We then tested the normal version of the game and the Deluxe on previous versions of Windows, and it turns out that Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows 7 (32 and 64 Bit), this game still runs correctly no changes necessary. For Windows 8, here is the solution for SimCity 4 and SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition. Just FYI, I upgraded to windows 10. Installed simcity 4 deluxe from steam. To make it run, I had to go to C: Program Files (x86) Steam steamapps common SimCity 4 Deluxe Apps SimCity 4.exe and set compatability for windows xp sp3. Download SimCity 4 Deluxe for free. The SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition includes both SimCity 4 and the Rush Hour expansion pack, which gives you more control over your city’s transportation options, plus two bonus disasters: UFO attack and Autosaurus Wrecks. Simcity 4 not working on windows 10 just got SimCity 4 deluxe on my widows 10 pc and it doesn't want to start I click play and nothing happens please help!!!! Showing 1-9 of 9 comments. Sep 6, 2015 @ 1:52am I don't have Win 10, so may not be able to help you with Win 10 specific issues.
| Developers | |
|---|---|
| macOS (OS X) | i5works[1][2] |
| Publishers | |
| OS X | |
| Release dates | |
| Windows | January 14, 2003 |
| macOS (OS X) | June 30, 2003 |
| Subseries of Sim | |
| SimCity (1989) | 1989 |
| SimCity 2000 | 1994 |
| SimCity 2000 Network Edition | 1996 |
| SimCopter | 1996 |
| Streets of SimCity | 1997 |
| SimCity 3000 | 1999 |
| SimCity 4 | 2003 |
| SimCity Societies | 2007 |
| SimCity (2013) | 2013 |
Key points
- SC4Launcher by Keiron Morris and NAM: Network Addon Mod are both highly recommended.
- Enable most fixes by using the SC4Launcher/Combined launch options, and then enabling Borderless fullscreen windowed.
- Performance issues on more modern systems.
- The OS X port suffers many problems.
General information
- sc4modds - full list of mods from /r/SimCity community.
- /r/simcity4
- SimCity 4 on the SimCity Wiki
- Simtropolis Forum
- GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
- GOG.com Support Page
- Steam Community Discussions
- 1Availability
- 2Essential improvements
- 2.4Launching game on modern systems
- 3Game data
- 4Video settings
- 5Input settings
- 6Audio settings
- 7Issues unresolved
- 8Issues fixed
- 9Other information
- 10Mods
Availability[edit]
| Source | DRM | Notes | Keys | OS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail | SafeDiscDRM[Note 1]. | |||
| Amazon.com | Deluxe Edition. Download (DRM-free) or retail (Disk key). | |||
| GOG.com | Deluxe Edition. | |||
| Green Man Gaming | Deluxe Edition. | |||
| Mac App Store | Deluxe Edition. OS X-Only 2014 Re-Release with modifications to improve compatibility. | |||
| Origin | Deluxe Edition. Included with Origin Access Basic. | |||
| Steam | Deluxe Edition. Includes 2014 OS X Re-Release. |
- SafeDisc retail DRM no longer functions properly on Windows Vista and later (see above for affected versions).
- It is recommended to only use Deluxe version which includes the Rush Hour expansion pack, as this has the highest compatibility with mods and other fixes.[5]
- Retail keys can be redeemed on Origin.[6][7]
Downloadable content (DLC) and expansions
| Name | Notes |
|---|---|
| Rush Hour | Included in the Deluxe Edition. |
Essential improvements[edit]
Patches[edit]
- EA hosts one all-encompassing update that includes all patch fixes for all retail versions of the game (digital distribution versions have their own patches).
- Patch v1.1.640 (february 2004) is still downloadable from here.
Large Address Aware[edit]
Improves stability on systems with at least 3GB RAM by allowing the application to use more than 2GB RAM.
Skip intro videos[edit]
Target line to skip intro videos[citation needed] If running retail or Origin version, set the 'Target' field of the shortcut or add to Steam launch options: |
Launching game on modern systems[edit]
SC4Launcher[edit]
- Launcher utility that can be installed.
- Combines autosaving (customisable intervals), renderer choice (DirectX, Software, OpenGL), CPU priority, single CPU affinity, widescreen resolution, windowed, borderless-windowed, skip intro videos, simple mod manager and an ATI/AMD graphics card fix into a single launcher program.
