GilbertGuldlock: 3 weeks ago I installed the Windows 95 version on my XP machine and have played it since.
It is awful. *The typeface is the shitty old Windows thin Arial(ish). The Macintosh typeface was an integral part of the game experience in my opinion, but more importantly was it clear and did an excellent job at providing information smoothly.
*The status box has been integrated in the bottom of the window with the icons entirely removed, and together with the thin typefaces it's as good as gone.
*Scrolling is a PITA.
*GUI is ugly.
These things above might be better on modern Windows, since I guess it borrows those functions from the OS, but on XP and below is it awful.
Music is absolutely horrendous. I cannot stand it, I have to have it turned off. The DOS version music is at least tolerable, even decent in not too large doses. It captures the vibe from the beautiful Macintosh score pretty well, especially given how much music differed between chips and canvases at the time.
The speed is also worse. The new fourth game speed setting African Swallow is useless since it unhooks the game from the real time clock or whatever it is that keeps programs in pace, so the game runs at warp speed on any computer from the past two decades. The other speed settings have at the same time been lowered from the DOS version. I cannot find any info on that in any of the documentation, really weird. Hardly anything on the World Wide Web either, all I found was this www.speedrun.com/Simcity_2000/thread/qaip1
Not even the hailed resolution is something to long for, since the game is designed for the low resolution and you cannot make anything out on modern monitors' high DPI. There's a fourth zoom level, but that makes the resolution argument moot. But sure, you may get
some extra useable screen estate.
The
only thing the Windows edition(s) have going for them is that the different statistics in the City toolbar becomes windows immediately when clicking, no more momentary windows or holding and dragging.
The Urban Renewal Kit is also better integrated, but that's hardly an argument, I think they just work differently. But sure, if you're much into SCURK it might be an argument.
DO NOTE THAT THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT NORMAL EDITIONS FOR WINDOWS, ONE FOR 3.11 THAT IS 16-BIT AND ONE FOR 95 THAT IS 32-BIT (but still with a 16-bit installer, hence why it's not possible to install natively on 64-bit Windows but runs fine except for saving if you just copy the files). The network edition is yet another one, making it 3 in total for Windows. See: patcoston.com/co/version.aspx
So I really think they did the right call to sell the DOS version. It's the easiest edition to get to work on modern machines thanks to DOSbox and is close enough to the original.
However… I do think the Win95 edition should be included in the GOG buy as an extra option for those who still want it.
But the real demand should be for the original Mac version, the most beautiful of them all, in a good emulation :)
JimPhelps: No need to be impolite ... come on.
Might be a misunderstanding: I understand that the network edition has several improvements over the version for DOS. I also understand that the network edition was Windows-only, but it was specifically Windows 9x-only (there's a difference between Windows 3.1 and Windows 9x, I suppose you know that). But apparently there was a pre-network edition, which was neither designed for DOS nor for Windows 95 but for Windows 3.1. It was not the network edition.
Until yesterday I was only aware that there were versions for DOS and for Windows 95 (and Mac and OS/2 and several consoles and Amiga, yes) of Sim City 2000. If there was a version specifically for Windows 3.1 it must be different from either one of the others. I was interested in whether it had any improvements apart from the additonal zoom setting, which is not much and knowing the DOS version would not really improve anything, since I remember playing Sim City 2000 only in the highest zoom setting (the others were not really helpful to me). Do you see what I meant by asking whether this Windows 3.1 specific version had any improvements? It is inconsequential anyway because it won't be available. The Network Edition would be something if that was available ... but as discussed it will be impossible to get that running again short of virtualizing a Windows 95. Actually that wouldn't be a half bad idea ...
The SC2K edition for Windows 3.1(1) came before 95. I don't know what, if any, differs between them, but from my understanding they are very similar, if not identical feature wise. See this: patcoston.com/co/version.aspx
BananaJane: Extremely smooth scrolling with the arrow keys makes a huge difference too
GilbertGuldlock: In which Windows version?
The first part where you messed up is you played it on XP which is incompatible with the Windows 95 version of SimCity 2000 as you have noted the font is messed up, etc, etc.
Don't attribute these flaws to the Windows version of SimCity 2000, be honest and attribute them to your lack of installing it on the correct OS.
