SC4 Registry: How to Switch Languages and Driving Sides

[RippleJet]

Depending on where in the world you live, your copy of SimCity 4 was shipped with more than one language.
You can select this language when you install the game. However, you can also change the setting later on.

Now, why would I want to change the language of the game?

There are a number of reasons listed below. Changing these settings doesn't affect only the language of the game though.
You will also get different settings for the date format and you can determine which side of the road cars will drive on.

1. If more than one language is spoken in your family, you might want to change it every now and then.
2. If you want to play the game in English, despite having installed it in your native tongue.
3. If you want to switch into English for the purpose of taking screen shots most people can understand.
4. If cars are driving on the left hand side in the country you live, but on the right hand side in the game (e.g. Australia or Thailand).
5. If you want to test multilingual lots made for other languages than your primary one.





Changing the Langauge in the Registry Editor


In order to change the language and other settings, you need to start a program called the Registry Editor.
The easiest way to run that program is to click Run in the Start menu and enter "regedit" into the field:



Note that my operating system is talking Swedish, but I'm sure you can find out which buttons to press on your computer.
Press OK and the Registry Editor will start:



Use the window on the left to find the following folder: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Maxis\SimCity 4\1.0
One of the "keys" contained in there is called Language, set to 0x00000001 (1) in the example above.

This is the only key that you need to change in order to change the language your game runs on.
Changing the key LanguageName won't affect the game in any way.

Warning! Never change the registry while the game is running.





Which languages are available?


That is largely dependent on where you bought the game.
In order to check your options, you first have to locate the installation folder of SimCity 4.

That would normally be C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4\ if you installed the Vanilla version and upgraded it to Rush Hour.
If you bought the DeLuxe verision, you have probably installed it in C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\.
Note that C:\Program Files\ is called something else if you operating system isn't speaking English...

Below is a typical installation folder for SimCity 4 Deluxe bought in North America:


There are two folders marked with a red dot. Those are the only languages available in this case.

Below is another typical installation folder for SimCity 4 bought in Europe:


Note that there are a lot more languages available for European players.
Note also the spelling of the folders Norwgian, Portgese and UKEnglsh.
No folder name contains any more than 8 characters...

If you've bought your game in the far east, you would probably find folders called e.g.
Japanese, Korean, SChinese (for Simplified Chinese), TChinese (for Traditional Chinese) or Thai.

If you've bought your game in Japan, you'd find only one folder, called Japanese.





Which number is which language in the Registry?


Depending on the Language number in the SC4 Registry, the game looks for a file called SimCityLocale.DAT in one of the folders above.
The name of the file is the same in all language folders. Only the name of the folder identifies which language the file includes.

The SimCityLocale.DAT file contains almost 6,000 LTEXT files. These files include all texts that are displayed in the game.
By loading another SimCityLocale.DAT file at startup, all texts in your game would change accordingly.

The name of the folder that the game is looking for is directly dependent on the Registry Setting.
If the Language is set to 1 (as in the example above), the game would be looking for a SimCityLocale.DAT file in the folder English.

Below is a summary of all Key values that can be used.
As mentioned above, the Language also determines which side the cars are driving on.

Registry Key    Language	Folder Name	Cars Drive on
0x01	English	Right
0x02	French	Right
0x03	German	Right
0x04	Italian	Right
0x05	Spanish	Right
0x06	Swedish	Right
0x07	Finnish	Right
0x08	Dutch	Right
0x09	Danish	Right
0x0A	Portgese	Right
0x0B	Czech	Right
0x0C	Hebrew	Right
0x0D	Greek	Right
0x0E	Japanese	Left
0x0F	Korean	Right
0x10	Russian	Right
0x11	SChinese	Right
0x12	TChinese	Right
0x13	UKEnglsh	Left
0x14	Polish	Right
0x15	Thai	Right
0x16	Norwgian	Right

Note that all Language numbers are hexadecimal. Thus they must be preceeded by 0x...

Note also that, even if Czech, Hebrew, Greek and Russian are listed as options,
there are no SimCityLocale.DAT files available in those languages.
Obviously Maxis didn't have time to finish the translation into all languages...

In addition to determining the folder where SimCityLocale.DAT is loaded and the side the cars drive on,
changing the Language also affects the date format and might require another set of fonts to work 100%.





