Ok I followed everything and the fps no longer goes over 60. Played about 30 minutes -- will more over the weekend to see how it does. Wow I had no idea this whole venture would be so involved and get kinda hard LOL. Thank you @puzzlezaddict soooo much for all your time and willingness to get this resolved! I see why you are a hero!!!
@esperelda I'm so glad to hear it's working. Let me know if you have any other issues.
@puzzlezaddict : The fps stays at 60 or below and the graphic card seems ok. Thank you again. Should I click on the button that says "accept as solution" to end this post?
@esperelda Accepting a solution doesn't close a thread, it simply highlights the post that fixed the issue or gave the requested information. So if you'd like, you can pick a post that helped you, but it's not necessary. And a thread generally doesn't get locked unless it's old, there's a better thread for people to use, or something about the thread breaks forum rules.
@kaglett Sure, I can help, but I probably don't need a dxdiag. Instead, go into Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 3, open DeviceConfig.log, copy the first 40 lines or so (stop when you get to 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 info.
Here it is below. So, I followed your steps to uninstall drivers with DDU. I've already used DDU multiple times due to driver issues I've had since the start of this year. But I didn't think I had ever tried to uninstall drivers and let windows update auto-install new ones; all guides I followed did manual installs. I was curious, thought it wouldn't hurt so I let windows auto-install drivers. Now my sims 3 game no longer gives me that warning message. However, one of my other games is now complaining that my drivers are not up to date and the game is stuttering. I've always had stuttering, unsmooth gaming experience issues this past year on almost my games, regardless of which nvidia drivers I install. And I guess installing windows recommended drivers didn't fix that either. Anyway, so I just gave that info so you can understand the state of the file compared to yesterday. Just for curiosity's sake, does this file reveal anything to you that might be wrong with my graphics drivers alone, even the warning message is gone? I'm just looking for anything helpful that might point to why the driver is having issues. Or maybe I am wrong and it's not even the driver.
Sorry if that is an info dump. Only answer what you feel is necessary.
=== Application info ===
Name: Sims3
Version:
Build: Release
=== Rating info ===
GPU: 5 GPU Memory: 1 CPU: 4 RAM: 4 CPU Speed: 2895 Threading: 3
Adjusted CPU: 3460 RAM: 11645 Adjusted RAM: 11133 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: AuthenticAMD
Brand: AMD Ryzen 7 4800H with Radeon Graphics
Family: 15
Model: 0
Cores: 16
HT: 0
x64: 0
Memory: 11645MB
Free memory: 4356MB
=== Graphics device info ===
Number: 0
Name (driver): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti
Name (database): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti [Found: 0, Matched: 0]
Vendor: NVIDIA
Chipset: Vendor: 10de, Device: 1f95, Board: 3a4417aa, Chipset: 00a1
Driver: nvldumd.dll, Version: 27.21.14.5749, GUID: D7B71E3E-5CD5-11CF-6F62-4A1A1BC2D635
Driver version: 5749
Monitor: \\.\DISPLAY1
Texture memory: 32MB <<OVERRIDE>>
Vertex program: 3.0
Pixel program: 3.0
Hardware TnL: 1
@kaglett Allowing Windows to choose a graphics driver for you is actually not a good idea most of the time. It's occasionally necessary when the original source of the appropriate driver no longer hosts it, for example Intel has taken down drivers for processors with integrated graphics released before... 2015 maybe? Point is, letting Windows choose a driver is the last resort, not the first choice.
It would be best to address the driver issue before getting your GPU recognized, so please post a dxdiag:
https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/
and I'll find you the correct driver and let you know whether you need to DDU the current one first.
Thank you for the kind help. Alright, I see. I've posted the file.
@kaglett Your dxdiag shows that you have an Nvidia graphics driver from 2020, so you'll definitely want to update that. First though, the dxdiag also lists some generic Windows update errors, which are worth addressing even if they're unrelated to any Sims 3 issue. So please run a couple of basic checks of your Windows system files:
Restart your computer, hit Windows key-i, select Update & Security, and click the box to check for updates. If any install, restart again afterwards.
For the graphics driver, try the one Lenvo offers for your laptop. (You want the Nvidia VGA driver.) It's still somewhat old, but it's newer than your current one and might be fine, and it's always best to try the drivers provided by your laptop manufacturer first and only update if those don't work properly. Since this is newer than the driver you have installed, you don't need to use DDU to remove the current driver; just run this installer and restart your computer.
If that driver doesn't work well, and please test both Sims 3 and whatever other games were throwing errors, you can install the newest driver available from Nvidia:
https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/211710/en-us/
In this case, run the installer as an admin: right-click the download and select "Run as administrator." Choose the Custom (not Express) install method and check the box to perform a clean install. Restart when you're done.
