Warning for AMD GPU owners for Sims 4. Serious reflection glitch. *FIXED/PATCHED

I thought I'd also show how it appears in the Sims 3, confirming new AMD GPU's aren't processing how Maxis is coding reflections into their Sim games (unlike previous AMD gpus):

https://i.imgur.com/mjuuC7g.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Bc5oT0u.jpg

As you can see the all Sims games (and possibly future games) share the same issue with current AMD GPU lineup.

Be warned.

"Stormkeep;c-18031832" wrote:
I find those screenshots to be rather hilarious...I mean, that's one crazy, crazy bug.

Good looking out warning people though, and despite laughing at how the reflections are showing what is behind the mirrors (that makes them WINDOWS, not mirrors...) I feel for your pain having this issue.

20 years ago I had an AMD card and it had issues with a popular game that I played at the time which needed them to fix in drivers to resolve, and they played the same song and dance back then as well. I have never owned an AMD GPU since then.

There are two companies on my permanent do-not-buy list. One is Hewlett-Packard, whose motherboards can (or at least could in the early aughts) be reliably expected to completely break the day after they go out of warranty, and the other is AMD, which has all the reliability and workmanship of an old Italian sports car with a flood title.

This is awful that no one is fixing the issue for you! That must be very frustrating.

My seven-year-old laptop has an AMD Radeon R9 M370X that thankfully works well.

Thank you for the heads up

So after a bunch of searching we basically discovered the ISSUE. The Sims 4 is programmed on old directx9 libraries which newer AMD gpu's seem to have an issue with, for example lower frame rates in some games. In the case of the Sims 4, it cannot properly render mirrored reflections because newer AMD cards do not fully support all directx9 "features".

The answer for this came from an unlikely source, a linux DLL fix to run old directx games on new AMD cards called DXVK, that also happens to work with windows 10/11.

Basically the updated DLL libraries tells the AMD video card to render it by Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 9/10/11, which indirectly created backwards compatibility with older games and new AMD gpus.

Except this only works if you download the DXVK and install its libraries for D9 into the Sims 4 bin folder.

Maxis and AMD won't officially do it, meaning there will never be an official fix for the game unless Maxis updates the code of the Sims 4 to directx12.

Thats the only way or using DXVK. So technically until Sims 4 is updated to Directx12, the AMD is right. Current GPU's are NOT compatible with Sims 4 because its written on unsupported directx9 libraries.

(fyi edited this post into my topic post too)

Interesting, thank you for sharing.

This makes me wonder how sensible it is to keep The Sims 4 going for many more years like they have said that they want to do. If you are selling a product to customers (who could be AMD users), then you should make sure that it works.

"logion;c-18046958" wrote:
Interesting, thank you for sharing.

This makes me wonder how sensible it is to keep The Sims 4 going for many more years like they have said that they want to do. If you are selling a product to customers (who could be AMD users), then you should make sure that it works.

That's on AMD, not on EA Maxis. Choosing to have your GPUs not support functions of DX9 is basically removing all backwards compatability from your hardware for all older games which use those functions.
The very fact that it can be fixed by adding some dll's to the Sims bin directory also demonstrates that AMD could easily fix it by including those same libraries in their drivers. They just choose not to.

It's good to be aware of this. I'm planning to replace my gaming PC that is having hardware issues after 6 years. What brand is more compatible? Nvidia? If they are going to release 5, hopefully it will also be compatible with newer cards.

I agree that it's ridiculous to label an actively developing game with a large fanbase as a legacy title. Not to mention that at this point, people play legacy games whenever they want.

"ChampandGirlie;c-18047061" wrote:
It's good to be aware of this. I'm planning to replace my gaming PC that is having hardware issues after 6 years. What brand is more compatible? Nvidia? If they are going to release 5, hopefully it will also be compatible with newer cards.

Historically, Nvidia has always been more proactive in maintaining compatibility for both old and new games. They provide driver updates and fixes at a much more consistent rate as well. They are also more expensive for comparable levels of performance (overall) in large part because of this.

This is still no gaurantee though, and it does depend on the game. Both AMD and Nvidia take money from development studios in order to provide integral support for their GPUs when a game is being developed and those deals are almost always exclusively one or the other, not both. That basically means some games like AMD GPUs better and others like Nvidia GPUs better.

Given that some leaks about upcoming Maxis games have come from Nvidia Now sources, however, it's a fair bet that they are working more closely with Nvidia than they are with AMD. You may want to give that information some weight when making your choice of GPU for a future purchase.

"Stormkeep;c-18047064" wrote:

"ChampandGirlie;c-18047061" wrote:
It's good to be aware of this. I'm planning to replace my gaming PC that is having hardware issues after 6 years. What brand is more compatible? Nvidia? If they are going to release 5, hopefully it will also be compatible with newer cards.

Historically, Nvidia has always been more proactive in maintaining compatibility for both old and new games. They provide driver updates and fixes at a much more consistent rate as well. They are also more expensive for comparable levels of performance (overall) in large part because of this.

This is still no gaurantee though, and it does depend on the game. Both AMD and Nvidia take money from development studios in order to provide integral support for their GPUs when a game is being developed and those deals are almost always exclusively one or the other, not both. That basically means some games like AMD GPUs better and others like Nvidia GPUs better.

Given that some leaks about upcoming Maxis games have come from Nvidia Now sources, however, it's a fair bet that they are working more closely with Nvidia than they are with AMD. You may want to give that information some weight when making your choice of GPU for a future purchase.

Thanks, I'll take that into account. Even gaming PCs have sales and deals.