»Wuphon's Reach - SimCity 4 - Command Line Switches ::Home::
Contents
»My Blog
»Backgrounds
»Ford Focus ZX3
»SimCity 4
»Vacations

Favorite Links
»EverQuest
»Right Stuf
»Yahoo!
  

Command Line Switches

Here are all of the ones that I've heard about so far (some are courtesy of godslaw at the Maxis SC4 BBS). To use these, see the instructions at the bottom of this page:
  • -f switches back to full-screen mode (see -w)

  • -intro:off will skip the nasty, noisy Electronic Arts logo intro movie (you know, the clip who's volume doesn't match the rest of the intro clips?).

  • -rXXXxYYYxBB will adjust the resolution that SC4 runs at. Valid values for XXXxYYY are 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. Valid choices for BB are either 16 or 32. So if you set your resolution too high and now SC4 won't start, use the command line switch -r800x600x16 to force it to use 800x600 in 16-bit color mode.

  • -w will cause SC4 to run in a window instead of full-screen (see -f)


How to use these switches

There are two (or three) ways that you can use these switches - depending on whether you wish to make a one-time change (such as setting the resolution back to 800x600), or you want SC4 to use those settings every time you start the game.

Permanent - Changing the SC4 shortcut

Most folks are going to want to use the -intro:off command line switch all of the time, so you'll need to edit the properties of your SC4 icon. When SC4 installs, it places up to (3) program icons (all are labeled "SimCity 4" with a yellow building on a purplish background), so the first task is to identify which shortcut you want to change. There may be one on the Desktop, one on the Start Menu, and one in the Program Files folder. Changing one of them will not change the others (which means that if you goof it up, you can go look at one of the other copies).

Once you find the shortcut you're going to change:
  1. Right-click on the SC4 shortcut and choose the Properties option
  2. Select the Shortcut tab (if it's not already selected)
  3. At the end of the Target box, add your command line switch after the doublequote at the end of the statement (e.g. - ...\Maxis\SimCity 4\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -intro:off). Make sure you have a space between the doublequote and any command line switches that you add.
  4. Click the OK or Apply button to save your changes.

Temporary - To fix setting too high of a resolution

For those one-time, temporary changes, there are two options; (a) open up a MS-DOS / Command Prompt window or use the Start Menu's Run... option.
  1. Click on the Start button
  2. Choose the Run... option.
  3. Enter: "C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -r800x600x16
  4. Click the OK button to execute the command.

Copyright 2002-2003, Wuphon's Reach, All Rights Reserved -- wuphonsreach[at]yahoo.com
SimCity and other trademarks are the property of Electronic Arts Inc. Game content and materials copyright Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved.