What CPU would it take to run Sim City 4 smoothly?

[yhelothar]

heh i just ran it on my matrox millenium II, since my geforce3 just died..

it doesn't look that bad in software mode.. when zoomed in, it looks identical to my geforce3, when zoomed out, it was a bit more blurry, and the lines weren't as straight..

but i have to say it performed about as well as my geforce3...

so this is mostly software.. and not hardware..

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Ram is cheap right now so that's a good investment regardless.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0
heh i just ran it on my matrox millenium II, since my geforce3 just died..

it doesn't look that bad in software mode.. when zoomed in, it looks identical to my geforce3, when zoomed out, it was a bit more blurry, and the lines weren't as straight..

but i have to say it performed about as well as my geforce3...

so this is mostly software.. and not hardware..

not really. its not a game that would really stress your video card much, i think the only polys are from terrain. the stress comes from the drawing/calculating all that 2d city stuff. try a city of 200,000+ population. thats when your system will truely be stressed, its not software. you can download cities if u don't have a large city.

its not as if your video card actually zooms and does the rerendering of the city when you zoom. your comp has to redraw everything at higher detail instead.

 

[ndee]

Originally posted by: TweakageMan
Dual processors is the key.

I have a Dual Pentium 3 1.4GHz system w/ 4GB PC2100 DDR (yes, 4GB) and a Radeon 9500 Pro

It runs sim city 4 flawlessly with 125,000 people.

Is that game SMP capable?

 

[AtomicDude512]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
my xp1800 with 1gb of pc2700 ram runs it well up to like 90K to 100K people .... anything more than that and it starts lagging

Usually around 230K is when it gets so lagged its no longer playable

Hmmm. Looks like 1GB of RAM is the key here...

 

[bjc112]

I still stick with,

Bad Memory managment/programming...

:disgust:

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: bjc112
I still stick with,

Bad Memory managment/programming...

:disgust:

Me too

 

[paralazarguer]

Me too

Then you wouldn't know what you're talking about either.
Modern desktops just can't handle this kind of workload. Tropico is very well programmed yet there is no desktop going that can handle a full island. That's on a much smaller scale than this. The AI for each citizen in that game and other things in SC4 ruin modern CPUs. Commanche 4 is still bottlenecked at the CPU and it has relatelively no AI compared to these games.

 

[bjc112]

Modern desktops just can't handle this kind of workload.

I can't seem to understand that, considering there are many games that are more intense on the entire system.

You should not need a god damn

3ghz

9700 pro/FX5800

1 gig of ram

TO PLAY SIM CITY...

But hey im glad to see that some games are pushing the limits though!

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Has anyone tried using the P4 3.06ghz OC'ed to like 4ghz and a full 4 gigs of ram for this game?

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: AgaBooga
Has anyone tried using the P4 3.06ghz OC'ed to like 4ghz and a full 4 gigs of ram for this game?

This i would like to hear about

 

[Mavrick]

Originally posted by: motoamd

Originally posted by: Chadder007

Originally posted by: Mavrick

Originally posted by: Imdmn04
it doesnt matter what kind of rig you have, theres just too much micromanagement that is going on at the same time.
i got a xp1900, radeon 9700 pro, and 512 ram, it is still choppy after about 20k in population.

i have also played simcity 3000 on my current gig, you think it would run silky smooth since its such an old game, but no, there is still alot of chopiness when the population gets large enough.

so in conclusion, a game with many micromangement stuff going on at the same time such as sim city 4, will never run smooth no matter what kind of rig u have once the population gets to a large amount.

Sim City 3000 runs silky smooth on my rig, even with 2 000 000 people... Try running it in win98 compatibility layer, it really helps a lot

Hmm...thats a good idea. Never though of doing that....

Ditto... Now how in the world did you get 2 million people?! I'm some where at 30-50k (don't remember)... trying to figure out how to pack more people in there...

I've never attained 2 000 000 people myself, but there is a city that comes with the game with 2M. The max I've actually attained myself is 1M

 

[Mavrick]

Am I the only one who thinks Anand should include a knid of Sim City 4 benchmark in the CPU tests?
I don't really know how he could measure performance precisely, but loading a pre-built city with 500k or 800k people should bring any PC to its knees.

Maybe he could measure the time to load the game, or the time needed for the simulation to pass 10 years, or the time needed to create a large region from a BMP (takes like 15 minutes on a regular desktop), but SC4 seems to be by far the most CPU intensive game out there..

 

[SexyK]

Originally posted by: paralazarguer

Me too

Then you wouldn't know what you're talking about either.
Modern desktops just can't handle this kind of workload. Tropico is very well programmed yet there is no desktop going that can handle a full island. That's on a much smaller scale than this. The AI for each citizen in that game and other things in SC4 ruin modern CPUs. Commanche 4 is still bottlenecked at the CPU and it has relatelively no AI compared to these games.

