@yankikkie Here's how to get your graphics card recognized, if you want:
Note: These instructions only apply to and will only work for the original poster's graphics card. If you'd like help getting your own card recognized, please post the same information from deviceconfig and ask for help.
You're looking for a couple of files called graphicscards.sgr and graphicsrules.sgr, which are both located in the Sims 3 program files. For an Origin install, the default file path is:
Program files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims 3\Game\Bin
Other types of installs will put the files in other locations, but you're still looking for Program files (x86)\...\The Sims 3\Game\Bin. Both .sgr files will be there.
Open graphicscards.sgr (Notepad works fine), and crtl-F to search for 8086. That will take you to these lines:
vendor "Intel" 0x8086
card 0x0042 "Havendale"
card 0x0046 "Havendale"
Create a new line under the "Intel" 0x8086 line, copy this text, and paste it in the new line:
card 0x3e91 "Intel UHD Graphics 630"
So you should now see this:
vendor "Intel" 0x8086
card 0x3e91 "Intel UHD Graphics 630"
card 0x0042 "Havendale"
card 0x0046 "Havendale"
(with indents from spaces that this site isn't displaying properly). Save, quit, and open graphicsrules.sgr. Crtl-F and search for Havendale, which will take you here:
if (match("${cardName}", "*Havendale*"))
seti cardLevel $cardLevelMedium
seti isCardMatched true
elseif (match("${cardName}", "*4?00*"))
Create a new line under the "true" in the third line above, and add this:
elseif (match("${cardName}", "*UHD Graphics 630*"))
seti cardLevel $cardLevelMedium
seti isCardMatched true
Add a tab before each seti, to match the formatting with the other entries. Save, quit, launch the game, quit, and check deviceconfig for your graphics card. You should now see a [Found: 1, Matched: 1] next to the name.
Let me know if it doesn't work, and we can tweak the edits a bit. In order to have your graphics settings revert to defaults, you'll either need to delete options.ini, in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3 (which will delete all your settings, for example age stage and season lengths), or go to the graphics settings section of the Main Menu and click the button to revert to defaults. If you do this route, quit immediately from the Main Menu before relaunching and playing.
For the save itself, it might not be possible to recover the save at this point. What you can try though is mixing and matching files from the old save and the new one. Again in the clean folder, start a new save in the same world where your current one takes place. You don't have to play for long: just let it run a few minutes in live mode, with any family, then save your progress and quit.
Inside the folder for any save, you'll see several files, including an .nhd file for each world you've played in while in that save. Make a backup of each save folder, both the borked long-term save and the new one. Now delete the .nhd file from the new test save, and replace it with a copy of the .nhd file of the homeworld in your borked save. Before trying to load the test save, make sure to delete the five cache files in your Sims 3 folder as well:
If the save does load, it should load your main household, with all or most data intact.
If there are vacation worlds involved, things can be more complicated, but this is the first step to try.
Thank you, now deviceconfig recognized the card as "Found: 1"! But still, texture memory says "32 MB <<override>>". Will it cause problems or not? In case the informations are required; our card has 128MB VRAM and total 8266MB memory.
And save won't load again... I guess there's really no way to load it.
@yankikkie Sorry, I forgot to put the texture memory edit in too. It doesn't necessarily cause any problems, but you can fix it regardless.
At the top of graphicsrules, and look for this, 8-10 lines down:
if ($textureMemory == 0)
seti textureMemory 32
setb textureMemorySizeOK false
change the 32 to 128 if you have 6 GB memory or less, or 1024 if you have more, and add a # and a space in front of setb. Your graphics chip reserves 128 GB memory for its own use by default, but it can borrow up to 8 GB, which is the other value. For best performance, if you have 6 GB RAM or under, it's better to allow the system to keep all the RAM it can use: about 2 GB for Windows, and the rest for Sims 3. With more than that, your system can spare some for the graphics chip, that is if you don't run anything else alongside the game.
If the save won't load, then there may not be anything you can do. Almost all the relevant data is contained within the .nhd file(s), not the others, so even if you could get some other combination of files from the borked save and a new one to load, there wouldn't be much point. However, if you want me to try, you're welcome to upload the save somewhere and PM me the link. Please also list the packs you own.
Sorry for reviving this thread again, but i have the same problem again.
I couldn't fix the save file i mentioned in this thread, so i just found an old version of that save from the files in my old pc. So I continued to play the old one again for a while.
I tried to do the same things i lost: playing for some sim days, then moving to the Bridgeport, have some singer gigs and make friends, and form a band. After playing in Bridgeport for a few sim days, the save file is corrupted again and when i try to load it, it crashes to desktop without a warning.
I saved as different files from time to time in case i lose my progress again, so i tried to load my previous file before the latest, it doesn't crash but the progress bar isn't filling. It just makes me wait for a very long time and doesn't open. But the save i created yesterday (which is after i moved to Bridgeport from Appaloosa Plains) works well.
I wonder, maybe it's a problem in Bridgeport but if it was like that i think i couldn't open my save from yesterday. Only after spending more sim days there, it came to this situation. The same situation with what happened 4 weeks ago.
I used to play with Ambitions, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, Pets in my old pc and had no problem like this. While transferring to the new one, i also installed Late Night in addition to others.
I hope we can understand the problem, if needed i can give more details what i did in the game or what informations needed etc. I hope someone can help me, because losing my sim and his life story makes me sad ☹️
@yankikkie You have no reason to apologize; we're always happy to keep troubleshooting for however long it takes.
How did you move the sim to Bridgeport? The in-game option (over the phone) is problematic in that it can transfer data from the old town to the new one, potentially introducing corruption as well. Depending on what you want out of the transition, there are two much more reliable ways to move a sim.
If you just want to start your sim in a new world with no connection to the old one—skills, career, etc. intact but no relationships with the sims left behind—then the best way is to save the sim to the bin, start a save in the new world, and place the sim there. It's crucial to quit to desktop and delete the cache files after saving the sim and before starting the new save, because another way to corrupt a save is to switch to it from a different save at the Main Menu. This tends to impose data from the first town onto the second, regardless of what else you're doing.
If you'd like your sim to "remember" the sims in Appaloosa Plains and don't mind using mods, you could use NRaas Traveler, along with ErrorTrap and Overwatch (for stability and data cleanup), to vacation in Bridgeport and then switch hometowns. This process is more complicated and may not be necessary for what you want to do, but it's worth mentioning. If you're interested in reading about it, start here:
https://www.nraas.net/community/Traveler-FAQ#Is-it-possible-to-switch-homeworlds-permanently
Even if you don't want to go through the hassle, adding a few NRaas mods could help make your saves more stable and less likely to corrupt. Specifically, ErrorTrap, Overwatch, MasterController, Register, and Traffic would all be useful with your collection of expansions. Let me know if you're interested and would like more information.