Frequently Asked Questions


Q: I live in Australia but the cars in the game drive on the right-hand side.

R: Your game is probably a US version.
In the game's installation folder, create a new subfolder called UKEnglsh.
Copy the file SimCityLocale.DAT from the folder English to this newly created UKEnglsh.
Start the Registry Editor and change Language from 0x01 to 0x13.


Q: I live in Denmark and have installed the game in Danish, but I want the game to be English.

R: Do not reinstall the game in English as that will cause the cars to drive on the left-hand side.
Instead, in the game's installation folder, create a new subfolder called English.
Copy the file SimCityLocale.DAT from the folder UKEnglsh to this newly created English.
Start the Registry Editor and change Language from 0x09 to 0x01.


Q: I live in USA and my brother-in-law from Mexico wants to play the game in Spanish.

R: Start the Registry Editor and change Language from 0x01 to 0x05.


Q: I live in Sweden and want to test a multilingual lot in German.

R: Start the Registry Editor and change Language from 0x03 to 0x06.


Q: I live in France and want to take English screen shots of my MD.

R: In the game's installation folder, create a new subfolder called English.
Copy the file SimCityLocale.DAT from the folder UKEnglsh to this newly created English.
Start the Registry Editor and change Language from 0x02 to 0x01.

[Ennedi]

Thank you very much Tage, it is sometimes uncomfortable for me to have the Polish SC4 version, especially if I want to show ingame pictures with queries etc. and explain something. So the method you showed will be helpful for me. In general, playing with the registry can be a bit dangerous (you must remember what you changed  ), but this is a very simple modification.

Adam 

[Chrisim]

Very useful to test RHD and LHD pathes - thank you! 

[catty]

Thank You  I read this about half-a-hour ago and after following your instructions, my cars are now all driving on the left-hand side of the road which is great to see. 

[Diggis]

OK, quick question.  I have the US version.  You notes say that the version will also affect date formats etc.  The way you suggest changing it for US owners is to copy the US local file over but this will leave us with american spelling etc yes?  Is it possible (or illegal?) for someone to upload a UKenglsh file?

[RippleJet]

Is it possible (or illegal?) for someone to upload a UKenglsh file?

Unfortunately distributing any of the installation files is against the EULA.

[superhands]

this has got to be one of the greatest things, so simple and effective. the cars now drive on the right side of the road in that i mean the left. this means the NAM avnue turning lanes are correct and function/realim i restored.   ahhhhhh

[MAS71]

If you've bought your game in the far east, you would probably find folders called e.g.
Japanese, Korean, SChinese (for Simplified Chinese), TChinese (for Traditional Chinese) or Thai.

By the way....
SimCity4(Deluxe) which is sold in the Japan has only a Japanese folder.
so We could not look other langage messages (UI, text of menue, all of game's defoult messages) in a game by Japanese version.
It's a disappointing fact.

[RippleJet]

Thanks Masuda san! I corrected the tutorial in that respect.

Could a player living in China, Korea or Thailand tell which folders are included in those game versions?

[M4346]

Thanks Tage! I have a question though...

If I only have "English" and no "UKEnglsh" file, I will not be able to switch to the latter, correct?

Would someone be able to send me a UKEnglsh file (I know the EULA forbids this though, it's pure speculation, trust me. ) and then I can create the folder? And furthermore, would I have to reinstall the NAM to conform to the Left-hand driving then? (I'm thinking yes, right?)

EDIT: I have also opened the SimCityLocale.dat in the reader and see only LTEXT files, how would the UKEnglsh file ensure left-hand driving? Does that particular .dat file have exemplars in it?

[RippleJet]

If I only have "English" and no "UKEnglsh" file, I will not be able to switch to the latter, correct?

English and UKEnglsh are the folder names.
The SimCityLocale.dat file that appears in that folder is the file containing the LTEXt files.

Would someone be able to send me a UKEnglsh file (I know the EULA forbids this though, it's pure speculation, trust me. ) and then I can create the folder? And furthermore, would I have to reinstall the NAM to conform to the Left-hand driving then? (I'm thinking yes, right?)

EDIT: I have also opened the SimCityLocale.dat in the reader and see only LTEXT files, how would the UKEnglsh file ensure left-hand driving? Does that particular .dat file have exemplars in it?

