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[Workaround found] CAM 2.1.0 installer on Mac cannot find SC4 install location

Started by Zuthal Soraniz, January 10, 2019, 03:40:50 PM

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Zuthal Soraniz

Hello everyone

I like Sim City 4, and, after having not played for a while, I wanted to give this mod a try. So, I installed WINE, downloaded the CAM 2.1.0 Windows installer, and it does launch (seemingly) without issue using WINE. However, it then immediately gives me an error message saying
"Could not find Sim City 4 Install Path.
Sim City 4 was not Installed properly. Reinstall Sim City 4 and try again.
Aborting Installation."

I have Sim City 4 installed via Steam, in the default location on Mac (/users/myusername/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/SimCity 4 Deluxe), and am running on macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra.

I would be grateful for any help in making the installer accept this as the proper install location, in one way or another.

mgb204

Since the CAM installer is a Windows installer, it's looking for a Windows Registry entry to tell it where SC4 is installed, which under WINE it simply won't find.

The good news is that the installer is made with NSIS, so you can manually extract everything using 7zip and bypass the installer. You'll need to manually find/move the files you need, then most importantly manually DATPack the CAM fix into SimCity_1.dat using JDATPacker.

I posted these instructions on ST which may help you with this, although it was intended for a Windows install, you should be able to adapt it to work with a Mac:

"Copy the folders "a__CAM" & "SimCity_1" from the installer into your plugins folder. The installer includes the following options:


  • Extended
  • Standard
  • Rural
  • MidRise
  • Skyscraper

You need to decide which of these options you wish to use. Find these files inside the folder a__CAM\a__Core, in total you will have seven. From there, you MUST keep the following:


  • CAM_2.1.0_Main_Controller.dat
  • CAM_2.1.0_Rural_Farm_Demand_Override.dat

Of the remaining 5 files, each has the word "PlayStyle" in the file name. There is one for each of the listed options in PURPLE above. Remove all but one of the PlayStyle files, keeping just the one you want to use. This step is VERY important.




Find and locate the SimCity_1.dat file from the games installation. Move this file into the SimCity_1 folder in Plugins.

Now run the DatPacker application. Select the folder SimCity_1 from the list that appears. Then click Start/Run to combine the files. Now you should have a new folder Plugins_Compressed. Take the newly modified SimCity_1.dat file from there and place it in the install folder.

The last step, back in the Plugins folder. Remove the following two folders you no longer need:


  • Plugins_Compressed
  • SimCity_1

Note: Inside the SimCity_1 folder is the original unmodified SimCity_1.dat, which you should ideally keep as a backup, in case you need to restore it.

Zuthal Soraniz

Thanks for that workaround, very nice and easy to follow instructions. From some quick testing (just launching the game and such) it seems to have worked just fine - no crashes or big angry error messages at least, which I suspect I'd get if I had done something absolutely horribly wrong.