SimCity 4 Forum

Hello! I've been a long-time fan of Simcity and so it was inevitable that I'd want to install it under Crossover.

Anyway, here is my experience with installing and running the game in Crossover Games 7.1.1 (win2000 bottle) under Mac OS X 10.4.11.

To begin with, the installation went smoothly .. for the most part. The transition from the first disc to the second disc occured without issue. One odd thing was that, for the entire process, it showed a progress of "0.00%". It did install files, though. Once it got toward the end it simply seemed to crash. The last file I saw it installing was "SC4.ico". I saw a dialog box appear but it was so gone so quickly that I couldn't read it. I saved a .log file of the installation that Crossover provided, so if that'll help I'll post it here.

After trying a few times to run it (and attempting to update it to 1.1.638.0, which I was able to confirm through file size did work, at least, on the .dat files), I noticed a big problem - the game's .exe file was completely absent.

The Digital Rights Management (DRM) software in this program
prevents it from running in CrossOver. If you are in a legal jurisdiction
which allows removal of such software, you may have luck running this
program. Unfortunately, CodeWeavers, because they are subject to the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, will be unable to support you.

I wonder if I might have better luck first installing it in Windows and then copying the files over. I don't have Windows installed on my computer any longer, so trying that theory will be quite tedious; I'd have to copy the files over from the other machine. Even so, I'll try it and post my results once it's done.

Of course, if anyone has any insight into this, it'd be appreciated.

Regards,
Brighid

I just posted lengthy installation instructions in the Tips & Tricks section. It looks like you've covered all your bases, but maybe something there will help.

Well, I feel like a dummy. I was looking in the wrong folder for the Simcity4.exe file. It's in /Apps/. Unfortunately, copying a Windows installation didn't help. It did not work. I really hope this isn't failing because I don't have Leopard. I'm sick of those sort of problems ..

I'm going to try reinstalling it through Crossover again, this time following your advice, Jeffrey (for which I'm quite grateful). I'll get this thing working yet. 😭

I DID IT!

Using your advice, some tips I found on the Internet, and a bit of luck, I got it working!

Here is what I ultimately had to enter to run it:

/Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/CrossOver Games/Bottles/BOTTLENAME/drive_c/Program Files/Maxis/SimCity 4 Deluxe/Apps/SimCity 4.exe" -d:software -intro:off -f -CustomResolution:enabled -r1440x900x32

Annoyingly, trying to run it in a window with -w didn't work, as you predicted, so I used -f for fullscreen. -intro:off did work, thankfully. -d:software made it run in software rendering mode (I might have been able to set that option in-game, though).

I did find a way to get it to run in a window, though! Start it as normal, but set the resolution to something smaller than your desktop. In my example, my desktop resolution is 1680x1050, so I set the game to 1440x900. However, upon starting the game, press Apple+Option+R (Restore Display) and the game will now be in a "window". You can't move it around, but you can play and access your desktop normally!

I'll add a few things to the Tips & Tricks section once my application for advocacy is accepted. Time to go have fun! 😀

The Restore Display trick is fine, but I just wanted to point out an alternative: you can configure a bottle to use a "virtual desktop" in a window. In CrossOver's Manage Bottles window, on the Control Panel, launch winecfg. In winecfg, select the Graphics tab and enable Emulate a virtual desktop and specify an initial size for the window. From then on (until you disable that setting) all Windows programs in that bottle will run in a virtual desktop window.

Ken Thomases wrote:

The Restore Display trick is fine, but I just wanted to point out an
alternative: you can configure a bottle to use a "virtual desktop"
in a window. In CrossOver's Manage Bottles window, on the Control
Panel, launch winecfg. In winecfg, select the Graphics tab and
enable Emulate a virtual desktop and specify an initial size for the
window. From then on (until you disable that setting) all Windows
programs in that bottle will run in a virtual desktop window.

I should have known there'd be something like that. :) Thank you, Ken! I've amended my post in Tips & Tricks.

I have a problem and I'm hoping crossover can help me.

I just bought the SimCity Box (Simcity Societies, Simcity Societies Destinations, Simcity 4, Simcity 4 Rush Hour, Sims Carnival SnapCity, and Spore Creature Creator) and, like an idiot, I assumed it would work on my Mac because Spore (which I bought at the same time) did. Needless to say, I was wrong. So, Ihave a brand new game, never used, which is useless to me, but Ican't return it to Walmart because I took the shrinkwrap off.

I see that crossover says it can handle Simcity 4...but can it handle the other games included in the Simcity Box?

I was hoping to find a way to avoid buying a copy of windows ($200) in order to play a game ($26)

Any ideas?

Benjamin, we can help you with SC4 here (if you follow the instructions in Tips & Tricks you should be fine) but I can't say anything about the others.

Here is the page on Codeweavers for Simcity Societies:
http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=3985

You might get some more helpful responses there. The expansion pack shouldn't pose any more problems than SC Societies itself.

As for the Carnival game, I don't see it here. You might consider submitting it to the database. If it's an older game it should work easily. I would just suggest trying to install the games and see what happens.

If you have a paid copy of Crossover I expect you can get some proper assistance through the Support section of the site. I'm only an Advocate, though, so I couldn't tell you much more about that.

Hope you get your games working. Enjoy Simcity 4, in any case. Even if Societies doesn't work, take heart in knowing that a lot of people still think SC4 is better. 😉

Peace.

Apologies for the edit.