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SimCity 2000

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

For the Network Edition, see SimCity 2000 Network Edition.

SimCity 2000
SimCity 2000 cover
Developers
Maxis
Publishers
Electronic Arts
Release dates
Mac OS (Classic) October 31, 1993
DOS February 1994
Windows 3.x November 1, 1994
Windows February 28, 1995
Windows (DOSBox) October 4, 2011
macOS (OS X) (DOSBox) October 18, 2012[1]
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Subscription gaming service, Expansion pack
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls Point and select
Genres Building, Simulation
Art styles Realistic
Themes Contemporary
Series SimCity
SimCity 2000 on HowLongToBeat
SimCity 2000 on IGDB
SimCity 2000 guide on StrategyWiki
SimCity 2000 on MobyGames
SimCity 2000 on Wikipedia
SimCity
Subseries of Sim
SimCity (1989) 1989
SimCity 2000 1994
SimCity 2000 Network Edition 1996
SimCopter 1996
Streets of SimCity 1997
SimCity 3000 1999
SimCity 4 2003
SimCity Societies 2007
SimCity (2013) 2013

SimCity 2000 is a singleplayer bird's-eye view and isometric building and simulation game in the SimCity series.

General information

SimCity Wiki
Simtropolis - A fan site for the series
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
DRM-free
No disc check.
DOS
Windows 3.x
Windows
Retail
DRM details are not known
Mac OS
GOG.com
DRM-free
DOS Special Edition pre-packaged with DOSBox.[2]
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Microsoft Store
Microsoft Store
Origin
Special Edition. Included exclusively with Xbox Game Pass for PC as part of its version of EA Play.
Windows
Origin
Origin
DOS Special Edition pre-packaged with DOSBox. Included with EA Play.
Manual link for EA App purchase.
Windows
Demo #1 | Demo #2

Version differences

The Special Edition (or CD Collection) is a complete edition containing the base game, Urban Renewal Kit, Scenarios Volume 1: Great Disasters, and additional cities and scenarios not available separately. Includes DOS, Win16, and Win32 versions, though the Win32 version unfortunately has a 16-bit installer.

Monetization

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Urban Renewal Kit
DOS
Mac OS
Windows 3.x
Scenarios: Volume 1 - Great Disasters
DOS
Mac OS
Windows 3.x

Essential improvements

Official Patches

Patch 1.1 (DOS) and 1.2 can be found here.

Skip intro videos

These steps are for the DOS version; for the Windows version simply run the game without the CD in the drive.
Remove INTRO command[citation needed]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Edit SC2000.BAT with a text editor.
  3. Remove the INTRO line.
  4. Save the changes and close the file.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
DOS
Windows <path-to-game>\SC2000.CFG[Note 1]
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X) <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 2]
Many settings (e.g. game speed) are stored in the city file itself.

Save game data location

System Location
DOS <path-to-game>\Cities\*.sc2
Windows <path-to-game>\Cities\*.sc2[Note 1]
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X) <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 2]
The original Windows version can save cities anywhere ({p\Cities}} folder is the default).

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin
Xbox Cloud

Video

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Original Windows versions only.
Multi-monitor
Game window has a maximum width of 4096 pixels.[3]
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Native Windows versions are always windowed. Toggle with Alt+ Enter for DOSBox.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Windows versions refresh with desktop.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Mouse acceleration
Uses native pointer - mouse settings are adjusted in your Windows/DOS mouse driver.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
On/off only.
Surround sound
Subtitles
No speech.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio
General MIDI audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
Retail disc only
German
Retail disc only.[4]
Japanese
Retail disc only.
Brazilian Portuguese
SimCity 2000: Edição Especial.[5]
Spanish
Retail disc only.

DOS Issues fixed

Simcity 2000 Setup Program reports insufficient Memory

The Setup program will report that you have less than 4MB of ram, this is a simple bug and does not affect the installer or game. It will go away if your computer has less than 32MB of ram.


