The Rhyme of Sim'

Simon Hampel

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You are here: Home / General / The Sims 2 resolution problems – solved !

The Sims 2 resolution problems – solved !

Saturday October 23rd, 2004 92 Comments

I recently bought a copy of The Sims 2 but when I installed it, I found it was stuck at a resolution of 800×600, and I couldn’t get it to run any higher. My laptop has a native resolution of 1024×768, so it would be much better to run the game at that level.

The EA Games support site didn’t have much useful information on it, I tried the command line options that allow you override the defaults, but it didn’t make a difference.

I tried another search in Google last night and found a suggestion on a discussion forum.

Find the file:

C:/Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2/TSData/Res/Config/Graphics Rules.sgr

… and make a copy of it under a different name as a backup (something like Graphics Rules.sgr.bak)

Now edit the original file and find the section:

“option ScreenModeResolution”

You will see settings for Low, Medium, and High. Copy the medium settings and paste them over the low settings to allow the game to start at 1024×768 resolution or better.

Save and exit and then start the game to see if it works.

The game looks much better now at full resolution on my laptop !

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Filed Under: General

Comments

  1. Dawnyraye says

    Monday April 29th, 2019 at 02:02 AM

    2019 cannot change the resolution nothing works. I cannot open it up on notepad it says i have full access but when i try to open it in notepad it says i do not have permission i ha e windows 10

    Reply
    • Sierra says

      Sunday March 1st, 2020 at 11:06 AM

      You need to run notepad in administrator mode, then open the file, edit, save…

      Reply
  2. simone says

    Sunday August 13th, 2017 at 09:22 AM

    Anyone WHO can help me?
    I’m running Windows 7 gtx 970 strix. I have alle the games and extentionpacks, not the ultimate bundle. have have changed the screen size, but no matter what, there is a Black box under my sims inside. I have tried to change the shadow graphic from high to low and off. But the box is still there. Anyone who knows how to fix this?

    Reply
  3. Stretch says

    Friday April 7th, 2017 at 01:59 PM

    So glad I found this. Was only getting 800×600 in Win10 on my 1080p display. Did the update to all the files in all the expansion packs. The next time I opened the game I was able to access all the resolutions all the way up to 1920×1080.

    My wife will be very happy about this!

    Reply
  4. booble says

    Thursday August 18th, 2016 at 07:39 PM

    still useful in 2016! thank you so much for this guide, win10 really screwed me out of a lot of playtime.

    to anyone else still looking, as another commenter said, it’s important that you rewrite ALL graphicrules.sgr files not just in the base sims 2 game, but any and all expansion packs you have as well, otherwise you won’t get any option to change the resolution.

    Reply
    • Dave says

      Wednesday May 10th, 2017 at 05:18 PM

      May 2017
      Win 10, X64
      Nvidia GTX 1060 6 GB Card

      As one of the previous repliers has stated, you really do need to do this in EVERY SINGLE game expansion you may have and save the original.

      I had to alter security of the file before it would allow me to save, despite I was in Admin mode.

      But, glad it still works!!

      Reply
      • Elaine Marie says

        Friday February 7th, 2020 at 03:11 PM

        I have done that too, on win XP with a lot of expansion packs, I don’t have all and last one is Apartment life…. well it DOESN’T WORK!

        Reply
  5. Jitse says

    Thursday August 11th, 2016 at 08:21 AM

    Oh my god! Thank you all so much <3.
    I just installed it and was struggling with it before, because I only added the coding to 'Fun with pets'
    The one who said it should be added to all of the expansion packs saved my life ;)

    But seriously, thanks!

    Reply
  6. Terry says

    Tuesday July 19th, 2016 at 06:13 PM

    When I try to same this, it says “Access Denied” and wont save, Please Help!!

    Windows 10 pro.

    Reply
    • Terry says

      Tuesday July 19th, 2016 at 06:18 PM

      never mind, had to change permissions.

      Reply
  7. lucy says

    Thursday June 16th, 2016 at 05:05 AM

    hi its keeps saying access denied! i not good with computers please help!!!

