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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 3rd Sep 2017 at 12:17 AM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 2, University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Pets, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Free Time, Apartment Life
Default [HELP/TECH] Having Issues Running TS2 on Win 10
Wall of text incoming! You've been warned. My apologies if this is the wrong place to post this kind of thing.

Hey, guys. Decide to play TS2 yesterday. I own the Ultimate Colllection on Origin.

I went to play it, and as was predictable, I ran into the following issues:

- Very low res graphics
- Major Lag
- Resolution/Screen size stuck at 800x600
- Lighting issues. When looking at a town or neighborhood, shadows and lighting would be simple gray squares, and blink in and out of existence when moving or using the mouse. Awful.
- Aliasing. Anytime I use the mouse or move in build or live mode, it would either stutter, blink black, or, and this is the weird one, blink the floor textures of said building in a small grid pattern.

Now, the Shadows and Smooth Edges options were greyed out, so I figured that had something to do with it, and Googled around. I stumbled upon this:

https://simlili.tumblr.com/post/146373494212

I followed the steps to a T. This fixed the resolution and low graphics issue, but everything else remained. I had to follow down to the extra steps as well, to no avail.

I run on a laptop, a Samsung ATIV Book 6 680Z5E. I have an AMD and Intel Graphics card, but for some reason, by PC no longer reads my AMD one, so I'm stuck with Intel. This is a whole other issue, that could be affecting this, but that's another big fun pain in the butt unto itself, so I'm ignoring it for now. My Intel card should have no problem running TS2, as it can run TS3 and Skyrim at medium-high smoothly. Still, I'm letting you guys know this in case it's somehow relevant, which it very well could be.

I have a laptop, a Samsung NP680. Here are its specs:

http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/...Z5E-X01US-specs

For some reason, this doesn't show that I have 2 graphics cards, an Intel Graphics HD 4000, and the troubled AMD one.

I used my Intel card info to rewrite certain files, which I'll detail later.

Here are my most recent/updated Graphics.spr, Video.spr, and config files:

http://jmp.sh/ZQ6HPZr



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STEPS TAKEN UNTIL NOW/FURTHER INFO:

Last night I spent like 3 hours fiddling with this issue, and nothing worked. My game exists in two places, whose directories are as follows:

Documents>EA Games> The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection

[MyPC]> Local disk (C> Program Files x86> Origin Games> The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection

Now, here's some important info:

- The config logs only exist in the the Documents filepath
- The .sgr files only exist in the C: drive filepath

Not sure why that is, and if that's normal.

I followed the instructions here here , to a T, through the very end, and the issue with Shadows/Smooth Edges persist.

To the best of my knowledge, the issue is that, at the very end of my config log, which, again, for some reason, is only located in the EA games/Documents version of the filepath, even after I added my graphics card (Intel HD 4000), it gives me the following line:

boolProp enumerateMultisampleLevels false

This is odd, as I followed the Lili instructions exactly, and this apparently shouldn't happen (it should read 'true'), and everything else that was supposed to go right in the config file did, meaning (refer to link if needed):

- Under Graphics Device Info, there is no “NOT FOUND IN DATABASE!", meaning that it isdetecting my graphics card (I think)
- Below that, the texture memory line is not 32MB, as she said it would be. It's 1744.

This is weird, as the next step would be to add my card to the database in the Video.sgr file, which I had done already. Remember, at this point, this is like my third time going through these steps, from beginning to end, again.

Then, the post tells you to test your game (I did), and if you have the same issue (I did), to check your Graphics.sgr file, and tweak it again.

When running the game, the Shadows and Smooth Edges were still greyed out, though, supposedly, the Shadows should not have been, if I interpreted the Tumblr post right.

Please refer to the post for the exact steps, as they're relevant to what I'm saying next. At this point, we're at this bit: "Save the file and run the game again..."

I revisited the config files, as told to, and checked the texture memory. She implied it would read 32MB, but for me, it read 1744MB, which I had manually set to on my first attempt.

