Simcity 4 has graphical glitches

[YouYouTheBoxx]

I am playing simcity 4 using your dxwrapper as to support my ultrawide (32:9) resolution but it seems it creates artifacts on screen.

Fauna in-game seems to be z-fighting with the terrain which causes some parts of it to actually be masked for a portion of pixels.

Here's my config:

[General]
RealDllPath = AUTO
WrapperMode = AUTO
LoadCustomDllPath =
ExcludeProcess =
IncludeProcess =
RunProcess =
WaitForProcess = 0
DisableLogging = 0

[Plugins]
LoadPlugins = 0
LoadFromScriptsOnly = 0

[Compatibility]
Dd7to9 = 1
D3d8to9 = 0
DDrawCompat = 1
Dinputto8 = 0
DisableGameUX = 1
EnableDdrawWrapper = 1
EnableD3d9Wrapper = 0
EnableDinput8Wrapper = 0
EnableDsoundWrapper = 0
EnableOpenDialogHook = 0
WinVersionLie = off
WinVersionLieSP = 0
HandleExceptions = 0
SingleProcAffinity = 0

[DDrawCompat]
DDrawCompat20 = 0
DDrawCompat21 = 0
DDrawCompat32 = 0
DDrawCompatDisableGDIHook = 0
DDrawCompatNoProcAffinity = 0

[ddraw]
DdrawOverrideBitMode = 0

[Dd7to9]
DdrawAutoFrameSkip = 0
DdrawEmulateSurface = 0
DdrawEmulateLock = 0
DdrawForceMipMapAutoGen = 0
DdrawFixByteAlignment = 0
DdrawEnableByteAlignment = 0
DdrawIntroVideoFix = 0
DdrawRemoveScanlines = 0
DdrawRemoveInterlacing = 0
DdrawReadFromGDI = 0
DdrawWriteToGDI = 0
DdrawDisableDirect3DCaps = 0
DdrawLimitTextureFormats = 0
DdrawLimitDisplayModeCount = 0
DdrawCustomWidth = 0
DdrawCustomHeight = 0
DdrawUseNativeResolution = 0
DdrawOverrideWidth = 0
DdrawOverrideHeight = 0
DdrawIntegerScalingClamp = 0
DdrawMaintainAspectRatio = 0
; override stencil format for 24-bit depth buffer (reduces Z-fighting)
DdrawOverrideStencilFormat = 75

[d3d9]
AnisotropicFiltering = 0
AntiAliasing = 0
EnableVSync = 0
ForceVsyncMode = 0
ShowFPSCounter = 0
OverrideRefreshRate = 0
LimitDisplayModeCount = 0
CustomDisplayWidth = 0
CustomDisplayHeight = 0
LimitPerFrameFPS = 0
EnableWindowMode = 0
WindowModeBorder = 0
SetInitialWindowPosition = 0
InitialWindowPositionLeft = 0
InitialWindowPositionTop = 0
FullscreenWindowMode = 0
ForceExclusiveFullscreen = 0
ForceMixedVertexProcessing = 0
ForceSystemMemVertexCache = 0
SetSwapEffectShim = 0
DisableMaxWindowedMode = 0
ForceDirect3D9On12 = 1
GraphicsHybridAdapter = 1

[FullScreen]
FullScreen = 0
ForceWindowResize = 0
WaitForWindowChanges = 0

[dinput8]
DeviceLookupCacheTime = 0
FilterNonActiveInput = 0
FixHighFrequencyMouse = 0
MouseMovementFactor = 0
MouseMovementPadding = 0

[dsound]
Num2DBuffers = 0
Num3DBuffers = 0
ForceCertification = 0
ForceExclusiveMode = 0
ForceSoftwareMixing = 0
ForceHardwareMixing = 0
ForceHQ3DSoftMixing = 0
ForceNonStaticBuffers = 0
ForceVoiceManagement = 0
ForcePrimaryBufferFormat = 0
PrimaryBufferBits = 16
PrimaryBufferSamples = 44100
PrimaryBufferChannels = 2
AudioClipDetection = 0

[elishacloud]

Can you attach your dxwrapper log?

