Sim City 3000 Unlimited (2741560)

[nellh]

Compatibility Report

• Name of the game with compatibility issues: Sim City 3000 Unlimited
• Steam AppID of the game: 2741560

System Information

• GPU: AMD Radeon 7900 XTX
• Video driver version: Mesa 24.0.2
• Kernel version: 6.8.0-0.rc6.49.fc40.x86_64
• Link to full system information report as Gist: https://gist.github.com/nellh/699a38b6d8e4396c74b0dc9b64df2e60
• Proton version: 9.0

I confirm:

• [x] that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game.
• [x] that I have checked whether there are updates for my system available.

steam-2741560.log

Symptoms

Loading into a city hangs indefinitely and the game has to be killed to close it. Everything up to getting to a city seems to work as expected.

Reproduction

Launch the game and start a new city or load any of the starter town cities available.

[riiga]

Can confirm I also have the same issue on my Linux machine with similar specs to above. Setting CPU affinity to a single core using WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=12:0 causes the city to be drawn, but only after switching to another window which will flicker through the graphics of the game, and the game will only draw while not in focus, so it's still unplayable.

[NeilBickle]

I am getting the same loading problem on Steam Deck, I wonder if it is a redistributable causing the issue?

[nellh]

I was able to get it to work with a couple workarounds. Using winetricks, I set renderer=gdi and virtualdesktop=1280x1024 (same as the game) and the game is playable windowed.

[riiga]

~~Doesn't seem to work for me. With a virtual desktop set to 1280x1024:~~

• ~~renderer=gdi gives me a black window and the intro music stops after a few seconds.~~
• ~~renderer=gl works as far as the menu and selecting a city to load. After loading, black screen or stuck on loading screen while the in-game music starts playing.~~
• ~~renderer=no3d gives me a black window and the intro music stops after a few seconds.~~
• ~~renderer=vulkan the intro music continues playing, but the window is still black.~~

~~I tried deleting the wine prefix and reinstalling to no avail.~~ :frowning_face:

EDIT: Works for me now using Proton 8 instead of Proton Experimental.

[robotjunkyard]

I was about to make an issue for this game then noticed someone beat me to it! I'll leave my notes here since I spent time writing these:

Brief System Summary
Linux kernel:  6.5.0-25-generic    (latest available for Mint 21.3)
Distro:        Mint 21.3 Virginia
Desktop:       Cinnamon  (but these problems all repro in XFCE too)
GPU:           NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070/PCIe/SSE2
GPU driver:    NVIDIA 535.161.07   (latest available for Mint 21.3)

Behaviors documented below, trying versions of Proton from Experimental and 9.0-Beta down to 6.3-8 to see what's different.

Clarification: in the "Alt-tab" use cases noted, when I say the game is "seen on the desktop" I do not mean the game shows/behaves neatly as a "windowed" game ought to behave. It's just a visual echo of the terraforming screen and its right-side-of-screen UI, in the upper-left corner of the desktop screen. It does not respond to mouse clicks -- it obscures Steam and any other native desktop applications, and even stranger, it persists no matter which one of the four workspaces I swap to (I am using Cinnamon DE). It's also not a frozen process as far as I can tell: for one, the music is still playing. And the game's mouse cursors get changed around (ie the "scrolling terrain" cursor or "aim reticule" cursor) depending on where the mouse cursor itself is. Alt-tabbing back into the game from the desktop = just a black full screen with zero graphics at all, not even a mouse cursor.

---

Proton Experimental

1. "Start New City": shows LOADING dialog only animate its progress bar half way, then visual freezes even though the game itself is now in the terraforming screen
2. Alt-tab: terraforming screen flickers a tad on the desktop in upper-left corner, seems to be "fighting" with Steam

Proton 9.0-Beta

Identical behavior to Proton Experimental

Proton 8.0-5

1. "Start New City": same as Experimental+Proton 9 notes above
2. Alt-tab: the entire terraforming screen shows up on the desktop in upper-left corner

Proton 7.0-6

1. "Start New City": loading screen only shows its background, but the LOADING dialog window is completely absent
2. Alt-tab: nothing at all happens or shows on the desktop

Proton 6.3-8

1. Title menu doesn't even respond to mouse clicks, and nothing animates. Completely static and unresponsive.

---

Did not test any earlier Proton versions beyond that.

