Dxwrapper
Aleck Cobbs
In my case and for many other users (especially with Windows 10) it is otherwise not possible to start SimCity 4 with DirectX (= Hardware Mode). The more compatible Software Mode is slower in general and you aren't able to use HD Mods, e.g. Maxis HD Tree Replacement Mod. To start SimCity with DirectX use the SC4 Launcher, which I recommend, because of such useful functions like autosave and choosing what folders and files should be loaded from the Plugin Folder. But you can activate DirectX also with the command
The general use is to unzip the files and place the "ddraw.dll" into the same folder like your "SimCity 4.exe", e.g. "C:\Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps". Some Wrappers have additional files like config.files or separate Direct3D.dll's and so on. Just put the needed files into the folder of the SimCity 4.exe. And some Wrappers like the voodoo have graphical configuration UI's. In most cases here you have to specify which file or which folder you want to modify the DirectX Wrapper and apply to your configuration settings. Here you specify the "SimCity 4.exe" or the "C:\Games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps" folder.
Sometimes there can be a Windows warning that the files could be dangerous. I think this happens because the files intervene deeply with the hardware of your system, but what I can say is, that all these wrappers looks very serious and I googled all of them for negative comments and found not a single one.
With all Wrappers and also in Software Mode I get tearing errors like this. But just when I had the graphics effects on high or medium. With low all tearing errors disappear completely. So I have to play withoud clouds and industrial smoke.
In this thread there is explained how to use this Wrapper in resolutions above 1920x1080. This works fine, but you need a large monitor, because in resolutions above Full HD the UI is relatively tiny. In general the Wrapper works very stable and without noticeable errors beside of tearing (which I have with every! Wrapper and even in Software Mode). But it is not the fastest one.
A good and fast Wrapper, but in my case with sometimes heavy graphical glitches (for example in my case with Fullscreen 1920x1080), where I had almost just a white startscreen, which I had to hard-close with the Taskmanager (CTRL-ALT-DEL). In Windowmode everything was fine and fast and it has a lot of configuration options. If I choose my NVidia GTX 950M in the "Adapter(s) to use / enable" I get an error message when SimCity 4 is starting, that ddraw.dll couldn't be enabled and so it starts in Software Mode. But in the "DESKTOP-xyz-config-log" (you find this file in the folder where "SimCity 4.exe" is) it is stated that it starts with the NVidia GPU. I think this is a wrong message, because when I directly choose the NVidia GPU in the settings SimCity won't start in Hardware Mode. I was able to start SimCity in 2560x1440, but it was quite slow with this resolution.
The easiest and the fastest one. Just unzip the ddraw.dll into the folder, where the SimCity 4.exe is. No further configuration setting needed. Highly recommend. But the highest resolution I got is Full HD (1920x1080). With higher resolutions SimCity 4 won't start.
For me it's a bit unclear if this Wrapper is in active Development. The latest version is an experimental version from 13th July 2020. The last stable version before is from 2016, so I hope there will be further development on the experimental version.
I had expected a lot from this wrapper. It looks very modern, is in active development and has many configuration possibilities. One downside is, that you have to use an installer for this (not just unzip and place the files into the SimCity 4. exe folder).
A relatively old wrapper (from 2012) which hasn't seen an update since then. But it managed to start SimCity 4. It was also quite fast, but not as fast as DDrawCompat. Nevertheless this wrapper surprised me positively.
I hope this thread can be helpful for those who search in Google for advice with their hardware problems or how to run SimCity 4 smoother. I will test from time to time the updates from the Wrappers mentioned above. If anyone knows from other Wrappers, which ideally got good results in SimCity 4, I would very appreciate it, if you could tell them here :-)
May i ask all of your configurations about dgvoodoo, have you modified that two rule files? how about the settings of your Nvidia control panel? and also the details of DirectX tab, since Dege (the author) seems has the GTX 950M as well and he told me that his SC4 is ok with his comp, Thank you!
I will do it in December. I write my exam at November 25th, so I have not much time at the moment. I know, that I have chosen many settingsoptions, but either the ddraw couldn't load and SC4 started in Softwaremode or it started in hardwaremode, but with the Intel GPU and the Frames per Second were rather slow.
But when I have more time I will investigate this further!
Hi yes, it is 559 Kb. I think you may need to remove some of the other dlls if they are vestiges of another direct x wrapper. I had the same issue, previously I was using the wrapper by elishacloud. Now my folder looks like this
Sorry to hijack the topic, but how is everyone getting DDrawCompat working? I've tried 0.3.0 and 0.3.1, extracted to the Apps folder. When it's there, I get a pop up saying "Could not initialize Direct Draw", then "Falling back to software rendering". The DDC log file is never created. Any ideas?
Lots of good info here, but it all went well over my head. If the game has been working fine, is this something recommended? I tried to follow for as much as I could, but it seemed like it slowed the game down for me. It is also very likely that I missed a step or something along the way. I guess mostly, what would I be gaining from this?
If you're happy with the way your game is working, then I wouldn't go through the trouble. In my case, I'd like to push the game beyond its 1920x1200 resolution limit so that's why I'm fiddling with wrappers.
Do you like custom textures, but don't like all the work involved creating them?, take a look at the Texture Automation options here. Change the look and feel of your transit networks, with the minimum of effort, for example customised versions of my Sidewalk NAM (SWN) and Terrain Grass NAM (TGN) mods, and much more besides.
So in region view it looks great, however in a city tile I seem to be having some issues with zooming.
I'm wondering if this has anything to do with Hardware rendering vs. Software rendering being selected?
I decided to build DxWrapper from the latest code. I created a virtual machine for that because I didn't want to muck up my Windows installation with development tools. I was able to successfully build DxWrapper.
I looked through DxWrapper's documentation and I set my dxwrapper.ini settings based on the documentation. I don't know if it all made anything "better," but if you have the know-how to do it, building from the latest code is something that can be done.
Fun fact: Buffalo sauce contains the entire DNA sequence of buffalo, so you can clone buffalo while eating buffalo wings with buffalo sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings in Buffalo, New York. I've never tried it, though.
I don't think that GitHub is going anywhere anytime soon. Still, for the sake of potential preservation, I will paste a screenshot of my created issue below. The log that I mentioned in the issue can be found attached to this post.
Edit: I had hoped that by setting DisableHighDPIScaling = 0, then SimCity 4's user interface wouldn't be so miniscule in 4K by adjusting DPI-related compatibility settings within Windows. The user interface scale had not changed after doing all of that.
Alright, so my questions were answered. When using DxWrapper, the only stub .dll that needs to be copied to SimCity 4's .exe directory is ddraw.dll. Below are the only changes that I made to dxwrapper.ini.
I also set SingleProcAffinity to 4 so that SimCity 4 uses CPU 3 on my Intel i9-12900K CPU. If the value set for SingleProcAffinity is greater than the number of CPUs that are present in your system, then CPU 0 will be used.
The GitHub issue can be found linked to in my previous post. Below, screenshots of the issue can be found.