# Sim City 4 choppy on new Graphics cards



## acperience7 (Dec 6, 2007)

On both of the new graphics cards I bought Sim City 4 is far more choppy when scrolling the map, and the music is choppy as well. My first card was a 9800Pro 128MB(shipped with the PC), and it ran Sim City 4 well. The troubles came when I got an X1650PRO 512MB, and now even on my X1950PRO 256MB. The game is not as smooth when scrolling around the map. It jumps frequently(choppy), and the music constantly skips(like a scrathed CD, but no reapeating syndrome). I never had this trouble on my 9800Pro. I thought that when I switched back to a card with a 256 bit bus things would be normal again. I did find a list of GPU's in the game folder. It doesn't list any X1K cards. I was thinking this may be the problem, but I don't know what to enter in the file.

File name="Video Cards.sgr":
#
# ID to video card mappings
#


vendor "3dfx" 0x1142 0x10d9 0x121a
   card 0x0001 "Voodoo 1"
   card 0x0002 "Voodoo 2"
   card 0x0003 "Banshee"
   card 0x0004 "Banshee"
   card 0x0005 "Voodoo 3"
   card 0x0007 "Voodoo 4"
   card 0x0009 "Voodoo 5"
   card 0x643d "Rush (Alliance)"
   card 0x8626 "Rush (Macronix)"
end



vendor "ST Microelectronics" 0x104a
   # Kyro, Kyro 2 etc. are all one card
   card 0x0010 "Kyro"
end


vendor "ATI" 0x1002
   card 0x4158 "Mach 32"
   card 0x4354 "Mach 64"
   card 0x4358 "Mach 64"
   card 0x4554 "Mach 64"
   card 0x4654 "Mach 64"
   card 0x4742 "Rage Pro"
   card 0x4744 "Rage Pro"
   card 0x4747 "Rage Pro"
   card 0x4749 "Rage Pro"
   card 0x474c "Rage XC"
   card 0x474d "Rage XL"
   card 0x474e "Rage XC"
   card 0x474f "Rage XL"
   card 0x4750 "Rage Pro"
   card 0x4751 "Rage Pro"
   card 0x4752 "Rage XL"
   card 0x4753 "Rage XC"
   card 0x4754 "Rage II"
   card 0x4755 "Rage II+"
   card 0x4756 "Rage IIC"
   card 0x4757 "Rage IIC"
   card 0x4758 "Mach 64"
   card 0x4759 "Rage IIC"
   card 0x475a "Rage IIC"
   card 0x4c42 "Rage LT Pro"
   card 0x4c44 "Rage LT Pro"
   card 0x4c45 "Rage Mobility"
   card 0x4c46 "Rage Mobility"
   card 0x4c47 "Rage LT"
   card 0x4c49 "Rage LT Pro"
   card 0x4c4d "Rage Mobility"
   card 0x4c4e "Rage Mobility"
   card 0x4c50 "Rage LT Pro"
   card 0x4c51 "Rage LT Pro"
   card 0x4c52 "Rage Mobility"
   card 0x4c53 "Rage Mobility"
   card 0x4c54 "Rage Mobility"
   card 0x4d46 "Rage Mobility 128"
   card 0x4d4c "Rage Mobility 128"
   card 0x4c57 "Radeon Mobility"
   card 0x4c58 "Radeon Mobility"
   card 0x4c59 "Radeon Mobility"
   card 0x4c5a "Radeon Mobility"
   card 0x5148 "Radeon FireGL"
   card 0x516c "Radeon"
   card 0x5159 "Radeon 7000"
   card 0x515a "Radeon 7000"
   card 0x5144 "Radeon 7200"
   card 0x5145 "Radeon 7200"
   card 0x5146 "Radeon 7200"
   card 0x5147 "Radeon 7200"
   card 0x5157 "Radeon 7500"
   card 0x514C "Radeon 8500"
   card 0x514E "Radeon 8500"
   card 0x514F "Radeon 8500"
   card 0x4242 "Radeon 8500"
   card 0x4966 "Radeon 9000"
   card 0x496E "Radeon 9000"
   card 0x4967 "Radeon 9000"
   card 0x496F "Radeon 9000"
   card 0x4C67 "Radeon 9000"
   card 0x4C6F "Radeon 9000" 
   card 0x5960 "Radeon 9200"
   card 0x5940 "Radeon 9200"
   card 0x5961 "Radeon 9200"
   card 0x5941 "Radeon 9200"
   card 0x5964 "Radeon 9200"
   card 0x5D44 "Radeon 9200"
   card 0x4144 "Radeon 9500"
   card 0x4164 "Radeon 9500"
   card 0x4150 "Radeon 9600"
   card 0x4170 "Radeon 9600"
   card 0x4151 "Radeon 9600"
   card 0x4171 "Radeon 9600"
   card 0x4152 "Radeon 9600"
   card 0x4172 "Radeon 9600"
   card 0x4E46 "Radeon 9600"
   card 0x4E66 "Radeon 9600"
   card 0x4e44 "Radeon 9700"
   card 0x4145 "Radeon 9700"
   card 0x4146 "Radeon 9700"
   card 0x4E64 "Radeon 9700"
   card 0x4E45 "Radeon 9700"
   card 0x4E65 "Radeon 9700"
   card 0x4E48 "Radeon 9800"
   card 0x4E49 "Radeon 9800"
   card 0x4E68 "Radeon 9800"
   card 0x4E69 "Radeon 9800"
   card 0x4148 "Radeon 9800"
   card 0x4168 "Radeon 9800"
   card 0x5041 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5042 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5043 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5044 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5045 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5046 "Rage Fury"
   card 0x5047 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5048 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5049 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x504a "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x504b "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x504c "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x504d "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x504e "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x504f "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5050 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5051 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5052 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5053 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5054 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5055 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5056 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5057 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5058 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5245 "Rage 128"
   card 0x5246 "Rage 128"
   card 0x5247 "Rage 128"
   card 0x524b "Rage 128"
   card 0x524c "Rage 128"
   card 0x5345 "Rage 128"
   card 0x5346 "Rage 128"
   card 0x5347 "Rage 128"
   card 0x5348 "Rage 128"
   card 0x534b "Rage 128"
   card 0x534c "Rage 128"
   card 0x534d "Rage 128"
   card 0x534e "Rage 128"
   card 0x5354 "Mach 64"
   card 0x5446 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x544c "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5452 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5453 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5454 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5455 "Rage 128 Pro"
   card 0x5654 "Mach 64"
   card 0x5655 "Mach 64"
   card 0x5656 "Mach 64"
end



