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Help! Traffic Flashing

Started by swordstalker2008, December 18, 2016, 02:16:54 PM

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swordstalker2008

Hello all!  I reinstalled Sim city 4 and am experiencing an issue where all the cars flashing in and out . How do I fix this?
Running in Hardware mode.
-intro:off -CPUCount:1 -f -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32
Win 10

mgb204

Most problems of this nature are rendering issues or compatibility issues with your graphics card. In the first instance, see if switching to Software Rendering resolves the problem, if it does, you know it's related to graphics. In which case, you could try updating your graphics card drivers to see if that helps. But when playing an old game like SC4, which was designed for DirectX7, using modern hardware, you may not be able to fix the issue. The other place to try and adjust things would be the 3D settings of your GPU's control panel application. Both NVidia and ATI Cards usual have such a thing. It might be useful to know exactly what graphics card you are using. If you have more than one (very common of late), you should check SC4 is using the dedicated GPU and not the internal one. Since this usually offers both better performance and compatibility.

swordstalker2008

I tried switching to software and it keeps crashing.

My graphics card is a AMD Radeon R9 380X 4GB GDDR5

Kitsune

Its a bit of a long shot, but go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe .. find Graphic Rules.sgr and open it with Admin privileged in notepad. Find stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI, Radeon" and delete that line. It instructing to neuter the performance of Radeon lines. Normally its not an issue as cards are now AMD Radeon, but its possible that card is identifying itself only as Radeon.
~ NAM Team Member

swordstalker2008

Quote from: Kitsune on December 18, 2016, 05:18:03 PM
Its a bit of a long shot, but go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe .. find Graphic Rules.sgr and open it with Admin privileged in notepad. Find stringMatch cardIdentity "ATI, Radeon" and delete that line. It instructing to neuter the performance of Radeon lines. Normally its not an issue as cards are now AMD Radeon, but its possible that card is identifying itself only as Radeon.

Didn't work

Kitsune

Could you advise what version you are running ?
~ NAM Team Member

mgb204

You can easily check which card SC4 is using, nativgate to the installation directory of SC4, inside is a folder Apps, look for a file YOURCOMPUTERNAME-config-log.txt. Open this and it will tell you which graphics card is being detected and used by SC4. If it's not your Radeon card, you need to manually add this to the .sgr files.

Actually, even if it's detected right, you may indeed suffer from problems if you don't manually add the card and specify it as a "fast card". Instructions on that are here.

If that doesn't solve your problem, then the drivers in use are the problem. Can you fix that problem? Well it depends, sometimes newer drivers work better. But with legacy software, often older drivers work better. Sometimes compatibility layers are removed to enable better support for newer hardware. But it's all down to the driver, if you can find/install one that works fine with SC4, you can fix it. Otherwise, you will either have to live with the problem or use software rendering. You say that crashes? It shouldn't, since software rendering doesn't use your GPU, it's basically a last-resort option to run the game if all else fails.

There is one last possibility here. If you have an in-built Intel or ATI GPU, perhaps getting SC4 to run with that would work out better. In the case of an Intel GPU, usually built in to modern Core i series processors, it should work if you have the right driver revision.

swordstalker2008

Quote from: mgb204 on December 19, 2016, 12:37:16 AM
You can easily check which card SC4 is using, nativgate to the installation directory of SC4, inside is a folder Apps, look for a file YOURCOMPUTERNAME-config-log.txt. Open this and it will tell you which graphics card is being detected and used by SC4. If it's not your Radeon card, you need to manually add this to the .sgr files.

Actually, even if it's detected right, you may indeed suffer from problems if you don't manually add the card and specify it as a "fast card". Instructions on that are here.

If that doesn't solve your problem, then the drivers in use are the problem. Can you fix that problem? Well it depends, sometimes newer drivers work better. But with legacy software, often older drivers work better. Sometimes compatibility layers are removed to enable better support for newer hardware. But it's all down to the driver, if you can find/install one that works fine with SC4, you can fix it. Otherwise, you will either have to live with the problem or use software rendering. You say that crashes? It shouldn't, since software rendering doesn't use your GPU, it's basically a last-resort option to run the game if all else fails.

There is one last possibility here. If you have an in-built Intel or ATI GPU, perhaps getting SC4 to run with that would work out better. In the case of an Intel GPU, usually built in to modern Core i series processors, it should work if you have the right driver revision.


Strings
-------
userName = demer
appName = SimCity 4
version = 1.1.641.0
osVersion = Windows NT 5.1
computerName = DESKTOP-6GN336S
CPU = AuthenticAMD
sglDriverName = DirectX
sglDriverVersion = 2.0
driverName = aticfx32.dll
driverVersion = 21.19.384.0, GUID: D7B71EE2-2A78-11CF-3275-85B35EC2CD35
cardName = AMD Radeon (TM) R9 380 Series
cardVersion = Vendor: 1002, Device: 6938, Board: 93851682, Chipset: 00f1
cardIdentity = AMD Radeon (TM) R9 380 Series
soundDriverName =
soundCardName = Primary Sound Driver
buildType = Release

Kitsune

Have you tried removing all the plugins to see if the issue still occurs ?
~ NAM Team Member

Jimmyson

Mind if I ask what Driver Version you are running?
I am running into a similar issue with my AMD R9 390X.

I installed the Crimson 16.12.1 (ReLive Edition) drivers, and this started showing up!



mgb204

Not the first case I've heard where ATI's driver updates have caused problems with R9 series cards. So if it's detected correctly, either you need to roll back your drivers or live with the problem. The thing is, rolling back the drivers may work better for SC4, but may have negative effects for newer games. Perhaps if someone informed ATI of the issue, it would be patched in a later release. But as I said before, sometimes you need to break compatibility to enable newer features. If the update is for such reasons, then your only choice is going back to an older driver.

Jimmyson


mgb204

Thanks for posting that info here. It's great news that ATI are trying to retain backwards-compatibility with new drivers.

samerton

Great news, thanks for the post @Jimmyson

I was also experiencing this issue with a very similar card, I've just updated my drivers and I'll give it a go later :)