@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.
The problem I'm having is the Sims 3 keeps crashing every time I try to load my saved game file from hours ago of actually playing the game I'd had plenty of memory storage to install the game but now for whatever reason this game is not loading up my saved game file without crashing and constantly telling me I need to restart the entire game and try again which I have tried doing many many times already of course Brian Noland
@Doom12345678926 Try clearing out the contents of CurrentGame, in Doccuments\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3. This folder should always be empty unless you're actually playing and have a save loaded. Delete the five cache files in the Sims 3 folder as well:
If that doesn't help, try loading a backup save. Even if you never created one, the game keeps the files from the second-to-last time you saved. Open ...\The Sims 3\Saves, and you'll see a folder with your save name and another folder for the backup, in your case Doom.sims3 and Doom.sims3.backup. Change the name and delete the .backup extension (e.g. Doom 1.sims3), and you'll be able to select it at the Main Menu.
