SIMCITY PC 32 BIT COLOR ERROR FULL
When run in full screen, "16" will be logged regardless of actual setting. The application log, located in SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps, notes when the game is running in which color depth with "screenBPP". No color banding, a result of Windows handing the compositing: Note the stark, jagged lines when the color jumps a shade: And once, it was normal to me.īelow is the color banding, a result of running in 16-bit color. I'm confident enough in this being a game bug that I'll say you've both seen it (If you've ever run hardware mode), but never had the context for understanding what it is. If I recall, that was the one that woke me up to the problem in the first place. I've even seen in on a building once, one that had a huge flat side to it. Really, any large, flat, repetitive texture will fall victim to it. I've seen the color banding on snow, as well. Nonny: It ignores the command line settings for color depth when you try to force 32-bit color mode in full screen. Everything below applies only for hardware mode.
SIMCITY PC 32 BIT COLOR ERROR SOFTWARE
Software mode properly blends colors! Hardware mode is the only one affected by the color banding issue. Note: Having just been inspired by Nonny, I tested software mode. Still, this problem has wore on me for a long time so any kind of resolution is better than nothing. We've dealing with buggy code on SC4's part, undoubtably, so there may be nothing that can be done without source code. Is there a way to force SimCity 4 to use 32-bit color in full screen through a hack/fix, forcing it via the driver, creating a special resolution that disallows 16-bit color, or other solution I haven't thought of? The situation boils down to this question: It does become a problem with any large, flat textures that are meant to gradually change colors. It's not the end of the world, mind, since the game WAS designed with 16-bit color in mind. Next, run the game with the command line "-w" to run the game in a window and look at the same water. You'll see rather stark color banding on the Maxis water.
SimCity 4 ignores command lines directing it to use 32-bit color.Īn easy way to test this is to remove your water mod, and load up a big old water map. It is not video card, CPU, or operating system related I've seen it with various mixes of Intel, AMD, Linux, Windows, Radeon, and Nvidia hardware and software. It has not done so for so long I'm not even sure it ever properly ran 32-bit color mode while full screen. Problem: SimCity 4 does not render in 32-bit color while running in exclusive (full screen) mode.