Game Hangs on Dos4GW initialization screen

The game hangs on the initialization screen for an indefinite amount of time
Make sure your EMS is set up properly[6]

Simcity 2000 does not work correctly if EMS is set to auto. To make sure the game works correctly, do this:

  1. Go to your config.sys file
  2. Edit the EMM386 initialization line. Type 'NOEMS' at the very end to disable EMS, or at the very least set an amount of RAM reserved for EMS by typing '1024 RAM'
  3. Additionally make sure you are not running any unnecessary TSRs or programs.

Game does not work with ATI Cards

Simcity 2000 has an ATI-specific card fix if your machine uses an ISA-based ATI card.
Run ATISET.exe[7]
  1. Go to your simcity2000 directory
  2. Run ATISET.exe before you start the game
  3. make sure your video card is set up correctly within the setup program

Windows Issues fixed

Installing on 64-bit versions of Windows

The original disc release uses a 16-bit installer.
Install with a modified 32-bit installer[citation needed]
  1. Insert the CD.
  2. Copy the contents of WIN95 folder somewhere temporarily.
  3. Download the InstallShield 3 32-bit Generic Installer.
  4. Extract the new installer into the WIN95 folder.
  5. Run install32.exe and follow the steps.
  6. To play the videos from the CD, run the Registry Editor, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Maxis\SimCity 2000\Paths and change the Goodies key to the drive letter the CD will be placed in.
  7. Apply the SimCity 2000 compatibility patch.
Install and patch with SC2000X
A completely open-source (GitHub) installer and game patcher. There are no pre-compiled or pre-patched binaries, it will recognize the specific version of the game and apply patches accordingly.
Contains the save/load crash patch
Install and patch with SimCity 2000 Installer
An installer and game patcher. The program is partially open-sourced on Bitbucket.
Contains save/load crash patch
Use pre-patched game binaries
Patches from iGREKKESS on Vogons
Patches from MRC on SevenForums

Black scrollbar padding (Windows 10)

On Windows 10 the right-hand scrollbar may have a margin of black pixels at some resolutions.
Set the compatibility mode to Windows 8.[citation needed]

Traffic/water/power/building/etc animations are frozen

Set the game to run in 256 colors mode. On Windows 8 and newer, the animations can be fixed with SC2KRepainter.[citation needed]

DOSBox-specific issues

Game runs too fast (DOSBox)

Fast computers may cause disasters in Cheetah speed to run faster than the player can react.
Type config CPU cycles auto limit 65000[citation needed]

Correcting aspect ratio (DOSBox)

Running the game on contemporary 16:9 or 16:10 monitors can result in a distorted picture. This can be fixed by altering a DOSBox configuration file.
Correct aspect ratio[citation needed]
  1. Go <path-to-game>\Game\Game\DOSBox.
  2. Open the file dosbox.conf in a text editor.
  3. Locate the line fullresolution=original. Change this to fullresolution=desktop
  4. Save the file and run the game.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
WinG
[8]
DOS video modes SVGA, SVGA (VESA)
ExecutablePPC16-bit 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
Windows 3.x version might be playable on a 64-bit OS using winevdm.
Mac OS (Classic)

System requirements

Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 3.1, 95
Processor (CPU) Intel 486 DX2/66 MHz
System memory (RAM) 8 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 16 MB
Video card (GPU) SVGA video card
512 KB of VRAM
Other 2X CD-ROM
Mac OS
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 7.0
Processor (CPU) 68030 processor or higher
System memory (RAM) 8 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 20 MB

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS game data. For the GOG.com release, file changes in DOSBox are redirected to <path-to-game>/cloud_saves/ even if GOG Galaxy is not used (this folder contains all redirected files, so some files in the cloud_saves folder might be temporary files or other files that do not contain saves or settings).

References

  1. GOG.com goes Mac ● GOG.com - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  2. List of GOG games using DOSBox, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
  3. SimCity 2000 | WSGF
  4. German Manual - last accessed on May 2023
  5. Revista do CD-ROM n.º 17 - p. 17; December 1996 (Editora Europa)
  6. Reference
  7. Reference
  8. WinG - Wikipedia - last accessed on 2020-03-20