More Awesome Than You!

It worked on my game but you also try this. In the graphics setting, all must be high and on except smooth edges and use square pixels. In the Camera Settings all in high and on. The Picture in Picture Window must be on (this is the best part) to end up blurry graphics.

The first thing I do when my computer graphics are blurry is clean my glasses.  Amazingly this works almost all the time.  You should try that too  :P

This is incredible.  It's like a haze has been lifted from my game.  I don't know why I haven't tried this before--I mean, I've always wondered what "Graphics Settings" was supposed to do, and now I know!  It seems to obvious when you look at it!

Don't forget to clean the monitor too. It's amazing how well a clean monitor improves graphics. ;D

Probably Retardo question of the <enter time period here> ... does it slow down gameplay and thereby creates lagging or does it actually improve gameplay, beside the optical issues I mean?

If your computer/video card isn't that great, shadows, smooth edges, mirror reflection and lighting should be turned off (or way down) because they create the most lag. The other stuff isn't so much a problem unless your computer/video card is truly horrid. If you have NL, turning off neighborhood view will also improve performance, since that can be very draining on the video card.

There's a site somewhere that explains which options cause the most lag... but I can't find the link.

Personally, I don't see the point of playing the game if you can't enjoy the nice graphics, so if I'm playing on a large lot I just turn off mirrors and shadows (the two biggest lag-creators), and turn lighting down. On small lots I play with everthing on, and don't experience problems. But my computer is pretty good.

I had to change my graphics from high to medium, and I just got a new graphics card. But I don't have the world's fastest processor, and I only have 512K memory, so I think I'm doing pretty good the way it is.

What's more, the game looks realistic enough to me even with the details set on medium, and I don't get too much lag.

Found it. Here: http://www.gamespot.com/features/6133243/?type=tech

I find when I quit drinking margaritas that my graphics were much less fuzzy. 

C

My video card is an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro with 128 MB, but the computer is still running with 512 MB RAM, guess that's the weakest link right after the pretty huge download folder. Though the test results from Gamespot - thanks for the link, Sara - on page 4 show that 512 MB and high quality settings can end in a good performance. Maybe it's just the downloads then  :P

I usually play with shadows turned off, not for performance reasons, but they look strange on several objects. Lightning med or high, game details high, smooth edges on second position from the top - but I never cared much for that "use square pixels" option.
Well, seems like a goodbye to mirror reflections ...  ::)


Oddly enough, I prefer the graphics with an ATI video card a lot more than on NVidia, though system stats would mean the opposite. Had the pleasure to play the game on both cards with fairly similiar systems, but my Radeon simply looked better ;)

That Gamespot test does show that a bigger GPU improves game performance, but it misrepresents the amount of RAM that you need since they only tested a house without Sims.  Lag that you would experience with 512MB is gone when you upgrade to 1GB.  Upgrading your Graphics Card provides a marginal performance boost, which is most visible if you upgaded from an integrated chipset.

Maxis usually sets your stuff lower than what it could be, I pretty much had everything on high with reflections and no Anti-Aliasing before I upgraded my card.  Now, everything is on the highest setting (Including Anti-Aliasing) at 800x600.  I have no desire to change the resolution

1GB or more is on my wishlist for this year.

I read those gamespot tips a while ago, and I've found in my game that turning off shadows has the biggest effect on performance.  View distance has an effect on big lots (i.e., the original Goth house), so I just set it to medium as a compromise.  I have a Radeon X700 Pro, 1Gb RAM, and I think a 2.8x gig CPU.