Now, you would think, given the post's wording, that if the texture memory does NOT read 32MB, then the lines

boolProp enumerateMultisampleLevels


would read 'true'.

Mine does not. It reads 'false', despite the Texture Memory being 1744.

Weird. As, according to Lili "If it’s false and 32MB, then you’ll need to modify the Graphics Rules.sgr file again."

Mine's false, but 1744 MB.

In any case, I went to the Graphics.sgr file once more.

I searched for the line '# failed to obtain device texture memory size, force to 32MB'

I looked two lines under that, at seti textureMemory. She said it would read 32, but mine reads 1744.

From what I understand, if it does not read 32MB, the game should work smoothly. Mine does not.

So now I'm lost.

Here's my guess as to what's wrong:

Since the game exists in two places, it's getting confused. This is further worsened by the fact that the config logs only exist in one place, and the sgr files, only in another.

HOWEVER

I could have sworn I found the .sgr files in the Documents filepath last night. I am almost certain that I realized that I had only edited the .sgr files in one of the two filepaths, and promptly edited them once again, identically, in both. I also remember that for some reason, the '# failed' line was not appearing in one of them, but was appearing in the other.

But I revisited today, and could not find the .sgr files in my Documents folder. Now, full disclosure, I rage quit this troubleshooting at 5 am, so it's entirely possible I was looking at the same and only .sgr files in my C: drive. This would make sense, as at one point in my 30 million attempts at starting and testing the game, Shadows were no longer greyed out, but Smooth Edges were, and on the next test, Shadows were greyed out again. On all attempts, however, Smooth Edges were greyed out, which leads to the following conclusion:

Smooth Edges are the source of the problem.

Now, I have no idea why in the world this persists, and why my .sgr files aren't reading as they are supposed to, meaning (this is basically a TL;DR summary of all the above):

- the line enumerateMultisampleLevels reads false, despite texture memory reading 1744. (this is in the config-log.txt, Documents filepath)

- the line '# failed to obtain device texture memory size, force to 32MB' reads as such, but the line 'seti textureMemory', reads 1744 (GraphicsRules.gr, C: filepath)

- Under Graphics Device Info, there is no “NOT FOUND IN DATABASE!", however, the texture memory is 1744MB, not 32MB. ((GraphicsRules.gr, C: filepath)

When I first did all of these steps, everything was as it was listed in the post. The message 'NOT FOUND IN DATABASE!' was there. My graphics card was not listed in the Video.sgr file. Texture memory was stuck at 32MB, etc.

Please assist. I have no idea if this is my error, or something else. Thanks for reading through this, and I apologize if it's confusing/redundant. I did a lot last night, and am trying to cover all my bases.

Thanks in advance for your help!
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The Great AntiJen
retired moderator
#2 Old 3rd Sep 2017 at 1:03 AM
Moved to Help - you should get more assistance here

I no longer come over to MTS very often but if you would like to ask me a question then you can find me on tumblr or my own site tflc. TFLC has an archive of all my CC downloads.
I'm here on tumblr and my site, tflc
Top Secret Researcher
#3 Old 3rd Sep 2017 at 2:23 PM
Hey! I'm that Lili. I wrote that post after I migrated to a W10 laptop, and made those changes according to Kiri's tutorials about it. You can find those in several places, here's a couple of links:
http://celebkiriedhel.tumblr.com/po...o-read-your-own
http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/forumdisplay.php?fid=21

Also I'm not a native English speaker, that would explain any weird wording (that and the usual state of confusion in my brain).

Now, you seem to be experiencing more issues than just low resolution/ greyed out smooth edges, so have you tried running the Graphic Rules Maker? I don't much like leaving it to a program, and prefer to do the tweaking myself, but since doing it manually isn't working for you, you should give it a try, a lot of players have found it useful.

It seems to me that your first issue is with your two cards and the game not recognizing the proper one, but I'm no expert. Kiri is our expert so you'd probably find more info over at Leefish.nl (http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/forumdisplay.php?fid=21). Especially if Securom is your culprit. Then this topic might help: http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=6688
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