Before trying this, do look at the Alternate Non-DXVK approach in Testing: http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=641364 first
===

This really isn't the same as Jessa's fix (though our goals are identical) so I'm posting this as a separate thread for development, research, and comments.

Guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/...G6qfaI6rOs/edit

Original Posts and some other poster's comments in Jessa's Thread: https://modthesims.info/showthread....379#post5569379

@redandvidya , I'm not quite certain why they deleted your thread a month ago but I think you have my posts beaten by about a month. FYI.

Hi! I updated my local version of D9VK by downloading the latest master today again and noticed difference in GPU memory usage. The game no longer reserved 3,7 GB from the go, instead it used it as needed. After an hour of gameplay on university dorm, about 500mb was used. Earlier D9VK I used was from 11th day. Gameplay was as stable as before.

I do have like 450 warnings in d3d9 log file about:
"warn: D3D9DeviceEx::QueryInterface: Unknown interface query
warn: 580ca87e-1d3c-4d54-991d-b7d3e3c298ce"

But as I said, gameplay was stable.

DX9 is kinda mysterious beast, there was never released proper and complete documentation- it's quite possible that MS itself just got lost in these numerous versions along the way. Also: DX9 never was, and sadly: rather never will be, among others for described reason, full implementation of DX9 in the wine API reconstruction.
Also: bear in mind that wine is still not officially in full release state (4.1 is 'stable' but it's still 'stable beta release') and DV9K is considered "experimental", even more experimental in alien (like Windows) environment. Still, for Windows' standards of programming quality it's well above "normal" or even "good".

BTW: speaking of experimental - have anyone tried one of these "economic" DX9 compilers? Like that one popular some time ago among Elder Scrolls players on crappy hardware? It was basically a cut compiler with most of the advanced shading/fog/lightning etc. capabilities disabled or simplified (of which use Bethesda seriously sucks to this day, even in much easier to maintain DX12 code).

I'd love to hear about people's experiences using this.....I'm a bit hesitant to try it out just yet.

D9VK is a fast moving project so the memory thing doesn't surprise me. Things are definitely in a warnings, but it still works state. That said, they are screwing around with texture format and shader stuff though so the Nvidia shadow fix doesn't have to be used so these kind of log statements are definitely coming up on their logs/radars.

I should put uninstall instructions in the guide. It's deleting the two DLL files installed. That's it.

There's also a "Success Trophy Case " section in the guide if you'll like to read about some experiences. That said, I did try suggesting D9VK for something non-purple soup though (some fullscreening issue) and it did not work.

So, I followed your directions and now my game just acts like it's going to load, but doesn't. I just get a white screen and nothing happens. My card is an Nvidia 1060. Any ideas?

Please attach the Sims2EP9_d3d9.txt log that gets generated next to the Sims 2 exe. It’ll be very helpful.

@crazysim I deleted the thread because it contained wrong info, according to my dear friend Tannis (https://github.com/tannisroot)

Sure thing! If you could help that would be great, as I am about to completely uninstall windows 10, as it won't let me roll back the updates! GRRR

Wow! ✔️Latest Drivers. ✔️Latest D9VK. A couple of new default parameters to fight off flickering have landed in master too which I can see are now effective in your log. I haven't tested them yet but hopefully it's not a regression.

The VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST thing is the graphics card driver crashing. When I first started messing with D9VK, I saw the same thing too. I had to make a "dxvk.conf" file with the contents "d3d9.maxAvailableMemory = 1435973836" to get it to boot. The project then made the default 3.5GB, which still caused crashes for my RTX 2080 and then I sent in a change to make it 2GB which didn't crash.

My suggestion would be to also make a "dxvk.conf" file next to the Sims 2 EXEs and try "d3d9.maxAvailableMemory = 1435973836" and then go lower as needed.

Also, I am interested if you've used Graphics Rule Maker or if not. Did you tell it to "Force memory size"? If so, to what size? Could you also attach "Graphics Rules.sgr"?

I'll also give the newest D9VK a test once I'm back on my RTX 2080 machine.

Yup! I followed your instructions to the T. I did make a new graphics rules, and put down 4095 into the memory, which is what was available according to the program. Please go into detail about this new file you want me to make. Do I just make it with notepad? If it only gives me 2 gigs, doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? I run a heavily modded game for my Homestead Challenge, and the whole point of this experiment was so I could use the Pineapple post processing mod, as I was without any glitches before the stupid windows update. Now it's what is giving me pink flashing, aside form also being able to play the game for only about 2 hours. I *need* to be able to do that, otherwise....I'll just go back to windows 7 if I have to.

Pineapple mod I was talking about: https://pineapple5050.tumblr.com/po...ct-skyfix2-pond

Edited to add: That didn't work. :/

Yeah just make the file with notepad. Make sure the file extension is .conf and not .txt. Also, for every "didn't work", please also attach the Sims2_EP9_D3D9 log with the latest attempt. That said, maybe hold off on the dxvk.conf thing.

You have some bizzare settings though. You've used Graphics Rules Maker to spec 4GB of memory, but the d3d9 log says you have a GTX 1060 with 3GB of VRAM. 4 > 3. I'm not sure how that was going to work, D9VK or Windows 7 DX9. Could you also try 2GB or 2048 with Graphics Rules Maker too? I understand you're running things heavily modded but could we also try seeing if everything (D9VK, Graphics Rules) at 2GB is working and actually adequate for your mods?

