Hello all! I recently got a new computer and I've been looking forward to playing Sims 2 again. Sadly, the graphics are terrible and the game is super choppy. I'm pretty sure my hardware is up to snuff, but I thought I'd ask around anyway.

I'm currently running Windows 7 Home Premium (64bit). The computer has integrated graphics (NVidia GeForce GT545) which I have diabled.
I have an ATI Radeon HD 7770 graphics card, an Intel Core i7-3770 processor, and 16GB of RAM.

However, edge smoothing and shadows are greyed out and the game is choppy. I thought my specs would run this game with flying colors, but maybe not. Device manager doesn't list the integrated graphics and I was able to make some small changes to the graphics with Catalyst Control Center, so I'm pretty sure the game isn't defaulting with the integrated graphics.

Is my system just not good enough to run this game at full speed or am I missing some settings somewhere?

Thanks for reading!

Hi there,

I had the same issue with the HD 7870. All that I could find is that the game believes that the graphics card can't handle it, which obviously isn't correct (and most likely not for 7770 either).

I found a way to fix it. It isn't an optimal solution, but seems to work just fine .
For all readers: Before doing the following, please make sure your graphics card is capable of antialiasing.

Locate: C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Config\Graphics Rules.sgr
In the file, search for all occurrences of enumerateMultisampleLevels and change false to true.
Ideally, you should find the right place to do this, but it's easier to just replace all occurrences.

Do the same for the file in the The Sims 2 [Last Expansion Pack Name] folder.
It might not be necessary to do it in both places, but just in case.

Next time you start the game, the smooth edges option should be available.

Note: The folders in Program Files are usually write protected for normal user accounts. Either open a text-editor with administrator rights (right click, run as administrator), or change the permissions for the files/folders needed (Right click, properties, security, edit, select users, give full control).

Hope it works for you as well