Why are my graphics suddenly pixelated?

Graphics cards get updated to stay in sync, so to speak, with the operating system. Not with the applications (games) we are running. If you are on Win 10, then yes it does take some effort to stop this from happening automatically and I wish anyone luck who wants to stop Windows itself from updating short of never having an Internet connection active. Anyway, if you suspect the GPU update is what is causing the issues, that is to say nothing else has really changed, perhaps you can roll back the update?

"igazor;c-17337260" wrote:
Graphics cards get updated to stay in sync, so to speak, with the operating system. Not with the applications (games) we are running.

@igazor I did not know that. I did know about the Windows one, which is insane. I think it is the Nvidia update because another machinima maker complained about this same issue. At least I hope it's that and not the Windows update. I'll google how to do a roll back. Didn't realize you could do that! Thanks

I tried rolling back the graphics card and it wouldn't allow me to do that. The option to roll back wasn't there. The date on the card was 7/24/2019 also so despite the fact that I lost all my game settings (which usually happens when the driver updates) right before these problems, it may not have been the driver.

I've been looking through all the settings and somehow 'game mode' was re-enabled on windows. I disabled game mode again. And then set something in the graphics performance on 'high' instead of default. My game is better now but still not like before. Evidently this is something that Windows installed and changed. :rage: I'm disabling wifi on this computer.

Another good thing about getting rid of internet - in options 'enable usage sharing' stays checked no matter how many times you uncheck it.

So performance is better but still not as good as before. If anyone else has this issue, look and see if game mode turned itself back on.

"ZeeGee;c-17338653" wrote:
I tried rolling back the graphics card and it wouldn't allow me to do that. The option to roll back wasn't there. The date on the card was 7/24/2019 also so despite the fact that I lost all my game settings (which usually happens when the driver updates) right before these problems, it may not have been the driver.

I've been looking through all the settings and somehow 'game mode' was re-enabled on windows. I disabled game mode again. And then set something in the graphics performance on 'high' instead of default. My game is better now but still not like before. Evidently this is something that Windows installed and changed. :rage: I'm disabling wifi on this computer.

It was something MS did in one of their updates. I've seen on other forums elsewhere people having the same problem at least with Nvidia cards, AMD cards didn't seem to get affected and of course MS is in complete denial of it.
MS has a habit of remotely overriding and changing the settings on people computers and turning things like Game Mode back on.

"ZeeGee;c-17338653" wrote:


Another good thing about getting rid of internet - in options 'enable usage sharing' stays checked no matter how many times you uncheck it

Right click on the Desktop shortcut Run as Administrator once you can get to the Options from the Main Menu uncheck Enable Usage Sharing Apply/Confirm Changes and then exit to the desktop and reload the game normally and it should stay uncheck until you delete that shortcut.

"ScottDemon;c-17338920" wrote:
It was something MS did in one of their updates. I've seen on other forums elsewhere people having the same problem at least with Nvidia cards, AMD cards didn't seem to get affected and of course MS is in complete denial of it.
MS has a habit of remotely overriding and changing the settings on people computers and turning things like Game Mode back on.

@ScottDemon So it WAS Windows. :rage: Has anyone found a way to fix this issue? Is there any way to complain to them? Unless we start complaining they will never fix it. I am seriously annoyed. I like filming machinima and the picture is just crappy now.

And thank you for the 'enable usage sharing' tip.

I right clicked on the shortcut so I could report a compatibility problem to Windows. It said this:

Settings applied to TS3W:
-Display settings: Scaling on high DPI

Display settings could have a noticeable impact on the appearance of other programs.
After you have tested the program, you must close it to restore the appearance.

You need to test the program to make sure these new settings fixed the problem before
You can click Next to continue.

Whatever Windows did it made it worse. Now there is a 'green sheen' on the wood floors and some of the walls and wood. I can't figure out how to undo it. How do I change back the DPI?

So I filed a feedback report to Windows and sent pictures detailing the pixelated clothing and green sheen. Hopefully they can help.

"ZeeGee;c-17339438" wrote:

"ScottDemon;c-17338920" wrote:
It was something MS did in one of their updates. I've seen on other forums elsewhere people having the same problem at least with Nvidia cards, AMD cards didn't seem to get affected and of course MS is in complete denial of it.
MS has a habit of remotely overriding and changing the settings on people computers and turning things like Game Mode back on.

@ScottDemon So it WAS Windows. :rage: Has anyone found a way to fix this issue? Is there any way to complain to them? Unless we start complaining they will never fix it. I am seriously annoyed. I like filming machinima and the picture is just plum now.

And thank you for the 'enable usage sharing' tip.

AFAIK no one has figured out how to work around that yet although you might want to check around the Nvidia Forums and see if anyone has. Other than MS Forums I don't know of anyway to contact them. Remember when 1703 broke the gamma making most games extremely brite? They didn't fix that until 1709 AMD users had a work around for that and that was to use the RGB Pixel format and I don't know if Nvidia users had one.

@ScottDemon I do vaguely remember that. I think I got it fixed pretty quick with some google searches. I've not been able to find any info this time. Not a lot of people have even recognized it. Or maybe I'm googling the wrong thing.

The only thing I can think of to fix this is to do a total reset of my C drive and disable the wifi permanently.

@ZeeGee they did fix it pretty quickly for Nvidia cards but not for AMD cards. AMD had a driver that fixed the problem but MS refused to use it and even reverted the driver back to one causing the problem when people upgraded the driver from AMD. I stayed on 1607 until 1709 after the driver got reverted all 3 times I tried to upgrade it.

@ScottDemon I actually found a thread I posted about the brightness issue while searching to resolve another issue. Yes, another issue.

I reset my C drive to brand new with WiFi off, got the base game installed, but could not get Vsync to come on with either the control panel or inspector. I kept getting error messages. The FPS was crazy high so I didn’t dare play. So I went online and downloaded the latest Nvidia driver and was able to throttle the FPS with Nvidia control panel. Booted up a new save, it’s all still pixelated and shiny.

I give up. I think I’ll just take a break from sims. After 5 years of on and off struggling to run this game and learning way more about computers than I ever wanted to know, they finally broke me. Maybe I’ll get some house cleaning done now. ?‍♀️