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Windowed Mode, No Intro and all the other such choices

Started by JoeST, January 27, 2008, 11:38:34 PM

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JoeST

ever wanted to play like this:



or start up and appear at this screen:




This is done by changing the game shortcut. find your simcity icon. It looks like this:


Right click and go to properties.



In the highlighted box that shows

"O:\Games\SimCity 4\Apps\SimCity 4.exe"

add these different properties for different effects each with a space in between it and its predicessor:

Code (Window Mode) Select
-w
To change back to full use -f (if that doesn't work follow this tutorial by Chrisim) (I believe this needs a -r command after it to make sure it works, it is advised to add -r800x600x32)

Code (Software Rendering mode) Select
-d:Software

Code (No Sounds or Music) Select
-audio:off
Turns all the audio output off

Code (Resolution Change) Select
-r[W]x[Y]x[Z]
Where:
WxY is a resolution (without using -CustomResolution:enable  the screen resolution has to be either: 800x600, 1024x768, or 1280x1024)
Z is colour depth (32 or 16)

Code (No Intro Videos) Select
-Intro:off
Turns the introductory splash screen and video off, instead taking you straight to the game

Options for the More Advanced User

Code (Custom Resolution) Select
-CustomResolution:enabled
Enables custom resolutions including the 16:9 ratio

Code (Rendering Mode) Select
-d:DirectX/Software/OpenGL
Change the rendering mode of the game, either using DirectX or OpenGL libraries or software rendering

Code (Processor Options) Select
-CPUPriority:low
-CPUCount:X

Where x is the number of the processors your computer has.
CPUPriority lets other processes (programs) use the processor more when the game isnt in use.

Code (Brown Box Removal) Select
-IgnoreMissingModelDataBugs:on/off
Off (default) shows all missing models as brown boxes.
On just doesn't show anything for them at all.

Code (Background Loading) Select
-BackgroundLoader:on/off
On (default) loads all the none visible models in the background, whereas Off doesnt

Code (Language) Select
-l:english
Change english to a language to change the language (well duhh) only works if you have the language sets. This also allows you to change driving side (and possibly other language based effects.), thanks to smoncrie for finding this out.
Valid languages are:  English, German, UK English, Traditional Chinese, and Japanese. (check this thread out for more info on changing languages)

Options for the SUPER Advanced User
Warning: Not all effects are known.

-AllowMultipleInstances
Allows the player to launch additional application instances after the first one. By default, an attempt to run a second instance of the app will merely call forth the first instance of the application.

Code (cursor magic) Select
-Cursors:disabled/bw/color16/color256/fullcolor
-CustomCursors:disabled

Sets the color depth of the game cursors. Some hardware doesn't like some cursor color depths.
Disables the use of application-supplied versions of standard system cursors such as the arrow or hand cursor. Normally, the customized application-supplied versions are used.

-ExceptionHandling:off
Disables application exception handling, which provides for safer shutdown of the app in case of a crash.

-gp
Enables game pausing when you switch to another application. This is useful for if you go away from the game and you want it to sleep while it is in the background. This is a stronger form of the -CPUPriority command line option.

-IgnoreMissingModelDataBugs:on/off
If enabled, then the system does nothing when requested to display an object for which there is no graphical representation. By default this option is disabled and objects that are missing a graphical representation are drawn as a large "package" that suggests you can download the graphics for this object from the SimCity web site or similar.

-IME:enabled/disabled
Enables application-supplied IME (input method editing) for Asian systems. If disabled, then the default operating system IME will take control. By default, IME is enabled. If it is disabled via this command line option, you'll probably want to run the app in windowed mode (-w) in order to take advantage of the OS-supplied IME GUI.

-RenderProp:,value -RenderProp:" value"
Forces a render property to be set. See documentation on render properties for a discussion of them. You can use this command line multiple times on a single command line.

-Restart
This is an internal command line used to indicate that a prior instance of the app launched the current instance while it was shutting down. This causes the current instance to wait for the previous instance to fully exit before proceeding. This is useful for automatic app restarting during certain operations.

Code (Change Path) Select
-UserDir:path
Specifies the directory where the users game directory is. If the default subdirectories of "Regions\", "Plugins\", and "HTTPCache\" arn't found, then it creates an instance of, (in the case of Regions, it copies the default set over). The default game data directory defaults to being the same directory as the game installation directory. Quotes are necessary if the path name has spaces. Make sure there is a "\" on the end of your path or it creates directories like "testPlugins\" and "testRegions\"

-WriteLog:on/off
If On, this causes the app to write a log file that describes the user's system configuration. The file is named "computer-config-log.txt" and is placed in the same directory as the program executable.