Combined launch options[edit]
- Single line of code to be added to 'Target' field of the shortcut or to Steam launch options.
- Combines widescreen resolution, windowed, single CPU affinity, skip intro videos.
Combined launch options reference[citation needed] If running retail or Origin version, set the 'Target' field of the shortcut or add to Steam launch options: Notes
|
NAM: Network Addon Mod[edit]
- Extensively reworks of the road system, improves traffic simulator, path-finding and performance.
- Compatible with all available versions, since Origin version is now patched.[8]
SC4Fix: Third Party Patches[edit]
Simcity 4 Patch Windows 10 1
- A third party DLL that fixes hard-coded bugs and crashes like the infamous 'prop pox' bug[9] and crashes when hovering NAM puzzle pieces.
- Helps revive and repair cities affected by the 'prop pox' bug.
Game data[edit]
Configuration file(s) location[edit]
| System | Location |
|---|---|
| Windows | %USERPROFILE%DocumentsSimCity 4 |
| macOS (OS X) | |
| Linux (Proton) | <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/24780/pfx/[Note 2] |
Save game data location[edit]
| System | Location |
|---|---|
| Windows | %USERPROFILE%DocumentsSimCity 4Regions |
| macOS (OS X) | ~/Documents/SimCity 4/Regions/ |
| Linux (Proton) | <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/24780/pfx/[Note 2] |
- Beware of issues when using multiple duplicate cities.
Save game cloud syncing[edit]
| System | Native | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GOG Galaxy | ||
| Origin | ||
| Steam Cloud |
Video settings[edit]
| Graphics feature | State | WSGF | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Widescreen resolution | See Widescreen resolution. | ||
| Multi-monitor | See the WSGF entry. | ||
| Ultra-widescreen | |||
| 4K Ultra HD | |||
| Field of view (FOV) | Uses an Orthographic Projection camera, rendering FOV modification pointless. | ||
| Windowed | See Windowed. | ||
| Borderless fullscreen windowed | Working using ShiftWindow.[10] | ||
| Anisotropic filtering (AF) | See the glossary page for potential workarounds. | ||
| Anti-aliasing (AA) | See the glossary page for potential workarounds. | ||
| Vertical sync (Vsync) | See the glossary page for potential workarounds. | ||
| 60 FPS and 120+ FPS | |||
Widescreen resolution[edit]
- The GOG.com version has this done automatically.
Target line to enable widescreen resolution[11] If running retail or Origin version, set the 'Target' field of the shortcut, add (for 1920x1080) or add to Steam launch options: |
Windowed[edit]
Target line to set windowed mode[citation needed] If running retail or Origin version, set the 'Target' field of the shortcut or add to Steam launch options: To reverse back to fullscreen mode, it may be necessary to replace the launch options with: |
Input settings[edit]
| Keyboard and mouse | State | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Remapping | See Remapping. | |
| Mouse acceleration | ||
| Mouse sensitivity | ||
| Mouse input in menus | ||
| Mouse Y-axis inversion | ||
| Controller | ||
| Controller support | See the glossary page for potential workarounds. |
Remapping[edit]
Hotkeys and similar key bindings are stored in plaintext KEYCFG files in simcity_1.dat. A tool like Ilive Reader must be used to edit these.
Audio settings[edit]
| Audio feature | State | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Separate volume controls | Music and General Sound sliders | |
| Surround sound | Up to 7.0 output.[12] | |
| Subtitles | ||
| Closed captions | ||
| Mute on focus lost |
Localizations
- Language choice determines display language and which side of the road cars drive on.
- The language can be forced if needed but only if the release being used includes that language (see Change language).
| Language | UI | Audio | Sub | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | Some releases also include UK English (cars drive on the left). | |||
| Danish | ||||
| Dutch | ||||
| French | ||||
| German | ||||
| Italian | ||||
| Spanish | ||||
| Swedish | ||||
| Finnish | European retail and GOG.com release. | |||
| Norwegian | European retail and GOG.com release. | |||
| Polish | European retail and GOG.com release. | |||
| Portuguese | European retail and GOG.com release. | |||
| Traditional Chinese | Chinese retail only. | |||
| Simplified Chinese | Chinese retail only. | |||
| Korean | Korean retail only. | |||
| Japanese | Japanese retail and Steam OS X versions only. | |||
| Thai | Thai retail only. |
Issues unresolved[edit]
OS X and Intel CPU major flaws[edit]
- Major flaws when operating on computers by Apple using Intel processors.
