How to make Sims 3 recognise graphics card?

@zwemmendemelk  You'll need to edit two files within the game's program files, likely in one of these locations:

Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

First, open graphicscards.sgr (Notepad is fine).  Click crtl-F and search for 10de , which will bring you to these lines:

vendor "NVIDIA" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de
card 0x0fd1 "GeForce GT 650M"
card 0x0fd2 "GeForce GT 640M"

Create a new line under the one that says Nvidia and copy and paste this:

	card 0x1f15 "GeForce RTX 2060"

Make sure this line is indented like the ones below it; the lines in my file are one Tab in from the left.  Save, close the file, and open graphicsrules.sgr.  Search for 8800 , which will take you here:

elseif (match("${cardName}", "*8800*") or match("${cardName}", "*9500*") or match("${cardName}", [etc.]

Change the bolded 8800 to 2060 , but don't change or delete any of the other characters, not even the asterisks.  This will designate your card as uber-level, as it should be.

Finally, scroll to the top of the file and find this, 8-10 lines down:

if ($textureMemory == 0)
seti textureMemory 32
setb textureMemorySizeOK false

Change the 32 to a 1024 and put a # and a space in front of setb (and leave the other spaces on the left intact).  This will tell the game your graphics card has 1 GB VRAM instead of none.  It has more than that, but Sims 3 can only use 800 MB anyway.

Save, close the file, load the game, quit, and check deviceconfig again.  You should see a [Found: 1, Matched: 1] next to your graphics card's name, and a few lines down, the "texture memory" (VRAM) should read 1024 instead of 32.

If this doesn't work, please post the same section of the deviceconfig as you did this time.

Brilliant, but unfortunately I am not able to save any changes to the BIN file as it reports I do not have administrators permission. I have tried every way to adjust the security to allow the saves to no avail. 

@Woodsie010  Copy the file to your desktop, edit it, drag it back to the Bin folder, and choose Replace.

Additionally, make sure the EA App is closed and the EABackgroundService is NOT running in the Task Manager.

If this doesn't help, disable your antivirus (temporarily) and try again.

@thekaratekitten This is for those who came from the Google search "how to make sims 3 recognize graphics card", an easier more comfortable option is a mod. It was a little confusing for me and, so, I recommend following the user guide that's in the Files tab. If the mod is saying that your GPU isn't recognized, please double-check it by doing the following:
Follow section 8.2 in the user guide > highlight all of it (ctrl+a doesn't work) > copy (use ctrl+c) > paste it into a text document > ctrl+f to bring up the "Find on page" > search for your GPU. If it's there, then the mod supports your gpu but, if not, then follow section 8.1 in the user guide. If it's there then you may need to go through the mod again as if it recognizes your GPU.

[CM Edit: Mod link removed]

hi guys, this is a thread from 4 years ago so i'm not expecting anything but wondering if i can still be helped at all? my game is just seriously bad quality - worse than i remember and not in a nostalgia way. it used to be sharper. i feel like the graphics card is recognised but still not performing in high quality. the game does not crash, it's not laggy, etc, it's just not great to look at. even if i'm in the wrong thread, is there anything i can do? and if i *am* in the right place, pls take a look at this info and see if you can help me like you did the original poster 🙂 

also, i'm aware my GPU is at 1... i know that's an issue and i just have no idea how to make it a 5 or anything. but that's sort of what i want: to make my GPU a 5. again, the game runs SO smooth, it's just the graphics. i hope you can just check over all of this for me and direct me! thanks.

=== Rating info ===
GPU: 1 GPU Memory: 1 CPU: 3 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 2918 Threading: 3
Adjusted CPU: 3491 RAM: 16068 Adjusted RAM: 15556 Cores: 16
=== 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: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13620H
Family: 6
Model: 10
Cores: 16
HT: 0
x64: 0
Memory: 16068MB
Free memory: 5325MB

Number: 0
Name (driver): Intel(R) UHD Graphics
Name (database): Intel(R) UHD Graphics [Found: 0, Matched: 1]
Vendor: Intel
Chipset: Vendor: 8086, Device: a7a8, Board: 0ccb1028, Chipset: 0004
Driver: igd10iumd32.dll, Version: 31.0.101.5081, GUID: D7B78E66-E4E8-11CF-4160-AE2CABC2D235
Driver version: 5081
Monitor: \\.\DISPLAY1
Texture memory: 32MB <<OVERRIDE>>
Vertex program: 3.0
Pixel program: 3.0
Hardware TnL: 1

@HisarikaLuck  This should definitely be fixable.  But the first question is whether your computer has a dedicated graphics card that Sims 3 isn't using.  If so, you'd want to force the game to use that GPU and then add it (not the Intel UHD chip) to the database.

So please run a dxdiag and attach it to a post.  That will show whether your computer has a discrete card, any system issues that might prevent it from being used, and the device ID you'd need to add once Sims 3 is using this GPU.

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

Hi! I came across your post after googling this very problem! You have provided the simplest, clearest instructions I have found.

I played TS3 as a teen and would love to get back into it again. Times have changed and I know there is a lot more setup I need to do than back then.

My graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060. Should I follow the instructions you provided to the poster with 2060 but just use 3060? or would you recommend using a mod instead?

Also do you have any experience with TS3 on windows 11? I have windows 10 now but I’m conscious that support for it ends this year and I need to upgrade to 11. Does anything change?

Is there anything else you would suggest I do to have a more positive experience with the game? I do plan on adding a number of mods and CC.

NiiChavo​  You can follow my instructions if you like, but in addition to changing the 2060 to 3060, you'll also need to change the device ID I wrote to your own.  That's the part where I wrote 0x1f15 .  You can find your own device ID in DeviceConfig.log, after the vendor ID (10de for you, which is Nvidia in general).

The question with these mod tools is always whether they include your GPU's device ID, which they typically do for common graphics cards, but some of them miss one here or there.

As for Windows 11, I haven't installed it yet, so I can only go by what I read from other players.  There's a major issue when OneDrive is also present, but you can avoid linking it at setup, or create a new, local admin account after the fact to keep it away.

[Current Issue] Sims 3 &quot;serious error&quot; when loading save | EA Forums - 8322938

For everything else, I would skim this guide and check out the sections that interest you:

[Read First] Running Sims 3 in Windows | EA Forums - 8323446

Feel free to ask more questions about any particular point.  And keep in mind that bad cc can sneak up on you in a variety of ways, so proceed with caution and test everything before adding it to your main saves.

Thank you so much I really appreciate your help and all the work you’ve done here! 
and the wakeup call on mods/cc as much as they can be great, I need to be careful.