Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Instructor
Original Poster
#1 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 9:44 AM Last edited by Celebriton : 1st Jan 2012 at 5:34 AM.
Default The Sims 3 and FXAA Tool
I tried to play The Sims 3 with FXAA tool, and it works!!!

Some of you may be know about FXAA tool, is on the rise in the gaming community since it improve Elder Scroll Skyrim into unbelievable beautiful game. And Gamers are experimenting the tool with any games they have. From Assassins Creed to NFS. And I did it for The Sims 3.

With FXAA tool, you can add anti-aliasing, change the color of the game, change the contrast, improve sharpening, add bloom, etc. Overall it increase TS3 graphic one level above and it almost without the reduction in performance, or even none. You can have smoother and rounder with Anti-Aliasing. Increase the texture detail into something you never saw before with PostSharpen. Make the the lights shiner and blooming. etc.


It's a floating files. You just put the files in the *.exe folder, choose the options in the tool and start the game. That's it! No installation or patching process. You can uninstall it by removing all the FXAA tool files and back to normal. All the original TS3 files are still intact and unchanged.


You can download the tool here:
http://www.assembla.com/spaces/fxaa-pp-inject/documents


How to install it:
1. Download FXAAToolHg4.zip from the link above.
2. Extract all the file to the same folder as where TS3W.exe located. The FXAA_tool.exe and all the file/folder structure in the same folder as TS3W.exe.
Example: X:\........\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin
3. Run FXAA_tool.exe and enable the setting you want, by checking the Toggle On/Off button in each tab that you want to enable. Like Anti-Aliasing, Bloom, Post-Sharpen, etc.
Use your own combination for the sliders. But I recommend to set it to my standard setting below for the first time. You can set your own later to suit your own taste or correcting something wrong.
4. Then start the game and see the different!
5. If you use my standard setting below, it should be fine.


My standard setting:

AntiAliasing ON: 9 5 4 4 (default)

Sharpen above OFF
Sharpen below ON: 3 (default)

HDR ON: 2 2

Bloom ON: 2 2

ToneMap OFF

TechniColor OFF

Sepia OFF


Other setting that may look good:

#I recommend to let the default setting for Anti Aliasing to 9 5 4 4. It seems the best setting from my judgement, but I don't know. You can do some experiment on it, who know you can even find better combination.

#Pre Sharpen is a blur sharp effect. The function is to blurring the image first and then sharping it. The popular photoshop fx, lol.
#Post Sharpen standard is 3, but you can reduce and increase it. Post Sharpen look very nice on texture like carpet, stone, leather, etc. Somehow it look more bumping.

#Increasing the Bloom Width and Bloom Power sliders up to 3 - 4, it makes the light stronger and everything shinier. It look nice in the LN disco club lights, with Black Light turn on.
#You can also increase the HDR, to make the light brighter.
#Some people love Bloom and HDR effect. You can reduce Exposure slider in ToneMap, then increase the Bloom and HDR effect up to the balanced level, to substitute the bright lost from the reduction of Exposure slider. This is a popular effect in other games.

#Playing with color in TechiColor, ToneMap and Sepia sound very fun.
#People play with it to make a photorealistic image, by mimicking the color of the sunlight. It's the default combination come with the FXAA Tool.
ToneMap: 4 3 6 1 6
TechniColor: 1 5 2 2 2
Sepia: Chocolate 2 1
#A horror movie color: the cold desaturated color:
ToneMap: 5 7 9 9 1
TechniColor: 9 9 1 1 1
Sepia: Citrine 1 9
#And many many more, like black and white, the old photo color, etc


The bad side is......it's not only change the look of the game, but also the HUD. TS3 HUD is very sensitive to any changes.


PS: Don't forget FXAA Tool also can be used in any games, not all but most. I tried with Assassins Creed Revelations, Dead Space 2, Dirt 3 and The Elder Scroll Skyrim (it's better to find ENB + FXAA mod for Skyrim). Try it and see the different!
Advertisement
Instructor
#2 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 10:11 AM
Sounds very cool, but I'm afraid it will kill my poor graphics card.

Do you have screenshots from your game?
I'm very interested to see the difference.

Quote: Originally posted by Celebriton
All of it without any performance reduction.