vendor "3D Labs" 0x104c  0x10ba 0x3d3d 0x1048 
   card 0x0001 "GLiNT 300SX"
   card 0x0002 "GLiNT 500TX"
   card 0x0003 "GLiNT"
   card 0x0005 "Permedia"
   card 0x0006 "GLiNT MX"
   card 0x0007 "Permedia 2"
   card 0x0008 "GLiNT G1"
   card 0x0009 "Permedia 2"
   card 0x000a "Permedia 3"
   card 0x0100 "Permedia 2"
   card 0x0301 "Permedia 2"
   card 0x1004 "Permedia"
   card 0x3d04 "Permedia 2"
   card 0x3d07 "Permedia 2"
   card 0x8901 "GLiNT"
end


vendor "SiS" 0x1039 
   card 0x0204 "6215"
   card 0x0205 "6205"
   card 0x0305 "305"
   card 0x0315 "315"
   card 0x0325 "315"
   card 0x0330 "Xabre"
   card 0x6306 "530"
   card 0x6326 "6326"
end


vendor "S3" 0x5333 
   card 0x5631 "Virge"
   card 0x8811 "Trio 64"
   card 0x8812 "Trio 64"
   card 0x883d "Virge"
   card 0x8880 "Virge"
   card 0x88c0 "Virge"
   card 0x88c1 "Virge"
   card 0x88d0 "Virge"
   card 0x88d1 "Virge"
   card 0x88f0 "Virge"
   card 0x8901 "Trio 64 DX"
   card 0x8904 "Trio 3D"
   card 0x8a01 "Virge DXGX"
   card 0x8a10 "Virge GX2"
   card 0x8a13 "Trio3D"
   card 0x8a20 "Savage 3D"
   card 0x8a21 "Savage 3D S3"
   card 0x8a22 "Savage 3D S4"
   card 0x8a23 "Savage 3D S4"
   card 0x8a25 "Savage4 ProSavage"
   card 0x8a26 "ProSavage"
   card 0x8c00 "Virge MX"
   card 0x8c01 "Virge MX"
   card 0x8c02 "Virge MXC"
   card 0x8c03 "Virge MX"
   card 0x8c10 "Savage MX"
   card 0x8c12 "Savage IX"
   card 0x8c22 "SuperSavage 128 MX"
   card 0x8c2a "SuperSavage 128 IX"
   card 0x8c2b "SuperSavage 128 IX DDR"
   card 0x8c2c "SuperSavage IX"
   card 0x8c2d "SuperSavage IX DDR"
   card 0x8c2e "SuperSavage IXC SDR"
   card 0x8c2f "SuperSavage IXC DDR"
   card 0x8d04 "ProSavage"
   card 0x9102 "Savage 2000"
end


