Why are my graphics suddenly pixelated?

@igazor Ok. Thank you for replying. The reason I'm upset is because I had a system with really good graphics and now, due to something Windows has done, my game looks awful. Instead of just playing I mainly film movies with Sims 3, and I don't want to film anymore cause the game looks so bad. And I was right in the middle of a fun story explaining the disappearance of Bella Goth. :disappointed:

Here are some more pics that show more clearly the awfulness: (in my opinion anyway)

Fridge:
https://i.imgur.com/zVikCls.jpg
Walls:
https://i.imgur.com/GurjgqP.jpg

@ZeeGee - I understand, the fridge especially leaps out even to me as not looking all that great and that means there are probably other effects like that which I'm not seeing right away on this end but you are. I guess the best advice I can offer right now is put the filming on hold and find some other way to enjoy the game if you can at all with some confidence that a solution will be found in the near future for whatever is causing this issue, whether it be a further Win or graphics driver update or some recommended settings changes on the GPU control panel or a third party tool like Inspector that enhances the GPU option sets.

I’ll do that. Thank you.

"ZeeGee;c-17341968" wrote:
@igazor Ok. Thank you for replying. The reason I'm upset is because I had a system with really good graphics and now, due to something Windows has done, my game looks awful. Instead of just playing I mainly film movies with Sims 3, and I don't want to film anymore cause the game looks so bad. And I was right in the middle of a fun story explaining the disappearance of Bella Goth. :disappointed:

Here are some more pics that show more clearly the awfulness: (in my opinion anyway)

Fridge:
https://i.imgur.com/zVikCls.jpg

Thanks to MS stealth updating my computer I'm seeing this too. Nice of MS to override the Pause Updates setting and I didn't know until the game suddenly shutdown and my computer restarted. It kinda looks like the Green and Red color spectrums are a little broken.

"ZeeGee;c-17341901" wrote:

@coco Questions! First, my 3D settings in Nvidia, they are all set to default except for Vsync on. Is there something in there I might tweak to help this issue? I don't know what all those settings mean. Yes, I have cleared caches, didn't help. That mod is awesome! Thank you! I've been taking all my sims into CAS and getting rid of the shiny clothes! It did get rid of the shiny wood on the television but it's still there on the floor and walls. That house is the Goth mansion redo by a member of the DNA team. It really is gorgeous. I'll be interested to know if your testing shows the same thing I'm experiencing.

@zeegee So sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I wasn't able to get the time to play over the weekend due to last minute Christmas stuff (grumble grumble) :astonished: :lol:
I'm afraid that I can't really tell you what the settings mean either so I found a reference guide (https://www.nvidia.com/content/Control-Panel-Help/vLatest/en-us/mergedProjects/nv3d/Manage_3D_Settings_(reference).htm **make sure the link has (reference).htm or else it won't load) which explains everything. I'm not on my pc at home right so I can't see what mine are set at but I would look at the Antialiasing and Texture Filtering sections in particular. It might be a performance vs quality issue where you just need to test to see if it makes any changes in game. I'm sorry I couldn't be more help but I sincerely hope that you find a solution. Don't give up, and feel free to pm me if you get stuck and want someone to throw around some troubleshooting ideas :smile:

@ScottDemon Sorry you're having to suffer through this too. Nvidia is asking if it is affecting other games besides Sims 3. I don't have any. Do you? And if so, are they being affected?

@coco No apology necessary! It's such a pain when real life interferes with our playing sims. :wink: So this is not a Nvidia issue but I'll put it all in a new post so that someone else looking for an answer might can find it. And I will take you up on that PM so I can moan about this in private instead of in public. :smile:

An update: I have been chatting with Nvidia help. I tried installing a much older driver and it didn't help. They then had me install the latest driver and change tons of settings. That didn't help. So they are saying that it is a Windows problem because if it were a Nvidia problem then installing the older driver would have fixed the issue. I told him that so far it has only been reported in systems with NVidia drivers and asked that they please look into it to see if there is anything they can do to counteract the issue, and he said they are trying to isolate the probable cause. They said to contact Windows to get help with rolling back to the Windows updates. (ha) That's where it stands right now.

IF ANYONE KNOWS A POSSIBLE WAY TO RESET WINDOWS BACK TO FACTORY DEFAULT INSTEAD OF IT REINSTALLING ALL THE UPDATES I would so appreciate knowing how to do that. Googling has gotten me nowhere.

Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. I didn't see anything obvious in your dxdiag, so I wanted to get a second opinion, from someone who is extremely helpful and will find it completely unacceptable if I say anything else nice about him. He agreed, there's nothing in your dxdiag that would explain the graphics issues.

Are you still applying a high DPI scaling to TS3, as you mentioned earlier? If so, please undo that, at least for now. And of course Game Mode, and Game Bar if it's still a thing, and fullscreen optimization. (I don't have the same Windows build as you, so I can't check if these features are all still present and in what form, but let me know if you need help figuring out how to access the settings.)

Yes, there are ways to revert to a previous build of Windows, but they involve wiping your C drive (again) and chasing down an install medium for that earlier build. (Even the usual download an ISO and install it mechanism only works with a build that's equal to or newer than your current one.) It's certainly doable—for example, I have 1703 on a USB stick, for reasons. But it's a lot of trouble, and not guaranteed to fix the problem, and besides, you'd need to find appropriate drivers too, and download them without allowing Windows to force update.

It's much easier just to fiddle with the Nvidia settings. Control Panel has a number you can try enabling for TS3, maybe a few at a time to see if you notice any difference. Inspector has more, if you want to install it. You can also try the Freestyle filters that come with GeForce Experience, if you're willing to install it. GFE doesn't even crash the game by default anymore, amazingly enough.

The point is, whether this is purely Windows, or some interaction between Windows and the Nvidia driver, there may be some setting that can fix the problem without you having to revert your system and quarantine it from the internet forever.

@puzzlezaddict Thank you, and thanks to the other extremely helpful person too.

I don't think I'm applying the high DPI scaling anymore as I did a complete Windows reset since I applied those settings. When I tried to look at the DPI settings it doesn't really say. It gives this menu:

https://i.imgur.com/6L11LgO.png

I tried changing the compatibility mode to Windows 7 but that didn't help. Maybe because in chat with Nvidia they had me try changing a LOT of settings, some of them giving Nvidia control over the game, but now I'm getting 'jagged edges' that look especially awful when you're moving around (see pic). So I will probably change those back because changing them didn't help the original problem at all. They also told me to turn Vsync off and I was like nooooooooo. I've tried messing with the 3d settings in control panel but I did them all at once and that gave me jaggie edges too so I turned then back off. I'll try them one at a time.

Game mode and game bar are off.

I have Inspector but don't understand anything about it except how to turn on Vsync. :smile: I didn't know about the Geforce freestyle filters. I'll try that next.

I think for now I will go through and undo everything Nvidia had me do, talk to Coco about her control panel settings (when I try new ones it seems to mess up the game worse), and try the freestyle filters. And give up the idea of an internet free Windows. I didn't think about all the updates needed. :neutral:

Thanks for continuing to help.