Hello peeps!

I've been struggling with an odd graphics problem lately, without getting any solutions from Google or another community I'm part of, so I'm bringing this thing to a larger audience.

I have a simple problem with bad quality graphics. My laptop is few years old and not the best for Sims (Will post specs below.) but this problem came out of sudden so I feel like it's not because I have a bad graphics card or something. The thing is simple yet annoying: All my horses are blurry both in game and in CAS. What makes this so odd is that the graphics are also bad in CAS mode, although there shouldn't be any problems with rendering (My laptop is slow when loading simmies in game, but this is too ridiculous. I've tried waiting the time it usually takes multiplied by three). Makes creating horses quite hard when all the markings are smudgy as well as eyes. Manes and tails are fine.

Additionally, also sim clothes and horse tack have lost their quality both in CAS and in game. I'm aware that some HD clothes may look bad in CAS but look fine in game, but this has happened to all clothes, also to those which used to look sharp in CAS too. Sims otherwise are fine - Their faces, skin and hair look like always do.

I keep all the other settings low so I can keep my sim quality and a few other settings high, I play in a tiny world, I have tried playing without any mods, haven't installed anything new lately. First I thought my laptop has just got slower, but seriously, the horses never render fully. I have also tried turning off the HQ mod I'm using. I also just updated my graphics card drivers which was no help.

Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 1007U @ 1.50GHz (2 CPUs), ~1.5GHz
8GB RAM
Intel(R) HD Graphics (Ugh I know... Trying to save money for a better laptop with a dedicated card and bigger memory)
Win 8.1

Here's some examples from CAS. The difference isn't so noticeable, but it's worse in game... Look at the details of the head, the hoof texture, the edges of the leg markings and the highlights on the coat. I feel like the quality is worse on the head and legs than on the body, but you see, the details on the head is what makes a realistic sim horse coat... Also eyes are very blurry, but it can be seen better in game. Left ones were taken months ago, right ones now.



Getting real frustrated because Equus and ES are all I do with TS3 nowadays

I'm sorry, but you are pushing this game and especially the Pets EP on a computer that is way underpowered to handle it. With a 1.5 GHz Celeron, again sorry, but it's actually impressive that you can get the game started up without blackscreening on any EPs beyond the first couple released (in release order, LN is usually the breaking point). The performance of these systems degrades over time, it doesn't stay constant.

There really isn't anything you can do to improve the performance of an integrated graphics chip like that except to make sure its drivers are up to date for your operating system from the laptop's manufacturer.

I'm sorry to say this, assuming that even if your integrated Intel HD graphics is properly recognized by TS3, there's not much power you got left from your Intel Celeron processor to run TS3 with all EPs that you got, though it has dual cores and it's a 64bit processor, your core speed only 1.5 ghz and your L2 and L3 (if it has one) cache memory are too small because of its size capacity to run the WoW (Windows on Windows) system in Windows 64bit OS for your 8GB rams, your 8GB rams won't help that much to run TS3 in this case, but it does helps for office or school or any other general usages like video streaming etc, but not for games including TS3..

There's not much left can be gain even if you set all of the graphics quality to the lowest, however.. you still can improve its overall performance for your daily/general usages and some light games, downgrade your Windows 8.1 64 bit to XP 64 bit, even if you downgrade your Windows OS to XP 64 bit, the best you can get to run TS3 with that set up (even with SSD if you have one) are only the TS3 BG and plus 1 EP only at the maximum,, and that EP won't be LN or Pets, pick only one from the other 3 EPs that you have whether it's WA or AM or Seasons..

Sorry to say this.. but those are the only ways to get the best out of your system to run TS3 in particular..

I'm quite surprised about the replies. I've been aware that my laptop is one of the worst ones for a game like TS3, but it has run fairly well. It might be because I don't actually play anymore, rather just build, create horses and photograph them for community purposes. So I don't care about FPS or such because my game is always paused anyway. My game has tons of cc merged and it still loads in a few minutes. (I should anyway clean my cc folders, which would cut them to half probably.)

Because all my actions in game are to take pictures of my horses for community purposes, I probably won't do much to run it better. I could uninstall most of the EPs, but I definitely need Pets. Would removing all other EPs make a difference?

