Re: Sims 3 white lines

I’ve done what you said and the lines are still there- and I’ve put the FPS on and it keeps saying 29 then 30 then 29 then 30 

@Bts152  It's weird that fps would be capped at 30, instead of something higher.  Do you have another program that might be interfering?  And are you playing on battery?  If so, please plug in the laptop and test again.  Games require a lot of power and should never be run while the laptop is drawing from battery: it hurts performance and will still drain the battery very quickly.

If the above doesn't help, please try switching between fullscreen and windowed modes, and let me know whether things look better.  If not, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

my game is already on windowed mode and my laptop is always charging when i play the sims 3. I don't there's any other program interfering with the game but thank you for your help! 

@Bts152  I meant that it might be helpful to switch back and forth between fullscreen and windowed modes, to see whether the game looked better in one than the other.  It's possible fullscreen mode will take care of the issue.

If it doesn't though, please try playing with the Alienware Command Center disabled.  You can just kill it in the Task Manager: hit crtl-alt-delete, bring up the TM, find anything with "Alienware" in its name in the background tasks, and End Task.  It will restart the next time you reboot your computer, but in the interim, it shouldn't affect how Sims 3 runs.

Origin is also throwing errors, so it's a good idea to clear its cache, uninstall it "the hard way," and reinstall.  This shouldn't affect any of your installed games.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/clear-cache-to-fix-problems-with-your-games/

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/origin/origin/manually-uninstalling-origin/

When I use the full screen, my screen would always flicker so the windowed mode helps with that. I’ll try to disable the Alienware command center but what should I do if that doesn’t fix my game problem?  

@Bts152  Did you have a chance to test this?  Please let me know how it goes, or how it went.  There are plenty of other things to try, but it's easiest to go in order: the Alienware Command Center is throwing errors, so it should be disabled at least for now.

Hi! I’ve uninstalled it but the lines are still showing up on furniture and clothes :/ 

@Bts152  Please try playing in a clean boot, and test both fullscreen and windowed modes, just to see whether the issue is present in either one.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clean-boot-windows-10

When you've rebooted, be sure to check the Task Manager's list of background tasks for any programs that might not have been disabled in a clean boot, for example more Dell software or an app like MSI Afterburner, and shut down anything you find.  It's important that your laptop only be running critical services, like the graphics driver, not anything else that could interfere.

i did it before and the lines are still there- what else should i do?

@Bts152  Please disable Game Mode and Game Bar, both features of Windows 10.  You can reach the settings for each feature by hitting Windows key-i and choosing Gaming.

If that doesn't help, please go into Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3, open the file labeled deviceconfig.log, copy the first 40 or so lines (stop where "Options" starts), and paste them here.  This will show how the game is reading your hardware.  The file lists your user and machine names about 25 lines down, but there's no other personal information.

Stupid question but did you mean paste them here on the site? 

@Bts152  Yes, I meant paste the 40 or so lines of text into a reply here.  You could also attach the entire file to a post; either way works for me.

=== Application info ===
Name: Sims3
Version:
Build: Release
=== Rating info ===
GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 4 CPU: 3 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 2496 Threading: 3
Adjusted CPU: 2928 RAM: 7985 Adjusted RAM: 7473 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) i5-10300H CPU @ 2.50GHz
Family: 6
Model: 5
Cores: 4
HT: 1
x64: 0
Memory: 7985MB
Free memory: 4167MB
User: emily
Computer: DESKTOP-6RTOVMR
=== Graphics device info ===
Number: 0
Name (driver): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
Name (database): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 [Found: 0, Matched: 1]
Vendor: NVIDIA
Chipset: Vendor: 10de, Device: 1f99, Board: 09e11028, Chipset: 00a1
Driver: nvldumd.dll, Version: 27.21.14.5206, GUID: D7B71E3E-5CD9-11CF-CE67-EF291BC2D635
Driver version: 5206
Monitor: \\.\DISPLAY1
Texture memory: 2048MB
Vertex program: 3.0
Pixel program: 3.0
Hardware TnL: 1

@Bts152  The game is using your Nvidia card, and rating it correctly (despite the fact that it's unrecognized), so that's not the issue.  I understand that the screen filckers in fullscreen mode, but please try it and see whether you specifically get the same white lines or not.  Even if fullscreen mode isn't a solution, it's still useful information.

