AMD graphics card not recognised

[Sunset_Gossip]

Hi, I'm new to this so I'm sorry if I'm asking in the wrong area or doing anything else wrong.

To get to the point, my graphics card isn't being recognised and I've done all the steps to fixing it up until you have to edit the graphicsrules.sgr. My graphics card is an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and I can't figure out what I need to convert that into when I'm writing it into the file. I've tried loads of random ones like "*RX 57*0 XT*" to no avail

Any help would be grand!

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@Sunset_Gossip  It sounds like you already know where to look, but just to be clear, both graphicscards.sgr and graphicsrules.sgr are in the same location, and you'll need to edit both to get your card recognized.

For anyone else reading, these instructions are specific to the original poster's card.  If you'd like help getting your own card recognized, please create your own thread and post the first 40 lines of your deviceconfig, found in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3.

Spoiler

First, open graphicscards.sgr, and right at the top is the list of AMD cards, starting with this:

vendor "ATI" 0x1002
card 0x6798 "AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series"
card 0x6799 "AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series"
card 0x679a "AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series"

under the vendor "ATI" line, create a new line and copy and paste this:

card 0x731f "AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT Series"

Save, quit, and open graphicsrules.sgr.  Hit crtl-F and search for 29?0, which will take you to these lines:

elseif (match("${cardVendor}", "ATI"))
if (match("${cardName}", "*HD 29?0*") or match("${cardName}", "*HD 36?0*") or match("${cardName}", "*HD 38?0*") or match("${cardName}"

[etc.]

Change the HD 29?0 to 5700 XT , but don't touch anything else, not even the asterisks.  This will classify your card as uber, as it should be.

Still within graphicsrules.sgr, go back to the top, and look for this, 8-10 lines down:

if ($textureMemory == 0)
seti textureMemory 32
setb textureMemorySizeOK false

Change the 32 to a 1024, and put a # and a space in front of setb, so that the lines look like this:

if ($textureMemory == 0)
  seti textureMemory 1024
  # setb textureMemorySizeOK false

(While your card has much more than 1 GB of VRAM, the game can only use 800 MB.)  Save, quit, launch the game, and check deviceconfig again.  You should now see a [Found: 1, Matched: 1] value next to your card's name.

[puzzlezaddict]

@Sunset_Gossip  You'd need to edit two files to get your card recognized, not just the one.  Since I don't know what you've tried so far, it might be easier to put back your original .sgr files and start from scratch, or if you don't have originals, repair the game (Origin or Steam install) or run the Super Patch (disc) to revert the files to their original state.

Please also go into Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3, open deviceconfig.log, copy the lines between "Graphics device info" (about 25 lines down) and "Options" (about 40 lines down), and paste them here.

[Sunset_Gossip]

@puzzlezaddict Thanks for the quick reply!

Details are as such:

Number: 0
Name (driver): AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
Name (database): AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT [Found: 0, Matched: 0]
Vendor: ATI
Chipset: Vendor: 1002, Device: 731f
Driver version: 2002
Texture memory: 32MB <<OVERRIDE>>
Vertex program: 3.0
Pixel program: 3.0
Hardware TnL: 1

I'll just start from scratch for now then, I'd only changed the graphicscard.sgr but I'm not 100% sure if I did that correct either since most guides I could find were more for NVIDIA cards :/

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@Sunset_Gossip  It sounds like you already know where to look, but just to be clear, both graphicscards.sgr and graphicsrules.sgr are in the same location, and you'll need to edit both to get your card recognized.

For anyone else reading, these instructions are specific to the original poster's card.  If you'd like help getting your own card recognized, please create your own thread and post the first 40 lines of your deviceconfig, found in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3.

Spoiler

First, open graphicscards.sgr, and right at the top is the list of AMD cards, starting with this:

vendor "ATI" 0x1002
card 0x6798 "AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series"
card 0x6799 "AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series"
card 0x679a "AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series"

under the vendor "ATI" line, create a new line and copy and paste this:

card 0x731f "AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT Series"

Save, quit, and open graphicsrules.sgr.  Hit crtl-F and search for 29?0, which will take you to these lines:

elseif (match("${cardVendor}", "ATI"))
if (match("${cardName}", "*HD 29?0*") or match("${cardName}", "*HD 36?0*") or match("${cardName}", "*HD 38?0*") or match("${cardName}"

[etc.]

Change the HD 29?0 to 5700 XT , but don't touch anything else, not even the asterisks.  This will classify your card as uber, as it should be.

Still within graphicsrules.sgr, go back to the top, and look for this, 8-10 lines down:

if ($textureMemory == 0)
seti textureMemory 32
setb textureMemorySizeOK false

Change the 32 to a 1024, and put a # and a space in front of setb, so that the lines look like this:

if ($textureMemory == 0)
  seti textureMemory 1024
  # setb textureMemorySizeOK false

(While your card has much more than 1 GB of VRAM, the game can only use 800 MB.)  Save, quit, launch the game, and check deviceconfig again.  You should now see a [Found: 1, Matched: 1] value next to your card's name.

[Sunset_Gossip]

@puzzlezaddictThank you so much!! It actually worked! I legit loaded it up and the water looked so fresh I almost fell out my seat hahaha

As a side note for anyone else reading this, after I did the suggested instructions it still said that the graphics card wasn't found/matched on the deviceconfig (my heart fell so quick lol) but after loading the game up and then turning it off the match came up so recommend you do that if it doesn't match immediately. 

Again thank you and I wish you the very best @puzzlezaddict

[puzzlezaddict]

@Sunset_Gossip  Yeah, you're right, deviceconfig doesn't update until you launch the game once.  I probably should have remembered to say that.

Enjoy your game.

[didoow77]

Hi, sorry for digging up this thread but I have the same graphics card and followed every step and now I have [Found: 1, Matched: 1] which is great, however the shadows are not showing at all even with all settings on high.

I tried everything to no success and I'm a bit desperate, having no shadows ruins the game for me as I take a lot of screenshots.

Thank you so much for your attention, I'm looking forward to your reply.

[puzzlezaddict]

@didoow77  Just checking, but is your card rated as Uber, as in, GPU: 5 in deviceconfig.log?  It's a few lines from the top, under "Rating info."  And do you have Advanced Rendering on?  I think shadows disappear when it's off.

A few weeks ago, someone reported that using the Sims 3 GPU Add-on tool, hosted at Nexus Mods, solved this problem, which had persisted even after the graphics card was recognized.  I've been meaning to take a look at it myself but haven't found the time, so I don't know exactly what it does aside from adding newer graphics cards.

If you're comfortable, you can try downloading and running it,  (Third-party download links aren't allowed here, but google should know what you're looking for.)  It's an .exe, meaning you're running a program that changes your files.  Be sure to make backup copies of graphicscards.sgr and graphicsrules.sgr first—if the tool does more harm than good, you can delete the new files and restore the old ones.

If you don't want to use it, let me know, and I'll run it on one of my installs, see what changes it makes, and let you know what you'd want to edit yourself.

[didoow77]

Thank you, I'm going to try the mod and will let you know.

[didoow77]

Update, it worked!

Thank you so so much! I've been trying to find a solution for weeks!

You made my day