I just wish to get this working for a couple of months longer. Saving up for a better computer, no more integrated graphics.

hm, as a person who struggle with the game+almost all and a really crappy machine (for today's standards) I'd only suggest to make deliberated sacrifices. Installing some effects mods (adjusting lighting) may improve the visual quality - or technicly: mask its lowness. The lightwork makes really hudge difference. If you're primarily a builder/creature creator and do not care about anything else - throw everything except Pets right out of the window and work on prepared, small decorative only "world".

Performance wise.. yes it does make a difference, but would that improves the quality of the graphic even just to take pictures? The answer is unfortunately no..

Here is your Celeron 1007U's review, they says.. it's not recommended for heavy gaming and video encoding, and here is your Intel HD Graphics 2500 details, please do not compare your graphic quality with Nitromon's Intel HD Graphics 4000 quality above, because that would be comparing 650 MPixel/s and 650 MTexel/s versus 1.3 GPixel/s and 2.6 GTexel/s in rendering configuration performance alone, so it's clear that HD 2500 vs HD 4000 is not in the same class, and based on these graphics data specs, even if you installed TS3 BG only without any EPs, the quality of your graphic that you'd like to take pictures won't improve, though it does improves your overall gameplay performance..

So basically my suggestion about downgrading to Win XP is for you to be able to enjoy the game because of your laptop's spec, not for improving the quality of your graphics.. because you already at the maximum quality that your graphic can produce..

Thank you for the answers. I guess there's really nothing that I can do to make my horses sharp again... I just gotta avoid taking pictures too close and since I don't need the game to run smooth, I can use SweetFX to sharpen my images a bit.

I talked about my laptop giving up on TS3 with my boyfriend and he offered to lend his old lappy to me. It's probably at least as old as mine is, but it's at least a bit better when it comes to specs. Do you think I could get my horses look better if we took the laptop to get cleaned up to a pro if it has the specs written below? Probably at least for a while after formatting the hard drive?

AMD A4-3310MX APU with Radeon HD Graphics 2CPUs ~2.1GHz
6GB RAM (Bit worried about this.)
AMD Radeon HD 6480G 4067MB (Integrated, I know.. I'm desperate.)
Win7 as base

Performance wise your AMD A4-3310MX APU I think it's pretty much the same or slightly better, here is head to head direct comparison to your Celeron 1007U, your ram is ok, but the graphic quality.., spec-wise your AMD HD 6480 are far better even from Intel HD 4000 with 1.8 GPixel/s and 5.3 GTexel/s in rendering configuration performance.., so you'll get better quality and more complete details with this graphic to take your pictures

And yes you can do that if you want to take it to a pro and reinstall it with your Win 7 OS, but the thing that you must notice, your GPU is much newer from the ones listed in the TS3 GraphicCards.sgr file, so it may not be in the list, so make sure TS3 recognized your graphic card to get its best result for you to take pictures, go here for Tutorial to make your gpu recognized by TS3, the tutorial was made for Win 10 with Intel and Nvidia gpus, but the steps and the concepts are the same for Win 7 and for AMD users.

@nitromon I think what she did or thought was.. she wanted her horses to be like yours in the pretty pics.., especially with the horse's hair details, just look and compare them, her horse is like having a haircut but your horses have natural hair look

Regardless using HQ mod or not, the thing is her laptop gpu can not produce that rendering quality like yours, that's why I brought her gpu 650 MPixel/s and 650 MTexel/s rendering configuration performance, it can not be done with 650 MegaPixel/s or MegaTexel/s, yours is in GigaPixel/s or GigaTexel/s.., so even if she adjusted all the graphic bars at the TS3 main menu to the right with her HD 2500, it won't look like yours, I don't know if.. with using HQ mod will make her HD 2500 can upgrade her gpu to produce that such level of details like yours, but I don't think so.. because that's part of the gpu's rendering process to produce the graphics of 3D objects and texturing, maybe it can sharpen the texture but I don't think it will help the gpu to produce some more details little parts that are missing.. which made her horse looks like just having a haircut

Yes that's also true, but how those little details parts blend are different, yours are more natural compares to hers, that what makes the differences between her Intel GPU and yours, the only way her gpu can match your quality is by overclocking its gpu clock so it gets close to your rendering configuration performance, but we're talking laptop gpus here not PC graphic cards, so overclocking gpu it's not a good option.., but she has a photographer's eye so she'd be wanting for more if that's possible with her laptop because she's aiming for high quality graphics



