SimCity 4 Deluxe does not launch or crashes

Hi @craig9670 - I moved your post to its own thread, as the original one you replied in was quite old.

Running in compatibility mode does help; also, set SimCity4.exe to run "As Administrator" and make sure it's added to any antivirus exception lists.

The game was built back in 2003, so it can have issues running under our new systems, especially utilizing more than one processor core. To fix, there are a few command line switches you can use to force it to play nice. Hopefully this will get the game back to running on your system. Close out of the game - make certain SimCity 4 is not running any processes (you might want to reboot your pc, just to make sure).

• In Origin, right-click the SimCity 4 icon. Choose Game Properties > Advanced Launch Options. In Steam, right-click the SimCity 4 icon. Choose Game Properties > Set Launch Options
• In the Command Line Arguments box type 

  -d:soft -intro:off -CPUCount:1 -f -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32

  • -d: soft sets rendering to software mode
  • -intro:off skips the intro video
  • -CPUCount:1 sets the game to use just 1 core 
  • -f sets the game to run in full screen mode (use -w for windowed mode)
  • -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 sets the resolution to 1920x1080 at 32 bit color. (you can set this to match a resolution supported by your monitor, up to 1280x1024x32)
• Choose Save to save the command line switches
• Exit the Game Properties and try SimCity 4 again

These are the most common switches used. You may not want or need the screen mode or resolution settings. Hopefully, the software rendering and forcing the cpu count to only one core will fix the crashing. Skipping the intro video can also help, since they usually play in a different resolution and cause issues. 🤞 

Hope this helps! Happy Building!