Graphic issues after driver update

[CSavage1989]

First time posting so sorry if I don’t make any sense..

Basically, I have an Acer Nitro 5 that I play the sims 3 on, and today GeForce told me I needed to update he driver, which I did. Now when I log into my game, the terrain is different, like when I zoom in it starts to go blurry. I remember this happened a while back and I fiddled with a bunch of settings on my laptop and it worked but I can’t for the life of me remember what I did.. people might think it’s a minor issue but I have ocd when it comes to my game and it’ll affect the story I’ve created so I really need a fix ASAP.

P.S I have advanced rendering turned on and all my settings are max 

[puzzlezaddict]

@CSavage1989  It's certainly not a minor issue for anyone who loves TS3 graphics (including me), so I understand why you'd want to fix it quickly.  This might take a bit of experimentation, since I don't know which settings you changed, but there are only so many options to go through.

First, it's possible that your options.ini file is corrupt.  Delete the one in your game folder in Documents, and launch TS3 to spawn a new one.  You'll need to change your settings again, but that's easy enough.

If that doesn't help, check the settings in the built-in Control Panel.  A driver update may have reset everything to defaults.  In particular, you'll want vsync to be set to on or adaptive.

While you're at it, check your in-game frame rates too.  An excessively high fps can cause all kinds of graphics issues.  To see your frame rates, bring up the cheats console (crtl-shift-c) and enter "fps on" without quotes.  A number will appear in the upper right corner of your screen, and it should never go above the refresh rate of your monitor.  ("fps off" makes the number go away.)  High frame rates can be capped easily enough, although it's sometimes necessary to try a few different tools.

If fps isn't the issue either, please copy and paste the first 40 or so lines of your deviceconfig into a post here.  You can delete the user and computer names, about 25 lines down; there's no other identifying information in that file.  The deviceconfig is also in your TS3 game folder.

And while you're troubleshooting, be sure to test on a new save.  It's simpler to eliminate your existing saves as a potential source of trouble, even though it's unlikely that a graphics issue would be save-specific.

[roberta591]

@CSavage1989  My view about updating drivers (especially video drivers) is if it ain't broke don't fix it. Second, this game does some video processing in the game. When you change your operating system (Windows), the game may not process the video correctly. Please post your computers dxdiag - how to post your computer's dxdiag  and attach the txt file to the paper clip om the lower right of the response window,

[CSavage1989]

Thanks for responding. So none of the options you mentioned have had any effect unfortunately.. Here is the device config info you asked for.

=== Application info ===
Name: Sims3
Version:
Build: Release
=== Rating info ===
GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 1 CPU: 2 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 2304 Threading: 3
Adjusted CPU: 2672 RAM: 8034 Adjusted RAM: 7522 Cores: 4
=== Machine info ===
OS version: Windows 8 6.2.9200
OS prod type: 0
OS major ver: 6
OS minor ver: 2
OS SP major ver: 0
OS SP minor ver: 0
OS is 64Bit: 1
CPU: GenuineIntel
Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8300H CPU @ 2.30GHz
Family: 6
Model: 14
Cores: 4
HT: 1
x64: 0
Memory: 8034MB
Free memory: 4671MB
=== Graphics device info ===
Number: 0
Name (driver): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050
Name (database): GeForce GTX 1050 [Found: 1, Matched: 1]
Vendor: NVIDIA
Chipset: Vendor: 10de, Device: 1c8d, Board: 12651025, Chipset: 00a1
Driver: nvldumd.dll, Version: 26.21.14.3039, GUID: D7B71E3E-5FCD-11CF-4A78-6B321BC2D735
Driver version: 3039
Monitor: \\.\DISPLAY1
Texture memory: 32MB <<OVERRIDE>>
Vertex program: 3.0
Pixel program: 3.0
Hardware TnL: 1
=== Options ===
AnimationSmoothing 1
LightingQuality 2
GeneralReflections 1
TextureQuality 3
VisualEffects 3
TerrainQuality 1
EdgeSmoothing 3
ObjectHiding 0
AspectRatio 0
ForceSquarePixels 1

[CSavage1989]

DxDiag attached

[roberta591]

@CSavage1989   The Nvidia GTX 1050 is not in the game database. Did you or someone else edit the two .sgr files so the game configures the video settings correctly? The game sees the 1050 and is configuring the game (match and found in config file) but editing the .sgr files can be a little tricky and may be wrong. This should be checked first. Nvidia frequently puts out driver updates and yours seems to be a little old for the latest. Another solution would be to roll back the driver to a previous version. Nvidia support should have older drivers available for download. Sometimes you have to try several drivers until you get one that works good. Go to Nvidia support and see what the latest driver they have posted and it is newer then yours I recommend downloading and install the latest. If that doesn't work then try to install an older driver version. There is a driver version 430.39 dated 4/23/2019 with a WHQL rating available from Nvidia support.

[puzzlezaddict]

@CSavage1989  Your graphics card is receiving a rating of 5, so it's being recognized just fine.  One thing that may help, although it's probably not what you did last time, is fixing the texture memory override.  Open graphicsrules and find this, eight to ten lines down:

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

Change it to:

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

So you're changing the 32 to 1024, and adding a # and space immediately in front of setb in the last line.  Your card has much more than 1024 MB of VRAM, but TS3 can only use 800 MB anyway.

You didn't mention what your in-game fps looked like.  This really does need to be addressed, if you haven't already.  Excessively high frame rates can cause your computer to overheat, and potentially burn out the card over the long term (or even the short term, if you're having serious heating issues).  This could also explain your graphics issues.  So please let me know about your fps, and I'll show you how to bring it down if necessary.

As for the changes you originally made, it's hard to guess without more to go on.  We often advise TS3 players to disable GeForce Experience, and turn off Game Mode and the other leftover features of the Windows 10 Creator's Update from two years ago.  Here's how:

https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/15902876#Comment_15902876

If these steps don't help, I'll try to think of more suggestions.  You can certainly try different drivers, but your fps and the other settings will be an issue (or not) no matter which drivers you're using.