I'm just curious how you know for fact that Tropico is "very well programmed"? Did you write it?

 

[paralazarguer]

No. But I know enough about this type of programming to know that today's systems can't handle it.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Mavrick
Am I the only one who thinks Anand should include a knid of Sim City 4 benchmark in the CPU tests?
I don't really know how he could measure performance precisely, but loading a pre-built city with 500k or 800k people should bring any PC to its knees.

Maybe he could measure the time to load the game, or the time needed for the simulation to pass 10 years, or the time needed to create a large region from a BMP (takes like 15 minutes on a regular desktop), but SC4 seems to be by far the most CPU intensive game out there..

well it would have to do more then run the simulation as fast as it can go. it would have to scroll around zooming in and out to do all tthat stressful rendering which really really brings your pc to its knees

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: AtomicDude512

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
my xp1800 with 1gb of pc2700 ram runs it well up to like 90K to 100K people .... anything more than that and it starts lagging

Usually around 230K is when it gets so lagged its no longer playable

Hmmm. Looks like 1GB of RAM is the key here...

not really, 1gb of ram is simply nice. i've used dual monitor to have task manager on screen while i play. loaded up a giant 250k? i forget, it was big anyhow. it ate up 400mb of ram eventually. ram will help, but redrawing stuff and whatever still is the cpu's burden.


of course, you can always lower resolution/effects and lower all your cpu requirements.

 

[LeeTJ]

Originally posted by: paralazarguer

Me too

Then you wouldn't know what you're talking about either.
Modern desktops just can't handle this kind of workload. Tropico is very well programmed yet there is no desktop going that can handle a full island. That's on a much smaller scale than this. The AI for each citizen in that game and other things in SC4 ruin modern CPUs. Commanche 4 is still bottlenecked at the CPU and it has relatelively no AI compared to these games.

i was gonna say something quite close to that.

simcity 4 is really a marvel among simulations. i love what it does and understand that it will take a lot of cpu power. I'm just waiting for my XP 2700+ to come back from RMA so i can play this game. It seems to really bog down on my wife's P4 1.6. both systems are 512 Ram but hers only has geforce MX, where i have the ati 8500. not the best but i'm hoping it'll be sufficient.

 

[DannyBoy]

was gonna say something quite close to that.

simcity 4 is really a marvel among simulations. i love what it does and understand that it will take a lot of cpu power. I'm just waiting for my XP 2700+ to come back from RMA so i can play this game. It seems to really bog down on my wife's P4 1.6. both systems are 512 Ram but hers only has geforce MX, where i have the ati 8500. not the best but i'm hoping it'll be sufficient.

If youve been reading, its the cpu that slos the game down, not the graphics card

To everyone on this thread, how well in your opinions would my machine run?

My rigs in sig.

Thanks
Dan

 

[LeeTJ]

Originally posted by: MrFiTTy

was gonna say something quite close to that.

simcity 4 is really a marvel among simulations. i love what it does and understand that it will take a lot of cpu power. I'm just waiting for my XP 2700+ to come back from RMA so i can play this game. It seems to really bog down on my wife's P4 1.6. both systems are 512 Ram but hers only has geforce MX, where i have the ati 8500. not the best but i'm hoping it'll be sufficient.

If youve been reading, its the cpu that slos the game down, not the graphics card

To everyone on this thread, how well in your opinions would my machine run?

My rigs in sig.

Thanks
Dan

and if you had read MY reply you'd see that my wife's P4 1.6 system can't handle SimCity 4. even if you want to argue amd superiority, that should be a reasonable gauge for you.

 

[Eug]

And I've heard it's not just 1 GB RAM, but also 1 GB DDR RAM.

My BX mobo (with Celeron 1.4) can only run 768 MB of SDR RAM though, and I've only got 512 MB.

Oh well, when I get a new machine next year...

 

[0roo0roo]

possibly. i've never had more then 512sdram, but now that i have ddr i notice systems snappier so it probably does help. that and 1gb of ddr i offloaded my two tuallys on other family members

 

[Bovinicus]

Originally posted by: TweakageMan
Dual processors is the key.

I have a Dual Pentium 3 1.4GHz system w/ 4GB PC2100 DDR (yes, 4GB) and a Radeon 9500 Pro

It runs sim city 4 flawlessly with 125,000 people.

Are you quite sure that the flawless performance is due to the dual CPUs and not your 4GB of memory? I tend to think it is the 4GB of memory, seeing as how many people are running into slowdowns with 3.06GHz P4s...

 

[KhoiFather]

SOME of you guys are too old to be playing games. =D

 

[LeeTJ]

Originally posted by: KhoiFather
SOME of you guys are too old to be playing games. =D

this isn't a GAME. it's a simulation. the reason i bought it is to get my son interesting in city planning. mb it will be something that he can make a career at. urban planning etc. regardless, it is a very good tool.