I just followed the directions on the Graphics Rules Maker, that's it. Perhaps the program is getting the 4095 number from the patch that I used? I don't know. It worked so I didn't question it. Also, I think my mistake is that the file was still txt. How do I get it to be a .conf file? I tried doing a "save as" but since I don't have linux or anything, it didn't work. (Isn't that a linux extension?) That probably sounds like a stupid question, but I have a severe case of pregnancy brain right now, lol.

I'm not sure where the 4095 number could come from. Maybe it was set from a guide you were following. I don't recall that field being pre-filled with any particular value on install. Either way, let's try 2048 and maybe iterate lower numbers in there .

As for the .conf thing. If you do Save As, and change the type to "All Files (*.*)" and then for the filename put in "dxvk.conf", it'll save the file with the .conf extension. That said, let's hold off editing that before the Graphics Rule Maker thing.

Anyway, if you are in SoCal, let us not stay up too late and get some rest and try to tune this a bit more tomorrow well rested. I'll also check out your tumblr and see if I can replicate some of your crazy setup on my RTX 2080 and if I can get that to all work.

Okay, so I was able to change the resolution with graphics rules maker to 2048. I put in the files, didn't work. Then I was able to change the txt file into a conf file, and put it in my game just to see what would happen. The game loaded up, no problem whatsoever. However I then got the pink flashing of the actual sim when I went into CAS, which is what the pineapple mod does now since the updates. When I went into the neighborhood view, EVERYTHING was flashing pink! It was a nightmare. I've actually NEVER seen the pink flashing as badly before. I must conclude then that for whatever reason, this solution doesn't work for me at all. You keep saying I have a crazy setup, but I just have a stand gaming machine that I bought pre-built and pre-loaded. At Electronic Fry's it was pretty standard, and I didn't change anything about it because everything was pretty good- I can run all games except the sims without any issues.
If you have any more ideas, I'm totally open to them, but otherwise I'm probably just going to install Windows 7 again. I didn't want to have to do that, as I know they will stop updating it in 2020, and now is my chance to really play and enjoy my game before my baby comes. I don't know what else to do. Apparently there won't be able more windows 10 updates for awhile.

EDIT: Nevermind this paragraph. See latest post. Ah, please don't put in the .conf at the same time. We want Force Texture Memory to be lower than the D9VK config value. To be on the safe side, let's have the Force Texture Memory value at 1536 and also not have the .conf file to revert D9VK to the default 2GB max emulation.

As for "crazy setup", I was referencing to your Sims 2 loadout with these kinds of shader mods installed and the odd "Force Texture Memory" value. Your machine is quite standard and actually very representative of the normal albeit lower end setup I had in mind for users with issues. The fact you bought it at Fry’s is not much different than the Costco example I laid out in my guide. That said, you're actually probably the first (a pioneer! ) to try to go through the guide to try and get their heavily graphically modded game to work again with modern Windows 10.

That said, it’s very encouraging to see Force Texture Memory have an effect. I can’t tell you how pissed I was over the last year with that having no effect positive nor negative before D9VK for my issues.

I've read your post a bit more closely again. I think I missed something.

The behavior change point to make the game bootable was dropping in the .conf file. We actually shouldn't delete that. But we additionally need to adjust the texture memory size also back down to address the purple texture stuff and keep the forced texture memory below what D9VK is emulating for max available memory. So, please keep the dxvk.conf file and set Graphics Rule Maker to "Force Texture Memory" of 1024MB which is definitely below the D9VK config.

1024?! I haven't played with that resolution in years. Yikes. But okay, I'll give it a shot. Sadly though I've noticed that even at 2048 most everything looks like shit.

Not resolution. "Force texture memory". The resolution can be anything you want. I'm on my phone right now but I'll get you a screenshot asap.

The default resolution and maximum resolution can be anything you want. Just make sure the value I highlighted in yellow in the screenshot below is 1024Mb and press save.

Okay, so I loaded up the game with that value and nothing changed. I noticed too that it was a bit more stuttery in my hood, more than it normally is (my game is really quite smooth). I still had the pink flashing, and then the flashing in the hood. I tried messing around with the Pineapple mod in the user startup config file, which is needed for the mod to work. Turns out that there is something in there that is causing the pink flashing, but it's not the actual mod itself..... or at least when I take the user startup file out of my game, the mod by itself doesn't cause the pink flashing. I have tried editing that file and messing around with it, but I actually don't know very well how that file works, so it's just trial and error. If you have any imput into this matter, than I would *really* appreciate your insight, as you obviously know a lot more about graphics than I do.
I actually don't play with that mod turned on all the time, just when I'm taking pictures of my game for my blog. It makes the game really beautiful to look at, especially when paired with gunmod's radiance lighting system. Do you know of any other graphical mods that offer post processing to sims 2? I heard someone mention once about using a reshade, but I don't have a lot of details about it, and I didn't like the particular reshade that person had choosen.

In the meantime I will be continuing to back up my files for a Windows 7 install. A lot of people have told me that I won't regret switching back, and I kind of agree with them. I never had any issues with Windows 7 before.