A DLL Plugin for SimCity 4 that automatically saves a city at user-specified intervals.

This auto-save plugin does not require any launcher and will work with any digital Windows version of the game, Steam, GOG, etc. The disc-based versions should also work if fully patched.

If you use a 3rd-party launcher that has its own auto-save setting you will need to disable that option when installing this plugin.

System Requirements

•     Windows 10 or later.

The plugin may work on Windows 7 or later with the Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 x86 Redistribute installed, but I do not have the ability to test that.

Installation

    Close SimCity 4.
    Copy SC4AutoSave.dll and SC4AutoSave.ini into the Plugins folder in the SimCity 4 installation directory.
    Configure the auto-save settings, see the Configuring the plugin section.

Configuring the plugin

    Open SC4AutoSave.ini in a text editor (e.g. Notepad).
    Note that depending on the permissions of your SimCity 4 installation directory you may need to start the text editor with administrator permissions to be able to save the file.

    Adjust the settings in the [AutoSave] section to your preferences.

    Save the file and start the game.

Settings overview:

IntervalInMinutes is the number of minutes that elapse between auto-save attempts, defaults to 15 minutes. Note that the save timing may not be exactly this value depending on what the game is doing. For example, auto-save is disabled when the game is paused.

FastSave controls whether the game skips updating the region thumbnail when saving, defaults to true. With this option enabled the save operation is equivalent to the Ctrl + Alt + S keyboard shortcut, when disabled it is equivalent to the Ctrl + S keyboard shortcut.

IgnoreTimePaused controls whether the time the game spends paused is ignored when counting towards the next auto-save point, defaults to true.

LogSaveEvents controls whether the save events for the current session will be written to the log file, defaults to true.

Troubleshooting

The plugin should write a SC4AutoSave.log file in the same folder as the plugin.
The log contains status information for the most recent run of the plugin.

Support and Source Code

Plugin thread: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/762722-sc4autosave/

The source code and bug tracker is located on GitHub.