Recognising Newer Graphics Cards for Sims2

I was thinking about getting a new graphics card; is it only some that are having problems? Are there any cards that you recommend? I'm very non techy and it would be our tech friend who will be installing the card as well as some more RAM.

Hi, the Graphics Card are fine, its just a matter of having the card's abilities recognised. I chose ATI Radeon 7800 a year ago as the best value for money. But to be honest, it's going to be different now. Your techy friend would probably have a better idea on what's good now.

Once you've chosen one, it's a fairly simple process to get your game to recognise it's awesomeness.

Hi, pardon me for jumping in, but I was directed here from Mod The Sims and you seem to have a handle of the problem I'm having. I'm stuck on 600x800, and my config.log.txt file shows my texture memory is at 32 MB. And the problem started last week after a Windows 7 update was installed. So, I'm inclined to think that's the problem. Since I don't want to uninstall the Windows update, I'd like to go with your other suggestion of manually setting the texture memory. Two questions: Is that value set by the .sgr file, and where is it found? And, what value should I substitute? My properties are showing Total Available Graphics Memory of 4351 MB; is that the number I'm looking for? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Bill, Kiri is in Australia so you might have to wait for her to get back to you.

Hi Bill,

The Graphics Rules.sgr is where you'll need to set it up. It can be found in the folders:

\<Your Latest Game>\TSData\Res\Config\
\<Your Latest Game>\TSData\Res\CSConfig\

You'll need to change it in both.

The value that I suggest is 1744MB and that's the one that my game currently uses for my card which is a AMD Radeon 7800. If you have a previous copy of config-log.txt, you can see the value that you previously had. Otherwise you need to pick a number that is greater than 128Mb, but less than your Current system. From feedback I've received, it seems that if you pick a number greater than your system can handle it slows the game down considerably.

Value-wise, I'd try half that value from your game card, which would be more than adequate and it would definitely have the game going at a cracking pace - without overtaxing the card.

Let me know how you go.

Thanks for the reply, Kiri. So far, no luck.

What I did:

I altered the Graphics Rules.sgr file in these two locations:
C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Mansion and Garden Stuff\TSData\Res\Config
C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Mansion and Garden Stuff\TSData\Res\CSConfig

I searched each file for "texture memory" and wherever I found a line that seemed to be setting a value, like:
seti textureMemory 32
I changed it to:
seti textureMemory 1744

Loaded the game and I'm still stuck at 600x800. The config-log.txt file still shows: Texture memory: 32MB

M&G is the newest pack I have, but it was purchased on-line, so the disk I'm using to load the game is Uni. Do I perhaps need to alter the files in the Uni directory?

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

You need to put the line up near the top - where it is setting it to 32Mb is already too late. It's already set the graphics resolution to low -

#############################################################################
#
# Constants
#

seti Off 0
seti On 1

seti Low 1
seti Medium 2
seti High 3

seti memoryLevelHigh 512
seti memoryLevelMedium 384
seti memoryLevelLow 256
seti memoryLevelUnknown 0

seti cpuLevelHigh 2800
seti cpuLevelMedium 2200
seti cpuLevelLow 1000
seti cpuLevelUnsupported 0

# Kiri - manually setting texture memory
seti textureMemory 1744

Up near the top you will see this bit of code - include the bolded message there (it's in the constants section).

Ah, I didn't realize I was adding a new line. I did that, and I'm still stuck. I am seeing a few differences in my constants, though.

#############################################################################
#
# Constants
#

seti Off 0
seti On 1

seti Low 1
seti Medium 2
seti High 3

seti MediumButDefaultLow 4

seti memoryLevelHigh 512
seti memoryLevelMedium 384
seti memoryLevelLow 256
seti memoryLevelUnknown 0

if ( match("${osVersion}","*NT 6.0*") )
seti cpuLevelHigh 3000
seti cpuLevelMedium 2600
seti cpuLevelLow 2000
log $logGroup $logLevelInfo "Setting cpu level for Vista."
else
seti cpuLevelHigh 2800
seti cpuLevelMedium 2200
seti cpuLevelLow 1450
log $logGroup $logLevelInfo "Setting cpu level for non-Vista."
endif

seti cpuLevelUnsupported 0

# Kiri - manually setting texture memory
seti textureMemory 1744

#############################################################################

Does anything there stand out as a problem?

Can you attach your config log file for me - I suspect that the latest change, has affected something else as well.

I'll give it a try.

Attached File(s)

  BILL-HPE-config-log.txt (Size: 10.28 KB / Downloads: 776)