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Inventor
Original Poster
#1 Old 10th Nov 2020 at 5:00 PM

This user has the following games installed:

Sims 3, World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, Seasons, University Life
Default Forcing VSync on an AMD card?
As I'm setting up my game to be as playable as possible, I noticed an issue that I need advice on. Every once and a while there's a sort of 'ripple effect' on my screen, a thin line running down at random places on my monitor. I assume this is screen tearing I've been researching on. Everywhere I turned I kept getting tutorials on how to turn VSync on with Nvidia cards, which is starting to get annoying because I've only had AMD cards (the one that came with my desktop is a 4GB AMD Raedon RX 560). Besides this, I've fixed my FPS to 30 with RTSS as 60-75 makes the game buffer and stutter (my monitor has a 75Hz refresh rate). Using my AMD settings to lock the framerate didn't do anything (without RTSS on my FPS would go as high as 76), but it's still enabled just in case. While I maintain a steady 30 FPS (framerate drops happen as I move about my test towns, apparently that's normal), I want to make sure I have VSync on. Here are my settings;




Apparently 'wait for vertical refresh' means I have VSync on, but I see no difference when I go in-game, either on fullscreen or windowed because the ripple effect happens randomly, mostly when my sim walks or runs to places. Is this normal game behavior, or do I need another external program to force on VSync? Here's also my deviceconfig and dxdiag.
Attached files:
File Type: txt  DxDiag.txt (75.8 KB, 3 downloads)
File Type: txt  DeviceConfig.txt (5.2 KB, 11 downloads)

what_makes_you_haha.mp3
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 10th Nov 2020 at 7:26 PM
We have similar cards and I've been getting the transient ripple effect on TS3 for almost a year now, the same on both the macOS and Windows, with and without vertical sync. Sometimes it seems better in windowed mode than full screen, sometimes the other way around (or this could be my imagination by now). It started with, or I just began noticing it with, a Windows build upgrade in late 2019 but that doesn't really explain why it happens on the Mac side as well. Have tried various things to improve the card's performance in that regard, but nothing has really changed. I think this is common now, and we are waiting/hoping for a Radeon driver update some day that might help.

This also started around the same time that Nvidia users began complaining about color banding issues, although I don't know how common that complaint is across operating systems.
Inventor
Original Poster
#3 Old 10th Nov 2020 at 11:31 PM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
We have similar cards and I've been getting the transient ripple effect on TS3 for almost a year now, the same on both the macOS and Windows, with and without vertical sync. Sometimes it seems better in windowed mode than full screen, sometimes the other way around (or this could be my imagination by now). It started with, or I just began noticing it with, a Windows build upgrade in late 2019 but that doesn't really explain why it happens on the Mac side as well. Have tried various things to improve the card's performance in that regard, but nothing has really changed. I think this is common now, and we are waiting/hoping for a Radeon driver update some day that might help.

This also started around the same time that Nvidia users began complaining about color banding issues, although I don't know how common that complaint is across operating systems.


It's not just me then. I've tried different resolutions as well, and the results varied; I think I've noticed it's not as apparent in 1920x1080 fullscreen than 1920x1080 windowed, but I'm not too sure. My graphics card does well outside of Sims 3 so I can live with this, but I'm relieved it's a quasi normal thing. I'll do some more testing at a later date with my findings.

what_makes_you_haha.mp3
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Mad Poster
#5 Old 11th Nov 2020 at 12:08 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
your deviceconfig is not recognized. it might help if you fix it b/c vendor setting is important to the settings in TS3 as they turn on and off certain settings based on vendor

That's a good point, it's certainly not going to hurt to try that and I hope it helps. But in my case anyway, I've always had the card recognized on both operating systems. And the new 64-bit Mac version of the game, in spite of the mess that it makes of other things, actually recognizes this card on its own and the ripple effect is still there.

It's especially worse for me when zoomed in, but I really don't want to play all zoomed out as if I need binoculars to see what's going on in the scene in front of me.
Inventor
Original Poster
#6 Old 11th Nov 2020 at 1:07 AM
Quote: Originally posted by nitromon
your deviceconfig is not recognized. it might help if you fix it b/c vendor setting is important to the settings in TS3 as they turn on and off certain settings based on vendor


You mean my deviceconfig or igazor's? I haven't the slightest idea how to read a deviceconfig so if there's anything that's out of place I'll try to fix. But other than the ripple effect, the game runs well, hopefully without issue once I put in small worlds to play in.

what_makes_you_haha.mp3
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Mad Poster
#7 Old 11th Nov 2020 at 1:22 AM Last edited by igazor : 11th Nov 2020 at 4:38 AM.
What he means is that your deviceconfig.log (not mine, I don't share mine with anyone unless they take me out to dinner first) indicates that your graphics card is not being formally recognized (Found 0; Matched 0). It's being ranked properly though and you don't have the texture memory override, so perhaps you made some attempt to edit the two program sgr files in the past. Getting the card formally recognized has minimal benefits at best and I was pointing out that mine already is recognized on two systems but I still have the ripple effect.
Inventor
Original Poster
#8 Old 11th Nov 2020 at 2:14 AM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
What he means is that your deviceconfig.log (not mine, I don't share mine with anyone unless they take me out to dinner first) indicates that your graphics card is not being formally recognized (Found 0; Matched 0). It's being ranked properly though and you don't have the texture memory override, so perhaps you made some attempt to edit the two program sgr files in the past. Getting the card formally recognized has minimal benefits at best and I was pointing out that mine already is recognized on two system but I still have the ripple effect.


Ah I understand now. Only thing I've done is edit my graphicrules.sgr file if that means anything (first I edited myself, then I swapped it for a HD graphicrules file). Is there anything I can do to remedy this?

what_makes_you_haha.mp3
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