That would be a dream.
Imagine, you can create a dark medieval world or an apocalyptic neighborhood.
Field Researcher
#3 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 10:59 AM
Quote: Originally posted by VampireSim
Do you have screenshots from your game?
I'm very interested to see the difference.


Agreed, another who would like to see pictures please!
Instructor
Original Poster
#4 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 11:07 AM
^
I do have thinking about posting some screenshot.

I don't know what happen with the poor graphic card, but in my case, I don't get any performance reduction. Actually I do want to know about how far the performance reduction is, but I can't see it with my graphic card, it's ATI Radeon 4850, quite old and outdated. May be slower graphic card like yours can tell it.

I'm quite happy actually. I'm not only don't have any performance penalty, I also get significant graphic boast like high-end graphic card. Anti Aliasing without performance penalty, it's like having a new faster graphic card without paying. I also set my texture setting to medium, but the Post Sharpen makes the texture as sharp as like using high setting. The lights and dark area in the game is also fantastic.
Lab Assistant
#5 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 11:21 AM
I'll test it on my Baby, show you what Kind of SCreens I have Later!
Née whiterider
retired moderator
#6 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 11:28 AM
How does this tool work? I ask because it sounds like it alters the game exe, in which case it would be essential to back up the exe before using this tool, or you'll have to reinstall next time you want to patch your game.

What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact.
Lab Assistant
#7 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 11:42 AM
NOT at all, if it works the same as Skyrim, you can activate and deactivate it simply by either shutting it off or deleting it alltogether
Instructor
Original Poster
#8 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 11:56 AM
Quote: Originally posted by whiterider
How does this tool work? I ask because it sounds like it alters the game exe, in which case it would be essential to back up the exe before using this tool, or you'll have to reinstall next time you want to patch your game.


No, there's no any change into the game files.

It's a floating files. You just put the files in the *.exe folder, choose the options in the tool and start the game.

That's it! No installation or patching process.

(PS: Good question! I will update the first post regarding this question and info)

Quote: Originally posted by EK_Painkiller
NOT at all, if it works the same as Skyrim, you can activate and deactivate it simply by either shutting it off or deleting it alltogether


It is!

You can uninstall it by removing all the FXAA tool files and back to normal. All the original TS3 files are still intact and unchanged.
Lab Assistant
#9 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 12:54 PM
*Whistle* It works better than I thought, Now I intentionally set my setting to Low, This ATI HD 6950, Can actually handle the Sims 3 Very Well on the Highest settings. But this does EQUALLY as good of work

http://imageshack.us/g/513/ts3w2011123107471465.png/

The Darker Pic (I hate brightness) is the FXAA enchanced game, It pretty much did it's job, with a bit of color bleeding but that's nothing playing around with the settings can't fix.

So if your running on a low end PC, I say try it out, and if you don't like it, easily just delete it and call it a night.
Lab Assistant
#10 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 1:12 PM Last edited by Iggysaurus : 31st Dec 2011 at 1:44 PM.
I agree, this works really well! At first, I couldn't really see a difference, but I had the game anti-aliasing setting at medium, so I turned it off and it still looked pretty good, compared to how the game normally looks with AA off (i.e., really crappy). With more tweaking, I'm sure it can look even better. I didn't notice any performance hit (no drop in FPS, no lag) and I'm running this game on a weak GPU. Apparently, FXAA is developed by NVIDIA, but works equally well on AMD/ATI cards according to test benchmarks.

Like EK said, this is really useful if you have a weak GPU and it's easy enough to try it and uninstall if you don't like it. I wonder, does it enhance game graphics with a good GPU and the game already on maxed settings? In any case, I'm still definitely going to try it when I get my new comp. Thanks so much for posting this, Celebriton!
Instructor
#11 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 2:16 PM
I'm really impressed.

@EK_Painkiller
It seems that your settings are deleting the shine, the picture has more contrast and is clearer. That's great.
Lab Assistant
#12 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 3:58 PM
I installed this, set my settings, tried to open the game, and it told me a dll was missing. And to reinstall the game. And I have nine games.

CHOCKLAT.
Forum Resident
#13 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 4:56 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Simmie
I installed this, set my settings, tried to open the game, and it told me a dll was missing. And to reinstall the game. And I have nine games.


I'm sorry that happened, BUT you should really back up your game when trying out tools that were not specifically made for the game

Celebriton, even though it worked flawlessly for you, it's always a good idea to tell others to make backups just in case since everyone's computer is different and may not react in the same way.

