Flickering screen after CC
Hello there, I experienced something VERY wierd and confusing yesterday: I was looking forward to playing the Sims 3 for a long time, and did a test run of it. Everything went fine. There was no pr...
Forum Discussion
@drkatrine It's hard to know for sure what might have happened, but my first guess would be that your laptop was using the Intel 630 rather than the 940MX when you saw the flickering. Sims 3 should always use the dedicated card, and Origin likes to as well, but occasionally a computer will misread the demands of an app and use the integrated card instead.
The easiest way around this with an Nvidia card is to use the built-in Control Panel to specify that a given app should always use the high-performance card. You can access CP by right-cllicking on your desktop. I don't have screenshots of the high-performance setting specifically (my laptop has an AMD card), but it should be with the other settings shown here:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/16540301/#Comment_16540301
Be sure to use TS3.exe for an Origin install; TS3W.exe (with the "W") is only relevant for disc or Steam installs. While you're at it, you may want to turn on vertical sync, which can help with flickering issues from other causes and protect your graphics card from overworking itself in general. V-sync limits your framerates to the refresh rate of your screen, so your 940MX won't be generating higher fps than is useful. Control Panel only works in fullscreen mode, but there are other tools to use if you prefer windowed mode, starting with Nvidia Inspector (free download), which is also shown in the link above.
Bottom line though is that as long as this doesn't happen again, you don't really need to worry about it. Sometimes graphics cards or drivers can have a little hiccup, but the real time to be concerned is when you notice a pattern.
Thank you very much for responding so quickly.
I'm happy to hear that this has probably been the cause and not something more serious as I was getting really scared when it happened.
About the "Be sure to use TS3.exe for an Origin install; TS3W.exe (with the "W") is only relevant for disc or Steam installs." - Before I just installed the Sims 3 via Origin, I just clicked "download" and it downloaded and installed it all. Is it the same thing again or is it something else you're asking me to do? As I said I uninstalled all of the Sims 3 because I was hoping that would help at the time, so will have to install it again.
I also apologize in advance because English is not my mother tounge so some things can confuse me at times.
Thank you very much again for helping me!
@drkatrine Your English is great; I probably didn't make things quite clear enough, since I tend to write out this particular recommendation a lot.
When I mentioned TS3.exe and TS3W.exe, I meant that you need to pick the correct one if you set up a profile for the game in the Nvidia Control Panel (or another app that limits frame rates). In any Sims 3 install, both of these executables get installed as well, but the one that runs the game depends on what type of install you have (Origin vs. disc or Steam). So if you use an outside tool to cap fps, you need to specify which .exe that tool is actually supposed to work on when it's running.
OH Now I understand it better. Thank you so much for this, I truly appreciate it. I will try all of this as soon as I can 🙂
I can tell you that it probably dosen't have anything to do with what you said.
I didn't have a blinking screen until just now, it came suddenly, so it's back. Just restarted and it seems okay now, but it also blinked on the 'closing' screen when closing the laptop, so it must be something in the laptop.
@drkatrine It might be an issue with the graphics card itself, or it might be the load that the card has to carry when running Sims 3. It's still a good idea to confirm that the frame rates are stable when you're playing though. A drop below 60 isn't really a problem, but if you're getting higher numbers, then you'll want to try another tool to limit fps for the protection of your card.
If you're interested, I can recommend some hardware monitoring apps so you can see how hard your 940MX is working. It may be that some features of the game, like rain and snow or long-haired animals, puts excessive stress on the card, and you might need to adjust your settings accordingly. This is all speculation though until you see how hard the card is working, and whether the flickering is related to the overall load.