vendor "Matrox" 0x102b 
   card 0x0518 "Millennium"
   card 0x0519 "Millennium"
   card 0x051a "Mystique"
   card 0x051b "Millennium II"
   card 0x051f "Millennium II"
   card 0x0520 "G200 PCI"
   card 0x0521 "G200 AGP"
   card 0x0525 "G400"
   card 0x0527 "Parhelia"
   card 0x0d10 "Mystique"
   card 0x1000 "G100 PCI"
   card 0x1001 "G100 AGP"
   card 0x1525 "Fusion G450"
   card 0x1527 "Fusion G800"
   card 0x2007 "Mistral"
   card 0x2527 "G550"
end



vendor "NVidia" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de
   card 0x1b1d "Riva 128"
   card 0x0008 "NV 1"
   card 0x0009 "NV 1"
   card 0x0010 "NV 2"
   card 0x0018 "Riva 128"
   card 0x0019 "Riva 128 ZX"
   card 0x0020 "TNT"
   card 0x0028 "TNT2"
   card 0x0029 "TNT2 Ultra"
   card 0x002a "TNT2"
   card 0x002b "TNT2"
   card 0x002c "TNT Vanta"
   card 0x002d "TNT2 M64"
   card 0x002e "TNT Vanta"
   card 0x002f "TNT Vanta"
   card 0x00a0 "TNT2 Aladdin"
   card 0x0100 "GeForce 256"
   card 0x0101 "GeForce 256 DDR"
   card 0x0102 "GeForce 256 Ultra"
   card 0x0103 "GeForce 256 Quadro"
   card 0x0110 "GeForce2 MX"
   card 0x0111 "GeForce2 MX DDR"
   card 0x0112 "GeForce2 Go"
   card 0x0113 "GeForce2 Quadro"
   card 0x0150 "GeForce2"
   card 0x0151 "GeForce2 Ti"
   card 0x0152 "GeForce2 Ultra"
   card 0x0153 "GeForce2 Quadro"
   card 0x0170 "GeForce4 MX 460"
   card 0x0171 "GeForce4 MX 440"
   card 0x0172 "GeForce4 MX 420"
   card 0x0173 "GeForce4 MX"
   card 0x0174 "GeForce4 Go 440"
   card 0x0175 "GeForce4 Go 420"
   card 0x0176 "GeForce4 Go 420"
   card 0x0178 "GeForce4 Quadro4"
   card 0x0179 "GeForce4 Go 440"
   card 0x017a "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x017b "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x017b "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x01a0 "GeForce2 Crush11"
   card 0x0200 "GeForce3"
   card 0x0201 "GeForce3 Ti200"
   card 0x0202 "GeForce3 Ti500"
   card 0x0203 "GeForce3 Quadro"
   card 0x0250 "GeForce4 Ti4600"
   card 0x0251 "GeForce4 Ti4400"
   card 0x0253 "GeForce4 Ti4200"
   card 0x0258 "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x0259 "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x025b "GeForce4 Quadro"
   card 0x02a0 "GeForce3 XBOX"
end


vendor "Intel" 0x8086
   card 0x7800 "740"
   card 0x1240 "752"
   card 0x7121 "810"
   card 0x7123 "810"
   card 0x7125 "810e"
   card 0x7127 "810"
   card 0x1132 "815"
   card 0x3577 "830"
   card 0x2562 "845"
end


vendor "VideoLogic" 0x1033 
   card 0x0046 "PowerVR"
   card 0x0067 "PowerVR2"
end


