SimCity 4 under Virtual PC

re: SimCity 4 under Virtual PC

wiswedel — Thu, 12 May 2005 12:13:01 GMT

Hi,
it doesn´t run on my virtual pc for mac v. 6.1.1! When I start the game it says: "Hardware Driver Error: Could not initialize DirectDraw ". It performs the splash-screens and I get into the region view, but crashes when i select and start one of the tutorial cities. I am using Windows XP Professional with DirectX 9.0 on a Powerbook G4 (Mac OS X 10.3.8).
Thank you for any hints.
wiswedel

re: SimCity 4 under Virtual PC

DosFreak — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 09:22:01 GMT

Don't remember what the max res for VPC is but just going by HxVxColor:

Your good all the way up to 1600x1200 in 32bit. Anything past that and you'd have to drop to 16bit. If your running that high of a res in VPC and doing something that requires that high of a resolution and colordepth then running it on the host would be a recommended situation.

re: SimCity 4 under Virtual PC

Sixam — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 05:56:32 GMT

SimCity 4 has a 3D software engine that is used when a suitable Direct3D device is not available. If you're bored, run it under the 16-color VGA driver sometime. I forget whether the final release can run in NT4.0 or not.

re: SimCity 4 under Virtual PC

Roger Binns — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 05:32:24 GMT

The video memory also limits the frame buffer size and hence maximum resolution. Since Microsoft won't document how to talk to VPC behind the scenes, this also limits the max resolution for all non-Windows guests.

re: SimCity 4 under Virtual PC

DosFreak — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 03:35:47 GMT

Roger, VPC emulates 8mb of video memory because that's all it really needs. You only need large amounts of video memory when you are running 3D games, particularly AA.

re: SimCity 4 under Virtual PC

Gireesh — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 01:43:26 GMT

Ben,
I have been evaluating virtual PC for our office. It is really great and has converted me in to a Virtual PC evangelist. I am trying to come up with new uses for the product every day.

One of the things that is going to make VPC a hard sell in my company is the lack of support of direct USB connection. I have been looking around to figure out why this is the case. Is it a feature that will be put in at some point of time in the future or is it that usb will never be supported? Could you enlighten me on this topic, please? Thanks.

re: SimCity 4 under Virtual PC

Roger Binns — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 17:42:36 GMT

Is there any technical reason to limit the emulated card to 8MB? Would it hurt to allow larger values?