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Scholar
Original Poster
#1 Old 16th Aug 2014 at 7:44 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 3, World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, University Life, Island Paradise, Into the Future
Default Sudden and dramatic graphics improvement for no apparent reason???
Okay, so I know this is kind of a weird thing to put in the help section, and I probably sound kinda dumb, but this just happened and it freaked me out a bit and I'm just wondering if it's happened to other people or if it's an indication of something strange happening with my computer?

I have no idea whether this could be related or not but it's the only thing I changed between play sessions so??? This morning I was playing TS3, when I realised I really needed some music themed patterns and I didn't have any. So I shut down the game, downloaded some patterns, plopped them in my mods folder and reopened the game. I'm not sure if the graphics changes happened upon reopening the game or if it just happened within the last few minutes, but I was in CAS and I suddenly realised that the textures were much crisper and clearer than I was used to? Designs on clothing that I hadn't been able to make out before were suddenly perfectly clear. It was as if I'd just put on my glasses? (I can assure you, I haven't been playing without my glasses and I haven't gotten an updated prescription in over a year so it's not that either)

I'm not sure how clear it is in this screenshot, but if you compare the icons of the two versions of that t shirt, the textures on the top one (the original EA one) are much crisper than the bottom one (the CC edit). That's how my icons have always looked. But before today, when I actually selected an item of clothing for a sim to wear, the image on the sim would be blurry, like the second set of icons. But now when I put it on a sim, it looks like the first set of icons, even when using the content with the blurry icons.

The same rules applied to any piece of clothing, whether it was EA or CC or a CC edit of an EA item. I haven't updated my graphics drivers, I haven't fiddled with the game settings, I literally haven't done anything? So yeah I'm a bit confused is all. And also wondering if I should manually turn the settings down to more like what they were before? My graphics card (a HD Radeon 5750) is a few years old and while it could handle TS2 with all EPs on max settings just fine, I'm a little concerned about the possibility of damaging it by playing lots of TS3 with all EPs on high settings. Everything looks great with the higher settings but I don't want to overwork it, you know?

no power in the verse can stop me
ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim
jus nou drein jus daun
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#2 Old 17th Aug 2014 at 11:58 AM
i agree that generally being cautious not to challenge the computer too much with high settings is better in the first place. also a lot of higher settings dont make too much of a difference. i found the first guide later in this post really interesting. there are comparison pics for different settings so you can see by yourself if its worth forcing your pc to work harder. (espacially since the sims 3 is unoptimized as can be! and a huge difference of course to sims 2 ;-))

The Sims 3 Graphics Performance Guide or here another one: The Sims 3: Graphics and Performance Guide

<< ... too old-fashioned to die young-fashioned >>
Scholar
Original Poster
#3 Old 17th Aug 2014 at 2:06 PM
Thanks for those links! They definitely helped me get a feel for the performance requirements. I'm guessing that the game is a bit more demanding with later EPs though? Is there anything similar out there that takes that into account?

no power in the verse can stop me
ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim
jus nou drein jus daun
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#4 Old 17th Aug 2014 at 4:39 PM
you mean graphic guides that take the EPs/SPs into account? dont know about such sorry but the general rule is simply:
the more EP/SPs you have, maybe additionally store stuff or downloads from here (or other reliable sites) and the bigger your save data becomes the more the challenge gets... all the minimum requierements EA mentions on the physical discs (base game or EP/SPs) or that are published in the internet ARE not reflecting that the game is playable then. its really only starting and ... lagging. sadly sims 3 is suprisingly unoptimized. even on good computers it becomes slower and slower the more content you add (official expansions or from other sources doesnt matter).

<< ... too old-fashioned to die young-fashioned >>
Scholar
Original Poster
#5 Old 17th Aug 2014 at 5:48 PM
Hmm, yeah, I guess that would mostly be a RAM issue? I get some occasional lag but it's still pretty playable. I've 8GB of RAM and an i5 quad core CPU and my graphics card is listed as a "maybe" for the last 2 EPs here but I'm just not really sure what that means in terms of what settings I should be using :/ I'm probably just being overly cautious but this computer is kinda my baby you know?

no power in the verse can stop me
ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim
jus nou drein jus daun
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#6 Old 17th Aug 2014 at 6:03 PM
"kinda my baby"... ;-)
you can start on lower or medium settings ( you alway start low and increase settings if everythings fine) play for a while and if everything is ok simply try with higher settings (do it for small game play sessions and nothing can happen) if the computer cant handle higher settings you will know and can change back to lower settings. try to avoid high poly stuff (if you like to download third party content) and you are fine.
also the guides i posted (espacially the first one) is somewhat generally that it also stands for EP settings i guess. (theres nothing different to the way the graphic works in later EPs) i mean => the way how shadows are rendered on different settings and the stuff is the same and all the jazz.

<< ... too old-fashioned to die young-fashioned >>
Scholar
Original Poster
#7 Old 17th Aug 2014 at 6:32 PM
Yeah, I've had it on low/medium settings until recently, since yesterday they've been up near max, and everything seems okay, like, I don't think I've noticed much of a performance hit? It's just that a good few years ago now, I wore out a graphics card playing TS2. Everything seemed fine, and then it wasn't. It was a good few years ago, and it was a much lower spec card, but since then I've just been kind of nervous about overworking them. Especially with this computer, which is the first computer I built myself (with a lot of help from (now retired) mod Callistra). It's always been pretty well behaved and, well yeah...I'm a little bit emotionally attached

I guess I just have to decide whether or not to risk it, really?

no power in the verse can stop me
ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim
jus nou drein jus daun
Forum Resident
#8 Old 17th Aug 2014 at 7:28 PM
you wore out your graphics card after a longer playing session or did it collapse immediatly? such thing never happened to me also i challenged my labtop a lot with skyrim, fallout new vegas and especially the sims 3 [ huch - its getting warm in here , isnt it? LOL) ;-) one really has to be cautious thats true. i cant give you an advice what to do - even since its a sensitive topic for you... the savest thing is always to stay on lower settings that the computer handles very well. if it doesnt bother you maybe not getting the maximum out of the game. (personally i never undertood why one should sacrifice an expensive electronical device for that).

<< ... too old-fashioned to die young-fashioned >>
Scholar
Original Poster
#9 Old 17th Aug 2014 at 7:53 PM
It wore out after about 2 years (maybe 2 1/2?) of putting up with my long and frequent simming sessions. As far as I remember, there wasn't much in the way of warning signs. It just gave out quite suddenly. But I had much less experience then so it's possible I just missed them. That computer was a prebuilt Dell, and there wasn't physical room in the case for a better card so we replaced it with an identical one, I turned down my settings, and I started the process of getting a new computer specifically for sims.

I think I'll probably try keeping the settings up, as I'm really loving the improved graphics, but I'll keep an eye out for any issues and I'll turn them back down at the first sign of trouble. I think that's a reasonable compromise? This card has already lasted longer than the first one (about 4 1/2 years now) so even if I do damage it a little, I've got decent value out of it

no power in the verse can stop me
ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim
jus nou drein jus daun
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