Sims 3 screen flickering
I've been playing the Sims 3 forever and I recently downloaded it to my new PC. I had been playing for about a month when all of a sudden yesterday my top half of the screen started flickering pretty badly. It doesn't happen when it's in windowed mode but I honestly can't take playing like that anymore. I'm 99.9% it isn't my custom content or my mods and it probably has something to do with my graphics but I have no clue about any of that. Any help would be appreciated 😊
@monkeysoup11 Alright, I see a couple of things here. The first might not be directly related to TS3, but it's worth addressing anyway—your computer has tried and failed to update Windows at least ten times recently. You really should let it do so. The update might take a while, especially if you've skipped one, so be prepared to wait.
You're right that you're probably having graphics issues. Your computer has only an integrated card, and not a particulary powerful one at that. I don't know which packs you have installed, but I'd expect your card to struggle with Pets, Seasons, ITF and IP. How well it would run the other EPs would depend on your graphics settings and your playstyle.
It should also be noted that with only 6 GB of RAM, you shouldn't try to run anything while playing TS3. The game can only use ~3.5 GB memory by itself, but Windows will need at least 1.5 GB as well. If you're online or playing music or anything that requires any significant memory, you're running the risk of hitting your computer's RAM limit.
You'll also need to make sure your computer isn't overheating; HP isn't known for the effectiveness of its cooling systems.
To protect your card, you'll need to lower your graphics settings, particularly water and high detail lots. I have a strong dedicated card and keep these at "mirror only" and 2, respectively. You may need to experiment with lowering the other settings as well.
Playing in windowed mode will also help. If you can't stand the typical window and user interface size, you could look into Windowed Borderless Gaming.
https://westechsolutions.net/sites/WindowedBorderlessGaming/
An integrated card like yours isn't capable of throwing high frame rates, so an outside fps limiter wouldn't normally be necessary. But you might try using one like RivaTuner Statistics Server (free download) to see whether it can address the flickering, especially if windowed mode isn't enough. RTSS needs to be running in the background, but it takes up hardly any resources, and it might help here.
Ultimately, though, your computer really isn't built for running even a moderately demanding game like TS3. Unfortunately, you might not be able to get a satisfactory experience playing on this system, no matter what you do.
