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...
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@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.
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.
I'm very glad I have you because or else I wouldn't know what this even means, so thank you, haha.
I will say again that I haven't even reinstalled Sims 3 after our first discussion as my life was hectic. It's not installed now either as I simply haven't dared to. Even though the game isn't installed sometimes the screen flickers and blinks. Long time happens in between, but it still happens, and it all started after I tried to install that custom town Storybrook County, which I don't understand. It happened the moment I double clicked the file to get it installed in the launcher. I have talked to others and they don't know how that's possible either.
You might be right. I have to find a way to check frame rates while playing once I install it again. It could very well be the graphics card itself as Sims 3 isn't installed right now and it still happened, I really have no idea. I have contacted support for this laptop and they told me there are some updates for my graphics drivers, so will look into that. But I'm beginning to think it's actually the graphics card there is something wrong with. Still don't get how double cliking a custom town file to install in the launcher could trigger it though. I'm so lost. Glad to have your help though!
Sure, please recommend me some and I will look into it 🙂
@drkatrine If your laptop's support recommended graphics card driver updates, then that's the first thing you should do. Once you update, if the blinking doesn't go away, please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post here.
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
The apps I use to monitor my hardware are hwinfo and GPU-Z. The first shows info about all hardware, from the motherboard to the case fans, and the second is just for graphics cards. But both will show the overall load on your card as well as a number of more in-depth stats. You can also log a session with either app, so you can see how the stats change over time as you're playing. Both are free.
https://www.hwinfo.com/download/
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-gpu-z/
But there's not much point in running them unless you're actually playing a game. Otherwise, your card won't be working particularly hard, and the data probably wouldn't be useful unless there was some glaring error. More helpful would be the dxdiag, which might list certain hardware and software errors directly. Then once you've addressed those, you could install the game and see what happened.
And I agree, it's very strange that the flickering started after installing a custom world. I tend to think it's more likely a coincidence, or at most that running the Sims 3 launcher revealed a new issue that you hadn't seen up to that point. But it's just a guess without more information.
