sims 3 and quadro p5000 [ Edited ]

[HarryPotter4444]

Does the Sims 3 recognize the Quadro P5000? I tried following the guide at https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=26753.0 and I couldn't help but notice the graphics card rating is set as a 1 instead of a higher number and the texture memory is set to 32 MB in the DeviceConfig.log file. The Quadro I use is 22 GB of ram with 12 GB of computer ram (I use shadow.tech services). If it helps, the file does say "Name (database): NVIDIA Quadro P5000 [Found: 0, Matched: 1]" instead of "[Found: 0, Matched: 0]". I made a backup of DeviceConfig.log, GraphicsCards.sgr, and GraphicsRules.sgr and, afterwards, I followed the instructions under "Information on Attached Zipped Graphics Files" because I'm not comfortable with manually changing the files. The config file still comes up with "[Found: 0, Matched: 1]" and it changed the texture memory to 2048 MB even though that's not quite near 22000 MB of GPU memory.

I then replaced the files back to their original state with the backups I made. I wanted to follow the rest of the guide but what's getting me stumped is the GPU rating of 1. Do I need to do something different than what the guide suggests so the rating becomes a higher number or is it best to keep it as a 1 even though the graphics card is high-end? Please note that I do not want to destroy the card as I do not own it and I want to continue using Shadow.tech services.

Edit: I just want to add that I will try to contact the writer who wrote the mentioned guide just in case I don't get a response in any forums I pose this question.

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@HarryPotter4444  You don't need to edit any of the CPU information, but doing so can have a positive impact.  The issue is that the game reads a CPU's base clock speed, so those models with a lower base clock but high turbo speed can be underrated relative to their capabilities.  With a low-rated processor, the game engine will take steps to limit the workload, for example capping the number of sims pushed to a community lot.

For these purposes, I'm assuming you're working with the original .sgr files, but the edits are the same; it's just that in the new files, you'd already see some changes.  The instructions work either way.

If your CPU rating shows as 4 in the deviceconfig, it already has the highest rating and there's nothing to change.  Otherwise, there are a couple different approaches, the simplest being to find this section of graphicsrules.sgr, right at the top:

seti cpuLevelUber 4
seti cpuLevelHigh 3
seti cpuLevelMedium 2
seti cpuLevelLow 1

and change all the numbers to 4.  This would be a very bad idea if the CPU weren't up to the task, but given the other games the service you use needs to support, that won't be the case.

For the graphics card, open graphicscards.sgr and search for Nvidia , which will take you here:

vendor "NVIDIA" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de
card 0x0fd1 "GeForce GT 650M"
card 0x0fd2 "GeForce GT 640M"

Create a new line under the one with "Nvidia" in it and add this:

	card 0x1bb0 "Quadro P5000"

Include the tab in the line above so that it lines up with the entries below it.  Save the change, close graphicscards.sgr, and open graphicsrules.  Search for 8800 , and you'll land here:

elseif (match("${cardName}", "*8800*") or match("${cardName}", "*9500*") or match("${cardName}", "*9600 GSO*") [etc.]

Change the bolded 8800 to P5000 , but don't change or delete anything else, not even the asterisks.  This will rate your card as uber.

Back at the top of the file, find this section:

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

Change the 32 to 1024 (enough VRAM to get a max rating and more than the game can use), and put a # and a space in front of setb , so you see this:

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

Here again, don't change anything else.  Save, quit, load the game, quit, and check deviceconfig again for the hardware ratings.  You should see a GPU rating of 5 and and a GPU memory and CPU rating of 4.  Let me know if it doesn't work.

As a side note, if the gaming service ever changes the card you use, you can simply change the device ID in the line you added to graphicscards and leave everything else the same.  It won't hurt for Sims 3 to "think" that the new card is still a Quadro; the only important details are that the device ID in the file matches the hardware and that the card is read as uber.

[puzzlezaddict]

@HarryPotter4444  I would be surprised if any Quadro cards were in the .sgr files Carl's site provides considering how uncommon they are.  And Quadro cards are not GTX or RTX cards, so they're technically not listed.

I haven't looked at those .sgr files myself, but I can tell you that it's standard to tell the game to assign 1-2 GB VRAM to the GPU because Sims 3 doesn't recognize the video memory of any new graphics cards.  Since the game can't use more than 800 MB anyway, and that value is more than enough for a maximum rating, it's easier to use that one value rather than creating a separate edited graphicsrules.sgr for each card that comes along.

Are you seeing a GPU rating of 1 with the edited files or with the originals?  Either way, it's fixable, and I'd be happy to show you how.  It's not difficult at all to edit the files yourself, and you can keep the originals as backup just in case.  I do need the device ID of the card, which you'll see two lines below the found and matched values.

[HarryPotter4444]

@puzzlezaddict Oh, I see. Yeah, the GPU rating of 1 is the original. That would be awesome if you helped, and the id is 1bb0. Also, I saw somewhere that I would have to change the CPU information as well? I apologize for the late response, by the way.

[puzzlezaddict · Accepted solution]

@HarryPotter4444  You don't need to edit any of the CPU information, but doing so can have a positive impact.  The issue is that the game reads a CPU's base clock speed, so those models with a lower base clock but high turbo speed can be underrated relative to their capabilities.  With a low-rated processor, the game engine will take steps to limit the workload, for example capping the number of sims pushed to a community lot.

For these purposes, I'm assuming you're working with the original .sgr files, but the edits are the same; it's just that in the new files, you'd already see some changes.  The instructions work either way.