Well this part is more about texturing and making a complete object, the concept of HQ or Hi-Res texture, it's just like in 2 dimensional image with a native 1920x1080 in size for example, then the size get squeezed or scaled to smaller size let's say 1360x768 without reducing or compromising its quality, the results will then get you a sharper or better quality image or texture but in a lot smaller size, so if the 3d object or polygon or mesh then covered with this texture it will become a complete object with Hi-Res texture, the better they blend the more higher quality of the complete object, so basically HQ or Hi-Res mod it's just using a better quality image for its texture, but the whole process in the gpu to produce them, the higher the quality the more the gpu demands more power to produce them, and I think at somewhere at that point.. maybe she was trying to get more.. with the mod.. but her gpu gave up because it has reached its maximum.. or something makes the HQ mod stop working, this scenario is possible just like the main processor working, when it reached certain points which maybe overloaded or overheated etc.. then the system will automatically cut down so it doesn't sacrifice the overall performance.. or maybe even caused damage to the hardware..

So I think if you test them with your Nvidia and show her the results, she'll be wanting even more.., fortunately she have a good BF that lend her the AMD laptop with better quality gpu, she probably won't have an increased gameplay performance with that for TS3, but for sure she'll get the quality graphics that she wanted to for her high quality pictures..

Ok folks, no need to get all passionate about this.

First of all, I apologize for not understanding your message, nitromon. Thank you for clarifying, because this had me realise it might indeed be a problem with the HQ mod.

As far as I'm aware, HQ mod DOES sharpen the textures for real, because it allows larger texture sizes than the game by default. Let's say the limit by default is 1024x1024 (I don't actually know it since I haven't done better research) and the HQ mod allows me to use, for example, a shirt that is 2048x2048. The HQ mod breaks for some reason, the shirt becomes blurry because my game cannot handle so many pixels. But HQ mods have NONE effect on textures that are below or on the limit set default by EA.

But I use SEVERAL highlight, detail, HD markings on horses. Which are not mods but markings, applied on layers to make a coat. Almost all those veins you can see on the horse's face in my before photos are a marking. So, I got curious and opened a few files in s3pe. All crucial image files were at least 2048x2048... The HQ mod I use is actually an application, which replaces the GraphicRules.srg by the texture limit I set and it has the lowest size of 2048px which I think is more than the default limit. (Because then why not just remove HQ mod to reset to default rather than use it to set the default...) It's no surprise it would be more vulnerable to errors than manually replacing the original GraphicRules with the mod.

And PapaEmy, my horse is having a haircut because the mane is a totally different piece than what nitromon's example horse has. Cannot remember if the one in his photo is EA's or not since I never use it for its shaggy look, but mine is downloaded for sure. Some horses have their manes cut straight, it's made on purpose for sport horses.

I'm not ruling out the possibility of the system cutting down like PapaEmy suggested. It may be possible, my laptop is rather old, surely cost below 500€ and it heats up a lot and quickly when running Sims. However I'd be willing to know WHY it only affected a few things, meaning horses and clothes. Simmies look pretty much like they've always did on my screen, same with most objects in Build mode.

But I'm still leaning towards nitromon's suggestion. I'm going to remove the old mod and try one or two different ones and see if they'll restore the quality. I doubt the laptop I was offered has a better performance, because it's older, the chip is only slightly better and the whole thing is full of dust and heats up in half a minute. If my graphics return, I'll continue with this one. I'm not excited about moving 4700 files of custom content to a laptop that cannot perhaps handle even itself. (I haven't seen the lappy myself yet and my SO knows a quarter of what I know, which you can assume is quite little since I too am a console peasant like him. So I don't really trust him saying "it works surprisingly well" haha.)

By the way, thank you for making me sound all needygreedy for better graphics than my poor HP of year 2012 can process. Which is not true, I don't need better graphics, I need the graphics my laptop CAN process. I'm no damsel in distress, I've worked on this problem for weeks and nothing has helped, mostly because I haven't realised that my HQ mod might be broken. (I trusted it!!) And no but really, I have absolutely NO intent to play. The game has very limited options when it comes to horses, which is why it's better to "play" in a community and just bring your in-game horses online after a visit in Photoshop.