Re: [READ FIRST] Unrecognized video card

@Keyanna4211  I've split your post into its own thread in the Sims 3 forum since the other thread is exclusively about Sims 4.

The screenshot of your Sims 3 folder has some files that normally go in the user folder, but a number of them are missing.  It also contains the game's program files.  How did you set this up?  I would guess you installed the game to this folder, but did you try to transfer user files there too?  Or did you set up a symbolic link?  The game's program files and the user folder should never be combined, so the first step here is disentangling them.

On that note, please open Documents, and if there's an Electronic Arts folder inside, open that and look for a Sims 3 folder.  DeviceConfig should be there.  I'd like the first 40 lines, up to where Options starts, with your user and computer names removed.

@puzzlezaddict - Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly! Sorry if my explanation gets complicated so please bear with me. 

About some of the files that you are seeing (if you're referring to the "\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\" and not the "\Game\bin\" folder), this was when I transferred some of the backup (copied) files from my flash drive (PNY 1TB) to my external SSD drive (Seagate). So, originally (before I knew you can't just drag and drop a game folder from one drive to another because of registry entries) -- I was planning to transfer my game to a flash drive but learned that an external SSD drive would be better and that I would have to uninstall the game from my Windows PC drive and then reinstalling it directly to route to my external SSD drive.

Once I did that, the files that I did have in my "Seagate Portable Drive (D: )\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\" folder were only ("_Installer", "Caches", "Game", "GameData", "Support", and "Thumbnails"). I looked and compared it with my flash drive "USB322FD (E: )\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3", and thought to drop in ("Custom Music", "DCBackup", "DCCache", "Downloads", "EP04", "FeaturedItems", "Library", and "Saves"). If these are the files you are referring to that should have been under User files, these would be the only files I transferred. The other files were there on their own upon reinstallation. I also left out some other files I saw under my flash drive but didn't think to transfer them in (PS: not an expert on these sorts of things). So, they might be the files that you said are missing.

I can share with you an attachment of what I do have in my flash drive. To see if you can help me understand. Then, I can transfer the necessary ones and you can tell me if they should be in another folder (User folder). One question: Would I have to create this User folder or should it already be somewhere in my external ssd drive? So that it won't have to be mixed/combined with "The Sims 3" folder.

Btw, I don't believe I properly transferred everything to my flash drive either and because the method that I used was the "copy and paste" method, none of the game launch files work on there if I click on them in there. So I have some files that were manually transferred from Windows to there but not all files.

I also followed what you said about looking through the Documents folder and luckily I did find it! (I was afraid I would not be able to find it because I thought that I already deleted most of the sims-related files from Windows) but I see them there. I also noticed I have the copied version in my flash drive "The Sims 3" folder too.

Okay - I have attached the photos for the first 40 lines of the DeviceConfig file after the "--Options--" line. Let me know what are my next steps. Thanks!

https://imgur.com/a/guglkk9

@Keyanna4211  Before we do anything else, please post screenshots of the contents of all the Sims 3 folders you have on your current computer.  It sounds from your description that the best approach here is to clean-uninstall and reinstall the game, but I don't want to inadvertently help you delete files you'd like to keep.  While I can me somewhat confident based on your description, I'd rather be absolutely sure, since you wouldn't be able to get back the content the clean uninstall removed.

There's no point in getting your graphics card recognized until you've reinstalled the game since the edited .sgr files would be removed along with everything else.

Hi @puzzlezaddict! I just realized something while looking through all my Sims 3 folders like what you told me to do. I realized that the directory, "\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\" from my Windows drive IS indeed the 'User files' that belong to my current Sims 3 game. I noticed this because I saw that the creation dates for them said 3/3/2024 which is the same day that I had reinstalled my Sims 3 game as well as uninstalled the Origin app to update to the EA App.

So sorry about the mix-up! You can disregard what I said about there being old sims-related files there because I realize that those files are the right ones. For some reason, I thought it couldn't be them because I installed the game in my external SSD drive so I thought that the files you were talking about would have been under Seagate and not my Windows. But I learned that 'User Files' actually meant my own PC drive. In this case, the photos that I have attached with the ones in my Windows Documents are the right ones. Including the notepad for DeviceConfig. I will not worry about those few folders ("Custom Music", "DCBackup", "DCCache", "Downloads", "EP04", "FeaturedItems", "Library", and "Saves") I had transferred from my USB flash drive to Seagate because they're basically duplicates that I can delete without a problem happening. My game already has its original files installed in the right place. 

@Keyanna4211  That makes things a lot easier.  If you have saves or other files you want to preserve that are NOT also on your USB, rename the Sims 3 folder in Documents to something that doesn't include "Sims 3" in its name; otherwise, you can skip this step.

For the uninstall process itself, please download Revo Uninstaller (the free version is fine) and tell it to remove Sims 3.  Make sure the EA App is closed, the EABackgroundService is NOT running in the backtround, and the external drive is plugged in and recognized.  When Revo is finished, restart your computer and reinstall the game to the external, or wherever you want it.

