Sim Shadows not showing

Okay, here's the thing. I'm running the DVD version of TS2, with all EPs and SPs, under 64-bit Win7 home. My monitor is actually a 49" LED TV, capable of displaying 3840x2160 resolution, and my graphics card will happily support it. I can even coax my game into accepting such settings, but then the UI gets so tiny that I can't make out any of the texts at 6 ft distance. So my game resolution is set at 1600x900, so I can at least read most of the labels, descriptions and notifications. All other graphics options are set to max.

Now here's the problem: everything in my game casts the proper shadows... EXCEPT my sims, who don't cast any shadows at all! In fact, no matter what resolution I select, my sims are like ghosts: they have no shadows!

I have just no idea where to look. This is one problem that I don't know how to handle. I'm grateful for any suggestions anyone may have.

Attached File(s)

  DxDiag.txt (Size: 23.93 KB / Downloads: 604)
  MONSTER-config-log.txt (Size: 10.42 KB / Downloads: 504)

In your graphics rules file, do you have sims shadows off?

(18-12-2018 06:08 AM)leefish Wrote:  In your graphics rules file, do you have sims shadows off?

Hi Lee,

I opened the file "E://Game/The Sims2 Deluxe/EP9/TSData/Res/Config/Graphics Rules.sgr" in my text editor to check.
The only line, where even the word "shadows" is used, reads:

Quote: log $logGroup $logLevelInfo "Disabling caustics as these cause cards cause problems with shadows"

No other mention of the word "shadows" in the entire Graphics Rules file.
And when I looked for lines containing "shadow" (without an 's' at the end), I found one other log line, but again no setting rule whatsoever.

EDIT: looking a bit closer WITHOUT using the find/replace tool (maybe I should have set it to ignore upper-/lowercase), I've found some lines mentioning:

Quote: boolProp simShadows false

Apparently, THAT was what you must have been asking about... I'll change it to true, and see if that fixes it. Thank you!

EDIT 2: Ah yes, that fixed it. Except that now there is a new problem: the huge black rectangles under my sims! Which will go away if I lower the Shadows setting in game, but that leaves my sims without shadows once more!!! This is getting ridiculously funny!

Known issue, known fix here http://www.modthesims.info/d/569585/

Ah, yes. THAT might be exactly what I need. I'll check this out and report as soon as I know more. Thanks again, Lee

Yea, as an NVidia user I had to get the really not misty version, but its best to just check and see. One will work.

So much better! I'm an nVidia user as well, but the normal version seems to do it for me.
Long, long ago, when I first started playing, I knew of only three shadow types:

• none,
• simple round blobs under the sims,
• and proper shadows that were too much for the old machines of the time.

So, I learned to live with simple round blobs...

Then, at some point after either a windows-upgrade (from WinME to WinXP or from WinXP to Win7), or a major hardware upgrade, suddenly, the options had changed to:

• none,
• simple round blobs under the sims,
• horrible huge black rectangles that spoiled everything.

So I continued to live with simple round blobs...

Now recently, however, I realized that since my last hardware overhaul, some 8 or 9 months ago, I haven't seen ANY kind of decent shadow anymore. Not even simple round blobs, either.
I cannot remember ever having set the simShadows to false, but after my last upgrade I have downloaded one of Kiri's Graphics Rules files. It must be from there that I've inherited the missing shadows.

And now, for the very first time ever, I can play with proper shadows! Thanks to simNopke for making that shader-override. And thanks to you for pointing that thing out to me.
I remember having seen mention of this mod before, but imagine me actually finding something. With my Google-Fu, hat's not a very likely scenario.