I have a new gaming laptop with Windows 11 on it, a 1920x1080 screen, and I believe it’s a 144hz screen as well if that makes a difference…

I’ve followed all of the popular guides on fixing the screen resolution for 1080p screens by using Graphics Rules Maker and editing the GraphicsRules files. I’ve done every step multiple times, but in-game, it still only shows 800x600 as the only option.

The game will not run in full screen mode as I keep getting that Direct 9 error, so I have to run the game in windowed mode using Lazy Dutchess’ Sims2RPC. When I run the game, it DOES fill my entire screen, so it LOOKS like it’s in 1920x1080 (I think this is mostly due to GRM telling the game to use that resolution). However, I can tell that it’s not native 1920x1080 and is probably still 800x600, but stretched, because the UI is still quite big, and the graphics are not sharp enough.

Can anyone help? ?

Is your game installed in Program Files? If so, it's possible the auto saving of the GraphicRules files didn't "stick" because of admin rights in that area of the computer.

See if the date of the files have changed to approximately the date you changed the files.

If they haven't, go through the GRM fixes again, but save a copy of the files on the desktop. Then find the proper location (...TSData\Res\Config - in your highest EP / M&G folder), and manually replace the files.

You may also need to set the resolution in the ingame settings afterward.

Also, if you have a widescreen monitor, in the ingame settings, click the "use square pixels" option. It can help a bit with the stretching.


If you play windowed, I'm reasonably sure you would've gotten a smaller window if your game was still in 800x600. Not sure if the RPC affects that, though.

If you want to try without the RPC, you can set the game to windowed without it, by adding a space and -w to the shortcut target (in Properties). That's what I did (I had similar DirectX issues at first - I've given up running my game in fullscreen, but I'm used to windowed from before so it's not an issue). Depending on game version you might also need a NoCD patch (launcher/Origin workaround) if you don't use the RPC.

As I can't change my resolution ingame either (640x480 is the only option), here are the steps that I did to change the resolution of my game:
I added " -r2560x1440" to the shortcut (where you also are supposed to add the "-w" for windowed mode - I don't use RPC). In the compatibility tab of the shortcut, I clicked on "change high DPI settings" and then checked "overwrite high DPI scaling" and chose "system (advanced)" from the picklist beneath the checkbox. The text in quotation marks is a translation as I do not have an English OS. The real text therefore might be a bit different.
If yo have a scaling higher than 100 % defined in the system settings, this might also affect the resolution of your game. My scaling is 150 % so that the game has a real resolution of about 1700x960. However, my installation of Pet Stories ignores the scaling so that I wouldn't be surprised, if you could change some setting to make the game ignore or apply the scaling.
No guarantee that any of these steps will help you, but it might be worth a try.

640x480 is the resolution for the largest ingame C-button pictures.

The lowest default resolution for the game itself is 800x600. If you don't get other options, your game probably isn't set up properly.

Have you tried this method? Probably a bit less messy.
https://simscommunity.info/2016/04/...es-sim-shadows/

The tutorial is for the UC, but I think it works for Pet Stories too (I don't have that game so can't check if the settings look identical). Should be in roughly the same spot and you'd need to do the same changes.

640x480 really exists as resolution. I made a screenshot of my game menu so that you can see it:

I don't remember the exact reason for this problem, but it is hardware-related so that it's not fixable, but there are work-arounds (as described in my previous posting). At the time when I got my notebook, I even read that some people only had 320x240 as resolution.
It might sound unusual to define the resolution outside of the game, but it works well and I don't plan to change it.