    Reply
  8. Lily says

    Friday October 30th, 2015 at 07:00 AM

    Anyone know how to change it from 600×800 to 1920×1080 on win10?

    Reply
    • BluePixelStarz says

      Saturday April 8th, 2017 at 10:01 PM

      Follow the steps in the post

      Reply
  9. Sofi7 says

    Tuesday October 13th, 2015 at 05:46 AM

    Thanks so much! I tried this previously with a port of my original Sims 2 UC version via a Windows 10 upgrade, and none of the steps worked. I ended up following another site’s suggestion to uninstall and reinstall TS2 UC via Origin, and followed the Registry edit steps to add the Store content compatibility so that my original saves were usable, then followed these steps to adjust that one last thing that was driving me CRAZY – the low resolution issue. I’m not sure which fix finally did it, but after editing the Graphics file in ALL of the EPs and base game from Ultimate Collection, my game is back in beautiful, full-size resolution!

    Thanks again to you and the other Posters here for the brilliant suggestions! :-D

    Reply
  10. Moonfox says

    Tuesday August 26th, 2014 at 10:34 PM

    Oh my god. I love you so much for posting this! My old laptop is too burned out to load TS2 anymore, but now I can play it on my new laptop thanks to you!

    Reply
  11. Zoelynn says

    Tuesday August 19th, 2014 at 04:56 AM

    DEFINITIVE ANSWER: You must do what the original poster said, then replace ALL “Graphics Rules.sgr” files in ALL your Sims 2 EP folders with the one you edited!

    If it still doesn’t work, set all “forceLowResolution”/”ForceLowSettings” to “false”
    (to find all of them quickly, press Ctrl+B and write “ForceLow”)

    PD: This Works for ALL resolutions, you just change the numbers to the ones you want.

    Reply
    • vanessa says

      Sunday October 23rd, 2016 at 11:59 AM

      Thank you very much worked wonders:)

      Reply
  12. Caddy Lincoln says

    Monday June 16th, 2014 at 10:11 AM

    Save it as “all files”.

    It will save as .sgr then.

    Quite possibly you will not be able to save it on the game folder – it happened to me.

    If that happens to you too, save it as “all.files” on your regular “documents” folder.

    Then delete the .sgr on your TS2 folder, copy the .sgr you just altered from your documents folder and paste it into the TS2 folder.

    Worked for me! ;)

    Reply
    • Kylee says

      Tuesday March 6th, 2018 at 07:02 AM

      thank you so much, I couldn’t find anything talking about this problem!!!

      Reply
  13. Sooboksim says

    Tuesday February 4th, 2014 at 10:29 AM

    For Windows users:

    Some computers give you the option of using an integrated (built-in) graphics chip or a discrete (separately installed) graphics card. Integrated graphics tends to be more inferior than discrete graphics. Selecting the integrated graphics often causes the water to look “blocky” and not have any reflections (if reflections are selected) in Neighborhood View. If this is so, change the graphics option to discrete in Control Panel. My laptop has an NVIDIA discrete graphics card, so I selected NVIDIA Control Panel in Control Panel and ensured my latest expansion pack (Mansion & Garden, EP9) would use discrete graphics. This option may or may not be available depending on your graphics setup.

    When I did this, the game defaulted to offering only a screen size of 800×600. To permit for other resolution options, additional modifications to a game graphic file is required.

    First, determine your latest expansion pack (the expansion required to run your game). Then search for “Graphics Rules” for your latest expansion pack in the Program Files folder. My latest expansion pack is EP9 (Mansion & Gardens), so its default location is: C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Mansion and Garden Stuff\TSData\Res\Config. Next, copy that file as a backup: Either copy and save it to a different location (like your desktop) or copy and rename it to something else like “Graphics Rules.bak”. Then open the file, Graphics Rules. Usually, you are unable to open it because the file is not associated with any of your programs. To enable this, right click on the file and select “Open with” from the menu. If Notepad is listed, select it; otherwise, select “Choose default program” and choose Notepad under Recommended Programs or Other Programs. If for some reason Notepad is still not listed, you may browse for it at C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System32.