I would strongly suggest installing into a folder on the external, for example D:\Games, rather than on the root level of the drive.  That will make troubleshooting much easier and will also avoid some potential complications that could happen if the EA App thinks the entire D drive is one of its game directories.

Once you've reinstalled the game, launch it once to make sure everything is working, and then we can move on to getting your graphics card recognized.

@puzzlezaddict Okay! Thanks for these tips! I will try them. Just one more thing before I uninstall The Sims 3 game off my drive, to ensure there isn't any misunderstanding. The only important downloads on my USB "(E: )" drive are just CCs like houses, custom clothing, and that sort. The other folders in it -- were old duplicates (like the ones I've tried to move) that were from my previous installation of the Sims 3 when it used to be on my regular computer drive. So, they are basically unneeded/old files. I don't plan to use the USB at all until of course, it's for moving just the CC downloads (which is not dependent on the game registry). 

Also another thing, it seems that my computer had automatically installed the 'User Files' into my Windows "(C: )" drive although I had selected my External Drive "(D: )" as the destination for installation. Are you sure that the 'User Files' will/should be under the "(D: )" drive? Like I understand, the original folders that I mentioned that were there initially from the time of installation would be okay to be under "(D: )" drive. But shouldn't it be fine for the 'user files'-which include save files, game settings, and caches to be within my Windows folder directory "(C: )"? I saw something that said that sometimes game's registry entries and system path variables often point to locations on the C: drive for user data, regardless of where the game is installed. So that user-specific data is separated from the program data (making it easier to manage and back up important files) and since its a default that Windows does for user-specific data.

Just want to make sure, because I wouldn't want to reinstall the game if the 'User Files' are supposed/will go back in that directory place "(C: )" unless it was something else you meant.

@Keyanna4211  The program files and user files are not only separate folders, they're handled completely differently.  The program files go where you tell the EA App to put them; the user files always go into Documents > Electronic Arts.  If Documents is on C, which it always is by default, the user files will be there too.  You can change this if you want, but I wouldn't suggest it unless you really need the space.

For that matter, I wouldn't suggest installing the program files to the external drive either unless you'd rather use the internal drive's space for some other program.  Many games, Sims 3 included, will load more slowly from an external drive, or an internal HDD, than they would from an internal SSD.  That doesn't mean you can't play; I'm just saying if it's between photos or music and Sims 3, I'd put the game on the internal drive and the other data on the external.

As far as the registry entries go, the EA App creates some when installing a game, but this data has to do with the program files and resources they might use.  The App has nothing to say about where the user files are.  The location of Documents is also stored in the registry, but that's a Windows-level setting.  The game uses whatever Windows says is the Documents directory.

If you do want to move the user files to D, that's fine, let me know; but please confirm the game is properly reinstalled and working as intended first.

@puzzlezaddict Thanks for explaining. I’m new to learning these computer terms! I have just followed everything you said. I decided I’ll still have the game installed on the external drive since it’s best for my computer storage right now.

In that case, I started with uninstalling The Sims 3 game and all other related files with the Revo Uninstaller, then I cleaned up my C: drive Sims 3 folder from the previous User Files I had and made sure that there were backups into a separate new folder into a different drive so they can be separate and prevent any mix-up from any new files. After that I installed my game under the suggested default install location, “D:\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3” path structure, and not the root of the drive like you said. After the game had been installed, I launched it to test out how it worked. The game launches fine. But the Unrecognized Video Card did pop up again once I reached the New Game menu. I believe I followed everything well this time. I have attached the screenshots of the pop-up, as well as the new user files and program files. Hopefully, we can move forward from here.

https://imgur.com/a/mROYgN6

@Keyanna4211  The unrecognized video card error happened again because you have a new Options.ini file, which sits in the user folder and stores the data that you've already seen the error.  Your GPU was unrecognized this whole time; it's just that the game didn't bother you about it again until now.

To get the card recognized, you'll be editing two files here:

D:\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

First, open graphicscards.sgr (Notepad is fine).  Right at the top, you'll see these lines:

vendor "ATI" 0x1002
card 0x6798 "AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series"
card 0x6799 "AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series"

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

	card 0x98e4 "AMD Radeon R5 Graphics"

Make sure this line is indented like the ones below it; the lines in my copy are one Tab in from the left.  Save, close the file, and open graphicsrules.sgr.  Search for x14 , which will take you here:

elseif (match("${cardName}", "*x14??*") or match("${cardName}", "*x850*")

Change the bolded x14?? to R5 , but don't change or delete any of the other characters, not even the asterisks.  (Do remove the question marks, so the R5 is directly between the asterisks.)  This will designate your card as medium, which is appropriate for your card, but feel free to play with the graphics settings a bit.

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.

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

@puzzlezaddict Followed your steps! I did the edits for both graphic files, saved them each, and then launched the game. Once I reached the new game menu, no pop-up showed but I still had the unpleasant purple tint. I closed the game and then checked my device config under user files. It does show [Found: 1, Matched: 1] so I think that means recognized. But the purple tint was still there.