Blurry terrain textures?

[Eris]

Hi again So I finally re-installed all the EP's except Island Paradise. At first everything was great but I'm experiencing some weird graphics glitch or something: the terrain textures in all my worlds have suddenly gone blurry, as if the lot wasn't comnpletely loaded or something. Objects, plants and sims look fine, it's just the terrain. It's really annoying, specially for collecting. Here's a pic:



I was playing with High - Ultra graphics settings and everything looked perfect. Then I closed the game, and when I loaded it again it looked like this. I tried lowering the graphics to medium, cleaning caches, re-loading the game and restarting the computer, but nothing helped. The laptop is above minimum requirements with a 2.60 Ghz i5 processor, 8 GB RAM and a Geforce 820M graphics card. I'm running Windows 8.1, 64 bits. Any help? It looks awful!

[_Annika_]

It's possible that your laptop has reverted to using its inbuilt graphics card instead of the higher quality one? You need to
rightclick your desktop
select nvidea control panel
In the tree on the left, select manage 3d settings
Select the program settings tab
Add The Sims 3 to the list, and choose the graphics card that you want it to use.

[Eris]

Thanks Annika. I just checked - it was running with the dedicated graphics card. I changed the settings to High Performance mode (didn't know that existed, lol) but it's still the same. I'm starting to think this is a game glitch, since I've seen some topics in the official forums with the same issue. The strangest thing is that I read that painting over the original terran texture looks fine -  and it does! The painted texture looks perfect. The thing is, I can't paint the entire world. At least now my sim's lot looks decent though.

Edit: found a fix! I moved the options.ini file to my desktop to reset the game settings - I have grass again! I thought someone else could find this useful. I hope the glitch doesn't reappear when I change the settings again though, we'll see.

[Flynn Arrowstarr]

Hi, Eris. If this happens again, make sure Advanced Rendering is checked. Turning off Advanced Rendering removes the grass textures and terrain paints, but it will also improve the game's performance.

Hope this helps and happy Simming!

Flynn

[Eris]

Thanks Flynn! I checked and Advanced Rendering was on. However, I was experiencing some freezing in my game and turned it off yesterday to see if it helped - it didn't, but I got blurry textures again. I just turned it on again and reloaded the game and it was fine though. It certainly has an impact, even though it wasn't the cause of the issue the first time.

[_Annika_]

If you're experiencing freezing you may have stuck sims - which is a very common cause of freezing. If you know where they are you can reset them by name. If not, resetsim * will reset everyone.

[Eris]

Yeah, I tried that yesterday and it works for a while but the freezing always starts again after a while. It freezes every 2-3 sim-hours and lasts for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Really annoying. It only happens in this save file though, so I guess I probably have some kind of pathing bug in Isla Paradiso. I didn't have enough time yesterday but I think I'll go through the world deleting cars and that kinds of things. I hope that will help, but any other tips are welcome (I already cleaned the caches)

[MrsFlynn]

Hi Eris,

I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but I've created a tips thread that may help with some of the freezing issues you're experiencing.

Tips to Help with Sims 3 Crashing, Lag and Other Misc Tips.
http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,20732.0.html

And yes, Island Pardiso is buggy. It's got pathing issues that have never been fixed. However, if I remember correctly, there maybe some work arounds that may help it be a little more playable. The tips can be found in the following topic.

Topic: Does anyone have a lag-free game?
http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,16695.0.html

I hope this helps some

MrsFlynn

[_Annika_]

Someone at MTS made a version with some of the routing issues fixed. If you don't mind a "custom" world that could help. There are also tips on making it more playable.

[Eris]

Thanks to both, you're so nice!

So here's what I've tried so far:

-Tweaking graphics settings.
-Deleting parking lots from community lots.
-Cleaning inventories.
-Cleaning caches and FeaturedObjects folder (I set it to Read Only too)
-I always play with memories, pets, celebrities, vampires and interactive screens disabled. Rain and hail are also disabled as I find they slow down my game.
-Deleting older save-files.

I just installed the game a couple of weeks ago so I don't think a Factory Reset will help much. I will try it as a last resource though. Right now I'm downloading Error Trap and Overwatch and crossing my fingers. It's pretty unplayable at times, with freezes every 2-3 sim-hours lasting for at least 30 seconds real time. I also has a crash yesterday, which hadn't happened before. I've been playing again today and it hasn't crashed again though. I'm pretty sure this is caused by a a pathing issue since resetting town does help for a while. Someone in the second thread MrsFlyn suggested mentioned that a family in IP has a horse with pathing issues. I might try to find it. IP is my favorite world and I would hate to stop playing in it. If the mods don't work I think I will try the custom version from MTS.

[Eris]

Holy plumbob, Twallan is my new favorite persone ever! My game is now as smooth as I've ever seen it! ErrorTrap is constantly finding errors, particularly with Rubisel Ichatacha, a member of the Han household (don't remember the name now) and some dead sims. It also reports pathing issues with several houseboats. And the cars... don't get me started on the cars. There are so many of them that I had to set Overwatch to delete them hourly, because only once a day wasn't enough (and that considering I deleted all the parking lots!). We should give Twallan a sim-nobel prize or something 

[_Annika_]

Yes, Rubisel Ichtaca is one of the main problems - it's to do with his lot or the routing near it. The Ichtaca mansion also has some routing problems.

[Eris]

I think Rubisel is pretty bugged in general. I have noticed that he's never home, and even when he is (I had to reset to force him to be at home) my sim couldn't knock on his door to befriend him. He would just stand there for hours.
I have to say, I've never been much of a mod person, but these two are definitely keepers.

[pepoluan]

Just to make things clear: The "routing fixed" worlds in MTS are replacement files; they're supposed to replace the currently installed .world files in the EP's respective install directory. The fixes won't affect savefiles, though. So one have to start a new game, and use Twallan's Porter to move families/households to the new game.