So I just bought a shiny new laptop and, although I somehow managed to get Sims 2 installed and running, the graphics aren't good.

I googled around and found out this was probably because it just doesn't recognise my graphics card and therefore it resets to the default options. Now, I found this thread but whenever I bring up the screen resolution window and go to advanced settings, it just shows me info for my integrated Intel HD graphics. This is not what I want.

I also found this thread which tells me to run "dxdiag" to find the device I need. I've followed the instructions and got the .txt file with everything in it, but my NVIDIA graphics card isn't showing up under Display Devices. It's showing up under System Devices and the Device ID that is giving me is: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1292&SUBSYS_1963103C&REV_A1\4&1EEE4BDD&0&0008

Which I'm fairly certain isn't what I'm looking for either.

Can anybody help me with this? I'll be eternally grateful!

P.S. I have already set the Nvidia card as the default one for the game, I'm running Windows 8 and the graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce 740M. Don't tell me it's because it's a laptop - I've only ever run the game on laptops and never had this problem with lesser cards.

Your device id is

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1292&SUBSYS_1963103C&REV_A1\4&1EEE4BDD&0&0008

so, it would be written down in the Video Cards sgr file as follows:

---> card 0x1292 "GeForce GT 740M"

Thank you so much! Ok - I'm going to give this a go!

Right, so. I added that to the end of the list of NVIDIA Graphics Cards and now I get an error message saying the game couldn't find any DirectX 9.0 compatible graphics devices or something (see attached screenshot).

Is there something else I need to change too?

Ah yes. For DirectX 9.0c, you may have to install it separately. DirectX 11 on Windows 8 isn't backwards compatible, from what I understood from this gamer having issues with playing a game using DirectX 9.0c on Windows 8. According to the responder, you may have to install DirectX 9.0c to make Sims 2 work.

Although, I don't know why The Sims 2 runs without the graphics cards listed. Would it be using DirectX 11, and if so, how could it if it's asking for DirectX 9.0c? Maybe it's the graphics card that doesn't recognize DirectX 9.0c, and that backwards compatibility issues is with the graphics card itself.

I thought there was a thread that discussed the issue of later Windows operating systems not playing Sims 2 properly, but being able to get around that? It should probably be documented or stickied on top of this sub-forum.

Unfortunately, those threads are in the Discussion forum:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=489876
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=500523

Ah, shoot, even more bad news. But for some reason, some expansion packs are compatible with Windows 8. Weird.

See, that's weird. Because I had no issues getting the games installed. I mean, yeah, I had to copy the TSData and TSBin folders across from my old computer but that wasn't really that much of a hassle. Once I'd done that, BOOM! Everything installed and the game started first try.

The only issue is ugly blue water and no smooth edges. Also low res grass in hood view (but not in lot view). If I install DirectX 9.0, will that affect DirectX 11? Or is it possible to have both on your machine at once?

If you install DirectX 9.0c, it will not effect DirectX 11, as Windows 8 treats them like two separate programs. As for whether current or future games on the computer will try to use the 9.0c version instead of 11, I don't know for sure. You'll have to try installing 9.0c on the computer, then see what happens, I guess.

To find the ID you need to put in, go here and read for this will help you to find the Hex # for your Card . http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?topic=8641.0

Ok, so I've installed DirectX 9.0c but nothing seems to have changed.

However! Even though I had set my game to run with the NVIDIA card by default, I wanted to be doubly certain so I completely disabled my onboard Intel one and....the game wouldn't start at all.

Also my config-log is only showing the Intel graphics so it seems my game is just determined to use Intel rather than NVIDIA. Any suggestions on how to change this? Would it just be the same as getting the game to recognise any new graphics card? Or is it different because there's two for it to choose from?