    After opening Graphics Rules, search for the following:

    option ScreenModeResolution
    setting $Low
    uintProp maxResWidth 800
    uintProp maxResHeight 600
    uintProp defaultResWidth 800
    uintProp defaultResHeight 600

    setting $MediumButDefaultLow
    uintProp maxResWidth 1280
    uintProp maxResHeight 1024
    uintProp defaultResWidth 800
    uintProp defaultResHeight 600

    setting $Medium
    uintProp maxResWidth 1280
    uintProp maxResHeight 1024
    uintProp defaultResWidth 1024
    uintProp defaultResHeight 768

    setting $High
    uintProp maxResWidth 1600
    uintProp maxResHeight 1200
    uintProp defaultResWidth 1024
    uintProp defaultResHeight 768
    end

    Your values may be different than mine. Copy all the resolution settings for the setting $High to the $Low, $MediumButDefaultLow, and $Medium, so it looks similar to the following:

    option ScreenModeResolution
    setting $Low
    uintProp maxResWidth 1600
    uintProp maxResHeight 1200
    uintProp defaultResWidth 1024
    uintProp defaultResHeight 768

    setting $MediumButDefaultLow
    uintProp maxResWidth 1600
    uintProp maxResHeight 1200
    uintProp defaultResWidth 1024
    uintProp defaultResHeight 768

    setting $Medium
    uintProp maxResWidth 1600
    uintProp maxResHeight 1200
    uintProp defaultResWidth 1024
    uintProp defaultResHeight 768

    setting $High
    uintProp maxResWidth 1600
    uintProp maxResHeight 1200
    uintProp defaultResWidth 1024
    uintProp defaultResHeight 768
    end

    Close the file and save it. Then run your game and the highest resolution your computer offers should be available (mine was 1600×900). If you run into problems, start over by replacing the Graphics Rules file with your backup copy and attempt to do the same thing but using the $Medium settings, instead (in this case, don’t change the $High values).

    Hope this helps.

    Reply
    • James says

      Wednesday June 4th, 2014 at 10:47 AM

      Hey. I’m wanting to change it so it has a 1920×1080 res for my monitor.

      Could you tell me how you got your Graphic Rules file back into a .sgr file? I open it in Notepad, do the necessary edits and then goto save it and it saves it as a .txt file even though it has the .sgr extension. Quite confused!

      Any advice?

      Thanks :)

      Reply
      • Sept. H says

        Friday July 4th, 2014 at 04:18 PM

        James, to change the .sgr file back to an .sgr when you have changed it in notepad,once you have opened the document, select save as. You will then save the notepad doc as all files (not as a txt doc)and then label it Graphics Rules.sgr.

        The picture will look a little different, but you should be able to slide the saved file back into the sims folder you accessed it from and launch the game. You will then have the option in the game to select the resolution size you want and it won’t just have the 800 size res. Hope this helps.

        Sept.

        Reply
      • Mary says

        Sunday May 24th, 2015 at 05:25 PM

        I just finally figured it out, hehe.
        OK first if you have windows 8 ( i do) you would do this:
        You would open THIS PC or just your library and look at the top and there would be a tab that says ”View” click that and on the very right there will be an icon called ”Options”. Click the arrow under it and it shows something that says ”Change folder and search options”. Click it, and you will see the properties.
        Now click the ”view” tab and look for ”Hide extensions and known file types”. Now uncheck the box. Press ”OK” and you go back to config where the Graphics Rules are. You can now rename it to an .sgr file.

        For Windows 7 and whatever (I dont remember how to use windows 7 and XP, Vista :P)
        go to windows explorer/library folder and go tools> folder options and in there go to the ”view” tab and deselect the box where it says : ”hide extensions for known file types”
        then you will now be able to rename it Graphics Rules.sgr and it will change.

        Wala like Magic its an SGR file. P.S it may still have the icon for the .txt file but dont panic its an sgr file.