To get your graphics card recognized, you'll need to edit two .sgr files, both located inside the game's program files. The default locations for a disc and Steam install—I'm not sure which you have—are these, respectively:
Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin
Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\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 0x1f95 "GeForce GTX 1650 ti"
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 8800 , which will take you here:
elseif (match("${cardName}", "*8800*") or match("${cardName}", "*9500*") or match("${cardName}", [etc.]
Change the bolded 8800 to 1650 , but don't change or delete any of the other characters, not even the asterisks. This will designate your card as uber-level, as it should be.
Finally, scroll to the top of the file and find this, 8-10 lines down:
if ($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 the first time.
Finally, I want to note that it appears your laptop is using a lot of memory a lot of the time. Your deviceconfig showed that 7 GB was in use before you last launched Sims 3, and at the time of the dxdiag, the system's somewhat-large page file was also in moderately heavy use. Perhaps you simply like to multitask, and this isn't an issue, but it's worth checking anyway.
Please restart your computer and wait five minutes without opening any apps at all. Open the Task Manager, specifically the Details tab, and check the overall Memory use. If it's much over 30%, so that would be a little over 3 GB, flip to the Startup tab and see if there's anything running on startup that doesn't need to be. Disabling these apps on startup wouldn't compromise your ability to use them; it would just mean they didn't open on their own, with Windows, only when you manually launched them.
If you're not sure what you're looking at, feel free to post a screenshot of the Startup tab, and please also let me know how much memory is in use at the time.
Replying a bit late, I've had a crazy school week. I did everything you advised me to.
First I ran the DISM.exe and sfc /scannow. I got no output. Everything was fine there. I have ran these commands before in the past and I did get something twice that was then fixed by sfc, but not this time.
I checked for updates. None came up.
I downloaded the first driver you sent me. I have gotten that driver from the manufacturer site in the past, so I'm glad you confirmed I went to the right site. But at that time, I believe I downloaded it with all other recommended drivers. This time I only downloaded only the VGA driver without using DDU. Once done I tested some games. The sims 3 stuttered when I panned throughout the world and buildings were to be loaded. I then tried to launch my spiderman remastered game. It told me the driver I had was outdated, or a similar warning message. When I tried to play it stuttered in some parts badly, especially while zipping around through the city. I then played Control. The game currently lags when unpausing after pausing the game, there is an immediate stutter problem I always had. Also, to my eyes it seemed like the graphics are slightly blurry, hazy, rough around the edges. The driver did not fix these problems.
So then I decided to install the next driver. Again I did not use DDU. I checked spiderman and gameplay is smooth, as far as I can tell it's the way it was when I played it earlier this year and I didn't have graphics problems. I checked the Witcher 3. Smooth gameplay (only noticed one tiny stutter when entering a cutscene but think that's fine) and graphics look good as far as I can tell. I tested a couple other games briefly, Portal, Subnautica 1 and 2, metro exodus, minecraft (it reported good fps when I tested too). All fine.
I then did your changes to the sims 3 file successfully too and my graphics driver was detected. The sims 3 however is still experiencing stutters. However, I'm less worried about that. I think what I will try is apply some guides I used to get the sims 3 to be more optimized. There was a time my game ran wonderfully, and it was after applying those fixes/mods when I remember I was tired of it stuttering. I'm still not sure if these stutters are expected, since as far as I remember the very first time I booted the Sims 3 after purchasing it, it ran ok I think and maybe only started lagging over time/long save. But that was 2 years ago so my memory might be unreliable, so perhaps it did stutter a bit. But sims 3 should be hopefully fine, I will update in a few days how my attempt to fix it went.
So basically, seems like almost everything went successfully, for most of my games so I'm happy.
The game with the biggest issue however, remains to be Control. After installing the driver, I did not open the game. Instead, what I did was uninstall and reinstall the game so I could basically start from scratch with it since I was afraid maybe something fundamentally was corrupted after the number of times I fiddled with drivers earlier this year to try fix my issues. Ok so after I reinstalled the game, it loaded. I noticed that the graphics seemed better, the way they looked when I originally played, meaning high fidelity, no blur or roughness like I mentioned previously. However, when I pause and unpause the game I get that 2 second stutter before the game plays smoothly again. I played some combat in the intro section, seemed fine. Then I came to a dialogue scene, and then the game started lagging to an infuriating level. I saved a video of it. The scene moved aggravatingly slowly and not totally smoothly, but the characters spoke at a normal pace when it was their cue in the scene. Once the dialogue ended finally the gameplay was smooth again, it was weird. So something is still wrong with this game. I'm not sure if this is still a graphics driver problem.
Finally, here attached are the screenshots of my task manager, where you wanted to see the memory mainly. It's ok if my apps are shown. I don't mind. I disabled almost all unneeded apps on startup as you said. Now when I open the task manager, without opening anything else, memory is sitting at about 30-32%. Not sure if that is normal now.
