SimCity 3000 is the best SimCity. It's built upon a souped-up version of the Sc2K engine. It features isometric art, crafted pixel by pixel. It strikes the right balance of features and complexity; it feels like it could be mastered but without coddling you. It also has a high resolution Jazzy/new age OST.

Running it on modern systems takes a few tweaks but is certainly doable. By "modern" I mean Windows 10 LTSC 2021, Ryzen 5 3600, Radeon Rx 7600, 48 GB of RAM, 4K monitor.

I first installed SC3k from its CD ROM. I've had this Scholastic Edition CD all my life, I actually purchased it at a school book fair in a primary school building that no longer exists. But the disk still does, and I will not pay for the same game twice. The installation completed without trouble on 64-bit Windows 10. The game launched but it wasn't very playable:

• There was no widescreen support
• The resolutions supported were relics like 800x600 and 1024x768
• The game was laggy when scrolling
• The game accelerated when scrolling
• There is a big slowdown after loading a city
• The music doesn't play without using the CD, and some of it was missing!
• Some tiles had missing graphics for a few seconds before their contents were drawn.

Not to worry. There are remedies for each of these. By the end of this article, you will have a SimCity 3000 game that looks just like this:

Behold, SimCity 3000 in 4K! Risky biscuits: building 1WTC and 2WTC but no hospitals or fire stations. I like to tease fate.

1. GOG Patched EXE

The patched EXE will enable widescreen support. It also acts as a No-CD patch. GOG.com contributed this patch and have shared it for a public download:

Download: From GOG. Mirror. MD5: 638eb5b3e7de9ada9b61a1ea40d276a4.

Download this and replace the original EXE with it. Now you can start the game and choose a larger resolution. However, the mouse acceleration will now be too much. Also, the game will appear horribly askew if you've chosen a resolution that has a factor of 8, which is very likely because that's most of them. Not to worry. We can fix that too.

2. Tweak the mouse acceleration

Edit the SC3U.ini file. Modify or set this variable:

[Navigation]
ScrollMarginFactor = 0.005787

Source: CorinaMarie @ Simtropolis

3. Install the D3D Wrapper Alternative

This will fix the resolution weirdness, meaning you can play the game at full 4k. My monitor is 3840x2160 native, and this will make the game support it. It will also fix any other graphical acceleration problems on modern cards and DirectX 11+.

Download PCGW. Mirror MD5: e97d0989cab120608800f2e3395581a7

Extract these files to your SC3K Apps directory. That's it. Almost...

Configure the D3dWrapper

By default the D3d Wrapper will run in borderless, not fullscreen. That means your Taskbar will push the game off the screen! This is allegedly for better compatibility for streaming, but since I'm not an egotist who needs every second of his life broadcast to an audience, we will switch it to true fullscreen.

Inside the SC3K Apps directory there is a file dxwrapper.ini. Make the following changes:

[d3d9]
EnableWindowMode = 0
...

[FullScreen]
FullScreen = 1

I also did this:

4. Install the 4GB patch

When scrolling the map, you'll see tiles appear as a small pale cube before their contents are loaded into view. Installing the 4GB patch will give the game more RAM to play with, and should help, but I haven't confirmed this scientifically. There's no harm installing it anyway.

Download: NTCore

Run this on the SC3K.exe file. It will allow the game to use more RAM on 64-bit systems.

5. Disable the auto updater

The slowdown when first opening the game is caused by the auto-updater trying to contact a long-dead update server. You can disable it with this patched .ini file:

Download: catty-cb @ SimTropolis. Mirror. MD5: e01ec9e7568560f493ff4cbbebb0e3d4

Installation:

"Save this file (making sure to unzip it and rename it to UpdateSettings.ini) to "C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 3000 Unlimited\Apps\Updater", overwriting the existing UpdateSettings.ini file."

Basically rename it to UpdateSettings.ini and stick it in the Apps/Updater directory.

6. Missing Music on SimCity 3000 Unlimited

Some of the music from the original release is missing from an .ini file, even though it is present in Unlimited. Fix that with the following patch:

Download Patrxgt @ PGGW. Mirror. Md5: 5877e363565850306131e564e364481c

Extract that into your base SC3k directory.

Finally, if you installed SC3K from CD like me, the music is not copied to your computer. Fix that by navigating to the CD directory: APPS/RES/SOUND/MUSIC then copy the .xa files to the same directory on your HDD. Done!

Job: Done!

That's it. Now you can get back to dismissing petitioners, building golden statues of yourself, and zoning quiet farmland only to have it immediately bought over and turned into a brood of Smoke-O-Matics. All on your shiny Windows 10 box, in glorious 4K resolution!

Other links:

A note on Windows 11

These steps have been confirmed working on Windows 10. I don't know about Windows 11, I presume it will work there also, but I refuse to let that abomination anywhere near my home. If you are unlucky enough to be stuck with W11 but have success with these steps, let us know in the comments.