Smooth edges not available?

[Carolyns-Mewmix]

I'm playing on a laptop with Windows 7 and an AMD Radeon 7670M graphics card. Whenever I run the Sims, I don't have the option to have smooth edges, which really bothers me. I think it looks Sims 1-esque.
I have dedicated the AMD card to the Sims - see the attached picture. I've even checked the options from a lot to make sure it wasn't just a neighborhood view thing, but no luck. I guess I'm curious if there's any hope of having smooth edges - if there's something else I might be able to change. Or am I stuck with jagged edges forever?

Any help is appreciated!

[joandsarah77]

I think they are greyed out because your graphics card isn’t good enough to support those functions. You could try turning your reflections off, but it may not help.

[Selly_2009]

Does your laptop have integrated graphics installed as well as the card? If so you may wish to check which it uses by default. Although you've told your card to run Sims 2 it may be the case that it's not doing so.

joandsarah77 has the right idea - they do get greyed out if the graphics option used isn't powerful enough. I had this happen on my new Windows 7 laptop (which has a dediated NVIDIA card in it), but the original default setting was the Intel chip which was next to useless in Sims. Changing the default graphics options fixed the problem.

[Carolyns-Mewmix]

The card itself is definitely able to handle smooth edges - it can run Portal and Crysis on max settings, etc. I'm guessing that the issue would be it's looking at the card before it runs the game, and not while the game itself is running?

If I understand correctly, you're suggesting I enable the Radeon /before/ I boot up the game. I'll do that as soon as I find out how.

Just curious - could it be because the graphics card is newer than the game? I don't know if it is, I was just wondering if that's a possibility.

[HaunterMooneyes]

I don't think the age of the card matters. My NVIDIA card is newer than Sims 2, but it runs the game (by default) on high settings with smooth edges.

[Rulue]

I had the same issue, since my laptop had integrated graphics and dedicated Radeon graphics(6470M) at the same time, too. I just changed the settings so I could set up manually when I wanted to use the good card and when I wanted the crappy card(it saves battery when you're in the go, so it is not really a good idea to run with the dedicated graphics all the time.) Even if I assigned High Performance for the Sims .exe, it would not work, and I would still have no smooth edges and ugly pixelated water. After being very frustrated(the graphics for Sims 2 was the main reason I bought a new laptop!), I later figured my stubborn computer was using the integrated graphics card, even though I told it to run in High Performance, it would still use the integrated card.

I am not sure how exactly it determines which chip to use for each program, but I could only run Sims 2 with the Radeon card if I switched to it manually using the Catalyst Control Center thingy, even if I put Sims to load with the Radeon in the settings, it still used the integrated graphics, probably because it considers Sims 2 to be an "old game" that therefore doesn't "need" the better card. Try switching for the dedicated card manually, it probably will work.

I wish I could post screenshots so I could help you better, but my computer is in portuguese :( But what I did was switch the switchable graphics
options so that it doesn't try to determine based on programs, but manually or depending on the power source. I change to the more powerful card manually every time I want to play Sims and it works like a charm now.

Feel free to PM me if I couldn't explain properly. I don't bite. Unless provoked. :)

[Carolyns-Mewmix]

I tried to interpret your post the best I could, and here's what I got.

I changed the graphics card used during battery-only to the high-performance one (since I'm only using the battery right now). Ran the game, "smooth edges" was still greyed out.

So, I figured I'd disable the integrated graphics completely so that the only option, graphic card wise, was the Radeon 7670M card. When I tried to run the game, I got a message about the game being unable to find a DirectX 9.0 compatible graphics card. I attached a screenshot of it below.

Is it possible that the 7670M card isn't compatible with DirectX 9.0? Or is it something simple that I'm blind to?

(I've already enabled anti-aliasing in the graphics options of Catalyst Control Center and all that jazz.)

[Night Racer]

Isnt the newest version of DX out now like 11? Do you have DX 10 or 11? Can you download them? Maybe your computer only had DX9, but since your card is new-age, its not compatible with that old form of DX and throwing that message at you?

[Carolyns-Mewmix]

As far as I've been able to research the Radeon is compatible with DirectX9.0. Someone somewhere else linked me to the download place so I went ahead and got it.
The thing is though - I don't get the "no directx9 compatible driver found!" message when the integrated graphics are enabled. So I'm thinking that, like Rulue said, even though I have the Radeon dedicated to the Sims 2 in the CCC it's going ahead and using the integrated card (which is just Intel HD graphics). I'm gonna go ahead and re-try disabling the integrated card tonight and see what happens.

[Rulue]

Might I ask how did you disable the integrated card exactly? Because when I managed to fix my issue, I didn't completely disable it, just set the switchable graphics to manual mode.

[Carolyns-Mewmix]

Right click on Computer -> Properties -> Device Manager -> right-click on the Intel card -> Disable

I have a feeling it was using the Intel card because it detected that the Radeon card wasn't compatible with DX9, though :( Gonna run a few tests after school.

[simsample]

Just in case you're not aware, 'smooth edges' is sometimes greyed out in neighbourhood view on certain cards, as are other options like 'shadows'. So make sure you are playing on a lot when you check the graphics options.

[Carolyns-Mewmix]

I checked it that way as well. Unfortunately, the option is still greyed out.

I have a feeling it's because the Radeon card is somehow incompatible with the Sims 2. Whenever I disable the intel card and attempt to play I get the "no DX9 compatible card found" message, even though I have the driver for DX9 installed. I'm thinking I might just have to deal with the game running on the Intel graphics.

Another interesting bit is that when the Intel chip is disabled and I run dxdiag a message pops up saying "unable to find additional display information". When I click on the "display" tab everything is blank/unknown/ n/a except for the screen resolution. What does this mean with regard to the card and DirectX?

edit: I tried the technique you suggested in this thread (http://http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=303429&goto=nextoldest) with the Graphics Rules file and still no luck. I edited the Graphics Rules file in Programs (x86)\EA Games\Sims 2 Best of Business\EP99\TS Data\Res\Config because that's the folder I got my sims2sc.exe from (to run in windowed mode). I'm assuming the whole Store Edition is what makes it special and why it asks for BoB instead of Apartment Life.