- Aspyr released a beta of a patch to fix the problems in 2007, but the patch was never finalized and many bugs remain. Some have a serious impact on playability, including frequent crashes if a city exceeds 95,000 population, flawed display of the water surface, frequent blurring or replacement of objects with random other objects, and an inability to significantly accelerate the vehicle in driving mode that prevents many gameplay features from being unlocked.
- OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) can render the game completely unplayable, even with the 2007 or 2014 patches. Running the Windows version in Wine or a Virtual Machine, or the original Mac release on a PowerPC Mac generally gives a more convenient and reliable result.
- Even if the game does function properly in your machine, macOS 10.15 (Catalina) and later dropped support for 32-bit apps, of which SimCity 4's release is.[citation needed] This therefore requires either an older version of the operating system to be installed in another partition of your hard drive, or the other workarounds as mentioned above if it is not capable of booting before that version of that operating system.
Integer overflow[edit]
An integer overflow bug is also present in the game. Under certain conditions, the Junior Sports Program and Parks and Recreation expense items will be a negative value - thus adding to the end of month balance instead of reducing it.
Issues fixed[edit]
Crashes on multi-core systems[edit]
Single CPU affinity[13]
If running retail or Origin version, set the 'Target' field of the shortcut or add to Steam launch options: |
Menu option to enable software renderer[citation needed]
|
Target line to enable software renderer[citation needed]
If running retail or Origin version, set the 'Target' field of the shortcut or add to Steam launch options: |
Poor performance on modern systems[edit]
- Running SimCity 4 on modern systems may result in large performance problems.
Add GPU device ID to list of recognised cards[14][15]
If you are using an AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics card, also implement Details disappear when scrolling. |
Industrial high-tech (I-H) missing jobs[edit]
- Every I-H lot in the game does not offer high wealth jobs even though it creates a demand for high wealth residents.
IH Missing Jobs Fix[16] Download and install IH Missing Jobs Fix. |
Error message: 'Could not initialize graphics card'[edit]
SimCity 4 may crash on startup while reporting an error that claims that SimCity 4 was unable to initialize the graphics card, this may occur when using a hardware-accelerated rendering mode and a non-standard resolution. Changing the rendering mode to 'software' or changing the resolution to one of the supported resolutions (800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1200) should resolve this issue.
Details disappear when scrolling[edit]
- On some AMD/ATI graphics cards users may find that scrolling the view will cause entities and details to temporarily disappear, including lots appearing completely empty until scrolling stops.
Repair Radeon 7000 Series detection[14][15]
This will stop your modern card from triggering a compatibility check designed for the original Radeon 7000 series, forcing settings that make the game perform badly. |
Alternatively, this can be resolved by installing the SC4Launcher Utility. Once installed, run the launcher and navigate to the 'Hardware & Audio' tab. Enable the option 'Force Draw on Scroll' by checking the tick box. This should resolve the issue completely and will remain fixed regardless of whether the game is started with this custom launcher or through running the normal SimCity 4 executable.
Other information[edit]
API[edit]
| Technical specs | Supported | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Direct3D | 7 | |
| DirectDraw | 7 | |
| Software renderer | ||
| 64-bit executable |
Duplicate cities moved[edit]
- If two or more copies of the same city exist in the Region folder upon starting SimCity 4, the game uses only one version and the other city copies are either deleted or automatically moved to the Downloads folder.
- SimCity 4 determines which file to use by sorting the city file names alphabetically and taking the first entry.
- If you have copies of cities in your region folder, e.g. 'City - TEST 1.sc4' 'City - TEST 2.sc4', then only 'City - TEST 1.sc4' will be kept, and 'City - TEST 2.sc4'either get deleted or will be moved to the Downloads folder
Launch options[edit]
More parameters can be found via this link. Please be aware that if you use the -UserDir parameter, changes made in any ingame options may not be saved properly.
Change language[edit]
- Language choice determines display language and which side of the road cars drive on.
- Supported languages sets include:
Simcity 4 Deluxe Patch Windows 10
- English and Spanish (North American version)
- UK English, French, German, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese and Swedish (European version)
- Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese (Chinese version)
- Korean (Korean version)
- Japanese (Japanese version)
- Thai (Thailand version)
The availability of these sets depends on where the game was purchased, or where the purchaser's billing address states in the case of Digital Distribution.