-CodePage:id
Sets the code page portion of the locale for the C runtime library. Normally, the code page is determined by the language the application runs in (see the -l command line option)

-ConfigLog:server | off
Sets the destination of where to write the computer configuration log specified by the -WriteLog command line option. By default, the server is "studiotech.max.ad.ea.com".


Here is my set up: no intro or sound, windowed at 800x600
Code (Worked Example) Select
"O:\Games\SimCity 4\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -w -r800x600x32 -intro:off -audio:off

Hope this helps some people. There are more here and thanks to Andreas for posting some more here which have been added to the list.

Joe

Updated 10th June 08
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

Krio

I've heard that this does not work with Vista. Have I heard the truth?

Silur

Hi, Star.torturer ...
Excellent Tutorial - Thank You !!!
I saw first time a new EA support thread only one hour ago, but without this result ...
Thank You very much ...

wouanagaine


New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

xxdita

I play in a window all the time now, and I'm on Vista.

Krio

My social live is saved! I have not been able to talk to people on IRC and MSN while playing SC since I bought new PC with Vista, but now I can "heal" my "wounded" relationships to people.  ;D

XiahouDun

Tutorial looks good. One thing I'd suggest though is posting an example setup for maximum clarity.
Current project: Movies 14

You may have meant to search for Houdini. (result of searching for XiahouDun on SC4D)

BigSlark

I've run SC4 at 1680x1080 using these commands. It looked great. Sadly, the 22" widescreen LCD was only on loan...

Cheers,
Kevin

SC4BOY

Just a side note... I'm not positive, but i'm pretty sure the game is a 16bit color game.. so setting the window to 16 bit will save half of your color memory won't it? At least I can't tell the difference and I run it in 16 bit color windowed all the time.

schm0

Quote from: SC4BOY on January 28, 2008, 09:37:26 AM
Just a side note... I'm not positive, but i'm pretty sure the game is a 16bit color game.. so setting the window to 16 bit will save half of your color memory won't it? At least I can't tell the difference and I run it in 16 bit color windowed all the time.

I'm not sure about you, but I have the option of choosing 16 or 32-bit colors in SC4. So, to answer your question, it's both.
schm0

JoeST

Im guessing its probably 32 bit that is scaled down rather than 16 that's improved/faked. Though, tbh, I have no real idea

Thanks for all the thanks, and yeah i dont see it not working in Vista, because they are all standard extentions to programs, should even work on Mac's and in Linux

I will be using this tut myself.. LOL, it was never well documented how to make sc4 windowed on ST

Joe
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

wouanagaine

And now someone has to get in and recall us what is the command line option for setting custom resolution, as I'm 100% sure I've seen it somewhere but don't remember it

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

Andreas

This list of all command line parameters was once posted at the official support site. I'm not sure if it's still there, but it has come in handy for me now and then:

Troubleshooting Command Line Options


Run the game in a window: -w

Run the game in Software Rendering Mode: -d:Software

Run the game with no sound: -sound:off

Run the game with no music: -music:off

Run the game with no sound or music: -audio:off


Generic Command Line Options

-AllowMultipleInstances - Allows the player to launch additional application instances after the first one. By default, an attempt to run a second instance of the app will merely call forth the first instance of the application.

-BackgroundLoader:on/off - Enables or disables the background model loading system. Normally, when you switch the view zoom or rotation the application loads only the visible objects first and makes a background task of loading the additional models. This allows the game to be more responsive during view changes, but it has the side effect of slowing down the game for the next few seconds or minutes.

-CPUCount:X - (Where X is the number of cpu's on the system) Specifies how many CPUs to take advantage of when there is more than one CPU present on the system. By default, the app takes advantage of all CPUs present on multiprocessor systems. However, some system drivers (sound in particular) are known to have problems when run in a multi-CPU environment. Thus it might be useful to specify -CPUCount:1 in order to prevent crashes with these faulty drivers.

-CPUCount:0 has no effect.

-CPUPriority:low - Specifies that the application set its base process priority to low instead of normal. This is useful for having the app run side-by-side with other applications and have it not take too much processing time away from the other applications. This is a more benign form of the -gp command line option.

-Cursors:disabled/bw/color16/color256/fullcolor - Sets the color depth of the game cursors. Some hardware doesn't like some cursor color depths.

-CustomCursors:disabled - Disables the use of application-supplied versions of standard system cursors such as the arrow or hand cursor. Normally, the customized application-supplied versions are used.

-CustomResolution:enabled - Allows the user to specify a non-standard resolution that isn't normally recognized or accepted by the app. This is Useful in conjunction with the -r command line option.

-d:DirectX/Software/OpenGL - Sets the graphics driver for the app to run under. Currently the DirectX and Software drivers are supported, while the OpenGL driver is currently experimental.

