Graphics Card of Suck? No Pond Fish & Snow Cursor
KatEnigma:
Your settings reset because EA always re-sets them whenever you install something new to how they think you can run. They are wrong a lot. LOL Yes, things are supposed to be more reflective. I assume you now need the usershader cheat because your card doesn't have enough pixel shaders to make EA think it can do it automagically. ::) It didn't reset on the laptop because it already was probably running in the lower DX7 settings.
To set up the startup file, open up notepad and put in all the cheats you want to run with all the time, one per line. Save as userstartup, and then go back and rename the file- instead of userstartup.txt, change it to userstartup.cheat and ignore Window's dire warnings about changing the extension. ;) Place it into your Config folder inside My Documents/EAGames/TheSims2
Kralore:
Quote from: KLGFCG on 2007 March 01, 17:46:19
I tried the useshader cheat but still no fish in ponds. I don't really care - as long as they can catch them (they can) they don't need to see 'em.
I'm a bit concerned that it's a symptom of another minor issue I'm having, however. Before Seasons, all my graphics were on high by default (except shadows which I turned off - personal preference) with no problems. After Seasons, everything had been reset to low. I changed it all back and there are no obvious lagging problems but why would that happen? My computer is waaaay more than adequate (specs: 3.4 GHz CPU, 2046 MB RAM, Radeon X300 series with 128 MB memory) for the game. Also, many of my objects now look "shinier." Like more reflective or something. Finally, the fish in the tanks disappeared for me without the useshader cheat - again, never an issue in the past. None of these issues are huge or uncorrectable, but I'm a little worried as to why my game suddenly thinks my set-up is poor. The weird thing is this only happened on my desktop - my less-good laptop (specs: 3.0 GHz CPU, 766 MB RAM, NVidia GeForce Go5200 with 64 MB memory) didn't reset and doesn't have any of the shaders/reflectivity issues. Any thoughts or anyone having the same experience?
By the way, since I'm obviously having a problem with the whole shaders thing, how does one go about setting up a startup cheat file so I don't have to type the cheat every time I play now?
No fish in ponds... As ZiggyDoodle mentioned, ponds need to be a minimum of 4x4 area, and 2 squares deep.
Graphic settings resetting to low... Starting with I belive Open for business, EA raised the minimum specifications for the game quite a bit. When you install Sims 2 or any of the expansion packs, there is a setup file that is used to check what your system specifications are. It's a preset checklist the game uses. It has 3 sections to it, Low, Medium and High, in each section it has checks to see if your computer can use that particular setting level. Until OFB your system may have been meeting the requirements for the High setting. Now the game considers your system below spec and is setting you at low by default. (I know it doesn't make sense considering your system, but most likely there is one item in the checklist that your system is low on.)
Pixel Shading is one item in particular in the checklist that if you don't have a very hefty system EA/Sims 2 will turn it off by default. With Seasons EA has made more use of pixel shaders in the game and I think this may be the reason your finding things more reflective in your game. (I would need to see a screenshot to know what you consider more reflective :)).
To have the game put shaders on full time, you just need to create a Userstartup.cheat file that gets placed in the config folder in your My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2 folder. Snootysims.com has a quick tutorial on this in the cheat section, but it's simply a matter of opening notepad, typing in "boolprop useshaders true" (no quotes), then saving the file with the filename Userstartup.cheat (there will be a dropdown list box when saving that says filetype and says .txt, you can change this to all filetypes and the file will be saved without the .txt extension on it.)
Hope this helped.
KLGFCG:
Thanks for the replies. I knew about the OFB changes but I'm just a little confused by this new default low level because I didn't have even a hiccup with Pets (I have all the EP's and stuff packs) and I can't find any significant system requirements differences between Pets and Seasons. Is there any way to know what criteria I'm failing? It wouldn't bother me so much except I'm just not sure how I can go from high default levels to absolute bottom of the barrel when there aren't any major new requirements. As I said, I manually reset everything to high without my computer going 'splodie so right now I'm telling myself that the game is just confused. I should probably update my drivers at some point, but I'm on dial-up at home (rural living is fun) so 30 MB files just don't happen. Time to borrow the connection at work, I suppose. Or, I guess I could look into a new graphics card, I toyed with the idea a while ago but figured I wasn't having problems so why bother.
As for the reflectivity issue, the biggest problem was on three custom objects from MTS2 - they were decorative laundry detergent boxes. They were so blinding that the wording couldn't be read and I just deleted them (they were fine before). On everything else so far it's not bad, just a bit shiny. On some objects it even looks nicer so I'm not too concerned.
I'll double check the size on my ponds but I think they were meeting the requirements (they were huge ponds-- I'm not sure on the depth but they didn't look shallow). Again, I don't really care and in fact, in some screenies I didn't really like the look of the fish.
In all, none of these problems are earth shattering, just a bit baffling. I really appreciate the info on the startup cheats though... I've never needed it before so I never really paid attention. Ah well. Thanks again for all the pointers though-- very helpful and informative!!
ZiggyDoodle:
Well, I just got EP5 loaded and played one lot in Pleasantview which has a large and deep pond. Fishies galore - big ones. Noticed that the EP automatically fancied up the family pool with neat tile edging.
Had some issues with CC, so I applied the Bodyshop tip (move your downloads folder out of the game folder, start up Bodyshop, close Bodyshop, move downloads folder back in) and everything is fine and dandy.
My graphics settings remained the same as with Pets (am running an ATI Radeon X850XT card).
Winter will arrive in Pleasantview tomorrow, since there's a blizzard pounding against my house right now. With any luck, I'll be snowed in and unable to get to the office.
Kralore:
Quote from: KLGFCG on 2007 March 01, 19:02:38
Is there any way to know what criteria I'm failing? It wouldn't bother me so much except I'm just not sure how I can go from high default levels to absolute bottom of the barrel when there aren't any major new requirements. As I said, I manually reset everything to high without my computer going 'splodie so right now I'm telling myself that the game is just confused.
The file you want to look at is called Graphics Rules.sgr you will find it a folder where the seasons expansion is actually installed. If you used the default location I think it would be Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 2 Seasons\TSData\Res\Config
Open the Graphic Rules.sgr with notepad and you will see the information the game checks to see what level to set your game at. I've already found the culprit though, about half way down there is an if/then check. This isn't quoted exact but it says if videocard is x1300, x300, xpress 200 then set shaders to false and force low setting. I'm not exactly sure why those 3 cards are in a specific system check. I have an x1300 and have no issues with shaders on etc. But there is the reason why you are defaulting back to low when installing a new expansion.
Quote from: KLGFCG on 2007 March 01, 19:02:38
As for the reflectivity issue, the biggest problem was on three custom objects from MTS2 - they were decorative laundry detergent boxes. They were so blinding that the wording couldn't be read and I just deleted them (they were fine before).
That has more to do with poorly created objects, and with Seasons doing more with the pixel shading/reflectivity of the game, it made them that much more blinding.
Quote from: KLGFCG on 2007 March 01, 19:02:38
I'll double check the size on my ponds but I think they were meeting the requirements (they were huge ponds-- I'm not sure on the depth but they didn't look shallow). Again, I don't really care and in fact, in some screenies I didn't really like the look of the fish.
I think the Prima Guide may be wrong about the minimum depth of a pond to see fish. I had to make my pond quite deep before I started seeing the fish.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page