SimCity 2000 strange bugs in High Sierra?

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Bert86
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SimCity 2000 strange bugs in High Sierra?

Post by Bert86 »

Hi there,

I've been using mini vMac for quite a few years on and off. Recently when I wanted to revisit SimCity 2000 (version 1.2), I've noticed very strange behaviour however. I used mini vMac and Basilisk II, System 7.0.1, 7.5.3 and Mac OS 8.0.

- while using System 7.0.1 and 7.5.3, the 'RCI indicator' in the game disappears, which is an essential game element;
- also while using 7.0.1 and 7.5.3, the 'EQ' and 'LE' graphs get messed up. Normally they display the life expectancy and how 'smart' the citizens are. This is less essential for playing the game, but it is still very strange how the graphs stop working.

When I open SimCity 2000 in Basilisk II, the same happens with Systems 7.0.1 and 7.5.3, but when I use Mac OS 8.0, it works fine. The LE/EQ bug stays, but the RCI indicators return.
Unfortunately, Basilisk II hardly works on High Sierra, so I'm now looking for a solution to be able to play the game in mini vMac.

I previously played the game on my old white MacBook with Snow Leopard/Lion, but having sold that laptop, I now wanted to play the game on my MBP 2012 (with High Sierra and APFS enabled).

I wonder what is causing these bugs, since they weren't there on my old MacBook.
At first I thought it was simply the latest version of mini vMac, but I've tried a few builds, and the bugs persist.
Using Mac OS 8 is not a solution, since Basilisk II is so terribly buggy and unusable on High Sierra.
Has anyone experienced the same or similar bugs? And could it be related to High Sierra or APFS?
Jorpho
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Re: SimCity 2000 strange bugs in High Sierra?

Post by Jorpho »

I found this old thread:
http://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewto ... &start=775

It mentions a version 1.3, but then the next screenshot is 1.2, so perhaps that is a mistake.

Maybe it's a color palette problem? Those are common enough. Have you tried going into your Display control panel and selecting 256 colors? If it's already selected, try switching to another mode and then back again.
Bert86
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Re: SimCity 2000 strange bugs in High Sierra?

Post by Bert86 »

Hey, thanks for the quick reply!

I think it should be 1.2 too, there doesn't seem to be a later version.

The game only works in 256 colours, it even warns you if the screen is set to a different colour depth. So I don't think it could be that, but thanks anyway.
Jorpho
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Re: SimCity 2000 strange bugs in High Sierra?

Post by Jorpho »

Bert86 wrote:The game only works in 256 colours, it even warns you if the screen is set to a different colour depth. So I don't think it could be that, but thanks anyway.
Did you try what I suggested anyway..? Sometimes Basilisk II does this strange thing where the colors don't display correctly, even if 256 colors is supposedly selected in the [s]Display[/s] Monitors control panel.
Bert86
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Re: SimCity 2000 strange bugs in High Sierra?

Post by Bert86 »

Jorpho wrote:
Bert86 wrote:The game only works in 256 colours, it even warns you if the screen is set to a different colour depth. So I don't think it could be that, but thanks anyway.
Did you try what I suggested anyway..? Sometimes Basilisk II does this strange thing where the colors don't display correctly, even if 256 colors is supposedly selected in the [s]Display[/s] Monitors control panel.
I have tried it, but it hasn't made a difference. The glitches also occur in Mini vMac.
At first I thought it was simply a bug in the game, but since they are so obvious, I think it might have more to do with (High) Sierra. Perhaps because I use APFS now? I don't exactly know how it happens though, so it could be something completely different of course.
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adespoton
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Re: SimCity 2000 strange bugs in High Sierra?

Post by adespoton »

It could be High Sierra related; not related to the filesystem, but related to the compositing system used to display images to the screen. This had an update in High Sierra, and has resulted in a number of SDL-related bugs.

Have you tried running it in a non-SDL environment? Mini vMac can build against multiple graphics engines, SDL being one of them.
Bert86
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Re: SimCity 2000 strange bugs in High Sierra?

Post by Bert86 »

adespoton wrote:It could be High Sierra related; not related to the filesystem, but related to the compositing system used to display images to the screen. This had an update in High Sierra, and has resulted in a number of SDL-related bugs.

Have you tried running it in a non-SDL environment? Mini vMac can build against multiple graphics engines, SDL being one of them.
Hmm I'm not very familiar with SDL, but I'll look into it.
have an old PowerBook G4, is that a non-SDL environment? It's 1,67Ghz, but very slow despite that; so I don't know how well Mini vMac or Basilisk II would run on it. But I'll try it out to see what happens.
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adespoton
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Re: SimCity 2000 strange bugs in High Sierra?

Post by adespoton »

SDL is the graphics environment used to draw to the screen; it's cross-platform and open source, so gets used in a lot of emulator projects. Mini vMac has both an SDL and a Quartz build target, and you can choose which one you want to use when compiling.
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