Hello, I just started having an annoying issue with my game. When I run the game in fullscreen mode, the game looks significantly darker than it should be. If I run it in windowed mode, the brightness is correct, but I can't stand running it windowed. If you take a screenshot while playing fullscreen, the game looks totally fine, which makes me think the game is displaying improperly or something. I've tried updating my drivers, updating the game to the latest patch (1.57), running it in compatibility mode, running as admin, taking out my cc and mods, nothing works.

I did recently upgrade my graphics card from an integrated one to a Radeon HD 7850, but the game's brightness was fine after upgrading up until about last week. The last time I remember playing and it being normal is August 30th, but I haven't done anything to my computer between then and now. Googling the problem led to a lot of people reporting the same problem, but only after tabbing out of the game. Mine does it immediately from launching it. A solution they suggested was upping the game's refresh rate and then cancelling the change after it switches, but this didn't help me.

Here are some comparison pictures:

Fullscreen:


Windowed:


Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Have you tried opening task manager and terminating a process named igfxpers.exe? Just make sure it's your username the process runs under, not system or something else.

(I'm not entirely sure how this method works on dedicated graphics, but you could give it a try. The worst case scenario is that you have one process less. )

I knew I was forgetting something in my first post; that was the other fix people suggested. I've scoured task manager and I don't have that process. : /

I'm running on Windows 8, if that helps at all.

Hey, I fixed it! I was looking on the TS3 forums and in the problems with Windows 8 thread, someone said that they had the same issue when running TS3 in compatibility mode. Strangely enough, turning off compatibility mode makes it the correct brightness! Woo! I guess that means its a Windows 8 problem.

Thanks for replying, though! : )

Gah! That figures. I was having huge issues with the game lagging before, and it loaded much faster, when I made it compatible with W8. But it loaded dark. -.-' So my options are slow and clear, or fast and dark... *sigh* Slow and clear, it is.

I'm glad you knew the answer, though. You've saved me several frustrated weeks of cursing/intermittent searching.

Hey there, I know i'm like 3 years late but I did find a solution. Well Technically it's not much of a long term solution but it works for me every time like a charm :P
Actually I happen to have two solutions:
1) If you have NVIDIA Graphics card then I suggest you download the GeForceExperience program. Run the program after you open it and it'll automatically acknowledge the games in your PC. After that click on the sims 3 You'll need to Optimize your game before running it.



After you optimize it, fire up your game and if the problem still persists then try my other solution. Bare with me this is very easy I promise. The only bad thing is that you'll need to do it every time you fire up the game

In the sims 3 while your game is running
1) click on the options menu and click options
2) Make sure you are on the Screen options tab
3) Change your screen refresh rate and voila :lovestruc :lovestruc :lovestruc





If you have any questions feel free to message me and I'll be happy to help
Happy Simsing <3

After reading and trying many suggestion I’m still unable to resolve my issue of the worlds being WAY to dark. So much so, it’s impossible to play. I will continue to scour the internet.

Old thread but I now have this problem all of the sudden. My game is fine in CAW but in EIG or the actual game it is too dark to play now.

edit: I just made some adjustments and can at least play in windowed even though I do not like that, but at least it is playable that way.

edit: I cannot edge scroll in that! I will go nuts if cannot do that.

I need to bump as still have this issue. I have read everything I can find on this and nothing is working. I got this CPU in August and Sims was fine then. I now have the choice of either unplayable too dark full screen or windowed which drives me totally nuts no edge scrolling. So game is pretty unplayable to me either way. As a last resort I read that a graphics card driver update or Window one may have been the culprit?

Do I dare delete the driver for my graphics and then try to install an older one? And I have not looked into if there is a way to roll back windows updates? Has anyone done this to fix Sims issues and did it work?

All help is appreciated. I have a GeForce RTX 3070 and this has Windows 11. All was fine when I got this. Now all has gone to heck.

I really do not know how to help, but can say that I have seen threads where driver updates were an issue.

First check your GPU settings. Maybe CAW is running on whatever windows GPU, and Sims on Nividia, or the opposite? If so, you need to make adjustments to either set TS3 to run on Nividia and make adjustmentments to those settings? I'm NOT a GPU set up pro, but if that is the problem, hopefully someone might know what to do with Win 11.

Before trying this, check Microsoft site to be sure you can reload anything you may remove!

To "rollback" to an older driver, I guess you can check Microsoft downloads? As for updates, similar. I regularly remove update from this machine, but it's Windows 10. Again, I guess you can do a search for the proper way to remove Win 11 updates.

I just renamed my game and generated a new one. When I did I got the popup the game does not recognize my graphics but before the game was fine. I need to research a heck of a lot. OR I may see if can play still on laptop at other location and if so can see if never update it again? It is on 10.

It is so irritating that this played 3 beautifully at max settings a few months ago and now all is a hot mess.

My gaming laptop almost never goes online. I don't think that one has been FORCED to update in 2 years (Win 10). This, is the travel laptop, an older Lenovo (Win 10). I do use it online (obviously, since I am here, now, typing). It seems that after every update, any time I click anything, I get to look at a blue spinning circle for at least 1 minute before anything loads. I remove the updates and all is good. I guess Apple slowing iPhones with updates and getting caught, has not deterred Microsoft.

I have some things you could try. Take a look in your computer settings for anything to do with adaptive (screen) brightness, or power saving modes. Turn off adaptive brightness, and make sure your power isn't being throttled when playing fullscreen. Where these settings are depends upon your OS, as well as your drivers and what manufacturer's sodtware you have. For example, when I purchased a HP laptop it came with all kinds of HP programs that dealt with power saving and eco-settings, and generally trying to make batteries last longer and power consumption lower. These sometimes override the Windows 'control panel' settings so check those as well as your OS settings. There may ne a BIOS setting for some computers- backlight control- that can be toggled to prevent screen dimming, and also some monitors/ TVs may have settings to auto-dim or perhaps detect ambient light.
These articles may help:
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/moni...een-games-on-pc
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/fix-...-on-full-screen
https://appuals.com/screen-dims-dur...l-screen-games/

Thank you! This is a desktop with 11 I got in August and my laptop with 10 at another location is a few years old. I still have my old laptop with Vista but it probably cannot handle all of the Sims I have. I will check out your suggestions and links.

This is an issue with EA's own fullscreen. Basically, they apply a filter to correct (or hide, rather) the blown out gamma- which recording and screenshot software don't 'see' when they are capturing the screen.
It would seem like some graphics cards are also bypassing the effect.

I know it's not the solution everyone wants, but playing in borderless windowed mode both fixes this and has a number of other performance/stability benefits. I abandoned edge scrolling for right click panning a long time ago, as I have multiple monitors anyway. It's tricky to relearn, but I don't find that any efficiency is lost.
You can either use an app such as Borderless Gaming to force the fake fullscreen, or there is also an option built into LazyDuchess' Smooth Patch. Just make sure not to use the package files from that if you have NRaas MasterController.

I have never tried that. Thank you! Maybe that will make the game playable for me again. Thank you! Off to try....

edit: Thank you a million times. I will have to get used to that but can live with that so can play in windowed so not dark. I have the resolution set to match my monitor so do not even see edge. But I will make smaller so controls are bigger for me.

Thank you!