vendor "Trident" 0x1023
   card 0x8420 "CyberBlade i7"
   card 0x9320 "Cyber9320"
   card 0x9388 "Cyber9388"
   card 0x9397 "Cyber9397"
   card 0x939A "Cyber9397 DVD"
   card 0x9440 "Cyber"
   card 0x9520 "Cyber9520"
   card 0x9525 "Cyber9520 DVD"
   card 0x9540 "CyberBlade E4"
   card 0x9660 "Cyber9385"
   card 0x9750 "975"
   card 0x9754 "9753"
   card 0x9850 "3D Image"
   card 0x9880 "Blade 3D"
   card 0x9910 "CyberBlade XP"
   card 0x9930 "CyberBlade XPm"
end


vendor "Number Nine" 0x105d
   card 0x493d "Revolution 3D"
   card 0x5348 "Revolution IV"
end


vendor "Cirrus" 0x1013
   card 0x0038 "GD7548"
   card 0x00a0 "GD5430"
   card 0x00a8 "GD5434"
   card 0x00ac "GD5436"
   card 0x00b8 "GD5446"
   card 0x00bc "GD5480"
   card 0x00d4 "GD5464"
   card 0x00d6 "GD5465"
   card 0x0301 "GD5446"
   card 0x1202 "GD7543"
end


vendor "Rendition" 0x1163
   card 0x0001 "Verite 1000"
   card 0x2000 "Verite 2100"
end


vendor "Chromatic" 0x110b 
   card 0x0004 "MPact"
end


vendor "Weitek" 0x100e
   card 0x9001 "P9000"
   card 0x9100 "P9100"
end


vendor "Compaq" 0x0e11
   card 0x3032 "QVision"
end


vendor "Digital" 0x1011
   card 0x0004 "TGA"
   card 0x000d "TGA2"
end


vendor "NeoMagic" 0x10c8
   card 0x0001 "128"
   card 0x0002 "128"
   card 0x0003 "128ZV"
   card 0x0004 "128XD"
   card 0x0005 "256AV"
   card 0x0006 "256ZX"
   card 0x0016 "256XL"
   card 0x0025 "256AV"
   card 0x0083 "128ZV"
end


vendor "Tseng Labs" 0x100c
   card 0x3202 "ET4000"
   card 0x3205 "ET4000"
   card 0x3206 "ET4000"
   card 0x3207 "ET4000"
   card 0x3208 "ET6000"
   card 0x4702 "ET6300"
end


----------



## Darren (Dec 6, 2007)

Apart from updating ATI drivers to the latest one, there is not much you can do. Perhaps modded drivers, Omega drivers?

Sim's 4 is a very low spec game, you shouldn't be getting lag at all, but you mentioned skipping in sound, this indicates a CPU bottleneck more than a graphical one, and P4 Prescotts are more than crappy for today's standards.


----------



## Widjaja (Dec 10, 2007)

P4's aren't more than crappy.
They are capable of some games depending on what you play.
I can tell you now, it is holding the performance of your GPU back.

Anyway.

Yes I know about the choppiness.
These cards do this with certain games which are more CPU bound.
Generally older games too.


----------



## Basard (Dec 10, 2007)

I had the EXACT same problem, the problem is ATI cards.  I had an x800 for the longest time, running on a 4000+, I ran the game with a nvidia card and its absolutely flawless now.  If theres one thing I know for sure, it's that SC4 does NOT work for crap with ATI cards, no matter what drivers you have, Omega or not, I tried them all.  Run it in software mode man, it will always be faster than an ATI card, even if its 2900XT's in crossfire, it will run like crap.  Put any nvidia card in there and it will run perfectly. As long as it above a Geforce4 or so.  The difference between an ATI card and Nvidia card on the same system will be greater than night and day.


----------



## NinkobEi (Dec 10, 2007)

I use an ati card and Sim city 4 works great with me. just dont try using maximum detail/pedestrians..etc and max aa. there's just too many things for your CPU to render


----------



## Widjaja (Dec 11, 2007)

Here's an example of ATi vs nVidia on a game.
The Sims 2 I used a 7600GS which ran pretty smooth still choppy with max settings but didn't cope when there were alot of NPCs.
ATi X1950pro copes well with more NPC's but pauses so too much as soon as textures and shadows are set to high.

So it's an optimiztaion issue for ATi's latest cards with certain games.


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## pt (Dec 11, 2007)

i ran simcity 4 in a 9800pro, x1800gto, and a hd2600xt, and on all it ran fine without no skipping, at high detail


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## AsRock (Dec 11, 2007)

Widjaja said:


> P4's aren't more than crappy.
> They are capable of some games depending on what you play.
> I can tell you now, it is holding the performance of your GPU back.
> 
> ...





