• SimCity 2000 Mac version 1.0
• SimCity 2000 Mac version 1.1
• SimCity 2000 Mac version 1.2
• SimCity 2000 DOS version 1.0
• SimCity 2000 DOS version 1.1
• SimCity 2000 Windows 3.1 version 1.0
• SimCity 2000 Windows 3.1 version 1.1
• SimCity 2000 Windows 3.1 version 1.2
• SimCity 2000 Windows 95 version 1.0
• SimCity 2000 Network Edition Windows 95 version 1.0
• SimCity 2000 OS/2 version 1.0
• SimCity 2000 Sony Playstation 1.0
• SimCity 2000 Sega Saturn
• SimCity 2000 Super Nintendo (in Japan only so far)
• SimCity 2000 Amiga
• SCURK DOS version 1.0
• SCURK Mac version 1.0
• SCURK Windows 3.1 version 1.0
• SCURK Windows 95 version 1.0

OK - Here's what's most current:

SC2k DOS - Version 1.01. This rev is about 2 years old and is probably the only rev that Maxis will do. It is available on the CD-ROM Collection and on floppy. It should be noted that the installer has been revved to fix an installation bug and to include more sound drivers. If you have the CD-ROM Collection or floppies with sound drivers for the AWE and Ensonique, you have the newer installer. There is no Version 1.1 in general release. There is one available, but it's only to fix a specific crash bug related to the interrupt processing on some motherboards and generally is WORSE on machines that do not have the interrupt processing bug.

SC2k Win 3.1 - Version 1.2 currently ships on the CD-ROM Collection and floppies. It was released in March if I remember correctly. It includes support for the Urban Renewal Kit and a few nice goodies.

SC2k Win95 - Version 1.0 is the current and only version in release. It's only available on the CD-ROM Collection format.

SC2k Mac - Version 1.2 is available on the CD-ROM Collection and on floppy. It's a "fat binary" which means it will run on a 680x0 based Mac and in native mode on a PowerPC based Mac. If you have a PowerPC based Mac, I HIGHLY recommend you get the newer version. It also includes support for the Urban Renewal Kit and some other goodies.

SCURK DOS - Version 1.0 is the current and only version in release.

SCURK Windows - Version 1.0 is the current and only version in release.

SCURK Windows 95 - Version 1.0 is the current and only version in release.

SCURK Mac - Version 1.0 is the current and only version in release. It also is a "fat binary" and runs on both 680x0 and PowerPC based Macs.

These version numbers related to the U.S. versions only. Update programs are available for the Windows 3.1 and Mac versions just about everywhere. Try ftp.maxis.com or ftp.emf.net/users/six. Note that the CD-ROM Collections are platform specific. They're available for DOS, Mac/PowerMac (1 CD), and Windows3/Windows95 (1 CD).

The Windows version does have several nice additions over the DOS version. Since it supports Windows Multimedia, there's much wider sound support. wit the extended resolution, you can fit more on the screen at once. The windows version also has a 4th zoom level, so you can get even tighter in on things - It basically just doubles the size of the pixels, but at high resolutions, even the 3rd zoom level is too tiny to work in). It also runs in the background, so you can crank on Excel or whatever while your sims are running around in the background. It also does fix a lot of the DOS (and even some Mac) bugs.

As for going with the DOS or Windows version, that's a tough call. The DOS version may be difficult to get running under 4 megs (most people have to make a boot disk ), but the Windows version may be too slow on a 386-25. I'd say stick with the DOS version, for speed reasons.

Windows and Mac versions of the Urban Renewal Kit and CD-Collections are in the works for early '95.

[soapbox mode on]
I don't want to start a widespread exodus from DOS, but to be honest, the SimCity 2000 DOS code is so damn messy, we hate trying to touch it (we've pretty much given up on a decent 1.1 patch - the 1.1 patch floating around online will probably never be officially offered to customers, it seems to break more things than it fixes). There is a definite push from just about everyone to move our focus from DOS to Windows, it's just easier to let Microsoft deal with the millions of hardware configurations around than to try and do it ourselves (it was much easier when there was just the 8088, 286, and 386 chips, Soundblasters, one kind of bus, non-accelerated video cards, two brands of Mice, and 2 main versions of MS-DOS). We used to be able to spend %80 of the coding/testing/debugging time dealing the actual program, and just %20 testing for hardware conflicts. Now it's easily a 50/50 situation, if not worse. That may be one reason why we still do a lot of first-run development on the Mac. Even though the sales aren't nearly as high, it allows us to spend more time developing and less time debugging (or it could just be that Will Wright is just a Mac head :).
[soapbox mode off]

1. Is the DOS version the same as the MAC version or are there different features in the DOS version that are not in the MAC's or vice versa? i don't want them to be disappointed if the look and feel of the DOS version is different than the MAC's.M

   I can say that the DOS versions looks EXACTLY like the Mac version, including pull down menus and it's even got that macintrash font :) I think there are only a couple features missing, but you'll never notice those. (i.e. arcologies don't blast off in the dos version, there are a couple small bugs in the dos version, etc.)