@kaglett Sims 3 will stutter some no matter what you do. I have a desktop with an i7-9700K and an RTX 2070, and I get stutter when horses are on-screen or close by, and occasionally for no known reason. It's not ideal but also not terrible in the grand scheme of things, at least not for me. If you haven't already, try turning down water and high-detail lots in the graphics options; I use "mirrors only" and 2, respectively, when I'm not taking screenshots.
Other than that, the Smooth Patch may help, as will playing at your laptop screen's native resolution (1920x1080 in your case) if you're not already. If you do add the Smooth Patch, keep in mind that the .package files, the ones supposed to go into Mods > Packages, are not compatible with NRaas MasterController. These can simply be deleted; the files that go into Bin are fine.
Beware of performance improvement guides, which often recommend changes that won't help and could hurt performance. For example, many will claim that you can increase the game's RAM use. This is mathematically impossible, and the value that supposedly controls it refers to a different resource and is also 20 GB, not 2. The point is, read critically and make one change at a time so you can undo anything that turns out to be a problem.
For Control, I don't know anything useful about troubleshooting it. But I do seem to remember that you can play using DX11 or DX12, so try switching from whichever one you're using now to the other. Aside from that, you're better off asking on a dedicated forum for that game. And also, lowering your computer's baseline memory use may help a lot; see below.
Your second screenshot shows half the RAM in use at the time, which is a lot if you're not running anything in particular. Even 30% is a bit high for 12 GB installed. The third screenshot shows a number of apps that use significant resources and absolutely do not need to be starting with Windows: Adobe Acrobat, the Epic launcher, Java Update Scheduler, Lenovo Vantage, Teams. I would disable all of them at startup, and Grammarly too if you don't need it all the time. This doesn't mean the apps won't run when you want them to, only that they won't run on their own when you'd rather use that memory for something else.
Here are the very short clips of what the lag looks like for the Control game. I've uploaded them in advance in case it helps.
Edit: And you may ignore this if it does not help troubleshooting, I just saw your reply regarding Control.
I see. I'm all too aware the performance of sims 3 being infamous for stuttering no matter what, but I'll definitely keep that in mind. I will follow all your tips for the sims, and yeah will make sure to take it much slower in future, one change at a time. I'll also make backups of course.
Edit: Also yes, I have installed smoothpatch in the past, that was part of the guide I followed, and I believe it helped noticeably.
As for control, thank you, I will look into directx. And I will check a dedicated forum there. The game used to play smoothly so I was worried it was not a game specific issue, but rather a general problem with my graphics drivers. But if nothing can be troubleshooted deeper for that general problem, I will take a look at game specific forums. I think I can finally lay to rest perhaps graphics drivers being the problem, because that was something I could not let go of.
Edit: Oh I will also mention that earlier in the year, last year perhaps, I wiped my laptop and somewhat forcefully reinstalled windows 10, since my window to downgrade from windows 11 had passed. Windows 11 gave me issues, to some of my apps and games if I remember right. Do you think this wipe might've caused issues, if the drivers aren't the cause of issues. And do you think it might be worthwhile to reinstall windows again but with a more methodical, clean reinstall bc perhaps I did not do it that way last time? Would that also fix all driver issues and let me start afresh.
I'll also look into my memory. I did not realize that was unusually high, even at 30%. I will look into troubleshooting that in general. I will try disabling all startup apps just to see, then slowly enable some I find essential one by one. I have a sync service running, for one of my note taking software, so maybe that might be it.
This is my final simple question. I've attached below an image of the nvidia driver download page. What were the options you selected, just so I know the right driver to always install in future.
@kaglett If other games, or other apps in general, were running poorly, I might wonder about a system issue. Even then, I wouldn't go straight to a clean reinstall of Windows, although that might end up being easier than more incremental troubleshooting. But if the only problem is with Control—as noted, Sims 3 will stutter even when you're doing everything right—then I'd try to address that separately and not see it as evidence of an overall problem.
You could of course do a clean wipe if you wanted to; I'm just saying from my perspective, that's wholly unnecessary at this point. And the previous wipe is probably not the cause of the problems you're seeing either. Even if you take an unusual approach, a clean install is a clean install, and nothing short of a hardware error should persist from one install to the next.
For the graphics driver, I chose GeForce > GeForce GTX 16 Series (Notebooks) > GeForce GTX 1650 Ti > Windows 10 64-bit > Game Ready Driver (GRD) > English (US), but it doesn't actually matter much. The game ready driver is the same for Windows 10 and 11 and for all cards still supported: you could pick a 40-series card, or a 9-series, and download the same driver. If you're curious, choose a few different categories in turn and check the driver version numbers.
I see. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to help me. I've been at my wits end with my graphics issues, and so I really do appreciate it. I think I can allow myself to feel more at ease now.
