When playing the game in windowed mode, it runs a lot smoother. Anyone know why is this happening and if there is a way to get the same performance when it's running in fullscreen? Thanks in advance!

Yeah, can confirm it runs so much better in windowed mode.

Also, just tried it using borderless gaming to get rid of the taskbar and it runs as smooth as borderless but in fullscreen.

Thanks TheEddevilish for the advice to use borderless gaming :)

Thanks for the suggestion! I tried that program and runs great!

How to play the game in windowed mode, I mean without installing that Borderless Gaming? I can only adjust the screen resolution in the in-game settings, but there is no option to change from "full screen" to "windowed".

Thanks.

Somehow I think the developers had this in mind. XD I don't have a job but the less pathetic of you folks probably do and might just be snagging a few seconds of this great game while in the office hence using a window and thus very appreciative of the smoother operation. SO ENJOY!

....oh......and I need those PTS Reports on my desk ASAP....yeaaaahhhh.

....did you get that memo?

I recommend you this little app. Much more user friendly than adding commands to the shortcut.

http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/28544-sc4-launcher/

I'm confused. So I tried the windowed version via the icon in the Startup menu. Then I went back to the regular version via the other icon in the Startup menu (to compare the two) and now both of them come up in windowed mode. I checked the settings for the Reg icon and there is no -w so I'm a tad lost here.

Thank you good Sir and BTW maybe if you took those headphones off you'll better prepared when a small group of untrained rebels attack your state of the art space station with a bunch of flying garbage cans....AND SUCCEED!!!! :P

BTW, and keeping in mind that my OS is as strange as I am, I've noticed that if I turn the shadows down to minimum I can run everything else at max/high resolution and she runs smooth as silk. Took me forever to figure that out and given how good everything else looks I can live without brilliant shadows. :P I mention it because you might want to try it if it still seems to be running rough for no discernible reason. :D

This is exactly what happened to me too. Running the non-windowed shortcut after running the windowed version resulted in the game still being windowed. Even running the shortcut in the game folder itself gave the same windowed result. As such I can only imagine that settings are being saved somewhere other than just the shortcut. Maybe the second run of the shortcut resolves this by overwriting those settings somewhere?
And yes, shadows are a known performance problem for SimCity 4. Something to do with them not using hardware methods to render them even in hardware mode.
Hmm, running the normal shortcut a second time hasn't stopped it running in windowed mode for me. I had to add the -f switch to get it back to fullscreen. I would recommend this -f switch be added to your shortcut in the next build. :)