Also, some final details:

1. Game's chosen resolution yields no difference in behavior
2. Steam Overlay was turned off for this game, to eliminate chance it could be related to that
3. Disabling GSYNC in Nvidia Control Panel makes no difference
4. Just as a somewhat flimsy scientific "control" of sorts, outside of Steam completely, I've tested the GOG version of SC3000U via the regular version of Wine from Mint's repo (wine-6.0.3 (Ubuntu 6.0.3~repack-1)) and that exhibits none of the aforementioned problems: I'm able to click all the way to a city and play the game (off-topic grumblings about the super-fast scrolling speed notwithstanding...). (Edit: I even recall using Wine to play this game in Linux on my potato laptop almost ten years ago.)

[robotjunkyard]

In addition to the main game, SimCity 3000 Building Architect fails, too. In all versions of Proton mentioned above, it merely displays its title screen for maybe half a second and then abruptly exits.

[NeilBickle]

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/7559#issuecomment-1986152708

I can confirm Proton 8.0.5 with virtual desktop and gdi renderer worked for me (on the steam deck) as well

[leanija]

I can also confirm that the game will run with Proton 8; virtual desktop and gdi renderer. Tested on Steam Deck (with a resolution of 800x600) and Desktop Linux (Manjaro/Nvidia 3060; resolution of 1280x1024)

[HunterCZ122]

Alternatively you can use cnc-ddraw, which works for me much better than WineD3D provided by Proton.

1. Get cnc-cddraw from here: https://github.com/FunkyFr3sh/cnc-ddraw/releases
2. Extract ddraw.dll and ddraw.ini to <gamedir>/Apps/ directory
3. Add WINEDLLOVERRIDES=ddraw=n,b %command% to launch options

[CosmicRaichu]

I tested the GOG version through the Heroic Games launcher with Proton 8.0-5, Proton 9 Beta, Proton Experimental (9/3/24) and Wine 9.3 from CachyOS repos, and the game only hangs on creating a new city while using any of these Proton versions. Vanilla Wine loads the terraforming screen just fine.

[sirlucidae]

Alternatively you can use cnc-ddraw, which works for me much better than WineD3D provided by Proton.

1. Get cnc-cddraw from here: https://github.com/FunkyFr3sh/cnc-ddraw/releases

2. Extract `ddraw.dll` and `ddraw.ini` to `<gamedir>/Apps/` directory

3. Add `WINEDLLOVERRIDES=ddraw=n,b %command%` to launch options

Can confirm this also worked for me with the GOG version. Game is now fully playable in fullscreen mode. Thanks!

[simifor]

You should now be able to load or start new cities with the current proton experimental bleeding-edge

[robotjunkyard]

You should now be able to load or start new cities with the current proton experimental bleeding-edge

Nope. Unfortunately, with Proton-Experimental, the same thing happens as what I previously described (mostly). Visually it permanently gets stuck at this screen when the Loading bar makes it about halfway to the middle, even though what is actually happening is that the game is in the terraforming screen:

The only difference now versus my previous description, is that after alt-tabbing away from the game, I no longer see a non-interactive "ghost" of the terraforming screen taking up the top left corner of the desktop and "flicker-fighting" with other applications on the desktop that take up the same space (ie Steam). That particular detail seems to have went away in today's instance of Proton-Experimental.

Edit: SimCity 3000 Building Architect also similarly fails as it did before -- immediately exiting from its title screen.

[simifor]

@robotjunkyard it has to be bleeding-edge specifically, are you sure you have it enabled?

[robotjunkyard]

@robotjunkyard it has to be bleeding-edge specifically, are you sure you have it enabled?

Oops! Sorry, this was my mistake... I had assumed "Proton-Experimental" is bleeding edge in and of itself. Just did a quick search to figure out what you meant (following this), and then I enabled "bleeding-edge" branch in the Proton-Experimental app.

I'm able to make it all the way to the city! Even "SimCity 3000 Building Architect" seems to not immediately exit.

I'll continue playing this game and update this issue if any more oddities happen mid-game (I'm pretty sure the super-fast scrolling is NOT a Proton-caused issue... I remember that happening way back in the Windows XP days).

There is still some odd (edit: to be more specific, game-stopping) window behavior when alt-tabbing to-and-from both SimCity and Building Architect, but bleeding-edge certainly exhibits great progress!

[leanija]

You should now be able to load or start new cities with the current proton experimental bleeding-edge

This does work for me as well; thank you!

[gofman]

It should generally work OOTB in the current Proton Experimental [bleeding-edge] branch, barring issues when alt-tabbing out and in.