Greetings,

After grabbing The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection on Origin during the free giveaway, I made sure to completely uninstall all of my retail Sims 2 games before downloading Ultimate Collection. Once I pasted all my custom content and neighborhoods back into Ultimate Collection after it finished installing, I noticed that in-game, every Sim and Pet has a large black square underneath them when indoors. It only appears when they are indoors on flat ground- not when using an object, climbing stairs, or outdoors.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Try here : http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=5446

I tried the first step under Windows 8 - Black Shadows Box Issue, despite running Windows 7, however the option to change the Sim shadows to Medium or Off is greyed out for me. For reference, I have an AMD Radeon HD 5770.

In that case, the easiest solution is probably to edit the high setting so it doesn't include sim shadows.

I edited the high setting so that SimShadows are set to false, but the black box is still present and shadows are still set to high- greyed out. I can only assume I did something wrong, so I'll work away at it.

I had an issue with the shadow options being grayed out- I changed my resolution (ingame) and changed it back and they weren't grayed out anymore.

Don't know if it was coincidental or not.

I gave that a shot, but the shadow options are still disabled for me. I also installed the Radeon Graphics Rules available on the page leefish sent me, which enabled the Smooth Edges slider.

I found something interesting on line 193 of Graphics Rules.sgr.
It's seemingly an option to force medium shadows, and medium shadows fix this problem for many.
Of course, be sure to back the file up to a safe place first.
(Notepad++ is my weapon of choice when dealing with various text-ish files)

basically you'd change:

to:


Here's an image illustrating what it will look like:



While it shouldn't have any gamebreaking effects, you never know. So be safe and back up the file.
And I haven't been able to test because my game's working perfectly, btw.

When the option was grayed out for me, it was only in neighborhood view and CAS. If I entered a lot, the option was un-greyed. Doesn't make a difference to me now though, as I used the Graphics Ruler that Leefish linked to, to fix the problem without giving up shadows all-together.

A bit off topic, but after reading this I too used Leefish's tool and am finally getting the decent performance my puny Intel HD4600 is able to provide. For some reason my Sapphire 7970 is not working at all; I suspect the dvi port went bad. I'd use the hdmi port if I had a monitor with an hdmi port. Hmm, is there an adapter?

I'll give that a shot and report back!

I just changed forceMediumShadows to true and tried it, but it didn't seem to have any effect. In fact, nothing I've done so far other than the modification to enable up to 1920x1080 and leefish's Radeon Graphics Rules to enable smooth edges seems to have had any effect. Am I editing the right Graphics Rules- the one inside SP9 nested under Fun with Pets?

you have to replace two files.

For the Ultimate collection - the folder selection is:
\Origin Games\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\Config\
\Origin Games\Fun with Pets\SP9\TSData\Res\CsConfig\

Or use the Graphics Rules Maker.

I took a look back at your original link, leefish, and examined my config-log. Under graphics device info, it states that my texture memory is 32MB, so apparently I have that issue mentioned in the tutorial. How should I go about fixing this?

@Simsguy981 - I have no idea. The thread and all associated fixes at leefish.nl are work by kiri and other third parties, not by me. If the Graphics Rules Maker does not fix it and you are not getting a result by following the thread instructions then you will have to ask kiri.

All right. I'm going to run through the steps kiri provides on that link, and if I'm still having issues after all of that, I'm going to move this question over there.

And success! I replaced both files this time with kiri's Radeon Graphics Rules, and upon going into the lot, I was able to switch the Sim Shadows to Medium and rid myself of that annoying box. Thanks for your help, everybody!

I'm curious, though- why do high shadows appear as a black box? Is it just a bug?

Its an update to the drivers - it varies from card to card.

Switching to medium fixed this for me as well.