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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 4th Oct 2021 at 11:42 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 3, World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Supernatural, University Life, Into the Future
Default High Resolution Display Issues in Windowed Mode
Hello!

I just did a clean install of Sims 3 on my new laptop, which runs at 3840x2160 resolution. The game scales properly in full screen mode, but when I try to run it in windowed mode the interface is so small I can barely read the text. No matter what resolution I choose in Settings the interface stays the same size - the only change that happens between resolutions is how big the background/border around the playable area is.

My usual fix of changing the high DPI settings in Properties does nothing except comedically bork the launcher and put an annoying, jagged black line over the top of videos, and I couldn't find anything relevant to this situation in the FAQ. What can I do to get windowed mode working properly? I really don't like full screen games since I don't get email notifications when a program takes up the whole display. Here's the information the instructions said to include:

OS: Windows 10
CPU: Intel Core i7-10750H at 2.6GHz
Memory: 16GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, 14GB of RAM, version 27.21.14.5763

Thanks!



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Test Subject
Original Poster
#3 Old 5th Oct 2021 at 12:13 AM Last edited by JulietElysa : 5th Oct 2021 at 12:30 AM. Reason: Update on experiment results.
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
actually im confused how you were able to get fullscreen mode to work differently.


When I first opened the game it gave me a message about it loading the default settings automatically since my graphics card is too new for it to understand. The screen size it chose was 1920x1080, and Windows scaled my screen accordingly. Gotta love when technology actually works! I'll try moving the file you mentioned just to see what happens, but I predict it'll be the same default it loaded the first time.

Edit: It did indeed choose the same settings, and reloading the program several times didn't do anything.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 5th Oct 2021 at 1:16 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
So the UI is static, basically it is like a graphics file and thus cannot be resized differently than the resolution. The game doesn't resize it differently than the 3D part. So if the UI is not shrinking down, it means your game is not actually running 1920x1080, but still running the window's native resolution at 4k.

I actually never came across this problem before, so I'm just posting from other links. I think there is a borderless window mod or program that may solve this problem. But I am unfamiliar with it. You can try searching the forums here b/c I know they mentioned it before.

----

Can you actually open your options.ini in your TS3 user folder and see what is the actual resolution it is saved? Then change the resolution to see if it is changed in the options.ini file.


There was a borderless window program I used several years ago. If I can find it I was thinking of trying it again, though I'm not sure how well it'll work with the scaling factor...

options.ini was indeed "resolution = 1920 1080 0" in full screen, and it did change when I changed the settings in game.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 5th Oct 2021 at 1:57 AM
I've found a borderless window program (Fullscreenizer) that works a bit too well - it hides the task bar, which I want to be visible. But at least Alt+Tab is seamless now, no need for Windows to step in and change the resolution back to normal. I guess it's better than nothing... :/
Test Subject
Original Poster
#9 Old 5th Oct 2021 at 4:18 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
I think the game is running at the resolution but somehow your Windows is displaying it back in 4k in the window. I have no experience in this area to help you, maybe someone else can @Igazor and it can be as easy as a driver update but I never recommend driver update unless something is wrong. Or it has to do with Windows setting (Win 10 I presume? which I don't have).


I have Windows 10, yeah. I have no idea how the settings and such work either, my happy place is Windows 2000.
Mad Poster
#10 Old 5th Oct 2021 at 12:45 PM
This is the borderless windowed mode solution that many of us use to get around such issues especially on Win 10, in case it's still any help.
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retired moderator
#11 Old 5th Oct 2021 at 12:57 PM
Are you all aware that the smooth patch from LazyDuchess has a borderless window option? Works great for me.
https://modthesims.info/d/658759/
Test Subject
Original Poster
#13 Old 6th Oct 2021 at 2:36 AM
Windowed Borderless Gaming was the first program I tried, and it did create a borderless window but it didn't scale/zoom to actually fill the screen. It just took up the upper left quadrant, since that's all 1920x1080 is on my high resolution monitor. The smooth patch was the same, though it may be helping somewhat with Create a Sim speed - even my new gaming laptop can't keep up with all the CC and mods I've downloaded!
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