If your CPU rating shows as 4 in the deviceconfig, it already has the highest rating and there's nothing to change.  Otherwise, there are a couple different approaches, the simplest being to find this section of graphicsrules.sgr, right at the top:

seti cpuLevelUber 4
seti cpuLevelHigh 3
seti cpuLevelMedium 2
seti cpuLevelLow 1

and change all the numbers to 4.  This would be a very bad idea if the CPU weren't up to the task, but given the other games the service you use needs to support, that won't be the case.

For the graphics card, open graphicscards.sgr and search for Nvidia , which will take you here:

vendor "NVIDIA" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de
card 0x0fd1 "GeForce GT 650M"
card 0x0fd2 "GeForce GT 640M"

Create a new line under the one with "Nvidia" in it and add this:

	card 0x1bb0 "Quadro P5000"

Include the tab in the line above so that it lines up with the entries below it.  Save the change, close graphicscards.sgr, and open graphicsrules.  Search for 8800 , and you'll land here:

elseif (match("${cardName}", "*8800*") or match("${cardName}", "*9500*") or match("${cardName}", "*9600 GSO*") [etc.]

Change the bolded 8800 to P5000 , but don't change or delete anything else, not even the asterisks.  This will rate your card as uber.

Back at the top of the file, find this section:

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

Change the 32 to 1024 (enough VRAM to get a max rating and more than the game can use), and put a # and a space in front of setb , so you see this:

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

Here again, don't change anything else.  Save, quit, load the game, quit, and check deviceconfig again for the hardware ratings.  You should see a GPU rating of 5 and and a GPU memory and CPU rating of 4.  Let me know if it doesn't work.

As a side note, if the gaming service ever changes the card you use, you can simply change the device ID in the line you added to graphicscards and leave everything else the same.  It won't hurt for Sims 3 to "think" that the new card is still a Quadro; the only important details are that the device ID in the file matches the hardware and that the card is read as uber.

[HarryPotter4444]

@puzzlezaddict Ok, I see my CPU is rated a 3 and I do see the original DeviceConfig file says (towards the top):

CPU:             GenuineIntel
    Brand:       Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2678 v3 @ 2.50GHz
    Family:      6
    Model:       15
    Cores:       4
    HT:          1
    x64:         0

Does this mean the game is properly recognizing the CPU? If it is, do you recommend, with the CPU in mind, editing the graphicsrules.sgr file, anyways? I ask this question because the GraphicRules file has it set as:

seti cpuLevelUber 4
seti cpuLevelHigh 3
seti cpuLevelMedium 2
seti cpuLevelLow 1

For now, I'll just edit anything related to the GPU until I get a response.

Yes, I'll edit the original .sgr files and it changed the GPU rating to 5. Also, the DeviceConfig file now says [Found: 1, Matched: 1] but the Graphic Rules file still says:

seti cpuLevelUber 4
seti cpuLevelHigh 3
seti cpuLevelMedium 2
seti cpuLevelLow 1

Edit: rephrased a question.

[HarryPotter4444]

@puzzlezaddict Oh, I noticed my in-game settings stayed at the lowest possible. Is that supposed to happen?

[puzzlezaddict]

@HarryPotter4444  The game is recognizing the processor but is rating it as a 3 (high) instead of 4 (uber), which doesn't represent the CPU's capabilities.  Like I said earlier, the game only takes the base clock speed into account because that was the right answer for 2009; this processor would be running in turbo mode the whole time you were playing, so that's the speed that should dictate the rating.  And besides, any model from the last few years is going to be a lot more efficient per clock cycle than any model available when Sims 3 was made.

Having said that, you don't really need to change the values if you don't want to—depending on your playstyle, you might not even notice any differences.  Just keep it in mind if you're not seeing the number of sims out on the town that you'd like.

The edits for the graphics card did work, but that won't overwrite the graphics settings the game has already stored.  You can either raise the settings yourself (and do so at the Main Menu, then quit to desktop before loading a save), or you can trash options.ini, which will force the game to spawn a new one, this time with the default settings for your now properly-rated graphics card.

[HarryPotter4444]

Ok, awesome! I changed the CPU information and the gameplay is smoother, now. Thank you so much for the help @puzzlezaddict and I really appreciate it. I trashed the options.ini file and the game reacted the way you said. The settings are now set as shown in the attachment. Since I'm now focused on playing Sims 4, I'll try changing the settings to the highest possible and compare it to the default settings (again, shown in the attachment) at a later time. Once more, thank you for the help!

Edit: I forgot to add "at a later time." Also, notice that I said the gameplay is smoother and not smooth. I suspect it's because I have a lot of mods installed.

[puzzlezaddict]

@HarryPotter4444  Sims 3 is unfortunately never completely smooth, although it can come close under the right circumstances.  Some worlds run better than others, so try playing in Sunset Valley to set a baseline for performance even if you'd prefer not to have a long-term save there.  And if you use NRaas StoryProgression, try turning the overall speed to Snail (the slowest) and see whether it helps.  You don't have to play like that long-term either, but here again, you'll at least know how much of an impact SP is having.

An alternative is to try playing in a clean user folder.  Move the entire Sims 3 folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts and onto the desktop, and when you launch the game, a clean folder will spawn with no content.  Don't add anything to it yet; just start a(nother) new save in SV and see how it runs.  When you have your answer, you can trash the new Sims 3 folder and put the old one back, and it'll be like you never changed anything.

Another possible reason your game might not be totally smooth is if you're playing at a different resolution than the native res of your monitor.  In this case, it's fine if your monitor is 1366x768, but if it runs higher, either user that resolution or play in windowed mode.

If you're able to mess with the game's program files, it's worth looking into the Smooth Patch by LazyDuchess.  (It lifts the 30 tasks-per-second restriction on CPU use and lets you set it to whatever you want, 500 by default.)  I use version 1.0 and it's great; the newest version has a few more options but should still work quite well.  The processor running the game can certainly handle the extra load.