This does sound pretty cool though. Hopefully I will have a smidgen of spare time to today to check it out.
Theorist
#14 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 5:02 PM Last edited by tizerist : 31st Dec 2011 at 8:50 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by Simmie
I installed this, set my settings, tried to open the game, and it told me a dll was missing. And to reinstall the game. And I have nine games.


^^ You need to have the provided dll file in the same folder as TS3W.exe

Edit: Works now. Pics soon.

#BlairWitchPetition
TS3 NEEDS: TENNIS COURTS > BUSES > PIGS/SHEEP
Can't find stuff in build and buy mode? http://www.nexusmods.com/thesims3/mods/1/?
Instructor
Original Poster
#15 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 5:35 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Simmie
I installed this, set my settings, tried to open the game, and it told me a dll was missing. And to reinstall the game. And I have nine games.


What is the name of the missing dll file?

Probably you need to download and install the latest DirectX. TS3 may be is not very demanding on DirectX files, but may be FXAA Tool does.

Or probably you try to copy FXAA Tool files multiple times into TS3 folder. May be you delete one of the core TS3 file during the time, try to find that missing dll file in Recycle Bin.
Lab Assistant
#16 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 6:04 PM
I have a N. GeForce 8500. I'm forced to have most of my settings on low for the game to run halfway decently. It actually sped up my load time. (The one on the left is without FXAA, the pic on the right is with FXAA) Thank you so so much for posting this. I will be using this tool from now on.
Screenshots

Sims 3 Midnight Island Challenge: http://maekitten.blogspot.com/
Instructor
Original Poster
#17 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 6:37 PM
Quote: Originally posted by tizerist
^^ You need to have the provided dll file in the same folder as TS3W.exe

And it didn't make much difference for me (if any), but I have my graphics maxed anyway with a 460GTX.
Before and after.

.......................

I'm assuming you have to have the 'toggle on/off' box ticked for this to work, right? It's not that clear. I mean, am I ticking that box to turn it on or off?? :/


A very impressive city world! What is it? Bridgeport should look like that. I hope EA will release another city world, more modern, bigger, dense and futuristic one.


If you follow the setting in the first post, that is the basic one. Try to go into the extreme way by increasing the slider to the maximum for example. You will see much much different. And do some experiment on it to find the best setting that suit for your taste.


My recommendation:

Increasing the Bloom Width and Bloom Power sliders up to 6, it makes the light stronger and everything shinier. It look nice in the LN disco club lights, with Black Light turn on.

Increase all the Anti Aliasing sliders to 9 is very very nice. I don't get any performance penalty. Woohoo!!!

Post Sharpen up to 3 or even more look very nice on texture like carpet, stone, leather, etc. Somehow it look more bumping.

Pre Sharpen is a blur sharp effect. The function is to blurring the image first and then sharping it. The popular photoshop fx, lol. I haven't try it, but it sound bad for me who demanding more detail on texture.

Playing with color in TechiColor, ToneMap and Sepia sound very fun.

Increasing the contrast by playing with Gamma and Exposure sliders in ToneMap tab. I'm interesting in Exposure slider, it look very nice in other games especially for brighter and stronger sunlight, but it too strong in TS3, especially the impact on HUD. I need to find a way to reduce the slider power.

If you are thinking TS3 are too colorful, you can reduce it with Saturate slider. Or increase it for someone who want more color!


The bad side is......it's not only change the look of the game, but also the HUD. TS3 HUD is very sensitive to any changes.
Theorist
#18 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 7:45 PM
^^ New Emerald City.

And erm, well, I'm not getting anything from it.
I just turned gamma all the way down, then up. Nothing.

Can you change the settings on the fly, and they instantly change?
Do you need to boot the app before the game?

#BlairWitchPetition
TS3 NEEDS: TENNIS COURTS > BUSES > PIGS/SHEEP
Can't find stuff in build and buy mode? http://www.nexusmods.com/thesims3/mods/1/?
Instructor
Original Poster
#19 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 8:01 PM Last edited by Celebriton : 31st Dec 2011 at 8:50 PM.
^
If nothing happen than FXAA doesn't work. There are some reasons:

1. You should download: FxaaInjTool.26.zip first and test it, before trying the others like the FXAAToolHg4.zip for example. Just to make sure, in theory since it work for me, it should work for you too.

