Re: "Warning; Unrecognized Video Card. Your video card not found in our database.

@esperelda  It's sort of a good sign in that you're mostly getting good performance.  It's best to manually cap fps though: your graphics card won't have to work as hard, it'll generate less heat, and you'll avoid some of the screen tearing and other graphics glitches that can happen at excessively high framerates.  And your monitor can't display more than 60 frames a second anyway, so anything above that is noise and excess workload.

I believe you should be able to cap fps using the Radeon control panel.  Right-click on the desktop and select AMD Radeon Settings, click the Gaming header, and click on Sims 3 if you see it.  (If you don't see it, click the three dots in the upper right corner, select Add a Game, and choose TS3 for an Origin install or TS3W for a disc or Steam install.)  Within the Sims 3 settings, enable Radeon Chill and set both the min and max FPS to 60.  Turning on Radeon Enhanced Sync may also help performance.

If you notice your screen or your menus turn purple at some point, open the Control Panel, click the Display header, and enable Custom Color.  Then change the Hue setting to something else.  You can change it back, or disable Custom Color; the point is that this resets the distorted colors.

I was able to cap fps to 60 min and max in Radeon chill. When I played the game for a little over an hour the fps would still shoot pretty high, reaching into the 100s. As I looked for a sim in Master Controller the fps did go down to 60s but back in game play it went pretty high again. Maybe re-starting the computer after setting the fps cap and before playing the game could've helped.

@esperelda  Restarting may or may not help, but if it doesn't, you can try using RivaTuner Statistics Server instead.  It's a free download and doesn't use much in the way of resources, and I've never heard of it not working unless someone accidentally closed it before playing.  (It does need to be running while you play, but you can minimize it to the system tray.)

RTSS is available here:

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/rtss-rivatuner-statistics-server-download.html

The real download is towards the bottom of the page; avoid any ads you see towards the top.  Download the recommended version 7.3.1, not the beta, install it, and when it opens, you'll see this:

Click the green Add button at the bottom, add TS3.exe for an Origin install or TS3W.exe for a disc or Steam install, set the "Framerate limit" (red box) to 60, and choose whether or not to let RTSS start with Windows (yellow box).  Either way works; letting it start with Windows ensures you won't forget to open it before playing.  Then restart your computer.

If you see a purple hue, use the same fix I described before.

Are you able to look at these attachments and see what I'm seeing?

Attachment (it seems like I have to type something in order for the attachment to go through. I don't know  any other way besides attachments to show what I'm looking at.)

I downloaded from the bottom of the guru site like you said except there wasn't a 7.3.1 but a 7.3.1 Final (Recommended) and by the time it downloads onto my computer it says 7.3.2 beta. I'm hoping so very hard that one of the pics I attached isn't a virus of some sort, it is a webpage that says guru 3D and has a lot of ads on it. I've unzipped before so don't know what is going wrong. 

I haven't at all seen that pic you posted on what it is supposed to look like after opening the download.

@esperelda  Right-click on the .zip file and select Extract, then run the RTSSSetup.exe that gets extracted.  The second screenshot shows the contents of the .zip file.

It looks in your second screenshot like you did in fact get th version 7.3.1, but it's not that the beta would be terrible; it's just not guaranteed to be stable, so don't worry about that either.  And yes, the file in your second screenshot is the correct one, not a virus.

When you say right click on the zip file, you mean the 2nd listing in the 2nd attachment that says "RTSSSetup731.exe" ? When I right click on it there isn't any option to extract so I click on the extract icon in the row at the top of the box, it is between the green add and blue V test icons. When clicking the extract at the top of the box, it says "Destination folder already contains processed file. Would you like to replace the existing file with this one?" But those two files look exactly the same so I don't know what else to do but answer "yes" and it doesn't seem that would be anything different and I still won't be able to open and use the RTSSS. 

@esperelda  In your second screenshot, you can see the file path above the .exe and the folder: the file path says you're looking inside a .zip.  So either back out one level from that screenshot, click Extract, and run the installer inside the extracted folder; or if you've already extracted the .zip, open that folder you've extracted.

If you're not sure where the extracted folder went, try to extract again and take note of where Windows is telling you the content will land.  Since you're getting an error message that there's already a file present in the same location, that's where the extracted files are, and that's where you need to look.

