sim 4 - all the sims are the same color

@jules11132 Thank you for the DxDiag file.

Do you have Mods or CC (or have you ever had them)? If you do please remove them in this process and try the troubleshooting as described below. (If you don't have Mods or CC, just skip the part about removing the Mods folder, but still delete the cache files mentioned and run the repair.) If you ever had Mods or CC in the past then do the steps as if you have them currently (removing the Mods folder), as there could be damage that has remained after you removed them.

• Exit your game then exit Origin. Please drag the Mods folder from your 'The Sims 4' folder onto your desktop (for future reference) then delete the localthumbnailcache.package file in your 'The Sims 4' folder. Also delete any other folders in the 'Sims 4' folder with word cache in the name. (When you restart the game it will automatically create a new Mods folder.)
• Next please run a game repair [ Open Origin, click 'Game Library' then right-click Sims 4 > Repair Game ]. Make sure to let it run until it has completed all repairs (it will do the base-game first, then run through each of your expansions/packs). After that, please see if the issue has stopped.

If it was Mods/CC: If this fixes the issue I would recommend that you check with the Mod and CC creators to see if there are any known issues with their Mod/CC clashing with the recent update and if so do they have an updated Mod/CC that will address the changes in the game's code from the update. You can then re-add your updated Mods/CC one at a time to see if one was conflicting with the function/causing the glitch - but do not re-add the old config file from the old mods folder, as it is possible for it to have become corrupted also.

Let us know how it goes. Thanks!

SheriGR ☕ – I don’t work for EA

Hi there,

I did exactly what you said, but the sims still look like this.

@jules11132 Thank you for the screenshot! That helps a lot. Can you please try the following...

• Go to your Main Menu (in-game) > Options Menu (three dots) > Game Options > Graphics > Graphics Quality then in the drop-down select 'Ultra'' then hit the button 'Save Changes'.
• Also select to open in Windowed mode as follows: Main Menu (in-game) > Options Menu (three dots) > Game Options > Display > Display Type then in the drop-down select 'Windowed'.

Now click the button 'Apply Changes' then close your game.

Now Disable Origin in-game (in Origin hover over your account profile in the lower left corner... choose > Application Settings > Origin In-Game and disable Origin In-Game there. Now exit Origin.

Then please restart your game and see if this helped.

Let us know how it goes. Thanks!

SheriGR ☕ – I don’t work for EA

Hi there,

I did everything you recommended, and they still look the same color/weird ☹️

@jules11132 Can you also check the resolution? Main Menu (in-game) > Options Menu (three dots) > Game Options > Display > Resolution then in the drop-down select the highest resolution.

Also, in that area please check the two 'Graphic' two boxes in the bottom section (see image), then apply settings and re-start the game.

SheriGR ☕ – I don’t work for EA

@jules11132  Before saying anything else, you should know that the legacy edition of Origin that supports Vista is about to be sunset (tomorrow, as it happens).  Here's the announcement:

https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-and-Feedback/Origin-Legacy-Client-Sunset/td-p/8563513

While you may be able to play offline for a while, your version of Origin may not work properly if you try to login while your laptop has an active internet connection:  Origin may try to update and fail, or it may just error out and never work again.  So starting tomorrow, please disable wifi or disconnect the ethernet cord before opening Origin or trying to launch Sims 4.  And don't clear Origin's cache or otherwise wipe its data, since you'd then need an active connection to verify your account details the next time you tried to sign in.

As for the game issues, playing with the settings isn't a bad idea.  If you don't get anywhere with that, you can move your Sims 4 game folder out of Documents\Electronic Arts and onto your desktop and try again.  Your saves and other content will be in the old folder, but you can mess with the graphics settings in the new folder to see whether you can make the sims look any better.  If so, you can move your saves over to the new folder when you're done.  Switching between fullscreen and windowed (or windowed borderless) is worth trying again too.

However, there's a good chance none of this will work.  Your computer's graphics card driver is from 2007, and in some ways, it's surprising that the driver works with Sims 4 at all.  I did find mention of a newer driver, from 2009, for your model laptop.  However, it's from a third-party site, not Toshiba, so it's not guaranteed to work.  (I'd also want to ask around about how trustworthy various driver archive sites are before downloading anything.)  It's also not guaranteed to be an improvement; updating the driver could easily make things worse, up to and including preventing you from playing at all.

Newer drivers are designed to work with newer operating systems, and trying to install one in Vista is even more of a risk.  It's not something I'd want to recommend unless you were capable of and comfortable with restoring your system,  in case something went wrong.

If you do want to try a newer driver though, let me know, and I'll ask for a second opinion on what download would be the most likely to help, and how you should go about installing it.

@jules11132 

Thanks for the tagging @puzzlezaddict 

You can try the latest driver. You will find it at the Microsoft side here. (The one for Vista from 2009.)

To install.

• Unzip the *.cab file you downloaded. (You will need "WinZip", "7Zip", or "WinRar" for that.
• Open the Windows Device Manager.
• Expand "Display Adapter" > Right click the "965 Express Chipset Graphic" > Properties.
• Go to the "Driver" Tab > Update driver.
• Choose "Brows my Computer for Driver software" > Navigate to the unziped .cab folder.
• Select the Folder > Install the driver > Restart the Computer > Test.

I however have to say that I can't guarantee that this will help in any way nor that it will not make things worse.

This also could be a problem of not loaded or blocked game files, meaning a drive or software problem independent from the Graphic driver.

I normally would strongly suggest a update to a more recent OS, (Or to a newer computer.) like Windows 7, but there are no drivers for your notebook on the Toshiba side anymore. Meaning you would need to hope that Windows is providing this drivers or to resort to third party sides.

did we find a way to fix this issue?