Forum Discussion

Lesims777's avatar
Lesims777
New Novice
2 months ago
Solved

No shadows in my game

Hey guys,

I've been searching through various forums, but I still can't figure out what's wrong with my game. Basically, my game has no shadows! Not just on the map view, but also on houses, trees, etc. I'm not using the lowest settings, and shadows and lighting are set to 'high'.

I've seen people with the same problem because they had an AMD graphics card, but I don't have one, so the fix they used didn't work for me.

For context, I am using a Surface Laptop 7 with no dedicated graphics card, and my GPU is a Snapdragon X Elite with 16GB of RAM. I'm not using any extensions, and my only mod is Lazy Duchess's Smoothness patch.

My game is running great. Is the issue related to the fact that i'm using an Arm64 computer? I'm completely lost, not gonna lie. Is anyone else playing on an Arm laptop/have the same issue?

I know it's really not a big deal, but it's driving me crazy lmao.

pc
technical issues
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    2 months ago

    Lesims777  Let's try the quick and dirty method of getting your GPU recognized.  This skips some of the potential sources of error, so we can focus on whether this actually works on its own.

    Please restore the original .sgr files.  Open GraphicsCards.sgr, search for nvidia , and you'll see this:

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

    After 0x10de, add a space and 0x4d4f4351 , but nothing else.  In the next line, change 0x0fd1 to 0x36334330 , again with nothing else added.  This will (hopefully) trick the game into thinking your laptop has an Nvidia GT 650M and assign the ratings and other settings accordingly.

    Please launch the game once after making these changes, and if you notice any weird graphics, delete Options.ini and load again.  This time, don't change anything aside from the resolution and fullscreen/windowed mode, and have a look around.  Then post the last part of this section of DeviceConfig again, just the part between Graphics device info and Options.

5 Replies

Sort By
  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    2 months ago

    Lesims777  The problem may have the same cause on your laptop as it does with AMD graphics cards, in that the default setting for other GPUs may also be no shadows.

    Have you taken steps to get your graphics chip recognized?  If not, we can try that and also add a line about shadows, or use an existing line.  But if you've already done this, I'd like to know how so I can work with your existing edits rather than starting from scratch.

    Either way, please go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3, open DeviceConfig.log, copy the first 40 or so lines (stop at Options), and paste them here.  You can delete your user and computer names, about 20 lines down; the file doesn't contain any other personal information.

  • Lesims777's avatar
    Lesims777
    New Novice
    2 months ago

    Thanks for your answer, that's what I was starting to suspect! 

    I did start messing with GraphicsCards.sgr and GraphicsRules.sgr with no success (I just broke my map view lol, but it's okay, I kept a copy of the original files in a folder). While i found a lot of info in DeviceConfig.log, I basically don't know how and where to use them properly, because Qualcomm cards were not even used back then. I don't really think the lines i've added are useful.

    Here is my DeviceConfig.log : 

    === Application info ===
    Name:            Sims3
    Version:         
    Build:           Release
    === Rating info ===
    GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 1 CPU: 3 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 2976 Threading: 3
    Adjusted CPU: 3568 RAM: 15984 Adjusted RAM: 15472 Cores: 12
    === 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:             Virtual CPU 
        Brand:       Virtual CPU @ 3.41GHz
        Family:      15
        Model:       4
        Cores:       12
        HT:          0
        x64:         0
    Memory:          15984MB
    Free memory:     5218MB
    User:          
    Computer:        
    === Graphics device info ===
    Number:          0
    Name (driver):   Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
    Name (database): Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU [Found: 0, Matched: 0]
    Vendor:          
    Chipset:         Vendor: 4d4f4351, Device: 36334330, Board: 33784449, Chipset: 0088
    Driver:          qcdx11x86um.dll, Version: 31.0.63.7, GUID: 9AF84DB1-0070-27FC-FE27-471327C2D235
    Driver version:  7
    Monitor:         \\.\DISPLAY1
    Texture memory:  32MB <<OVERRIDE>>
    Vertex program:  3.0
    Pixel program:   3.0
    Hardware TnL:    1

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    2 months ago

    Lesims777  Let's try the quick and dirty method of getting your GPU recognized.  This skips some of the potential sources of error, so we can focus on whether this actually works on its own.

    Please restore the original .sgr files.  Open GraphicsCards.sgr, search for nvidia , and you'll see this:

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

    After 0x10de, add a space and 0x4d4f4351 , but nothing else.  In the next line, change 0x0fd1 to 0x36334330 , again with nothing else added.  This will (hopefully) trick the game into thinking your laptop has an Nvidia GT 650M and assign the ratings and other settings accordingly.

    Please launch the game once after making these changes, and if you notice any weird graphics, delete Options.ini and load again.  This time, don't change anything aside from the resolution and fullscreen/windowed mode, and have a look around.  Then post the last part of this section of DeviceConfig again, just the part between Graphics device info and Options.

  • Lesims777's avatar
    Lesims777
    New Novice
    2 months ago

    Well, it worked! 

    I don't see any graphical problems and i do see shadows now. 

    Thank you so much.

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    2 months ago

    Lesims777  Great, thanks for the feedback.  You can adjust the graphics settings to your liking now, but please do so at the Main Menu, and quit to desktop before loading a save.  Changing the settings with a save loaded sometimes causes graphical glitches.

About The Sims 3 Technical Issues

Get help with issues in The Sims 3 from fellow Simmers.82,787 PostsLatest Activity: 3 hours ago