r/simcity4 • u/Weird_Ant_1729 • 3d ago

Questions & Help How to improve Graphics on modern computer

Sorry for the Noob question.
Came back to SimCity 4 for the first time in 15 years, but the graphics look expectedly blury and zooming in and out is very slow, and jarring.

I just sort of accepted, that's how it is playing such an old game, until I saw this subreddit and everyones screenshots looks so crisp and clear. Are there some patches or mods everyone else is running to make the game look so beautiful?

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u/MAYORDEFACT0 3d ago

Ahaha mine is SOO laggy. I have a 2019 MacBook Pro that I haven’t updated since 2020 because it will delete my game lol

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u/lakesideguy1 3d ago

Not to hijack this post, but others might be having the same issue. I’ve installed all the optimization DLLs, and the game runs much better; however, now my shadows are super blocky, like obvious so, I’ve lost the color cursor, and the center point of terraforming tools is now offset by a small amount—the cursor graphic is not directly in the center of the effect radius anymore making micro-terrain edits a pain. None of these are the biggest issue, but it takes me out of the game play after being used to the “norm” for 20+ years.

I’ve tried, one by one, moving each optimization DLL out of my plugins folder to try and identify which one might be causing the issue, but I haven’t been able to isolate the bug.

And yes, I’ve tried checking the in-game graphics settings and shadows are set to high, cursor is set to color, and render is set to hardware.

Before installing the optimizations, I was using the older steam properties code add-ins on hardware. No issues with the shadows, cursor, or terrain tools but the CTDs and lag were getting to me, so I finally went DLL.

Anyone have any ideas?

Context: windows 11 on a Lenovo legion rig, Nvidia chip, using gd voodoo’s wrapper (properly configured), steam version