Please also try playing in windowed mode at a resolution smaller than your screen, as in, something smaller along both dimensions than 1920x1080.  Again, even if this isn't ideal, it's worth checking to see whether the lines are still there.

The reason I'm asking about fullscreen mode is that the flickering you've described can often be fixed by enabling vertical sync.  While the v-sync option in the Nvidia Control Panel doesn't work anymore on laptops with dual cards, at least as far as I can tell, there is a tool that works for games that use DirectX 9, like Sims 3 does.  Since it's a third-party download, I can't link it here, but if you're interested, let me know.  Another player tested it a few weeks ago and reported that it worked well with Sims 3.

I’ve gave the full screen mode a try but it didn’t work. I’m really interested in the tool you mentioned! I would love to give that try please 

@Bts152  The outside tool isn't necessarily going to fix the white lines; the point was that if the white lines were gone in fullscreen mode, the tool might help with the flickering.  Still, if you want to try, there's no harm in doing so.  The tool is called D3DOverrider and is built on RivaTuner Statistics Server, which is reliable and widely used.

Did windowed mode on a reduced resolution help?  I'm just wondering whether that makes a difference, even if you don't want to play that way permanently.

I’m fine with using windowed mode- it’s just that I need to get rid of those white lines that shows up on basically everything like skin, clothes and furniture 

@Bts152  I understand the issue you're having and that you want to get rid of it.  My questions are these:

• If you play in fullscreen mode, do you see the white lines?  (I know there are other issues in fullscreen; I'm specifically asking about the lines.)
• If you play in fullscreen and use the tool I mentioned, does the screen flickering go away?
• If you play in windowed mode on a reduced resolution, do you see the white lines?

Please let me know the answer to each of these three questions, and we can go from there.

Yes there’s still white lines on full screen mode 

the screen still flickers when I used the tool you mentioned 

I still see the white lines on windowed mode 

In all this, did you upgrade your driver via GeForce Experience?

Yes i have and it still not helped with my problem 

@Bts152  Could you post a few screenshots of what you see?  Hit Windows key-shift-S, drag your cursor over the section of screen you want to capture, and then open Paint and crtl-V to paste the image.  (This only works in windowed mode.)  Please also let me know whether the screenshots look like what you see or not; if not, you can take a picture with your cell phone camera and attach it too.

Hi, sorry to interfere but the ‘white lines’ on furniture & clothes that they are talking about is NOT screen tearing. I have the exact same problem they’re talking about and I don’t have screen tearing. You keep trying to get them to do things that fix screen tearing, like enabling vsync and all that but that is not their problem. I haven’t been able to find a fix for this problem anywhere and to be honest it’s so annoying in game. It’s little white lines that look like cracks on objects and sims, when you move the camera they flicker on the object or sim/clothes. It’s very noticeable and I saw once that someone said it was to do with the latest update & thats all they said. However, I have watched many youtubers playing the sims 3 who don’t seem to have this problem. I have a pretty good computer and can run all settings on high very well. However, no matter what setting I do it wont get rid of these white lines. It can’t be to do with edge smoothing because I’ve tried it with and without and nothing fixes it. I could attach a video or image of what the white lines and flickering look like if you want to see. It’s completely unrelated to screen tearing caused by fps. 

I’ve literally just discovered that if you turn edge smoothing off in game it gets rid of those white lines but obviously makes the edges completely jagged and when you move the camera around the edges flicker and its not good looking at all so it’s not really a fix. I love having very smooth and crisp edges in my game. 

Unfortunately, I have this issue as well on my desktop.

I actually returned the computer 2-3 times thinking it was faulty graphics card.

I have walked through tutorials and talked to nvidia and skytech and we can't find anything wrong.

We've literally uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled them via safe mode.

We also tried different settings via the game.

And different settings through nvidia control panel.

I actually gave a tech guy remote control to my desktop and he fiddled around.And said

there is nothing that he can see actually wrong with my system.But is completely baffled.

Now that I see multiple have it, it makes me think its more of a windows 10/nvidia thing than my computer.

They're annoying for sure.