2. Does the WINDOWS version have any new features over the DOS version?

   Not that I'm aware of, no.

3. The kids liked the graphics on the MAC version. does the DOS version have the same graphics and is the resolution just as good, if not better?

   Everything for dos is better, graphics and resolution are just the same

4. How does the graphics on the WINDOWS version compare to the DOS version?

   I haven't actually seen the windoze version, but I can say from other programs that generally DOS graphics programs are better if the programmers have successfully designed a good GUI for it. I'm speaking out of my ignorance here, but I would say that the DOS version would be better.

5. If i exchanged the DOS version for the WINDOWS version it would be running on a 386-25, 4MB, ATI Wonder SVGA video card. is this hardware sufficient for the WINDOWS version?

   Well, 4megs of RAM under DOS is just enough to cut it. As for you're processor, that's fine and the graphics card is perfect for it. Probably it would be slower under Windoze.

6. I just joined this list so i've read about some of the problems with the DOS version (i think one has to do something with a bulldozer, can't remember any others offhand). does the WINDOWS version fix these problems?

   Wouldn't know 'bout that..

7. Can the Great Disasters add-on be used under the WINDOWS version? if not, is there any plans to bring out a WINDOWS add-on?

   Ditto..

The bottom line is, should i exchange the DOS version for the WINDOWS version? please don't recommend the DOS version if you are a WINDOWS hater or vice versa!! i need to know based on gameplay, graphics, ease of playing based on their ages, etc.

Go for the DOS version!

Another factor here: If you're aware of the urban renewal kit, I can tell you that Maxis doesn't have any plans to do a Windows version of it. (Correct me if I'm wrong there...) So, as your kids slowly vegetate and become Simheads, they'll want to be able to get all the addons they can-- and the DOS version will support those add ons.

When Maxis released the version 1.1 software patch for the Mac platform, one of the major changes was the ability to go beyond the previous limit of 140 arcos and have these additional structures included in the total city population count. This did not appear to be the case with the DOS version 1.1 upgrade patch. It now appears that once you run SimCity 2000 Windows on a hardware platform with enough RAM and a huge Windows swap file, that the 140 arco limit of the DOS software does not exist. When adding a large number of arcologies the "microsims" still seem to go into the reduced memory mode where the amount of data returned when using the query tool is reduced, but additional arcos beyond 140 do get counted towards the overall city population. What is the largest population that others have been able to obtain with the Mac 1.1 and/or Windows software?

From Pat Coston

When you age your city past the year 9999, it still goes to 0000 and continues, but when you reach Dec 11900, in 1.0 the date would be Jan 11901, but in 1.1 the date is Jan 11900. In 1.1 you can't age past Dec 11900. The months will continue to go Jan, Feb, Mar ... and so on. Note that your city is still aging. If you were to load up your city in 1.0 after hitting the Dec 11900 barrier for a few years, you would see the actual date. Note that the actual date is only shown in the Budget window.

From Pat Coston

You can only age a city to Oct 7,160,328 with a starting year of 2050. The very next month it becomes Apr -7,156,228 then SimCity 2000 crashes.

The reason it goes negative at such a strange places is because of the way it calculates the date. It uses a day-counter which starts at 0 on the year your city is founded which can be 1900, 1950, 2000 or 2050. Every month has 25 days. Every year has 12 months. So there are 300 days in a year.

To get the day it gets the remainder of the day-counter divided by 25.
To get the month it divides the day-counter by 25 then by 12 to get the remainder.
To get the year, it divides the day counter by 25 then by 12.

Example: The largest value a 32-bit signed integer can have is 2,147,483,647 which is 2 raised to the 31st power minus 1. Bit 32 is for the sign. We subtract 1 because it starts at 0.

Date	Calculation	Result	Comment
Day	2,147,483,647 modulo 25	22	Day 22
Month	(2,147,483,647 / 25) modulo 12	9.88	Rounded you get 10 which is Oct
Year	((2,147,483,647 / 25) / 12) + 2050	7,160,328.823	Rounded to 7,160,328

So if the day-counter is 2,147,483,647 and the start year was 2050 then the date is October 22 in the year of 7,160,328.

How do you know what version you have? If you have SimCity 2000 for Dos or Mac, you just type 'ver' and a version window will pop up. Unfortunately this is not the case with the Windows version. One way to know what version you have is the date of your SC2000W.EXE file.

• ver 1.0 date 10/30/94
• ver 1.1 date unknown
• ver 1.2 date 3/10/95

You can also look for the version number in the debug window. Type oivaizmir after you hilight the toolbox and the debug option should appear as one of the menus at the top of your window. Open the debug menu and select Show Version Info.

There's one thing I really hate about SimCity 2000 for Windows ver 1.0. When you select File/Open, it always defaults to the directory you installed it in. In my case that's c:\sc2k4win.

It's a HUGE pain if I want to look at 10 cities in c:\games\cities\contest\here\. Every time I go to load a city I have to navigate back to where I just was. SimCity 2000 for DOS always remembers the last directory you were in.

This problem has been fixed in SimCity 2000 version 1.2. It even works better than DOS because it remembers the last directory you were in even after you close the program and turn off your computer!