Sim City 3000 vs Sim City 4: What's the Difference?
 

Hello guys,

I've always been a big fan of the Sim City games and upgradd my computer from an old rig from 95. I'm looking to play some great games that I've missed out on. I'm sure that I can play some great games that I missed at a great price and some new ones that will show off my new hardware.

Tell me, whats the difference between Sim City 3000 and Sim City 4? I've looked at the boxes and saw the screens and such, but they both look about the same.

Recomend any other games? I've bought Vice City, Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, and Homeworld so far.

Better have a good machine to run SC4 with any sort of speed. SC4 is a much better game, much more involved then 3000, and the Rush Hour expansion really lets you get involved in your transportation. Better graphics, more options and a much higher system requirement come to mind. Deus Ex 2 is fun, Need For Speed Underground looks great and plays well

I've been playing Simcity from its inception. Simcity 4 is by far the best installment of the series. It has really changed quite a bit from SC3000. The ability you have to manage and design your city is extensive. Definitely pick up the newest expansion if you decide to play it, it adds so many options to transportation that have never been in Simcity before. All your services are localized now instead of serving the entire populous. There are dozens of tools available as well to assist you with various desicions you'll have to make.

The new terrain and region maps are gorgeous. You'll get some extremely life-life mountain ranges, rolling hills, or carved canyons with the newest terrain editor. Importing geographical data is a great way to build off actual terrain from any part of the world. Having all of your cities react to each other from within the region takes some getting used to, but it allows some really expansive customization options for your area. You could end up having a city of only residential, and still be pulling in some serious cash and growth. All because your commercial and industry is only a city away.

If you were a fan of the series at all, pick up SC4. You won't be disappointed. Also stop by www.simtropolis.com and check out their mods and community forums. The mods people have made can really change the mechanics of the game, sometimes as cheats, sometimes as just improvements to the game's functionality.

Simple version

SC3K took all that was good and fuck it all up.
SC4K brought back the fun but fucked up the performance (systems do not yet exist to play this game to it's fullest)

Yeah I played SC2000 and the original, 2000 was cool cuz there were money cheats and you didnt need to spend an hour building a city, and the original ...just sucked.

The Sims is a cool game too, but it played slow on my system (which is slow in the first place)

There are several differences.

In 4 you have a region, which contains a number of seperate cities, each of which you build and run seperatly, and can switch between at any time. Using the connections you make (roads, ports, etc.) you can interconnect the cities to the point where Sims live in one and work in another. The schools and hospitals each have their own radii in which they work, instead of serving the whole city. The budget system is different, and makes it harder to make money. It is a more challenging game, but a better one, too.

SC2000 is still the best of the series, and that's a shame.

SC4 has a shot because of how beautiful everything looks and all the new stuff they changed in it. Only problem is, you need to work for NASA to have a computer powerful enough to run it as it really needs too. I barely play it because of how slow it runs on my system.

Any computer can handle 3000, on my 166 I could build a huge city covering the entire map, and thero would be no drop in the frame rate.

No computer could handle 4000, this is due to the crappy code that made the game render all objects on the map even the ones out of sight. If you own a 1.6G amd with MX440 the most you could build is a medium size city. It would take a bleeding edge machine to build a metropolis.

As a SC4 owner I think performance has improved a lot since the patches on my rig. I have a region that is 1 million plus and the biggest section is 300k+, and my weak ass system can handle it. However, I will admit prior to the patch the performance is awful.

For me the game got a lot funner when www.simtropolis.com was able to start modding the game and adding lots for new buildings in the game. If you are on the fence about the potential of this game read through that site/its forums and see what folks are doing with it. I love it now, but admit it is for those who find excruciating details fun LOL.

Would an Athlon3000+ with 512 of DDR and a Geforce4MX be able to handle it?

I remember my cousin playing 3k at work across two monitors seeing if a 1 billion person city was possible. I rhink he leveled off at 300 milllion ...

my falcon runs it just fine!

SimCity 4 kicks all ass.. The problems it has however with performance are a little bad.. I played it alot on my old laptop (a high powered P4) and it got really laggy after I hit a huge population.. Its expected with the level of detail they put into the game..

They perfected alot of things that they had messed up in SimCity 3000, and actually made things like garbage, water, and such fun to design..

They also fixed busses, which I hated in Sim City 3000 because it was impossible to get people to use them. Now they flock to them..

Great game

I still prefer Sim City 2000 over any of the new Sim City games.

I completely love SimCity4 - of course I've found an improvement with all the SC upgrades - even SC3k. But if you don't have Rush Hour expansion pack I understand if someone doesn't find interest in the game - kind of sucks, but the extra $20 is neccesary to enjoy the game further.

I love the game. It took me 6 months to get the hang of it and with the Rush Hour pack, it made the experience much more fun to play, design. The only downside is its huge requirements, but ever since I upgraded my computer, it isn't a problem.