I finally got my new computer but I'm pretty upset because my graphics card does not run Sims 2. When I start the game all of the graphics settings are set to the lowest possible settings and the shadows and smooth details options are grayed out.

I can't tell if I have the latest drivers installed or not. On the dxdiag the driver date given is 3/9/12 but on the websites the drivers have 3/28/12 but when I download them it just says that my drivers are already up to date when I go to install them. Is there anything I can do?

dxdiag info:

Driver Name: aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver File Version: 8.17.0010.1119 (English)
Driver Version: 8.951.0.0
DDI Version: 11
Driver Model: WDDM 1.1
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 3/9/2012 01:14:42, 958464 bytes

The Sapphire and AMD sites both have the same drivers.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/present...0006&lid=1&os=6
http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downlo..._win7-64.aspx#1

ETA:
From what I can tell the card just isn't supported so the game defaults to software rendering. If anyone knows of a way to force the game to use my video card I'd welcome that information.

ETA 2 - For any googlers:
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 7850 2GB graphics card is unsupported for The Sims 2. In addition to not working in my new computer it doesn't work in an old 32 bit, single core system that used to be able to run the sims with an older graphics card. If there's driver updates or I find a work around I'll be sure to come back and edit this post.

Driver updates 4/25/12 - Still doesn't work.

That's weird. That card should be able to run it without any problems. Are you using a motherboard or CPU with an integrated GPU?

Did you install your drivers using windows update or with the installer from amd.com?

Could you post your specs?

A motherboard (Z68XP-UD3) and I have the most current drivers. I tried using windows and it said I had the most up to date drivers but I uninstalled them and tried the ones I downloaded from their site anyway but they were the same. I also tried previous versions of the drivers which of course didn't work. And I tried editing the Graphics Rules.sgr to no effect.

Maybe this is a long shot, but try going into your motherboard BIOS and see if it has onboard graphics enabled and turn it off. The spec sheet you linked says "Integrated Graphics Processor: 1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200."

Do you have the same problem in more recent games?

Thanks for taking the time to try and help, ajaxsirius. WoW and Skyrim both work without any problems.

I also put the card in an older system that I used to have the game on to be sure it actually was the card and not any other components of the new computer and the game defaulted to software rendering on that machine as well.

Catalyst 12.3 is the actual driver version that came shipped with the PC/ AMD GPU? You've tried uninstalling (the preinstalled version or whichever one you have now) in Safe Mode, reverting to 800x600 VGA mode and reinstall the downloaded version?

How about DirectX? Is that also checked to be updated? Or uninstalled and reinstalled?

All these driver hiccups on old programs are common and expected, usually cleared up in later driver versions. A lot of threads on the Amd boards on crashing, and stuff not working on the HD 78xx and 79xx series.
Only Sims 2 is not working for you, Sims 3 and other games are fine? Are other programs OK - Photoshop, Fireworks, Gimp, Blender, VLC - or whichever programs you generally use? No stuttering or glitches when rendering and watching movies?
I think the developers concentrate on testing drivers for current games first, so old ones get pushed aside for compatibility testing. I'd advise to play other games for awhile while the developers catch up (or rather backtrack, if they ever do).

I have an AMD Radeon 7800 - and it's unsupported. Honeywell's problems are the same as mine.

But I've resolved it, and it ended up being just 3 changes. I've spent all today about it - so I'm very excited.

Because the later cards are unsupported, if the Sims can't work out who's the vendor, and card - it goes default. But Because your card is similiar to mine - i.e. a '7?00' you get stung with an exception in the graphics.sgr, which will drag your settings back to low resolution.

So how to fix it:

All the work is being done in \TSData\Res\Config of your latest expansion (or M&G if you have that).

There are two files to change - make copies of them - Video Cards.sgr and Graphics Rules.sgr. That way if you make too big a mess, you've got something to go back to.

In Video Cards. sgr - you need to add your card's ID and description. you find that out by:

• Right click on your normal screen to bring up the change resolution window,
• Click on Advanced Settings
• The Adapter Tab has both:
  At the end of Chip Type there's a hex number (0x6819) - that's the ID.
  Adapter String: That's the name of the graphics card.

Open up the Video Cards.sgr

Find your Vendor (for you, as for me it was ATI)
At the end of it's list, include your id and card name in the same format as the others.

Mine looked like this:


That's the hard part.

Now open up Graphics Rules.SGR
Do a search on 7?00 it will bring you down to a line that looks like:

if (match("${cardName}", "*Radeon?VE*") or match("${cardName}", "*7?00*") or match("${cardName}", "*R100*") or match("${cardName}", "*IGP 3?0*") or match("${cardName}", "*9100 IGP*"))

The bit that I've bolded and struck out, - delete that bit.

I also defined the o/s to the game - but I'm pretty sure that's optional - because when I took it out, it still worked.

That will fix the resolution problems.

Honeywell is aware of the fix - I've sent it to her.