(I tested the FXAAToolHg4.zip just now, it works for me and there's a new feature the HDR. I need to update the first post)

2. You extract the files in the wrong way and wrong place. FXAA_Tool.exe, d3d9.dll and shader.fx should be in the same folder as TS3W.exe. There should be a child folder named injFX_Shaders. Please recheck the file and folder structure, it should be the same as in the zip file.

3. You forget to check the Toggle On/Off inside the Tabs of FXAA Tool.

4. Run the FXAA Tool with "Run as administrator" should help. (I'm not installing my games in Program Files folder, so I can't check the administrator stuff)
Theorist
#20 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 8:36 PM
Aha! It appears you must have 'edge smoothing' OFF in-game for this to work.

Thank Celebriton

#BlairWitchPetition
TS3 NEEDS: TENNIS COURTS > BUSES > PIGS/SHEEP
Can't find stuff in build and buy mode? http://www.nexusmods.com/thesims3/mods/1/?
Instructor
Original Poster
#21 Old 31st Dec 2011 at 11:54 PM
I tested the latest version of FXAA Tool, FXAAToolHg4.zip.

You can download here:
http://www.assembla.com/spaces/fxaa-pp-inject/documents

It add new feature HDR, and some changes in the menu.


My setting is:

AntiAliasing ON: 9 5 4 4 (default)

Sharpen above OFF
Sharpen below ON: 3 (default)

HDR ON: 2 2

Bloom ON: 2 2

ToneMap OFF

TechniColor OFF

Sepia OFF
Lab Assistant
#22 Old 1st Jan 2012 at 12:52 AM
NOTE: Please move ALL of the files into The Sims 3 Directory, If not you WILL get an error from the Program.
Lab Assistant
#23 Old 1st Jan 2012 at 1:10 AM Last edited by Simmie : 1st Jan 2012 at 1:52 AM.
Yeah! For some reason, I left the game alone for about an hour. Tried again, and it worked! Well, then I went insane and dragged all of the settings up to maximum! I reopened the game it it looked a little nicer! Whoever made this must be some kind of god. I thought it was impossible to make graphics better without lag! Ingame, I have smooth edges on medium, and anti-alising on maximum on the tool, and everything is so pretty! MY LIFE IS SAVED! Oh, and the surfaces on dressers and tables are more reflective and shinier! Amazing! :D

EDIT:

Just an idea, will this work with Sims 2? Not the exact same files as Sims 3 ones, even I know that's stupid. I'd love to find out, but I don't know how versions work, and I have a good legacy going on in Sims 2. Hence if my game breaks, I will break too.

CHOCKLAT.
Instructor
#24 Old 1st Jan 2012 at 4:50 AM
This sounds interesting. I've never heard of this tool before, but it could definitely be useful in a few games of mine...

Anyone else have any screenshots? I'm having a hard time telling the difference between the two versions.

"There's nothing to writing.
All you do is sit at a typewriter and open a vein."
-Walter "Red" Smith
Instructor
Original Poster
#25 Old 1st Jan 2012 at 4:56 AM Last edited by Celebriton : 1st Jan 2012 at 7:18 AM.
UPDATE! PLEASE TAKE NOTICE

I update the FXAA Tool to the latest version, FXAAToolHg4.zip. It's support HDR and come with already well-build default setting. Well, the default setting look good on other games, but not The Sims 3 since it makes the HUD gone crazy. FXAAToolHg4.zip change and fix many things from the version I recommended before. So much change that my previous recommendation became absolute and I need to update the first post to suit the latest FXAAToolHg4.zip.

So, please reread the first post and redownload again the FXAA Tool to the FXAAToolHg4.zip. And please reset again the setting to the new standard setting, it's include the HDR this time.


Quote: Originally posted by Simmie
...........................

EDIT:

Just an idea, will this work with Sims 2? Not the exact same files as Sims 3 ones, even I know that's stupid. I'd love to find out, but I don't know how versions work, and I have a good legacy going on in Sims 2. Hence if my game breaks, I will break too.


I already uninstall my The Sims 2, but it may works. Because I did with other games as well, like Dead Space 2, Assassins Creed Revelations and Dirt 3.

Just extract the files to the Sims 2 *.exe location. So simple!
Page 1 of 2
Back to top