More Awesome Than You!

Hello!

I recently booted up the Sims after patch 1.57 and noticed several issues (as per usual because I always get horsefucked by EA and their updates).

The first being that the game has defaulted to all "0" in terms of graphic and sound settings.  When I tried to change them, they would revert back to "0" as if I had not changed them at all.  Occasionally, after deleting my DeviceControl.log and Options.ini files, I received a "This device is not recognized" message.  I have to add, all of this occurs before gameplay.  When I do enter the game, using a new file - as my save refuses to load - my screen is black with a few lots showing.  This has never happened before, and previous to this patch, I have always been able to play.  I recently installed some new CC, but I disabled both Sim3packs and .package files and entered the game, but this did nothing.  I also attempted to delete The Sims 3 folder, have it respawn and then reload vanilla but to no avail, this did not work either.

After doing some research, I thought my computer had reverted to my onboard graphics which is a Nvidia something (I don't know where I can find this information on my computer, but I believe that I clocked the onboard graphics out a while ago) and I checked BIOS to ensure I was running my "main" graphics card (an AMD Radeon HD 6700 series), which I am (I think... I'm not very technologically savvy).

As a last ditch effort, I attempted to follow this (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=487073) thread.  I posted there as well (last post), but essentially I wasn't able to follow through with it fully because my graphics, in theory, should be accepted by the Sims 3 according to the GraphicsRules.sgr file (as this string indicates: or match("${cardName}", "*HD 6??0*") ... right?).

I apologize for the long post, but I really and truly do not want to uninstall all my games for the sake of fixing this issue. If worse comes to worse, I will but... LOUD SIGH.

Did you update your drivers? Re-install base game?

Thank you for your response!

I went to AMD's site (http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonaiw_vista64.aspx) and downloaded everything they had to offer in regards to my specific make of graphic card.  I believe drivers were a part of the package, but I am very inept when it comes to this sort of thing, so I am not entirely sure.

I'm particularly afraid to uninstall the base game while I have all my EP's and SP's still installed.  Can I just uninstall and re-install the base game without there being any issues?