Hardware renderer performance issues

[lawlorz]

when using the hardware renderer the performance is perfect when not scrolling the screen, but when scrolling at any zoom level, in any city large or small the screen will basically freeze up, then stutter to scroll. this makes the game unplayable with hardware renderer. switching to software makes the game work as expected, however naturally there are other performance related issues using software especially in larger cities.

from prior research the best answer i have been able to find is something relating to simcity having a list of graphics cards it supports, and when using one it doesnt support it doesnt know what to do... i have attempted a solution relating to grabbing a code of the graphics card and adding it into simcitys graphics rules file, however i had no success with this and still experienced the problem.

i have attempted everything i can think of, every combination of compatibility modes, every setting in the nvidia control panel for graphics settings, various driver versions.

system specs are windows 7 x64, core i7 920, 6gb ram, nvidia gtx275.

from memory the issue is not present when running under windows xp, however it has been a long time since ive had an installation of xp to confirm this. the problem seems to stem from a combination of windows 7 (maybe 64bit? havent tested under 32bit windows 7) and the graphics card.

i will be attempting again under windows xp, however a solution to get the game running under windows 7 x64 would be preferable as switching operating systems just for simcity is a pain.

any help would be appreciated.

[Lowkee33]

I believe this has to do with multiple processors.  I followed these directions and this problem went away.  I also think there is a less obtrusive way to do it by editing the command line.

I also decided it had something to do with the page file.  If you restart the computer the problem may go away.  If I play SC4 and then an newer game, the graphics on that game are terrible.  A restart will fix that.

[JeeKTan]

Software rendering is much more better than hardware rendering even though your computer specification is high. In fact, software rendering is way better on old computers. However, you need to set your Simcity 4 shortcut to run software rendering mode. Usually, Simcity 4 performance always gets better each time you run for some reason. When you run Simcity 4 for the first time, it was very slow even on a high-spec computer. But after quitting and restarting the game, it was much more better for some funny reason. However, it repeats itself after you shut down or restart. So means that everytime you start Simcity 4 after booting up your PC, it becomes very slow and gets better everytime you restart Simcity 4.

[lawlorz]

i have tried the changing processor affinity thing also with the high thread priority and the problem is still present.

can anyone think of anything else that may be causing this?

[JeeKTan]

Just change to software rendering, don't use hardware rendering. Actually, there is no difference between software and hardware rendering in terms of visual effects and graphic. However, software rendering speeds up the game by 25% to 80%, depending on your computer.

[lawlorz]

Just change to software rendering, don't use hardware rendering. Actually, there is no difference between software and hardware rendering in terms of visual effects and graphic. However, software rendering speeds up the game by 25% to 80%, depending on your computer.

i disagree, hardware rendering is considerably faster since it takes a load off the cpu so it can perform the complex path calculations for a large city. software rendering grounds to a halt (in terms of in game day clock) once the population exceeds 100k, even less in certain region setups. oh and no, hardware rendering does have a better image quality.

if anyone has any thoughts as to the cause of this issue, or can suggest some possible fixes, id aprecciate it.