[FIXED] Trees display "winter" shadows in summer, without leaves

@manzana0807 The AMD theory is very interesting. That might explain why this issue has gone mostly unreported, given AMD's smaller market-share. I couldn't find anything on this issue before posting here, but now it sure seems like it isn't a one-off, isolated issue.

Unfortunately, there are more than a few reports of this to SimGuru Nick on Twitter, but only the one person who stated their specs in the report. So, I have no idea if the other players reporting are AMD owners or not, since only the one said so. 

At least one of the folks I saw sent saves to SimGuru Nick to investigate this, but I couldn't find a response from him about the problem. I'm guessing it's just a wait and see type of thing, but it would be nice to know if anyone else experiencing this has an AMD card or not.

Huh; I also have an AMD card, but I never bought Seasons and never had mods. I've had the issue across every world, the ambient trees also showing winter shadows. For some strange reason like I said, Lilacs and Lanterns and the two Dancing Maples are the only ones that have their shadows for me. 

AMD A8-7410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics

2.20GHz

8GB RAM

Windows 7

If you ever need to know, just right-click on My Computer and click Properties.

Okay, so as it turns out everyone who has responded to this thread with the same issue has an AMD card. That can not be coincidental. It seems pretty clear to me that we're dealing with an AMD issue.

Hopefully we can get an official response on this.

I just found a report of this over on the official forums from yesterday, not sure if it's one of us who've already posted in this thread, but I replied and linked this thread and asked them if they have an AMD card. It would be helpful if all the folks who reported this over on Twitter had listed their specs and not just the one person.

@SimGuruNick  could you take a look at this for us, please?

I'm more concerned about this now, since this appears to just be an AMD issue, and as mentioned AMD has a smaller market share of users.

I originally thought this might have just been a random glitch, but now I'm worried it won't get fixed in a timely manner since it's not something that appears to be affecting a large number of people.

I'm playing with a Nvidia GTX 760 and shadows look correct. Seems like your AMD theory is right!

I see the same thing scanning through the different blogs that I follow, most of them I know are NVIDIA owners. I hope we can get an official response on this soon.

This is the first time I've ever experienced a bug that was GPU brand specific. Now I can kind of understand how Mac users feel.

@manzana0807 That was me over on the official forums. Nobody else responded with the same issue there, which was disconcerting to say the least.

I agree that it's very odd to have a bug like this be GPU brand specific. I've seen certain issues over the years with NVIDIA/AMD that had to be hotfixed, but nothing like a game choosing the wrong shadows.

@alanmichael1 That's how my screenshots looked before the Seasons patch.

I wondered if that was you, because I know forum usernames are sometimes different. I don't take a lot of screenshots in my game, so I don't have any pre-patch photos that have tree shadows in them. But that's what mine looked like too.

I just can't remember if mine got messed up with the Seasons patch or the ones after in July. I haven't played very much at all since Seasons released (I've been playing a lot of Skyrim and Fallout 4 instead), so I just can't pinpoint for sure.

I have noticed that it's not all trees, because the tree with lanterns from Movie Hangout does have the correct shadows. And I think I saw some pine trees in Forgotten Hollow that looked okay. This is indeed very strange. And you are running newer drivers than I am, so it's not something driver specific.

@manzana0807 I don't have either Movie Hangout or Vampires, whose trees you mentioned were the only ones with correct shadows. That makes sense because I haven't observed any working correctly.

This thread is getting buried, so I'll ask: Is there any action on social media regarding this bug? (Twitter, etc.) Any recent Guru responses?

No and trust me I've been checking pretty frequently. I went from this is just slightly annoying to now I'm getting irritated, because Mac users complain about upside down screenshots, which is easily fixable by the player and they get a response right away that the issue is being fixed for them in the next patch.

I know that's just one small example, but I honestly believe if this was an NVIDIA problem, with tons of people reporting we'd have heard something by now.

Please @SimGuruNick, @SimGuruIcarus, or @SimQARobo could one of you please, please look into this issue for AMD users? It would help all of us to feel better about this if we knew someone from Maxis was aware of this problem and taking steps to fix it.

Hello @manzana0807

We are aware of this issue and are still investigating it.

Thank you, thank you so much for responding! Just knowing you're looking into it is good enough for me! I don't feel quite as anxious about it now.

I'm adding this to our build/buy list.

@SimQARobo  has there been any progress on this bug? It's been two weeks and I was just curious. I haven't been playing because I'm concerned this might be one those bugs that can't be fixed on existing saves.

@manzana0807

I'm not allowed to say if or when the issue will be resolved.

I've talked to 8 people on Twitter who have the same bug, all of us have an AMD GPU.

This is not AMD's problem. This is something that Maxis caused with the Seasons patch and they need to fix it.

To me this is no different than other bugs over the years that have affected different cards and chipsets. The one I can think of most recently is a problem with the Backyard Stuff slide after it was released. I can't remember the exact bug, but I remember reading that it affected certain Intel chipsets. Maxis fixed it.

I can just about guarantee you that all of us with this bug are probably on different drivers anyway. In my experience over the years, upgrading drivers sometimes causes problems that didn't exist before. I know in my case that every newer AMD driver than the one I'm on causes my GPU to crash.

It's pretty ridiculous that I can play Fallout 4, a notoriously poorly optimized game, on high-ultra settings, and have no problems. Whereas, Sims 4, and its increasingly bad bugs on top of its poor optimization is enough to make me want to pull my hair out.

I've spent a ridiculous amount of money on this game over the last nearly thirteen years and I've never regretted it till recently. I've always been able to tolerate the bugs, but I was so excited for Seasons, and I've hardly played it at all.

The response that @SimQARobo gave me really upset me. I've spent my entire working life with the public and I would never imply to a customer that a problem they have may never be resolved. I can understand not being able to provide an ETA on a fix for a problem, but implying it may never be fixed is disheartening and as a customer who's invested a lot in this franchise I felt like I was just being brushed off.

I'm sorry to write something so long and get so emotional, but I'm just really unhappy with the state of Sims 4 right now. I feel like if the Game Changers were complaining about this it would have already been fixed by now. I'm just beyond frustrated.

I'm 100% with you guys. I work for a company that develops business management software and my response to the last official word from EA was the same as yours. I can't imagine acknowledging an issue such as this and then offering no firm answers to my customers as to how or when or if it will be fixed.

It's unacceptable.

Definitely unacceptable.

When you're like me and have spent 20+ years working with the public and have always been taught not to respond in such a manner, it's a bit mind-boggling to see a large corporation like EA/Maxis evidently instructing their employees to respond to customers so dismissively. Obviously they're not concerned with their reputation, when they should be. I tried so hard not to lose my temper, but that was just the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

I know if I ever responded to a customer that way I'd have some explaining to do to my superiors. It was just really disrespectful. And for me, it was the sign I needed to wise up and stop throwing money at this game.