Ran fine for me with a P2.4 ATI 9600XT  well that was untill the city was massive and they were BIG!.

Tryed turning off AA and AF just for the sake of it ?.  i'd try it on my 2900 but got rid of the game a looong time ago and some days i wish i had not lol.


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## Basard (Dec 11, 2007)

The game always runs fine, until the city gets big, but I ran a big city with my ATI card, then as soon as I put the 7950 in, I tried the same city out, and it ran fine.  It's got a lot to do with cpu, too.  Sim City 3 and 4 ran kinda garbagish on pretty much any system, along with the sims... they just don't seem to be written well at all, fun, but not written well.  

The Sims 1, on my grannies computer, still runs like crap, with a gig of RAM, and an AthlonXP 2500, with a 6200 series Nvidia.  I've seen the sims run, very slowly, on a 133Mhz pentium, with 32mb of RAM, it still ran though... Puttin it on such a superior machine such as grannies should have made it run flawlessly, but it seems like, since those types of games rely so heavily on scripts, you need dual quad cores just to run them smoothly.  One reason it runs like crap on grannies computer is that it has ALL the expansion packs on it, and about a million houses and families (she loves the sims).  Any time you buy one of these maxis games, you may as well accept the fact that they usually run poorly.  The last maxis game I owned that ran smoothly was SimCity2000, haha.  

It's mostly cpu for SimCity4 though, having a Nvidia card helps though, I guess, It helped me out a lot.  Google "simcity 4 choppy on ATI" and see what you find....


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## pt (Dec 11, 2007)

it doesn't happen on the last simcity (societes) but the game has nothing to do with the old series, and i rly dk why it's called a simcity if Maxis didn't do it


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## Basard (Dec 11, 2007)

I was kinda curious about societies.... but I forgot to look it up, sad that its not made by maxis.  Maxis is good, it just seems like their games always run a lot slower than they should.  But if you get a system thats "just right" they will run flawlessly I guess.   Hopefully societies will actually have some hardware support, it's pretty much mandatory these days.


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## pt (Dec 11, 2007)

it runs decently fine on my hd2600 mobile
fun game but i wouldn't call it a simcity, more like a big sims city


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## imperialreign (Dec 11, 2007)

> Sim's 4 is a very low spec game, you shouldn't be getting lag at all, but you mentioned skipping in sound, this indicates a CPU bottleneck more than a graphical one, and P4 Prescotts are more than crappy for today's standards.



Just my two cents . . . but on a system that's setup well, a Pentium 4 is still capable of playing modern games at a decent rate (I can manage an average 24FPS in Crysis at 1280x768 single GPU with all settings high and no AA/AF).

Honestly, the first thing I would do would be to do an optimized defrag of the HDD.

Also, make sure you don't have any anti-virus, anti-malware software running in the background.

Make sure to check that your audio drivers are current and up to date, too.

If you can, and feel up to it, go into the system BIOS and check to see if you have a setting for "PCI Latency".  If so, you can bump it up a step, that might help the audio processor keep an enough extra BUS bandwidth to handle it's work.


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## acperience7 (Dec 13, 2007)

I think I found the problem, I have a replacement MotherBoard on order. I think I damaged my 478 Socket a while back, I didn't think of it at the time I posted this thread. I'll see how things go in about 5 days. Thanks for all the reply's. And my 9800 and X1650 with a 3.0 P4 ran the game fine too, but like I said I forgot about the socket damage during my X1650's service time. Hope my CPU doesn't get hurt if it gets pulled out with the heatsink again. I think I'll cry, or have a breakdown if I mess something else up on this PC.


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## Andi64 (Jul 1, 2008)

I have the same problem, SimCity 4 runs like crap on ATi cards (X1K, HD series). This is what I found:

Test Systems:
AMD Phenom X4 9850 BE
4x1GB DDR2-800 C4
MSI K9A2 Platinum
320GB SATA2 WD
OCZ Evostream 720W
Windows XP 32b SP3

Intel Core2 Quad Q6600
2x2GB DDR2-800 C5
MSI P35 Neo2 FR
320GB SATA2 Hitachi
Topower 550W
Windows Vista Ultimate 64b

I've tried several drivers with ATi cards.
With a X1800XT and HD3870 the game is unplayable on both systems, wich are completely different. With a 9800PRO, 7900GT and 8800GT the game runs perfectly fine on both systems, without doing a single change but swaping the cards (and drivers if needed).

