, and that you have a decent amount of RAM (I'd recommend at least 8GB).  The game actually does benefit from having a more powerful system.  Being on a 64-bit OS and having a decent amount of RAM allows you to be able to run the game with the NTCore 4GB Patch (which allows the game access to 4GB RAM instead of the 2GB normally allowed to be allocated to a 32-bit application like SimCity 4).  I'll note that the 4GB Patch is required to be able to run the full feature set of the NAM.

-Alex

noahclem

Excepting the aforementioned disc-based issues, any Windows 7 or later seems roughly equivalent (though I've not used 8 or 11 [yet]). Finagling the various modding programs into working ideally with newer Windows is likely to present at least a mild headache.

Performance-wise, a fast SSD seems to help quite a bit, and not just with time needed to load plugins. Of course single-threaded CPU performance should be important. RAM perhaps not, given a patch is required just to access 4GB (I'm admittedly unclear on benefit of faster RAM). Dedicated graphics would seem very important, and not having it should mean not being able to access all the HD flora and other bats available these days. Curiously, I noticed two plugs of an eight plug PCIE power cable had disconnected recently and setting that right improved things quite a bit (rx580 8gb gpu). Perhaps still more curiously, running the game from my NVME SSD on Linux resulted in it behaving much "snappier" than running it from a slower SSD in Windows 10, from same dual-boot machine. First time ever that scrolling has just worked as quickly and smoothly as one would hope for :D