Hello all. Recently I've decided to install Sims 3 on my regular, non-gaming computer as a way to play the base game only. The version I've installed is the 2009 vanilla base game, so it's version 0.0.0.11195. The game, however, gives me the dreaded warning that it can't recognize my card, which would cause performance issues. About 7 years ago, I had the graphics card/rules modified for my gaming laptop specifically which helped fix that old issue, but I'm unsure if I asked for help here or on the Carl's site. On my regular laptop, I have an AMD A6-9225 RADEON R4. On my gaming laptop, it was an R6.

I've tried following tutorials on my own on how to modify the files to the best of my ability, but it's all gibberish to me...and all the tutorials I've watched have NVIDIA drivers...which I don't have, so it doesn't help me at all.

I've tried downloading from both Reddit and Carl's forums, modified versions of the Rules/Cards that supposedly recognize modern graphics cards. I've tried both files, but when I place them in the Bin folder, the game won't launch at all.

I've also tried installing and using that "mod" that is a patcher that will automatically fix your Rules/Cards for you...TS3 GPU Add-On...but once again, if I do that, the game will not run.

The game only runs if I have the original sgr files, and I don't know what to do. It still says the "Found: 0, Matched: 0". I've seen a couple other fixes, but those were for Steam only, or for later versions of the game, when I specifically only want to run the fresh out of the 2009 case Sims 3.

I would attach my DeviceConfig, GraphicsRules, and GraphicsCards in a zip/rar file, but every time I try to do that here, it keeps giving me "Error 102." And I really don't want to join the MTS Discord for just this one thing...

Can anyone help me with this? I'd greatly appreciate it.

Are you specifically trying to play unpatched base game, or did you just want to play base game in general?
I don't have much insight into the issue itself, but there is a tool here called Sim Game Selector that I use to play with specific packs.
You could also download the superpatch to bring that copy up to 1.67.

Not being on the latest patch is very likely related to why it won't take a pre-made file, you would most likely need to make the edit yourself if you need it to be unpatched.
You could potentially just use the wildcard (asterix *) in GraphicsRules to get it to accept anything you add to the list, ie. or match("${cardName}", "*") after the final cardName but before the very last bracket.

Hey, yeah, I'm wanting to play the unpatched base game, because it has things I like more (ie ghosts that walk and have weird creepy noises instead of voices). When whoever it was helped me years ago, it also was the unpatched base version and that didn't have any problems. I suppose I'll try what you suggested. I just don't quite know where to place it.

EDIT, HOURS LATER:

I found a tutorial on reddit that was much easier to follow, and it worked! Sorry to waste everyone's time.