Map View in Poor Quality - Lenovo Legion 5
I might simply be very nitpicky here, but I recently switched to a Lenovo Legion 5 gaming laptop with and Nvidia RTX 3050 graphics card, only to find that the roads while in map view are in extremely...
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@iyoung91 Map View has always been low-resolution, and the difference may be appear to be greater now because of how much better the graphics are in street view on your new computer. However, it's also possible that this is due to Windows and/or the graphics driver (it's not clear which is at fault here) no longer supporting the kinds of techniques that used to smooth out poor graphics on older systems. I can dig up other examples for you, but the takeaway is there isn't anything to be done on the user end.
However, it's also possible that your in-game graphics options are contributing. While your graphics card is properly recognized and rated at the max, that wouldn't change the options after they'd already been set. So try maxing out everything except water and high-detail lots (these are particularly demanding on the game engine) to see whether it helps. Make sure to change the options at the Main Menu and then quit to desktop before loading a save to get the full effect.
Does this happen in both fullscreen and windowed modes, and if it happens in fullscreen, are you playing at your laptop screen's native resolution? If not, please switch to that resolution and then quit and restart the game.
If you'd like, I can grab a couple of similar screenshots for comparison as well. This one was taken in Lucky Palms, right? If you have Seasons installed, let me know what season this is, in case it matters, and take a screenshot of Sunset Valley in Map View as well.
By the way, your graphics card has 4 GB of VRAM. But since Sims 3 can only use 800 MB, setting the texture memory value to 1024 is fine.
@puzzlezaddict , I play in Fullscreen mode only at my native resolution of 1920x1080. I do not have Seasons installed, and correct, the world is Lucky Palms. I am attaching Sunset Valley in Map View on this feed. This was interesting, in Sunset Valley for a split second, map view was in great quality. Then defaulted to low res. I do have all settings on high, including water.
@iyoung91 Do you have any installed software meant to optimize your in-game settings or performance? GeForce Experience would qualify if you've checked the box to let it optimize settings, but there are plenty of other third-party tools as well. If you're not sure, open the Task Manager (while in-game; put the game in windowed mode first) and look through the background processes list for anything that doesn't have a Windows/AMD/Nvidia logo.
It's also possible, though this would be a bit unusual, that your computer is switching to integrated graphics in Map View because of how much less demanding that mode is. You should be able to see the difference in the Task Manager's Performance tab: one minute you're in street view and the Nvidia card is taking the graphics load, then the next you're in Map View and the AMD graphics chip is working and the Nvidia card's load has dropped way down. This is just a theory, but it's easy to test.
Even if this isn't the underlying problem, it's still worth telling Windows to run Sims 3 in high-performance mode. Hit Windows key-i, open System > Display > Graphics settings, click Browse, choose TS3.exe (without the W) from the list, click Options, select the high-performance option, and save. And of course always play with the laptop plugged in, since running on battery can make Windows override any other performance options you've set.
@puzzlezaddict I downloaded GeForce Experience and also switched settings in Windows to always run in high performance mode. No change to map view with either. I still need to try checking what's going on with task manager.
@roberta591 I noticed its pulling the wrong OS too in the games Device Config Log. I can confirm that Windows 11 is up to date on my Legion 05. Any advice as to how I could get the game to read Windows 11? I never had 8 installed as this computer came with 11 installed on it. Graphics are in high quality and game runs great aside from the road detail in map view. I do have an FPS cap at 60 FPS for the game from NVIDIA Control Panel. Anytime I play over 60 FPS the laptop makes quite a bit of noise.
@iyoung91 Sims 3 was out of development by the beginning of 2014, so it doesn't recognize anything past Windows 8. This is not indicative of a problem and has no practical effect.
For the roads issue, try playing in a clean boot:
When you reboot, go through the Task Manager's background processes list shutting down anything that doesn't absolutely need to be running, so basically anything that isn't from Microsoft, Nvidia, or AMD. (Examples of inessential software would be MSI Afterburner and anything from Razer.) If you accidentally kill the wrong process and it doesn't restart on its own, just reboot your computer.
And if you do see a process restarting on its own after you've ended it, note what it is so you can circle back later—the clean boot might do the trick, but if not, anything that insists on restarting itself may need to be uninstalled, at least temporarily.
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