No, the SimCityLocale.dat file has nothing with left/right-hand driving to do.
It's the registry setting that determines which side the cars drive on.
Only if the registry key is 0x0E or 0x13, will the cars drive on the left-hand side.

The registry key also determines the name of the folder in which the game will look for the SimCityLocale.dat file.

[M4346]

Thank you very much, that pretty much clears it all up. 

[tattysmum]

This is great info. I have spent 12 months working on NYC (large version) with my cars driving on the wrong side of the road (UK side) Now by following your fine posting I have got them on the correct (US) side and it looks more authentic.

I did make one mistake, I renamed the folder [Englsh] and not [English] and that created the goobledygook but after naming it correctly, all is well.

my next step is to go back to the parts of the map I have already developed to see if I have to redraw all the roads, or will I get the usual CTD!!!???!!!!

Fingers crossed

[I9113N]

I live in US and only have the English language file. I would like the cars to drive on the left, so I edited the language to 13 hex. I went into the game to find the cars driving on the right.  Is there something I am doing wrong when editing the file? Any help would be much appreciated. 

[cogeo]

Is there some trick, so that you have:
- English language
- Right-hand driving
- DD/MM/YY date
And all these using the european version of Simcity 4 (for which "English" means UK English).

Maybe by using one of the non-implemented languages (Czech, Hebrew, Greek, Russian) - of course create the missing directory and copy the Engmish simcitylocale.dat there. Not finding the translated strings, it should fall through to US English.

[RippleJet]

Is there some trick, so that you have:
- English language
- Right-hand driving
- DD/MM/YY date
And all these using the european version of Simcity 4 (for which "English" means UK English).

Yes, you can do that with any existing language by replacing its SimCityLocate.dat file with the one found in the UKEnglsh folder.
Just remember to backup any native language SimCityLocale.dat file you might have first...

I do this regularly in order to get screen shots with English names in stead of Swedish.
And thus without changing the registry language, which for me stays at 0x06 (for Swedish).

I haven't checked the date format for the different languages though.
That is something you would have to test.

[cogeo]

How about translated lots/buildings then? Won't they be displaying the translated text? (that's why I mentioned the missing languages).

[RippleJet]

How about translated lots/buildings then? Won't they be displaying the translated text? (that's why I mentioned the missing languages).

Yes, quite correct.
I do come across that occasionally with custom lots having Swedish names among everything else being English.

It would certainly be interesting if you could check e.g. the Greek folder and see if that would work.

[cogeo]

I'll try it. Btw what are the language IDs for these languages?

[RippleJet]

Btw what are the language IDs for these languages?

The registry key...

Which number is which language in the Registry?


Depending on the Language number in the SC4 Registry, the game looks for a file called SimCityLocale.DAT in one of the folders above.
The name of the file is the same in all language folders. Only the name of the folder identifies which language the file includes.

The SimCityLocale.DAT file contains almost 6,000 LTEXT files. These files include all texts that are displayed in the game.
By loading another SimCityLocale.DAT file at startup, all texts in your game would change accordingly.

The name of the folder that the game is looking for is directly dependent on the Registry Setting.
If the Language is set to 1 (as in the example above), the game would be looking for a SimCityLocale.DAT file in the folder English.

Below is a summary of all Key values that can be used.
As mentioned above, the Language also determines which side the cars are driving on.

Registry Key    Language	Folder Name	Cars Drive on
0x01	English	Right
0x02	French	Right
0x03	German	Right
0x04	Italian	Right
0x05	Spanish	Right
0x06	Swedish	Right
0x07	Finnish	Right
0x08	Dutch	Right
0x09	Danish	Right
0x0A	Portgese	Right
0x0B	Czech	Right
0x0C	Hebrew	Right
0x0D	Greek	Right
0x0E	Japanese	Left
0x0F	Korean	Right
0x10	Russian	Right
0x11	SChinese	Right
0x12	TChinese	Right
0x13	UKEnglsh	Left
0x14	Polish	Right
0x15	Thai	Right
0x16	Norwgian	Right

EDIT:
Stupid me...
I didn't realise until now that you were probably asking about the Group ID offsets for multilingual LTEXT addresses...

Honestly, I have no idea whether that was even implemented by Maxis for the missing languages.
I suppose some testing would be needed for that.