Dull looking objects

[Ness]

apparently that's how it's pronounced in Montana, Inge.

[jrd]

Inge: wasn't it "Pip pip cheerio, I say, the old crapper, guv'nor"? =D

[Ness]

huh?

[Inge]

ROFL!!!   Well actually at my old prep school we used to call it The Lavatory *smirk

After I proved it wasn't worth spending money on my education and got put into the state system, it quickly became The Bog.

[Flickan]

Ok, more toilet pics -and if you don't behave, I'll start posting pics of my real life one

Outside -no difference, just as dull looking:



-and here's the thumbnail in buy mode, why can't it look like this 



I'm starting to realise I may be toilet fixated, but I swear my parents never tied me to one

[Indiasong]

Exact same for me, but I got fixated on the apple sculpture.
Except, as I said, that now the thumbnail looks dull as well, so I don't know what I'm missing anymore.
Different installs, a 9800 radeon and now 800gto, different harddisk and video drivers (ATI).

[jrd]

In my game the toilet looks like the thumbnail pic: shiny.

Then again I use an Nvidia card.

[Flickan]

Jordi, which nvidia card do you have? I had the Geforce 6800 GT on my last pc, but the colors were dull then as well.

[jrd]

I still have a GeForce 5900XT.
My other box (the one my sister plays on) has an Nvidia GeForce4 MX 460 (essentially a rebranded GeForce 2), and there the objects are also shiny.

She has some 80-series driver, I use tweaked versions of the 91.x official releases.

[rhodaloo]

Mine is shiny in the game.  I have a Radeon X700 card.  *shrugs

[Gwill]

Mine is dull both on the preview and in game.

[Faizah]

It's probably a card issue, or something. But have you tried turning reflections on in the graphic options? (I know other people have already asked about other graphic settings, but I didn't see anything about reflections specifically)

[Flickan]

Thank you for your suggestion, but it is already turned on.

[Li'l Brudder]

I actually believe that they shopped the thumbnails.  It's like false advertising.  YOu get what you pay for.

ANyways, Inge's problem with her sink was that it was FAR too bright.  She went and reduced something in SimPE, so I'd say this would probably be the total Anti-WhateverInge'sproblemwas.

[theisz]

I have the same issue and I am using a Radeon x600.  I am also using a laptop with a pent 4. 2.2 GHz processor with 1 gig of ram.

It is not the processor or memory and I am using the same settings in this game as I am on my primary desktop PC.  So it is not the settings in the game either. 

It has to be the graphics card and/or driver.  Great. 

EDIT:

My card does not support hardware T&L and this is why the objects are dull.  I would assume that is the issue with the other video cards used that are having the same issue.  The only thing to do would be to upgrade the card.

[Motoki]

I thought that card did have hardware T&L? Mine does (the X1800) but that particular toilet is still dull in spite of the pre-rendered Maxis thumbnail. I solved that problem by refreshing the thumbnail with control right click and now I have a dull thumbnail too. 

Some stuff is really shiny for me though. Like some of the GLS furniture and decorative items.

[Sleepycat]

my sims toliets are shiny - I've got a "ATI RADEON X800 PRO 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and TV Out"

they are shiny on my other computer also, ATI card on that one too but I can't remember what one.

[Brynne]

How weird. I also have the dull maxis toilet, but this toilet (from Solander) is nice and shiny:

[theisz]

Cool, I'll just blame it on Maxis EA.  Just another fuck up on their end. 

Actually I suppose if it was a T&L issue the mirrors wouldn't reflect and mine do reflect. 

Maybe they'll put out a patch for it a few months from now that will in turn break something else that will never get fixed. 

[TyCobb]

I found out that if you turn off Shaders you'll get the shiny looking toilets.

That also explains why Flickan had the shiny effect a couple of computers ago when the graphics card wasn't able to use Shaders yet.
All the newer graphics cards can use Shaders which should make objects look more realistic, but in this case makes the Maxis EA toilets actually look less realistic.
With Shaders turned off the game looks lighter overall.

"boolprop useShaders false" turns Shaders off.

But as the picture from Solander's shiny toilet shows, Maxis EA could have made their toilets shiny as well with Shaders if they had wanted to.

[Indiasong]

Has anyone tried that yet? I haven't started my 45mns loading game yet.
I have another question: I have a new card, ati 800gto, and I have trouble playing the game at night: I can't see anything. I thought it was a hack, but it must be my card. Before I tinker, has anyone advice on that? Maybe the shaders off would solve that problem? What would I be losing?
Or would a lighting mode solve that problem?

[Motoki]

I tried. It's shiner but not as shiny as the Solander toilet or some of the Glamour stuff. *shrug* I guess it doesn't make enough of a difference for me to care either way.

[Flickan]

I found out that if you turn off Shaders you'll get the shiny looking toilets.

THANK YOU SO MUCH -this is how it looks in my game now:


I'm happy

No fish? I didn't check that, but I rarely use the fishtank, so...

[Inge]

I found out that if you turn off Shaders you'll get the shiny looking toilets.

But no fish in your tanks...

[Nanuk]

This is kinda weird problem - I've had the lack of specular highlights since the first Sims 2 patch on these cards: Radeon 9800, Geforce 6800 Ultra, Radeon X800 XT and Radeon X1900 XT... I'm currently using the X1900, and I got the highlights back when I installed the game on Windows Vista RC2 I'm very happy I finally have them back by default after 2 years, without losing bump maps and nice pool water