        I hope this helped and I am really stupid when it comes to tweaking with core files and coding etc. and files. IT MAKES MY BRAIN HURT but I hope I did something good (i hope :D)

        Reply
    • Sebastian says

      Tuesday April 18th, 2017 at 01:17 PM

      Hi
      I have changed the file “Graphics Rules” to exactly what you have said, but i keep getting a pop up notification.
      It says, “Failed to find any DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics adapters in this system! Please make sure you have a Directx 9.0c compatible graphics adapter and have installed the latest drivers provided by the manufacturer. The application will now terminate.”
      Could Anyone please Help me?

      Reply
    • JazzySpice12 says

      Sunday August 12th, 2018 at 02:32 AM

      THANK YOU sooooo Much… after everything I have tried.. this WORKED for me.. I copy and pasted the screenmoderesolution info just as you stated and boom there it was…

      Reply
  14. Amber says

    Friday November 8th, 2013 at 05:02 AM

    Editing this file worked great for me :) I just pasted the highest setting into the other spaces and next time I started the game it gave me all graphic options which is great because my native is 1600×900 so 800×600 looked terrible, Thanks.

    Reply
  15. adriana says

    Friday August 9th, 2013 at 12:17 AM

    thank uuuuuu u are GREAT

    Reply
  16. Emilie says

    Wednesday July 31st, 2013 at 05:57 AM

    I can’t find the “Graphic rules” document on my computer. I don’t know what to do, please help!

    Reply
  17. Carrie says

    Monday July 29th, 2013 at 01:33 AM

    Whoever you are…
    I LOVE YOU!
    Thank you so much.

    Reply
  18. Toni Lee says

    Thursday July 11th, 2013 at 11:07 PM

    Whoever you people are I love all of you. <3

    Reply
  19. Alex says

    Wednesday July 3rd, 2013 at 10:24 PM

    It keeps saying access deinied when i try to save on notepad

    Reply
  20. Sophie says

    Wednesday June 5th, 2013 at 12:42 AM

    EVERYONE; this is what you need to do:

    This should work for all computers:

    Find the file and the ‘Graphic Rules’ file. Click open with…and choose Notepad, find the ScreenResolution thing and edit all the medium size to the small. Then click save (or save as… to your documents then copy and paste it into the config file if your access is denied) then do this for ALL THE EXPANSIONS. When saving as make sure you put .sgr onto the end to take it out of a text document.

    Hope this helps, when you go onto the game you’ll have to go into the settings to change the screen res.

    Reply
  21. romina says

    Sunday June 2nd, 2013 at 09:14 PM

    it will now allow me to save the file
    what should i do?

    Reply
  22. TQBatman says

    Sunday January 29th, 2012 at 04:32 AM

    Cheers, mate.
    Still useful in 2012!!!

    BTW. “make sure you are editing the graphics file in the folder for the newest expansion pack you have installed.”
    This did it for me. Now running in 1920×1080 in Win 7 64bit.

    Thanks again.

    Reply
    • James says

      Wednesday June 4th, 2014 at 10:44 AM

      Hey man. Wanting to do the exact same thing with my 21.5″ screen which has a 1920×1080 res.

      Could you tell me how you made your Graphic Rules file back into a .sgr file? I open it in Notepad, do the necessary edits and then goto save it and it saves it as a .txt file even though it has the .sgr extension. Quite confused!

      Any advice?

      Thanks :)

      Reply
      • Kumzi says

        Friday August 19th, 2016 at 11:55 AM

        use quotation to save the file.
        ” sample.srg”

        Reply
  23. Valerie says

    Sunday July 10th, 2011 at 12:58 AM

    It worked! Thank you so much. To others… make sure you make these changes to all expansion pack folders. It WILL work if you make changes to all folders.

    Reply
    • fredi says

      Saturday July 30th, 2011 at 02:06 AM

      how do i save the file after i’ve edited it? it keeps telling me access is denied..