Ok you've been such a help with this but is there anyway you can please help with this last part of the RTSSS? I'm honestly stuck and have 3 folders of this RTSSS saved to desktop (I had to close the windows where I'd sent you pics) but can't do anything with any of them. I try to get back to those steps where I sent pics but each time I double click on any, a file window pops up with a long list of smaller file folders, applications, DAT file, CFG file etc. I clicked something to try uninstalling but it said something about something running and that the uninstall would be aborted. Can you give me steps on how to uninstall this or is there an extremely easy way of explaining how I can get back to the step of I think unzipping the file? I don't know why but I'm just not understanding any of this. I've unzipped mods in the past and have never run into this complication. 

@esperelda  Delete all the instances of RTSS in Downloads and restart your computer.  Download a new copy of RTSS, but this time, do not double-click.  Instead, right-click and select Extract Here.  You'll get a folder for RTSS in Downloads, not a .zip but a regular folder; please double-check the file type to the right of the name.  Open that folder and launch the installer.

I deleted everything labelled RTSS from Downloads (only 3 of them in recent download history). Turned off computer, downloaded again, then went into Downloads and right clicked on new RTSSS. There is a list that does not include "extract here" but when i hovered mouse over "7 zip" the option to "extract here" was there so I clicked it. Then a box popped up saying "Confirm File Replace. Destination folder already contains processed file. Would you like to replace the existing file.......with this one.........?" 

I stopped here and haven't done anything because I don't know what to do. I can't attach a pic because it says the file size is too big. 

@esperelda  Sorry for the late reply.  It sounds like there's another copy you didn't find, but it's okay to replace it.  Just make sure you look for it after it's extracted, because it has to be there somewhere.  It can also help to sort the folder by modified date (click the header): the most recent files will be at the top, although RTSS may have its uploaded date rather than the date you downloaded it.  That should still be recent though.

I've followed your steps to the best of my ability and I'm just simply not getting the window you showed that allows me to open RTSSS. Something is wrong somewhere. I've done this repeatedly. 

The most I ever get is a set-up wizard that asks if I want or agree to RTSSS and what name do I choose for a start up file. And as I look at the Start menu in the left hand corner there are 3 RivaTuner Statistics Server icons and I don't know what they are or what to do with them or what they mean.

@esperelda  If you open the Tray, do you see a blue and red RTSS symbol?  The Tray is in the lower right corner; click on the ^ symbol to open it.  If RTSS is running and you click on its icon, it should show what's in my earlier screenshot.

There is not a blue and red symbol in the Tray.

....not a blue and red RTSSS symbol...

@esperelda  Can you launch RTSS from the Start menu?  It doesn't matter which one you choose, or you can try each in succession.  If you don't see anything on your screen, check the Tray again.

I always launch RTSS from its .exe in Program Files, but it doesn't show on-screen unless I open it from the Tray.

After double clicking one of the RTSS icons from the Start menu, it showed up on the bottom left of the screen on the toolbar. After double clicking there, the window you showed popped open. I originally purchased sims 3 on disc and as expansions came out I think I got all those on disc. Hope am remembering correctly. I also used to sign into Origin but stopped because I heard Origin will automatically update the game so that you can only play some expansions at a time (Do you know if this is still true?). Anyway after clicking green add button a window pops out saying "Look in:" so I can go to "This PC" to "documents" to "Electronic Arts" to "The Sims 3" but I don't see any TS3W.exe that you mentioned? Origin also pulls up as an option in the "Look in" window. 

@esperelda  There is no TS3W.exe anywhere in Documents; it's inside the game's program files.  If you installed via disc, the full file path will probably be something like this:

Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

Origin can and will update your game to patch 1.69, which would require you to run the game through Origin rather than from your discs.  If you already play through Origin or did so in the past five years, this has probably already happened, but if not, it's something to avoid.

Program Files (x86) > Electronic Arts > EADM ....the EADM folder is empty so this must not be the correct location. When news came out about that Origin update everyone was saying disable the automatic update so I did. Since then I turned off the automatic updates and Origin still says it has an update yet this seems to be the file path on my computer: Program Files (x86) > Origin Games > The Sims 3 > Game > Bin. So this is the one to choose?

@esperelda  Yes, the ...The Sims 3\Game\Bin is the correct path, and if you're on patch 1.69, you'll want to add TS3.exe, without the W.  You can see the patch number in the lower left corner of the launcher.

When I click green Add button, a window pops up  that says "look in" so i start clicking in succession "This PC" that file/folder opens, then I click "Local Disk (C🙂" icon then that window opens etc etc I  keep clicking til I get all the way into Bin and the only thing left to click is "open" and nothing happens. See what I mean...like I can't actually type out the file path in the little tiny box that says "Look in" and "Open" because nothing would "match" How exactly am I supposed to tell/show RTSS that this is the path file?