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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 13th Jun 2022 at 4:24 AM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 3, World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Showtime, Supernatural, Seasons, University Life, Island Paradise, Into the Future
Default Sims hairs are pixelated in Create a Sim
Today I discover in create a sim that all the hairs are pixelated! Wherever there should be a highlight, it is not smooth, it is a pixelated mess. Fortunately it doesn't look that way in the game. In game, the graphics look awesome in my opinion but I don't know what's going on with CAS. It definitely was not like this the last time I made a sim which was maybe Dec last year. All day long I have been trying to remedy the situation but I am fed up. I try adding these shaders and graphic tweaks and stuff by LazyDuchess but I can't even install those! They're not working. I just want to cry, I'm so mad! I've spent so many hours the last week just trying to get my game the best it can be and now for this to happen and not be able to fix it, is just so freaking frustrating! I'll never be able to tell if a hair is ok or not or if it even looks good in CAS if I can't fix this issue which really just makes me wanna stop playing and go back to sims 2. Someone please help! I begeth of you! I've included images and if you zoom in on the images you can see the problem better.
Screenshots
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Forum Resident
#3 Old 13th Jun 2022 at 5:45 PM
How your game renders depend on your GPU/Integrated video card, settings and/or resolution. In this case, it is likely because you have Anisotropic Filtering on or too high which causes that noise. I found this out by checking my NVidia control panel settings but then found out that everything was reset because I updated my GPU recently. I also noticed this noise in my game but it didn't bother me and now I know which setting causes that effect. Though, now I'm not sure why I should even care about using the Anisotropic Filtering since my GPU renders TS3 nicely. But I'll have to check out more in-game differences though I'm sure it made a huge difference when I was using my GTX 660.

No Anisotropic Filtering


16x Anisotropic Filtering

Previous Game: Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition (100% riddles completed; now I know why I've always been fascinated with The Riddler, lol.)

Next Game: Batman Arkham City GOTY Edition
Instructor
#4 Old 13th Jun 2022 at 10:46 PM
Reshade, Sweetfx and any post processing tool could somehow mess up the texture quality of The Sims 3.

LGBTQ+. Fans of RAMMSTEIN, GOJIRA and Architects. Check out my favorite YouTube channels: Second Thought, Adam Something, Climate Town, and Not Just Bikes
Test Subject
Original Poster
#5 Old 14th Jun 2022 at 2:50 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Deshong
How your game renders depend on your GPU/Integrated video card, settings and/or resolution. In this case, it is likely because you have Anisotropic Filtering on or too high which causes that noise. I found this out by checking my NVidia control panel settings but then found out that everything was reset because I updated my GPU recently. I also noticed this noise in my game but it didn't bother me and now I know which setting causes that effect. Though, now I'm not sure why I should even care about using the Anisotropic Filtering since my GPU renders TS3 nicely. But I'll have to check out more in-game differences though I'm sure it made a huge difference when I was using my GTX 660.

No Anisotropic Filtering


16x Anisotropic Filtering



I sure wish I would have checked on this post before I uninstalled all my games lol. I could not figure out the issue. I had spent an entire day trying to find a solution. I uninstalled them all and then just installed the base game and checked to see if the problem was still there and I really wanted to just throw my computer when the problem had not gone away. I knew it was nothing I had done with mods or cc because I didn't have any in my game and I knew it wasn't my computer 'cause I have awesome graphics. A last ditch effort I decided to turn off all settings in my graphics settings and turn them on one by one and start the game after each one and then I found the culprit which was the Anisotropic Filtering like you said. I really don't know what all the settings do, I was just following a tutorial and someone had mentioned turning that on for better graphics so I didn't think anything of it. I had even forgot I had it on so when I was trouble shooting the graphic settings I wasn't even getting the pixelated hair anymore lol. It was the very last thing I tested.
Test Subject
Original Poster
#7 Old 14th Jun 2022 at 4:36 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
I'm a bit surprise myself that anisotropic filtering affected this b/c it is more for terrain texture. You notice on a flat view, the father away, the blurrer the ground becomes. anisotropic filtering makes it as sharp as it is close up no matter how far it goes.

personally I don't use it because i find it unrealistic. the ground should become blurry the farther away. the other thing is, the method affects also water. so with it on, you'll notice lakes, ocean, etc... are like not as smooth, pixilated with sharp dots, which is again unnatural for water.



Yeah I don't understand why that setting made the hairs do that. Nothing in the actual game was messed up. My game has always looked great to me. I'm just really confused because I looked up this anisotropic filtering and everything I have read said it should help improve the sims 3 so I'm really not sure why it had the adverse effect on my game. I have a great graphics card and cpu. I've never experienced any problems in any other game I've played when it comes to lag or game performance and I like to play games that are probably hard for others to play if they don't have a pc built for gaming such as the far cry games or elder scrolls games. The sims however do not like me lol.
Forum Resident
#8 Old 15th Jun 2022 at 6:42 AM Last edited by Deshong : 15th Jun 2022 at 4:43 PM.
After looking more into TS3 using anisotrophic filtering, the results showed this particular forum topic and posts from those with the same exact effect.
https://forums.thesims.com/en_us/di...-pixelated-hair

My current TS3 profile:


No Anisotropic Filtering (Personally, TS3 looks best without anisotropic filtering and that is because the color banding and dithering is much more blurred causing an effect of more gradual color gradients. Though it is still visible and always has been since the beginning, it's a lot smoother and better looking than with anisotropic filtering on. It's possible to try HD terrain paints rather than increasing the crispness of textures overall.)


16x Anisotropic Filtering (Color banding and dithering is more noticeable, but textures are less blurry. I'm not sure if it shows up much on screenshot but in game I can tell the difference. Also some settings set for TS3 profile using NVidia Control Panel can cause performance issues depending on computer configuration. Depending on game options, default skins/non-default skins may look more defined.)
Screenshots

Previous Game: Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition (100% riddles completed; now I know why I've always been fascinated with The Riddler, lol.)

Next Game: Batman Arkham City GOTY Edition
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