Possible Solution for Getting Dedicated Nvidia Card to Work with Windows10
#1 12-04-2017 
  • Registered
  • 1
  • 1
Please excuse me if this is in the wrong part of the forum. I installed the Sims 2 and all expansion packs on my new laptop today using instructions I found here, and I think this might be useful to someone.
My laptop has two graphics cards, and Windows 10. Sims2 insisted on using the crappy Intel card instead of the Nivida GTX 970, so I worked my way through the guides here and finally got Sims2 to recognise the Nvida card. The logs showed it worked, but the game wouldn't load. Instead, I'd get weird resolution issues and a DX error message saying e_invalidarg. I thought I'd have to give up on the Nvidia card, but then I found that the Nvidia control panel has a compatibility setting - and it worked!

First, in case anyone else is daft like me- you need to apply the compatibility settings to the .exe file in the install folder of your latest expansion pack, not the stupid shortcut on the desktop which points to the launcher...
Also you need to have completed the instructions on this site for graphics rules and video cards, and making your own videocards.sgr such that when you view your log file the game has recognised your card. Set the .exe to run as administrator, I don't think I used any other compatibility settings from Windows.

1.Right click on the .exe =>Run with graphics processor=>change default graphics processor...
This opens Nvidia control panel ready to change your settings specifically for this program. If it hasn't automatically found your latest expansion go to add=>browse and add the program yourself
2.Go to
Select the preferred graphics processor - set it to the Nvidia card
3.Go to
Specify the settings for this program:
and scroll down to
Multi-display/mixed GPU acceleration:
Change it (from single display or multi display performance mode) to compatibility performance mode
If you know what you're doing here you might want to change some other settings to help things run smoothly. I do not know what I'm doing, so I just turned on anything that said "Use application settings".
Apply

If we're lucky, your game now runs beautifully on the Nvidia card!
If not I'm all out of ideas, but it seems to be working for me so far Big Grin

1
#2 27-04-2017 
Thanks for this - I will mark it as a FAQ.

0

Before you post requesting help
Information we need

  1. The -config-log.txt from the Logs folder in the My Documents\EA\The Sims2\ Click "full editor" below to attach a text file.
  2. Your operating System.
  3. What the problem actually is - that will be a picture to show the problem (optional), and accompanying text files that turn up (optional), and a detailed description of what happened, and what you expected to happen.


Sorry, that is a members only option