Hello, used to visit this site as user eldaldo, but lost my password and email adress associated with the account, so i got a new username. SC4 is my favorite game and I have been having issues on my current windows 8.1 computer. I have tried all of the workarounds on this page (http://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/65165-guide-running-simcity-4-on-windows-8/) and it still isn't working. I will mention though that i get a CTD after the load screen when I try to use software rending or openGL. Here (http://imgur.com/gallery/KdUVL) is a gallery of the glitches. Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks!
Hello awkwardsiv
If you are having trouble it may be because you have Intel Integrated Graphics (That is the issue I had).
I had these issues and what solved it was an older version of the driver for the graphics set.
Some hardware specs may be helpful in diagnosing your problem.
-eggman121
Yes, I have a laptop with two graphics cards.
the first is: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600
seconds is: NVIDIA GeForce 920M
I have tried opening SC4 using each card individually using the right click "run with graphics processor" option. Glitch happens with both of them? Though I wish I could tell in program which processor was being used. Are there any other specs you would need to know?
Two things you may find useful. Firstly to determine which GPU is being used, check the log file "YOURCOMPUTERNAME-config-log.txt" located in the installation \Apps directory, by default that's C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps. Steam/Origin versions vary.
If SC4 is defaulting to the Intel card, that's not ideal, but should work, you probably need a better (more compatible) driver. See this thread (http://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/71755-intel-hd-graphics-users-rejoice/), I have a 4600 myself, until the driver mentioned in that thread was released, it wouldn't work under DirectX without major problems. This driver appears to have resolved the compatibility issues though. So updating not going backwards would be my advice, if nothing else because Intel don't really give you the old drivers to download, so going to an older driver (before the problems, i.e. pre-2014), is unlikely to be an option unless you happen to have it somewhere already.
If SC4 can be made to use the NVidia card, you will get superior performance. Follow the information here (http://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/65165-guide-running-simcity-4-on-windows-8/) to force your computer to run SC4 with the NVidia card.
Software rendering should not cause CTDs. If it does, something is very funky, since that's a compatibility mode that takes the GPU out of the equation by offloading the GPUs work onto the CPU. It's a last resort option, really poor for performance, but works every time. If you are getting lockups, make sure SC4 is set to run on a single-core of the CPU. Frankly you should be setting this regardless, because SC4 doesn't like working with Multi-Core support, causing a very unstable game.