The Sims Medieval Graphic Issues (2021)
Hi everybody. I decided to reinstall The Sims Medieval, but I'm experiencing some frustrating graphic glitches that never occurred before. Basically, I start the tutorial and everything is fine, but ...
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@SuperDrivin I have downloaded the mods and I'll take a look later when I have some more time. However, please edit your post and remove the link to them as this forum doesn't allow linking mods/CC.
In the meantime, are you comfortable with editing GraphicsRules files and tweaking Nvidia Control Panel to cap the frame rate, to see if that does anything in a vanilla game?
In the meantime, are you comfortable with editing GraphicsRules files and tweaking Nvidia Control Panel to cap the frame rate, to see if that does anything in a vanilla game?
Ops, didn't know about the link. 🙂
Anyway, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to fix the game, so shoot away any editing that would come to your mind. Right now I'm trying to finish that stupid unskippable tutorial quest, and as soon as I can save the game I'll try your solutions.
In the meantime, I've looked deeper into that "Frame Rate - Refresh Rate" thing that you said and I've found out that it is a problem that many people have with The Sims 3 and new graphic cards - PC (the Frame Rate is way higher than the Refresh, and that cause some graphic glitches), and since The Sims Medieval it's The Sims 3 but in a medieval setting, I thought to look for a solution there. Turned out that one of the guy in that post linked a mod for Skyrim which sets a cap on the frame rate, and it says that it works for the Sims 3 too. After downloading it, things have become slightly better since before (set the frame rate cap to 60 and the refresh rate in the game option to 120). The only glitch that I've experienced so far in the tutorial is the "mountain graphic glitch". Also, I've noticed that this glitch happens after I've finished using the Edit in CAS to change the appearance of a Sim (like once every tenth or more Editing in CAS), and sometimes the glitch disappears after said editing.
So, as you said @mate54, I think that the problem lies in the Frame Rate - Refresh Rate, and that the Edit in CAS, since it changes "location" from the Kingdom Map to the Wardrobe Area, sometimes messes up the frame/refresh rate of the textures.
EDIT: I had to ALT + TAB the game in order to write the answer here, and when I went back to the game the "mountain glitch" disappeared. I think that the Edit in CAS is not the problem, but it's 100% the frame/refresh rate fault.
Thanks for your help, I'll await your instructions for the GraphicRules files and the NVIDIA Control Panel. 🙂
@SuperDrivin For GraphicsRules, I will need some info from the game's DeviceConfig.log, located in Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims Medieval\.
More specifically, it's Graphics Device Info that I'm interested in; the only line I need is Chipset, with Vendor and Device IDs, but you can post the entire section if you'd like.
As for the frame rate cap, using Nvidia Control Panel instead of the Skyrim mod might be a more desirable option, because I can confirm that it works for my game, and I haven't used that mod in a long time. If you want, I can post those instructions along with GraphicsRules.
I thought I had the solution in hand, but that's not the case. -_-
As you said I went to the NVIDIA Control Panel and set the Max Frame Rate for The Sims Medieval to 60 and I've also reverted the optimization made by NVIDIA Experience, just in case. For a good chunk of the tutorial I haven't experienced a single glitch, but now (the part of the tutorial where you need to go back to the Castle after sending to the stock the bully) I can't see inside the Castle (the camera get stuck with the loading mouse cursor). The game works just fine (no crash nor anything), it's just the camera that get stuck (I can go back to Watcher Eye).
EDIT: Ok, the game crashed during the tutorial and a I'm starting to freak out! XD As for the camera stuck, I managed to find a temporary solution for a little while: instead of going from the Watcher Eye to inside the Castle, I had to click on the Docks, Judgement Zone, etc. and then click on my Monarch (which was inside the Castle) to see inside. After a while even this solution worked 50% of the time (and once the textures of the Castle floors were gone). After a couple of minutes after that the game crashed. -_-
Here's the information that you requested: Chipset: Vendor: 10de, Device: 2191, Board: 129b1462, Chipset: 00a1
@SuperDrivin Alright, so the files you will need to update, GraphicsRules.sgr and GraphicsCards.sgr, are located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\The Sims Medieval\Game\Bin\ if you have the Origin version of the game installed in the default location. I recommend making a backup and also moving them to desktop for editing in case it doesn't let you save changes in the installation folder. You can use Notepad to edit them.
Once you open GraphicsCards.sgr, look for the line vendor "NVIDIA" 0x10b4 0x12d2 0x10de.
Under it, add this: card 0x2191 "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti" so it matches other entries, then save the changes. Move the file back to the Bin folder.
Open GraphicsRules.sgr and, near the top, find the line seti textureMemory 32. Change 32 to 1024. Under it, add # before setb textureMemorySizeOK false so it looks like # setb textureMemorySizeOK false.
Then, search for GTS 4??, there should only be one entry for the Uber section under NVIDIA. Replace it with GTX 16?? and make sure that quotation marks, asterisks and brackets remain untouched. The line should then look like or match("${cardName}", "*GTX 16??*")) once you've made the changes. Save and move it back to the Bin folder.
Once you've done that, launch the game, wait until the main menu loads, and close it. Check your DeviceConfig.log, and the Name (database) should list your card's name and say Found: 1, Matched: 1.
To cap the frame rate and enable vertical sync, open NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings, and find The Sims Medieval (tsm.exe) on the list. For settings, look for:
- Max Frame Rate: set it to 60 or whatever your screen refresh rate it.
- Triple buffering and Vertical sync: turn them both on.
Save the changes, and remove the frame rate mod that you mentioned before as it's not needed. Launch the game and see if anything has changed. I would recommend testing a clean user folder without mods just to check if there's anything else that might be causing it.
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