Forum Discussion

sirsporter1221's avatar
sirsporter1221
4 years ago
Solved

SIMcity transfer of game progress to new hard drive.

Hard drive on computer is having issues so am trying to transfer previous game progress and cities to new hard drive. Have tried the copy all origin/simcity files/folders from old hard drive to a dif...
  • BlackjackWidow's avatar
    BlackjackWidow
    4 years ago

    Hi @sirsporter1221 - On a new install, the game will start with the tutorial regardless of whether you have saved games anywhere. So, you might actually already have your games transferred. You don't have to go thru the entire tutorial, just click through to start it (must be online), then go to the options menu (three dots in upper right-hand corner) and exit tutorial. This should put you back to the main menu where you can choose the Single Player tab and your games should be listed under Play.

    For Single Player / offline mode - your games are saved on the hard drive, not online. You will need to copy the files in the game folder from the first computer, and transfer them to the new computer. Use a portable storage device like a thumb drive or external hard drive. On the original computer, copy all the files and folders from the Games folder - default location is <YourWindowsUserName>\Documents\SimCity\Games. Move all the files on the portable drive to the Games folder on the new computer. 

    For Multiplayer / online mode - your games are all saved online. If you're not seeing them, you probably just need to change to the correct server. For some reason, SimCity doesn't automatically open to the server you were on when you switch computers. (it WILL open to the server you were on last on the same computer; it doesn't save that info in Origin) How to Choose a SimCity Server

    Make sure you don't accidentally end up with nested Games folders - just move the files. When you move games for offline play, only the files on the computer you're using will be changed. The old copy will stay just as is. 

    Hope this helps - Happy Building!

BlackjackWidow's avatar
BlackjackWidow
Hero (Retired)
4 years ago

Hi @sirsporter1221 - On a new install, the game will start with the tutorial regardless of whether you have saved games anywhere. So, you might actually already have your games transferred. You don't have to go thru the entire tutorial, just click through to start it (must be online), then go to the options menu (three dots in upper right-hand corner) and exit tutorial. This should put you back to the main menu where you can choose the Single Player tab and your games should be listed under Play.

For Single Player / offline mode - your games are saved on the hard drive, not online. You will need to copy the files in the game folder from the first computer, and transfer them to the new computer. Use a portable storage device like a thumb drive or external hard drive. On the original computer, copy all the files and folders from the Games folder - default location is <YourWindowsUserName>\Documents\SimCity\Games. Move all the files on the portable drive to the Games folder on the new computer. 

For Multiplayer / online mode - your games are all saved online. If you're not seeing them, you probably just need to change to the correct server. For some reason, SimCity doesn't automatically open to the server you were on when you switch computers. (it WILL open to the server you were on last on the same computer; it doesn't save that info in Origin) How to Choose a SimCity Server

Make sure you don't accidentally end up with nested Games folders - just move the files. When you move games for offline play, only the files on the computer you're using will be changed. The old copy will stay just as is. 

Hope this helps - Happy Building!

  • sirsporter1221's avatar
    sirsporter1221
    4 years ago

           Can't get it to load my previous maps/progress...   So on my original that I saved to my usb file is" Origin Games">"Simcity"> Then those break down into these folders: Installer, simcity, simcity data, simcity recovery, simcity users data, support, and a gdfbinary_en_US.dll  application extension.      It is these files in the Simcity folder that I copied from USB to new download on refreshed hard drive.    I did not see any files or folders of "Games" under Simcity, and the recovery just takes me to answers HQ again.    It seems to give me the things such as Nuclear plants and others that I had researched previously but not the builds on the maps I had previous to the hard drive crash.  Any help is appreciated, and I am not a tech so there may be something else that I am not doing correctly.  Thank you for the advice.

  • sirsporter1221's avatar
    sirsporter1221
    4 years ago

    Ok,  went back and saw that I missed the forest through the trees on what you said,  unfortunately I didn't save any of the local user files.....  Thank you for your help.  Bright side is that I don't have to go back and research all of the technologies and can start a new map. 

    • BlackjackWidow's avatar
      BlackjackWidow
      Hero (Retired)
      4 years ago
      @sirsporter1221 wrote:

      Ok,  went back and saw that I missed the forest through the trees on what you said,  unfortunately I didn't save any of the local user files.....  Thank you for your help.  Bright side is that I don't have to go back and research all of the technologies and can start a new map. 

      I'm sorry that you didn't get the game files. Hard drive crashes are such a pain. I know it's too late for your old games, but with your new drive you might want to start backing up your user files to an external drive every once in a while, just in case. 

      I definitely feel your pain. I have experienced the same thing and now I try to copy my documents folder to an external drive every month or so. In fact, this is a good reminder to me to do it again - I've been slacking off on that lately 🙂

      Glad you are able to find the bright side. Happy Building! 🏦

About SimCity Franchise Discussion

Do you have what it takes to be mayor? Share your city-building experience and strategy with the SimCity forum community.1,705 PostsLatest Activity: 9 months ago