      Reply
  24. reborn_raptor says

    Saturday May 21st, 2011 at 12:52 AM

    I know what to do with the files and have the .sgr files. Whenever I try to edit the file it tells me access denied (Im the friggin’ administrator). Attempts to move said file, change it and put it back in the folder have not worked – the game resets it to its original state. What can I do? Please either post here or email me at reborn_raptor@yahoo.com

    Reply
  25. Jay says

    Sunday October 10th, 2010 at 12:26 AM

    I’ve tried everything on this list and still stuck in low res. I think I’m doing it wrong. I tried changing all of the
    “forcelowsettings” to false, but again, I think I did it wrong as I changed ALL of them.
    If someone could please email me a txt file of the higher resolution settings, it would be much appreciated.
    My email is fistsizedmachine@aim.com
    Thank you in advance.

    Reply
  26. sIMSuhOH says

    Friday July 23rd, 2010 at 04:13 AM

    Hey!! Great thinking. But wait: I was wondering, if your genious can think of a way to fix MY Sims 2 DOUBLE DELUXE with the nightlife and celebration stuff. I used to play it before on an old computer, and got a new laptop. So I installed it on my new laptop, and it loads and installs fine, but when I click to go into a neighborhood, it says: Application has crashed. Application will now terminate. I have uninstalled and reinstalled three times, disk defraged, and disk cleaned, but it still doesn’t work! I need help!! I removed my downloads folder, knowign that nothing was in it, but I still don’t know!! And I don’t want to download anything or buy anything, just somehting easy to get it working again!! Help me!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  27. Natty says

    Friday June 11th, 2010 at 08:57 AM

    Hey Im glad I found SOMETHING online that can help me get on the right track on fixing this…

    My screen is 1440×900..when I went into Sims 2 University, everything was all messed up and flashing. It was crazy lol..so I followed your steps, &I got the text open (thank you veni) but now I dont know what exactly to do.

    It’s just a bunch of coding to me “/..could someone help me out if I sent them a copy of my coding???

    Please :(..I’d hate to have wasted money &not be able to play it!!

    I would appreciate it SOOO MUUUCCH! Honestly…
    My email is Natty30stm@yahoo.com if anyone would be willing to help me!!

    Natty

    Reply
  28. Esther says

    Wednesday May 26th, 2010 at 09:28 PM

    Hey guys,

    I wanna play The Sims 2 in 1400×1050 but I can only
    choose 800×600 or 1024×768. Pretty weird, I always
    play games in 1400×1050 and it’s the current size of my computer.
    Somebody help me please!

    MAIL ME! msn -> estherxoxo@live.com

    Reply
  29. amyloulabelle says

    Thursday April 29th, 2010 at 02:56 AM

    i have aproblem everytime i try to open the file graphic rules srg it says i need to no what file to open it with and i dont have a clue
    HELP

    Reply
  30. Johnny Boy says

    Wednesday April 28th, 2010 at 12:18 PM

    My goodness! this fix works 100%! I edited my sims2 seasons “graphicsrules.sgr” because it’s my latest expansion pack. the fix gave me all available resolutions to choose from.

    Reply
  31. richard says

    Wednesday December 30th, 2009 at 10:58 AM

    i tryed this but it dont work

    IF ANYONE CAN TELL ME HOW TO RUN THIS ON A 1600×900 Widescreen add me to msn or email me QUICKLY PLZ

    msn >>>richardjames008@hotmail.co.uk

    yahoo email >>> rjd0011@yahoo.co.uk

    Reply
  32. Romi says

    Tuesday December 8th, 2009 at 07:54 AM

    Hi, I can’t open Graphic Rules… what can I do?

    Reply
  33. Fagner says

    Thursday February 19th, 2009 at 09:17 AM

    obrigado!!!!!

    Reply
  34. Icepanther says

    Saturday February 14th, 2009 at 09:47 AM

    K, I tried what you told me to do… but… it made no difference except that the game ran a little slower.

    Please, can someone help me!

    Reply
  35. raw says

    Saturday December 27th, 2008 at 10:31 AM

    Thanks for the fix!!!!!!