-ExceptionHandling:off - Disables application exception handling, which provides for safer shutdown of the app in case of a crash.

-f - Run in full-screen mode.

-gp - Enables game pausing when you switch to another application. This is useful for if you go away from the game and you want it to sleep while it is in the background. This is a stronger form of the -CPUPriority command line option.

-IgnoreMissingModelDataBugs:on/off - If enabled, then the system does nothing when requested to display an object for which there is no graphical representation. By default this option is disabled and objects that are missing a graphical representation are drawn as a large "package" that suggests you can download the graphics for this object from the SimCity web site or similar.

-IME:enabled/disabled - Enables application-supplied IME (input method editing) for Asian systems. If disabled, then the default operating system IME will take control. By default, IME is enabled. If it is disabled via this command line option, you'll probably want to run the app in windowed mode (-w) in order to take advantage of the OS-supplied IME GUI.

-Intro:off - Disables the inroduction video that plays on app startup. By default it is on. Some systems have driver problems that may cause the introduction video sequence to crash. This option bypasses the video and goes straight into the game.

-l:language - Specifies the language to run the app in. The app can only run in a language if the resource data for that language is present in the application's data set. Valid languages are English, German, "UK English", "Traditional Chinese", and "Japanese".

-music: on/off - Enables or disables music for the application. Music won't play unless audio is enabled. Also works as -radio:on | off

-RenderProp:,value -RenderProp:" value" - Forces a render property to be set. See documentation on render properties for a discussion of them. You can use this command line multiple times on a single command line.

-Restart - This is an internal command line used to indicate that a prior instance of the app launched the current instance while it was shutting down. This causes the current instance to wait for the previous instance to fully exit before proceeding. This is useful for automatic app restarting during certain operations.

-UserDir:path - Specifies the directory where the game data is. The game data directory defaults to being the same directory as the game installation directory. Quotes are necessary if the path name has spaces.

-WriteLog:on/off - If present, this causes the app to write a log file that describes the user's system configuration. The file is named "computer-config-log.txt" and is placed in the same directory as the program executable.

-CodePage:id - Sets the code page portion of the locale for the C runtime library. Normally, the code page is determined by the language the application runs in (see the -l command line option)

-ConfigLog:server | off - Sets the destination of where to write the computer configuration log specified by the -WriteLog command line option. By default, the server is "studiotech.max.ad.ea.com".
Andreas

wouanagaine

That is a list :)

'UserDir' looks quite interesting to investigate  :-\

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

Andreas

Probably, yes. I also just discovered that "-IgnoreMissingModelDataBugs" might help some folks that are plagued by the infamous brown boxes... :)
Andreas

JoeST

#15
Thanks for the bigger list... I will update the first post sometime soon

EDIT: Updated, Thanks for the extra knowledge, and feel free to edit my original/ suggest different explanations and whatever you want

Joe
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

wouanagaine

Quote from: wouanagaine on January 28, 2008, 12:53:00 PM
'UserDir' looks quite interesting to investigate  :-\
Very interesting !
Especially for LotMaker

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

krbe

Quote from: wouanagaine on January 28, 2008, 12:53:00 PM
That is a list :)

'UserDir' looks quite interesting to investigate  :-\

Quote from: wouanagaine on January 28, 2008, 01:03:58 PM

Very interesting !
Especially for LotMaker


And W's right onto it $%Grinno$%

Chrisim

#18
I have been playing in window mode ("-w") for more than a year, but sometimes it is more convenient to play again in full screen mode. Simply replacing "-w" with "-f" does not work for me - the game continues starting in window mode.
The following trick works for me - big thanks to frimi who posted it on the German SimForum:
Assuming the case that your desktop resolution is 1024x768 and the SimCity window has 800x600 points, just follow these steps:
- remove the parameter "-w"
- change the Windows resolution to 800x600 (exactly the size of the SimCity Window)
- start SimCity
- exit SimCity
- change the Windows resolution back to "normal"
- start SimCity
Now the game should start in full screen mode again.


EDIT: I learnt here that "-audio:off" saves the day when the game keeps crashing due to a malfunctioning sound card (for Sundays when the computer shop is closed)

SC4BOY

#19
Quote from: schm0 on January 28, 2008, 09:42:52 AM
I'm not sure about you, but I have the option of choosing 16 or 32-bit colors in SC4. So, to answer your question, it's both.

You can choose it, but it doesn't matter in how the game appears.. therefore you're just wasting your memory space. That was my point.. of course I can choose it.


Heres a sample custom res:

"C:\Program Files\Games\simcity 4\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -CustomResolution:enabled -r1440x900x16 -f -intro:off