What I found:
I can't play SimCity on ATi cards. I didn't tried to lower the in-game graphics quality, it should run with everything on max... it's an old game.

I wanted to buy an HD4850, but I often play SimCity


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## pepsi71ocean (Jul 3, 2008)

Sim CIty 4 is a very intensive game for a computer. It is the only game i know that can tax a Quad core processor, Ram, and a video card. I have SC4 running on both my old.

Did you update to SP1 from SC4 Update?

Oh and you most likely will have better luck at this website here  http://www.simtropolis.com
That's all that website does is modifications and what not for Sim City and now newer stuff as well.


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## beyond_amusia (Jul 3, 2008)

I've never seen a system that can run SC4 perfectly, which sucks because I love SC4


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## DrPepper (Jul 3, 2008)

Try increasing the pagefile. It helped me reduce stuttering and the scrolling issue needs to be patched it only happens with ATI cards.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Jul 3, 2008)

sc4 is a demanding game. Your page file should be around 3x the size of your ram.


----------



## DrPepper (Jul 3, 2008)

Just for good measure I tried to use a 40gb hard drive as a page file as an experiment  not much improvement over 8gb.


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## pepsi71ocean (Jul 3, 2008)

well i noticed a huge jump when i set mine to 3x the size of my ram, but if you have  more than 4GB's it shouldn't be needed unless you exceed 3.5GB's worth of plugins.

If you have a heavily modded game then remember that the amount of plugins you have will be loaded into your ram, and then your page file. so if you have 2GB's of ram, on a Vista PC and lets say 2.5GB's of plugins, then the first 512 goes to the os, then the next 1.5GB's goes to the game, and the remaining 1GB goes to the page file. That's how it was explained to me anyways.


----------



## Widjaja (Jul 3, 2008)

I believe the issue here is with the X1xxx and up ATi cards having an issue with the textures and shadows in Sim City 4.

My 7600GS and 8800GT did not have these issues.

Probably Driver or Hardware related issue with ATi.

Don't know what the game run like on the HD4850 yet.


----------



## supec (Jul 25, 2008)

I found that during Simcity 4 gameplay my HD3850 doesn't switch to 3D mode (higher core clock and GDDR clock).
So I overclocked it permanently in Rivatuner. Game is a bit smoother, but it doesn't help much. It's a great game, but awfully optimized. It seems to stress CPU pretty much, but graphic card seems to be without load for most of the time.


----------



## DrPepper (Aug 2, 2008)

supec said:


> I found that during Simcity 4 gameplay my HD3850 doesn't switch to 3D mode (higher core clock and GDDR clock).
> So I overclocked it permanently in Rivatuner. Game is a bit smoother, but it doesn't help much. It's a great game, but awfully optimized. It seems to stress CPU pretty much, but graphic card seems to be without load for most of the time.



I find its more of a Ram and HDD related thing in my experience. I wonder why it doesn't switch to 3d though. Going to give it a try.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Aug 2, 2008)

DrPepper said:


> I find its more of a Ram and HDD related thing in my experience. I wonder why it doesn't switch to 3d though. Going to give it a try.



Its because sim city came out before the age of modern graphics cards. it will stress the rest of your system to the max, but i do think that upping your 2d clocks will help with game play.

between that and overclocked bus speeds betwqeen your ram cpu and gfx card will help.


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## wompie (Aug 12, 2008)

*Speed fix*

I put shadow detail to minimum and it seems to have solved the speed problem.  Now i still have some graphical errors with my Radeon HD 3870, but at least i can play the game.  I am now running at around 40fps with my q6600 at full detail everything (except shadows of course) and 720p resolution 

=^.^=

MEW!!!


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## abdalla_2021 (Aug 13, 2008)

And that my friend, is why Chuck Norris is in your avatar.


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## Unlocker9000 (Dec 12, 2012)

I know that this thread is old, but I may have a solution that works (it worked for me).

http://community.simtropolis.com/topic/33931-how-to-configure-sc4-to-work-with-your-new-hardware/


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## Black Panther (Dec 12, 2012)

*Unearthing 5 year old threads is futile.*

If you check the OP's system specs, he's no longer using a X1950PRO but an HD 5970 now. I'm pretty sure his Sim City 4 runs fine on that...


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