    Reply
  36. Brenton says

    Tuesday November 25th, 2008 at 02:15 AM

    My One does not let me save it ??? Anyone HELP ??? :( !!!!

    Reply
  37. Brenton says

    Monday November 17th, 2008 at 02:51 PM

    Sorry , please could you explain how to do it in a little more detail don’t understand some of the steps !
    Thanks very much!!
    Brentonss@LIVE.CO.ZA

    Reply
  38. Umpcnut says

    Thursday November 6th, 2008 at 07:54 AM

    If you still can’t get this to work, just copy the resolution you want to use and paste it over ALL of the resolution settings under “option ScreenModeResolution”. Do not change the variable names, only change the resolution numbers.

    For example, you could set every single one to 800×600.

    No matter what the config decides to do, it will be forced to use the resolution you have selected regardless of whether the previous variables have been set to true or false.

    I have to say, this is one of the most annoying and unreliable methods I have seen for a game to chose a resolution.

    Reply
    • pafds says

      Saturday August 13th, 2011 at 03:53 AM

      It’s very, very clear here.
      http://www.modthesims.infohttp://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Cannot_Raise_Resolutionhttp:

      Reply
  39. Dee says

    Thursday August 7th, 2008 at 05:27 PM

    Telling me access to “” “” denied, wont let me save changes, any guess what I could do now?

    Reply
  40. Paul says

    Wednesday July 30th, 2008 at 01:04 AM

    ok so i made a backup of the graphic rules file but how exactly do you “edit the original file”?
    there is no option that says “edit” in the right click menu, nor is there anywhere else on the page!
    please help!

    Reply
    • Dave says

      Saturday June 8th, 2013 at 10:00 PM

      you edit the original file to.txt.

      Reply
  41. James says

    Thursday June 12th, 2008 at 05:55 AM

    Thanks guys, the fix worked.

    Another thing people may want to consider if this fix is not working for them, make sure you are editing the graphics file in the folder for the newest expansion pack you have installed.

    Reply
  42. Knatchwa says

    Sunday May 11th, 2008 at 01:01 PM

    I am just wondering, after I have noticed this factor the next question seems to be, what if you want to set it at a much higher resolution for example, 2560×1024 can you use the same technique? Or is that something that is still out there to find? Thanks for offering the solution and I wish you the best.

    Reply
  43. Alex says

    Tuesday February 26th, 2008 at 11:15 AM

    Dude thanks, you rock it works for sims castaway too!

    Reply
  44. Jess says

    Wednesday February 20th, 2008 at 04:43 PM

    And all of this would be SO wonderful if I could get Vista to cooperate with me on it…

    All the same, kudos on the work of genius! Hopefully I can put it to some use, as the resolution keeps me from playing the game for more than five minutes without wanting to break it.

    Reply
  45. dunja says

    Monday October 15th, 2007 at 03:06 AM

    hay, i have a problem with the sims 2… i can only one half of the game!! when i start it, i can see nothing but a half monitor black – half in the game… plzz help me :)

    Reply
  46. Ryan says

    Sunday October 14th, 2007 at 02:05 PM

    I uploaded my graphics Rules.sgr, hope someone can fix it for me, thx

    http://www.iinet.net.au/~goal/Graphics%20Rules.sgr

    Reply
  47. Ryan says

    Sunday October 14th, 2007 at 04:31 AM

    Hi all,

    I have follow the Vinny and the original post. However I am not quite sure which “setb forceLowResolution” should I change to false. I am using nvidia 6100 but I dont have something like Vinny mention

    “# the 6200 Turbo Cache peformed very poorly in CATLAB runs for EP2
    if (match(”${cardName}”, “*6200*”) or match(”${cardName}”, “*6100*”))
    setb forceLowSettings true
    setb forceLowResolution false”

    Reply
  48. Tricia says

    Sunday September 16th, 2007 at 10:55 AM

    I keep getting a blue box in the middle of the screen that says the montior resolution should be set at 1280×1024. I don’t care what the resolution is, I just want the blue box to disappear. Any help???

