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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 25th Nov 2020 at 2:35 PM Last edited by Disil07 : 10th Aug 2021 at 4:16 PM. Reason: Change GPU name to its official name

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 3, Generations
Screen Tearing and Lag on GeForce MX230
Hello. Recently I got The Sims 3 and all of expansions. After installing the game, when first launching the game I got an error saying that my graphics cards doesn't recognized. And after that I'm search about the warning in Google. I found that you can edit GraphicRules.sgr and GraphicCards.sgr to make a graphics card recognized. I'm confused, but I try it. After that, when I launch TS3 nothing happen. When I check at Task manager, sims 3 does run, but after few seconds it closed.

I'm already had backup of these 2 .sgr files, so I restore them. After that, my game is working again. I tried to make a new sim and a new house, but after few minutes of building house, I realize that there is screen tearing. It only happens when I move the camera. Also, when I go to town with taxi, it can reach very low fps, maybe about 10 fps. It's so annoying.

If its help, here is my laptop specifications:
-Intel Core I5-8265U 1.66 GHz with turbo boost 3.8 GHz
-NVIDIA GeForce MX230 2 GB
-RAM 4 GB DDR4
-1 TB HDD

My question is, how to fix the annoying screen tearing and lag? Btw sorry for bad English, I'm not native speakers.

Edit August 2021: activating Hardware based GPU scheduling in Windows Settings help a lot. Also that "Smooth patch" mod by LazyDuchess too.
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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#3 Old 26th Nov 2020 at 4:32 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
Try this: https://modthesims.info/showthread....d=1#post4782510



You running on HDD or SSD? If it is HDD, it is normal behavior. try setting high resolution lot to 1.

I'm running my game with HDD.

Anyway, the graphics cards is now recognized. But, I still see the screen tearing when playing in fullscreen.

I want play TS3 in fullscreen because when in windowed mode it feels I lost 10 FPS.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#5 Old 26th Nov 2020 at 1:04 PM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
using nvidia inspector, make sure you set the FPS cap to 60 fps, force Vsync, and use triple buffering.

Okay I will try it. I will let you know if there is any changes.

Edit: Btw I don't know how to use Nvidia Inspector. It is confused me, can you give me a picture tutorial?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#7 Old 27th Nov 2020 at 10:25 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
https://modthesims.info/showthread....d=1#post4972726

This is an older version, where it only has 1 program file. The new one should have the profile editor as a 2nd program. Just run that one.

Ok so it didn't work. It still showing screen tearing on the screen.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#9 Old 29th Nov 2020 at 2:16 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
make sure your monitor and GPU both use the "same" refresh rate. For example some people's monitor is set to 60 Hz but GPU is set to 59 Hz.

Yes it is at 60 Hz. I can't change it to 59 hz or else. So what could i do next to fix the screen tearing?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#10 Old 10th Dec 2020 at 6:23 AM
An update. I tried to limit the fps to 30 fps, and it makes the tearing more noticable, and also make a much lag.
Field Researcher
#11 Old 10th Dec 2020 at 5:01 PM
I think that running it in fullscreen will always have some screen tearing, at least from what I've seen. I play in windowed mode (borderless), but I don't see a performance drop, or any screen tearing.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#12 Old 11th Dec 2020 at 4:07 AM
Quote: Originally posted by mate54
I think that running it in fullscreen will always have some screen tearing, at least from what I've seen. I play in windowed mode (borderless), but I don't see a performance drop, or any screen tearing.

Yes there isn't any screen tearing when windowed mode, but I have performance drop. It is lag when you scroll the camera.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#13 Old 13th Dec 2020 at 2:53 PM
Another update. It seems that when i deactivate VSync, the screen tearing is gone. But I'm afraid to burn out the graphics card, because it render about 250 to 300 fps. Can I cap the fps to 120 or 180? It is safe? Because there are some post that says u must cap the fps to refresh rate.
Top Secret Researcher
#14 Old 13th Dec 2020 at 4:01 PM
What is the monitor's refresh rate? Most are 60Hz, so I would cap it to 60. When you said you capped it to 30, I was wondering why.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#16 Old 14th Dec 2020 at 3:21 AM
Quote: Originally posted by 310175
What is the monitor's refresh rate? Most are 60Hz, so I would cap it to 60. When you said you capped it to 30, I was wondering why.

Yeah my monitor is 60hz. I'm doing experiments to lower the fps to 30, but it seems the tearing problem doesnt solved, it is worse than 60 fps.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#17 Old 14th Dec 2020 at 3:25 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
refresh rate and frame rate are 2 different issues.

Yes i knew it.
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
as long as you cap the frame rate in Nvidia inspector to 60 or lower, it is fine, you don't need vsync then. Though it is strange b/c vsync is usually used to stop tearing.

Okay I will stop using VSync, because its introduce input lag. Btw how if i cap the fps to about 120? I know that if you dont cap the fps it will burn your GPU.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#19 Old 16th Dec 2020 at 12:35 PM
Yeah so it didn't work. The tearing is same as I cap fps to 60. Is there still an another way to make tearing gone?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#21 Old 17th Dec 2020 at 1:36 AM
So my system have insufficient ram for TS3? How about adding 4 GB of ram? Is my system will sufficient for TS3? I also thinking of adding SSD.

What I must upgrade first? RAM or SSD?
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#23 Old 17th Dec 2020 at 6:05 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
RAM first. 8GB is mininum these days for any operating system.

Okay thanks for helping me. I will post any updates if there is.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#24 Old 26th Dec 2020 at 2:42 PM
An update. So for some reason my Denis family is lagging. Almost every 1 minutes irl there is notifications from Overwatch that says unroutable sim found. And good news is, after 2 sim death in my house (idk why but they're paparazzi come to my house, then suddenly grim reaper spawn xD) my screen tearing is almost gone. But I cannot play anymore with this save file because they're slow as hell.

I want to reinstall the game by deleting documents folder. Maybe if that doesn't help with lag issues, I will uninstall TS3 and all of its program, then reinstall it again.

A little question: Guys can u help me found custom worlds that doesn't have routing issues like maxis did, but not require many cc?
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