Mhmm, ok. In the meantime, could you also attach a copy of your last Sims2ep9_d3d9 log file during the session with the purple soup? They are very insightful into what might have happened.

Hello!

Back in early 2018 I bought my new laptop with Nvidia GTX 1060 with max q design graphics card with so much -naive- hope that I'd be able to play The Sims 2 in the best way possible. As you all know, it doesn't work that way I tried everything to fix the pink flashing soup and the crash problems but none helped, to the point that I had to get an older computer on the side to be able to play my game. But now this D9VK possibility seems hopeful! So I immediately gave it a try from the instructions in the docs file. The game doesn't boot, here are specifics;

-I use it with Origin, the Ultimate Collection.
-Attached are the two files generated in the EXE folder in SP9/TSBin
-Also the dxvk.conf file that I put there with the recommendations I saw.
-I run on the latest drivers of my Nvidia GTX 1060 with max q design graphics card
-I'm on Windows 10 64 bit
-On the graphics rules maker I forced the texture memory to 1024 mb.

My DxDiag
------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 9/22/2019, 13:21:04
Machine name: LAPTOP-RP7UKD1I
Machine Id: {F166DAAF-B340-4AFF-9C00-23D71CFC7C64}
Operating System: Windows 10 Home Single Language 64-bit (10.0, Build 17134) (17134.rs4_release.180410-1804)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: HP
System Model: OMEN by HP Laptop 15-ce0xx
BIOS: F.05 (type: UEFI)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 16342MB RAM
Page File: 7642MB used, 23700MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: 192 DPI (200 percent)
System DPI Setting: 240 DPI (250 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: UnKnown
Miracast: Available, with HDCP
Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Not Supported
DxDiag Version: 10.00.17134.0001 64bit Unicode

------------

Anyone got any ideas why it might not be working?
Thanks to everyone who's still trying to fix this problem. TS2 has such an amazing community. I hope soon we can come up with a solution to this problem that makes it impossible to play our game in newer machines.

Cheers!

The log seems scanty. Like super scanty.



and that's it

Is Vulkan working? Could you run the test EXE at https://github.com/skeeto/vulkan-test?

Also, what version of the Nvidia drivers are you using? Are you using Game Ready drivers or just the ones that came from the manufacturer?

Yes, Vulkan works! It says "Successfully created a Vulkan instance"
I have GeForce Game Ready Driver version 436.30, which shows as the latest version at the moment!

Hmm weird. Here are some thoughts.

Does the D3D9 log really end after line 12? Is it possible you copied it in the middle of the libraries writing it?

Could you make sure there's no compatibility mode enabled on The Sims 2's exe?

Could you install the Vulkan Runtime itself and reboot and try again? Maybe it's possible that the Vulkan stuff from the drivers might be messed up somehow and can't initialize, hence stopping after line 12.

Okay, here you go.

Thank you. I've put notes about your experience in the "Failure Cardboard Box (in some basement)" section of the doc which is right below the trophy case.

Well, I guess that's that then.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions!
I was just testing with an unmodded game and snow on the ground made it all pink flashing soup. Then I read your suggestions here;
It was on Windows 8 compatibility mode, so I disabled the compatibility.
I reinstalled the Vulkan Runtime from https://vulkan.lunarg.com/sdk/home#windows
After that, the game actually did boot up this time, it only generated the Sims2EP9_d3d9 file, and the pink flashing soup was gone from the save!

Now I wonder if this means it actually worked, or if my reboot of the game freed some texture memory for the snow to stay white and textured for the time being.
I will play a little longer to see if the texture memory seems to be filled up again.

If the more hardcore D9VK enthusiast/hobbyist who reads that guide has any ideas, I'll be sure to mention you and let you know. No guarantees though.

, in the meantime I've added a warning to the instructions to make sure compatibility mode is disabled. I wish you tried with just disabling compatibility mode first and seeing if that worked without having to go out and get the Vulkan runtime to establish causality. It's a good idea to make sure that is disabled anyway. Oh well. Looking forward to the report.

The game performs much much better now. It only crashed or showed pink flashes in understandable circumstances (When I installed my heavily modded game and some of my heaviest CC filled lots, of course they eat up a lot of texture memory, I'd have the same problem back on my old computers too.)
Thanks a lot for your help! I'm happy that finally something actually does help eliminate the pink flashing problem!

My only issue now is that the smooth edges setting won't work. It's not grayed out; I know it's a common Ultimate Collection problem and I made it available through graphics rules document; but even when I put smooth edges to "more", nothing changes. The edges don't change at all, still rigid. I wonder if it has something to do with this solution or not. I will keep searching for a fix for that.

Maybe the graphics card driver is forcing something there for AA and not letting the app control it or something. Check the graphics card driver settings and make sure there aren't overrides. Also, could you post your D3D9 log file anyway?

I tried with the AA settings of my graphics card but it didn't solve the issue. I will research more on it; I have the feeling that it might be about some graphics rules file problem.

I attached the D3D9 file here.

Can you attach your graphics rules file here too?

Attached!

So far I haven't managed to fix the AA problem. I changed all "uintProp antialiasingSupport" values to 3 but that didn't help.

Do you have a userstartup.cheat file? Could you upload that as-is? I still don't have an idea but I would like to collect that info.

D9VK is actually developed on Windows as a native Windows DLL but it is true a lot of the user base is on Linux.

Also attached now!

Oh! I was asking @child_of_air but it's interesting to see yours too.

Good news! The next release of D9VK addresses this issue.

https://github.com/Joshua-Ashton/d9...d926549ff11765c

Speaking of that, I've switched the guide over to using tagged and more formal releases uploaded on GitHub instead of the latest build off of master from the developer's build machine.

I actually figured out the issue. I edited the userstartup that is included with the Pineapple mod I have, to just switch it on and off. Then I put it into my downloads folder instead of a subfolder. Now it works.

Oh, that's nice even though it's not critical issue I'll try to play some more with newer version of D9VK when I have some time, but from what I've experienced so far, the game seems to run better with D9VK than before.

0.22 has been released and includes that fix. Also, that fix might be related to the Nvidia shadow bug. If you use D9VK, the shadow fix mod is no longer needed to get rid of the black rectangle shadows. In fact, I had to remove the mod to restore the rendering to black shadows. Additionally, more of the anti-performance behaviors of The Sims 2's renderer are now mitigated.

https://github.com/Joshua-Ashton/d9vk/releases/tag/0.22

Hi there,
first of all, thank you for the turtorial and thanks to Joshua Ashton for creating d9vk in the first place.
I too have a GTX 1070 and had problems with the flashing pink. After adding the d9vk files (along with all the other fixes such as graphic rules, 4GB patch,...), the empty and unmoded game loaded fine without pink flashing. A modern, low CC game loaded fine too. However, my quite large medieval game with about 6 GB of CC still shows some pink flashing. Sometimes I can load the neighborhood without pink flashing, but then I enter a lot and there is pink flashing - or there is none and I enter another lot where the flashing shows up again. The neighborhood is quite large and has 167 lots, as well as 805 character files. without d9vk, most of the time it was not loading at all, but just crashed or I could only load it with useshaders off, but even then there was some pink flashing.
So I'd say, the current state is an improvement and about the same as my old laptop. However I feel a bit sad, because my new laptop has 8GB of graphic memory and would love for Sims 2 to actually use that much - or at least more than 2 GB.
edit to say that 1792 MB in my graphic memory file does seem to be the sweet spot for me atm - still got pink flashing, but less than with other forced graphic memory entries.