    Reply
  49. nigel says

    Thursday August 23rd, 2007 at 05:02 PM

    Thank you,Thank you,Thank you,Thank you,Thank you,Thank you,Thank you,Thank you,Thank you,

    The Sims 2 website did not have this valuable solution to a problem which has bugged me for a whole year, i was searching for this solution , Finally i can view both (wants abd skills) screens together,

    Reply
  50. Lauren says

    Monday August 20th, 2007 at 10:54 PM

    hey! i have done that b4 and all was fine i managed 2 change it but i un-installed the game and reinstalled (don’t ask why because i was ummm “fixing” the game to my liking and all went horribly wrong) so i have to do it again but this time it wont work for me even with changing further settings like vinny says but i did this without looking it up but my game continues to run even with this tampering?

    Reply
  51. SC says

    Sunday August 19th, 2007 at 02:23 PM

    So how would I fix this for a NVidia 6150? I tried editing the file like the original poster but it just tells me that vista has disabled it to be changed.

    Reply
  52. Lucie says

    Tuesday August 14th, 2007 at 01:24 AM

    whenever I run the sims 2 it always comes up with the message about DirectX 9.0c.
    Ive downloaded all the stuff im surposed to like it says but it STILL doesnt work!!!!
    how on earth do u run the sims 2?????
    help me please!!!

    Reply
  53. Cm.Zer0 says

    Saturday August 11th, 2007 at 12:05 AM

    I still do not get it. I did like Vinny said but there are only one choice “800×600” resolution in my sims 2 option
    can u help me

    Reply
  54. Liam says

    Wednesday July 25th, 2007 at 02:08 PM

    i made it a txt file but now i cant get it back to a sgr file, help?

    Reply
  55. Jack says

    Sunday July 22nd, 2007 at 02:46 AM

    Thank you so much to the original poster and Vinny XD
    I had to do this method in Seasons, Celebration and H&M stuff config files.

    Reply
  56. Jeane says

    Friday May 18th, 2007 at 08:07 PM

    Thank you so much to Vinny and the original poster. The website did not have this valuable solution to a problem which has bugged me since installing my NVidia GeForce 6200.

    You guys rock!

    Reply
  57. vinny says

    Tuesday March 13th, 2007 at 06:54 AM

    i used your solution but i had to edit it futher i had to change some more coding and variables from true to false.

    if (match(“${cardName}”, “*GeForce2*Integrated*”) or match(“${cardName}”, “*GeForce?2*Integrated*”) or match(“${cardName}”, “*GeForce4*Integrated*”) or match(“${cardName}”, “*GeForce?4*Integrated*”) or match(“${cardName}”, “*GeForce2 Quadro2 Pro*”))
    boolProp causticsEnabled false
    boolProp enumerateMultisampleLevels false

    setb forceLowSettings true
    setb forceLowResolution true
    endif

    # the 6200 Turbo Cache peformed very poorly in CATLAB runs for EP2
    if (match(“${cardName}”, “*6200*”) or match(“${cardName}”, “*6100*”))
    setb forceLowSettings true
    setb forceLowResolution false

    i had to do this because i have a nvidia 6200 and had to stop it from forceing the resolution to low

    Reply
  58. Ingre says

    Wednesday March 7th, 2007 at 01:38 AM

    Hi there,

    Oh,thank you so much!I got the link from Angel F of Mod the Sims,I also went on a hunt as I got seasons for my b-day, and so dissapointed when it wouldn’t go to higher res.Thank you for the solution, you made my day!!

    Pixi

    Reply
  59. LiLiESS says

    Friday March 2nd, 2007 at 02:30 PM

    Aw. It’s still 800 x 600 for me. :(
    I’m sure I followed the directions correctly..
    :( Help? :X

    Reply
  60. Virak says

    Thursday March 1st, 2007 at 06:10 PM

    never mind i figure it out

    Reply
    • dex says

      Monday December 2nd, 2013 at 07:45 AM

      what did you do? im having that prob

      Reply
      • James says

        Wednesday June 4th, 2014 at 10:49 AM

        Did you get anywhere with this?

