Like many people here, I was having problems with my clothes and other textures blurring in the game after playing for a while. The game would start out with sharp graphics (all settings on high) and after playing a bit the textures would just suddenly blur, and nothing you could do in game would fix it.

My card is an Nvidia 6600GT, more than enough to handle the game, it's definitely not overheating, and I tried many different drivers. I also removed most of my custom content just to rule that out as well. Nothing helped. All my game settings were on high, but I did try many different settings in the graphics options in game, and still nothing helped.

Finally, I decided to give it one last shot and go into the Nvidia control panel to change some things, started the game again, and the problem is fixed. I let the game run four hours on its own to see if the clothes and things would blur again, but they stayed crystal clear. I did this on two separate occasions to be sure.

Here are the settings I used. This fix was posted elsewhere and everyone who tried it (except those with Intel integrated graphics) said it worked.

In game graphics settings:

All on high but turn smooth edges all the way down. You'll be using your card settings for the anti-aliasing/smooth edges instead (4x). It looks just as good this way.

In Nvidia control panel (ATI should be similar):

To get to the control panel, right click on desktop, choose properties, settings, then advanced. Click on the tab that has the name of your video card. Mine says 'Geforce 6600GT'. Click on performance and quality settings (or similar). The settings you're changing will be under global driver settings. Be sure to tick the box to enable the advanced options to be shown.

Antialiasing (4x - be sure to uncheck application-controlled)
Anisotropic Filtering - (2x - be sure to uncheck application-controlled) - This is optional
Image Settings - High Quality
Vsync - Application Controlled
Force Mipmaps - Bilinear
Conformant Texture Clamp - Off

I also went into Color Correction settings and bumped Image Sharpening up to about halfway and Digital Vibrance to Low. These settings tend to make your game look more Maxis-like.

I hope this will help someone. I know how frustrating the blurring clothes issue is, and I'm relieved it's finally fixed for me.

Does anybody have a screenshot of it? My system is in German and I just can't find it... I clicked on my Desktop, Settings, then the Graphics-stuff and finally got to my Grapics card settings... But there are only two options in the 'Graphics'-thing for my card... List up all modi or so and settings...?! Maybe I should post a screenshot...
I have nVidia GeForce 3 Ti 200...

If you know what the German word for "troubleshoot" is, That will probably be the right option to look under.

Yeah, it's 'Problembehandlung' but there's nothing really important in this category... Oh, In tried to click on it but nothing happens... It sucks... My PC definitely is best on a rubbish dump!!! Great, there's the Help and supportcenter now opening but there's nothing to deal with my prob... Okay, I gave it another click.... Well, the help and support center again...
There's only this supportcenter who cannot help me any further when I click on Troubleshooting (Problembehandlung...)
Maybe someone of you can post some screenshots for how to get into the category where to change the settings that are listed in the first post... I'd be glad lol^^

First of all, I never would've discovered this if leighcy hadn't posted about it, but I have a GeForce FX Go5200 card in my laptop & I've always had the marshmallow effect when it came to Sim clothing. I have an nVidia GeForce 6800 in my desktop and haven't had any Sims 2 related problems with it, but it's always irked me that the laptop makes clothes and custom hair look horrible.

Unfortunately, the exact suggestions that were given didn't really apply to the 5200 because there wasn't a way to change vsync, conformant texture clamp or force mipmaps, nor was there a box to enable advanced options & when I tried to adjust the sharpness, things got a little bit too sharp, so I left that alone, too.

However, I followed the rest of the instructions (and ticked a little box that read "texture sharpening" under the performance and quality settings). Everything was suddenly beautiful, but my computer couldn't handle the strain. In other words, I was getting a ton of lag that wasn't entirely conducive to gameplay, but the tweaks worked wonderfully.

Thanks for the help! I probably won't use those settings every day, but I will use them every once in a while to capture good family screenshots, avatars and that sort of thing.

P.S. dbland3 - did you change your in game graphics options after your reinstall? for some reason, installing nightlife tends to put them on the lowest settings rather than using your former settings.

Aleesha, I don't know if this will help, but here are some screenshots.

Selections you should make and/or things you need to change are in purple, but not set to the proper settings, sorry. I can take another screenshot if need be. Just right click on your desktop to begin step one. And I apologize for the picture quality, but they were too big to upload without reducing it. Also, I don't know what order they'll be in, but the step numbers in the file names correspond with the order you should do things in.

If it doesn't work, maybe someone else can help. Good luck!

Madame Shake,

You're exactly right! I discovered that a few torturous hours and 300+ downloads later :-) The new install defaulted me to lower game settings.
When I changed it back everything was lovely again!

Thanks.

D. Bland

Folks, Aleesha has a GeForce 3 Ti 200 card. She does not have the same options to change graphics settings like the Fx 5200 has. Aleesha, you are somewhat limited with your graphics simpely because of the age of your card. Upgrading at some point would probably make the most sense for your situation.

Yeah I downloaded the newest driver for the card and it finally broke Now we have GeForce 6600 LE (the second one because the first new one also broke...) and we bought a new Power Supply and the computer didn't crash yet so I hope the öprob is fixed And the graphics are wonderful now! And I got Nightlife lol. When we are at the media store I need to have it lol. But thanks alot guys