Change language through launch options[17] If running retail or Origin version, set the 'Target' field of the shortcut or add to Steam launch options:
Notes
|
Change language through regedit[18] A detailed guide can be found on the SimCity Devotion thread by RippleJet. |
- The game also recognises Czech, Hebrew, Greek and Russian, however no official translations were ever released and no community translations have been made, possibly due to lack of compatible font sets.
Simcity 4 Patch Windows 10 Update
Mods[edit]
- Mods may require dependencies.
Mod resources[edit]
- Simtropolis - an extremely active modding community, hosts the ST/Exchange (SimTropolisEXchange).
- SC4 Devotion - a very active modding community, hosts the LEX (Lot Exchange).
- Thread listing all possible settings and customisations
Mod recommendations[edit]
- sc4modds - full list of mods from /r/SimCity community.
- Reddit thread - September 17, 2012
- Reddit thread - January 22, 2012
Colossus Addon Mod (CAM)[edit]
- A significant and popular mod developed by the community at SC4 Devotion.
- Rewrites and improves how cities and regions grow by including more 'lots' or building transition stages, and increases population density.
- Compatible with NAM: Network Addon Mod - when installing CAM, select 'no traffic simulator'.[19]
Tools[edit]
- SimCity 4 Auto Saver - autosave program for SimCity 4 that will automatically save your game while you play, superseded by the SC4Launcher.
- SC4Terraformer - this is a widely used tool that can render custom maps designed and built within the program.
- SC4DataNode - this is a tool that checks your plugins folder, analyzes it, and tells you if any mods are missing dependencies.
System requirements[edit]
| Windows | ||
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | Recommended | |
| Operating system (OS) | 98, ME, 2000, XP | |
| Processor (CPU) | Intel Pentium III 500 MHz or equivalent | 1 GHz or faster |
| System memory (RAM) | 128 MB (256 MB for XP) | 256 MB |
| Hard disk drive (HDD) | 1 GB | |
| Video card (GPU) | 32 of VRAM DirectX 7.0 compatible | |
| macOS (OS X) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Minimum[20] | ||
| Operating system (OS) | 10.8.5 | |
| Processor (CPU) | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz | |
| System memory (RAM) | 4 GB | |
| Hard disk drive (HDD) | 2 GB | |
| Video card (GPU) | Nvidia GeForce 8800 series AMD Radeon HD 3870 Intel HD Graphics 3000 256 MB of VRAM | |
Notes
- ↑SafeDisc retail DRMdoes not work on Windows 10[3] and is disabled by default on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 when the KB3086255 update is installed.[4]
- ↑ 2.02.1File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in
~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/24780/in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (24780) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
References
- ↑Aspyr: SimCity 4 now in duplication - Macworld - last accessed on 2016-7-23
- ↑Inside Mac Games Review: SimCity 4 - last accessed on 2016-7-23
- ↑Not Loading in Windows 10; this will break thousands of - Microsoft Community - last accessed on 2017-01-16
- ↑Microsoft - MS15-097: Description of the security update for the graphics component in Windows: September 8, 2015 - last accessed on 2018-02-16
- ↑http://community.simtropolis.com/topic/25419-faqs-and-download-links-for-nam-rhw-and-nwm/#entry685177
- ↑http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/SimCity-4-Register-retail-copy-of-Sim-City-4-with-Origin/td-p/280612
- ↑You can actually activate some Steam games on EA Origin - Steam Users' Forums
- ↑PSA: SimCity 4 Deluxe is now safe to buy on Origin | SimTarkus - SimCity 4
- ↑Prop Pox and Prop Theory
- ↑Verified by User:Andytizer on March 12, 2013
- ↑http://www.widescreengaming.net/wiki/SimCity_4
- ↑PC Gaming Surround Sound Round-up
- ↑this tutorial
- ↑ 14.014.1http://community.simtropolis.com/topic/33931-how-to-configure-sc4-to-work-with-your-new-hardware/
- ↑ 15.015.1http://community.simtropolis.com/topic/28564-software-or-hardware/
- ↑http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/files/file/22771-ih-missing-jobs-fix-update/
- ↑http://www.wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Tutorial:Shortcut_Parameters
- ↑http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=3961.0
- ↑http://www.wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Colossus_Addon_Mod#NAM_.2B_CAM
- ↑SimCity™ 4: Deluxe Edition - Aspyr