        Could you tell me how you made your Graphic Rules file back into a .sgr file? I open it in Notepad, do the necessary edits and then go to save it and it saves it as a .txt file even though it has the .sgr extension. Quite confused!

        Any advice?

        Thanks :)

        Reply
        • Kara says

          Friday November 28th, 2014 at 12:26 PM

          Open the file in Notepad as you said, but instead SAVE AS with file name: Graphics Rules.sgr but change save as TYPE to all files.

          That’s what I did to change the file back to an SGR file, but my game still plays in the 800×600 :(

          Need help, I changed all my expansion packs as well !

          Reply
  61. Virak says

    Thursday March 1st, 2007 at 01:53 PM

    Help
    after I was done editing
    i rename the file back from txt to sgr
    but it stay txt what am i doing wrong?

    Reply
  62. Holly says

    Tuesday December 19th, 2006 at 08:32 AM

    Um…I tried and I still cannot get the game to give me more options on screen resolution! The only one listed is 800×600. My monitor is 1280×1024! Help if you can.

    Reply
  63. Vgal says

    Sunday August 27th, 2006 at 10:47 AM

    I am still having trouble with the resolution changes. I followed the directions as you advised and still there is no option on the controls of the game for the higher resolution. There is only one choice and that is the 800×600. The file I changed made a shortcut and they all read the same file name with the Graphics Rules.sgr. Now there are 4 file with the same name. 2 orginal and 2 with today’s date. My 2nd comment is that it has taken about 1 hour to load the game and it is really slow. I have a pentium 4 processor and this should not be happening. I never had any problems with the Sims original game and expansions. Help!

    Reply
  64. Mandy says

    Friday August 18th, 2006 at 02:33 AM

    hey, any idea why simcity4 has the same error??? :(

    Reply
  65. SumOf.us says

    Thursday May 25th, 2006 at 09:36 AM

    Wow no comments for the entire 2005 year and then it picks up for 2006.

    I wonder why it’s suddenly more popular again. My 12 year old daughter has gotten right into it over the last 8 months. She even reads the Sims2 fiction on the site. At least she’s reading.

    Sim or anyone: does the greater resolution cause a performance hit? I’m running it on a P3 and it takes a long time to load depending on which expansion packs are loaded. Should I accidentally alt+tab then it crashes the machine.

    chiki: remember to rename the file back to Graphics Rules.sgr when you finish.

    Paul

    Reply
  66. Britt says

    Friday May 5th, 2006 at 01:58 PM

    Holy crap, you rock man. :D

    I love you! Thanks so much!!!

    Reply
  67. veni says

    Wednesday April 5th, 2006 at 05:48 AM

    Thank you for the brilliant solution. You’re a genious!

    PS: to chiki:
    You have to rename Graphics Rules.sgr to Graphics Rules.txt then you can open it in your notepad and do the edit.

    Reply
  68. Rob van Maanen says

    Saturday January 7th, 2006 at 04:32 AM

    Hello,

    I want to thank very very much for you solution. I myself have been trying for more than a week searching for an answer to this question. Ea games doesn’t offer much help on their sites. I also made a call to Sims in the Netherlands, but they neither could help.
    So once again I admire your skill in handling software problems.

    bye,
    Rob (ex desperate father of a Sims 2 fan daughter!)

    Reply
  69. Matt says

    Monday January 2nd, 2006 at 06:41 PM

    Brilliant! I’ve ben looking for this solution for weeks. Cheers!

    Reply
  70. chiki says

    Saturday December 25th, 2004 at 07:56 PM

    how did you “edit the original file and find the section:

    “option ScreenModeResolution”?

    Reply
  71. chiki says

    Saturday December 25th, 2004 at 07:54 PM

    sorry, but how do you
    “edit the original file and find the section:

    “option ScreenModeResolution””?

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      Sunday September 14th, 2014 at 01:10 AM

      Right click on the file and open. You’ll get a pop up saying Windows can’t open the file. Use the select a program option and click OK, find Notepad and use it open the file

      Reply

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