I noticed that you have some settings enabled that are either not compatible or could cause issues. Can you try disabling DdrawOverrideStencilFormat and ForceDirect3D9On12 options? Either of these could cause issues.

[elishacloud]

Ok, try this build. I fixed a zbuffer issue that affected this game.

Here is the fixed build: dxwrapper.zip

[YouYouTheBoxx]

Can you attach your dxwrapper log?

I noticed that you have some settings enabled that are either not compatible or could cause issues. Can you try disabling DdrawOverrideStencilFormat and ForceDirect3D9On12 options? Either of these could cause issues.

I already tried to disable them but same. Also, it lags a lot specifically in that game.

[YouYouTheBoxx]

Ok, try this build. I fixed a zbuffer issue that affected this game.

Here is the fixed build: dxwrapper.zip

I'm gonna try that now thanks.

EDIT: It seems my issue isn't fixed plus gives a new bug: ALT+TAB the game makes game render (not UI) black and gray).

[YouYouTheBoxx]

Here's the associated full log:
dxwrapper-simcity 4.log

[elishacloud]

EDIT: It seems my issue isn't fixed plus gives a new bug: ALT+TAB the game makes game render (not UI) black and gray).

When you say a new issue do you mean a newly found issue or did this used to work? It seems like this is an old issue with dxwrapper. There are a number of games that have Alt+Tab issues just like this and I am not quite sure what the right fix is for them. Try disabling ForceDirect3D9On12 and instead enable D3d9to9Ex.

[YouYouTheBoxx]

EDIT: It seems my issue isn't fixed plus gives a new bug: ALT+TAB the game makes game render (not UI) black and gray).

When you say a new issue do you mean a newly found issue or did this used to work? It seems like this is an old issue with dxwrapper. There are a number of games that have Alt+Tab issues just like this and I am not quite sure what the right fix is for them. Try disabling ForceDirect3D9On12 and instead enable D3d9to9Ex.

I mean this is a new issue introduced with the new build you gave me. I'll try switching to D3d9to9Ex.

[YouYouTheBoxx]

Also, not to complain on your great work but do you have any idea why dgVodoo gives way better performances than your wrapper ? Can something be done on my end to improve that ? thanks.

[elishacloud]

I mean this is a new issue introduced with the new build you gave me. I'll try switching to D3d9to9Ex.

That is weird because the Alt+Tab issue happens on all the builds I tested. Can you tell me which build works with Alt+Tab for you?

Also, not to complain on your great work but do you have any idea why dgVodoo gives way better performances than your wrapper ? Can something be done on my end to improve that ?

Performance can be improved. I don't know what dgVoodoo2 is doing as it isn't open source. However, this game uses a lot of zbuffer copies and things like that which are very slow in d3d9, which is what dxwrapper uses. dgVoodoo2 doesn't use d3d9 it instead converts the game to d3d11/d3d12, which may not have the same limitations. Many games run much faster with dxwrapper than with dgVoodoo2.

However, I would need to do performance profiling to see exactly what is causing the game to run slow for you.

[elishacloud]

It appears that this game has some internal FPS cap at 30. The game keeps dropping the FPS back down to 30. dxwrapper can handle between 170 and 300 FPS for this game but something outside of dxwrapper is delaying the game after it calls BeginScene() before it calls any other DirectDraw function.

You can see the FPS cap if you enable ForceVsyncMode (make sure to keep EnableVSync disabled) and ShowFPSCounter. Then zoom in or out and see the FPS increases but then after a few seconds the game slows it down again until it hits 30 FPS.

I am not sure what dgVoodoo2 is doing to get around this internal game cap but maybe there is a patch for this game that disable that FPS cap?

[elishacloud]

I see what is happening. If the game doesn't have anything new to draw it just waits and only draws the screen 30 times a second. However, when there is something to draw it will draw it right away. I only tested this with an empty map.

With a busy map I can see the slowdown. It is not because of any specific bottlenecks. The issue is that the game calls the Draw call hundreds or even thousands of times per frame! Even though the Draw call is very fast (way less than 1ms) it still adds up. The biggest slowdown is the CriticalSection call. Also, needing to lock the Index Buffer each call takes some time.