After doing some more experimenting, I can 100% confirm this is an issue that occurs as a RESULT of the DXT1/DTX5 compression. In the past, our GPUs probably did some clever dithering that made this issue less noticeable.
You can see here two wallpapers. BOTH are using the SAME flat pattern. One has a ton of pixelation and the other one doesn't. The one on the left is a custom wallpaper I made with an UNCOMPRESSED multiplier. The one on the right is a base game pattern with a compressed multiplier, as most textures in the game are.
The JPEG compression added a little bit of color banding to my wall, but in the game there was none.
Here's a video so you can see the pixelation better: https://streamable.com/o54di5
Again, the compression of the video added a color banding that does NOT appear in my game.
So there's only two ways to fix this issue. Nvidia needs to adds back dithering to hide these compression artifacts OR we need to recreate every compressed texture in the game and import it as an UNCOMPRESSED PNG image.
I recreated the multiplier of another wall from the game and the difference between my multiplier and the original one is like day and night. There's some color banding due to compression of the image (not very noticeable in-game) but pixelation is gone.
I cannot believe how awful Maxis' multiplier (right) looks next to mine (left):
So yeah, pixelation is fixed with better, uncompressed multipliers.
@Naus Omg it’s finally solved? The multipliers and dithering are over my head so I have a question, why doesn’t installing an older Nvidia driver solve the problem? That was the first step igazor recommended WAY back in the beginning of this but it didn’t work.
My game has been affected but it doesn't bother me
Wow, great call @Naus , that's a fantastic find. Do you think there might be a different method that was keeping the game looking good other than dithering though? Because from what I'm reading, the complaints about Nvidia drivers not allowing dithering date back almost two years, long before people here noticed anything different about their games.
There are some discussions about how to enable dithering via registry edits, but that's a massive pain, and it apparently often entails undoing the edits before shutdown and reapplying them after reboot, every single time. And it apparently doesn't work well in 1903 or later. There's an app that might help, but... no idea whether it's a legit tool or will bork people's systems, so I don't want to link it, or even try it myself without doing more reading.
Anyway, if anyone wants to try an older driver, you'll need to DDU the current driver first. Instructions:
I don't know exactly what happened, but according to my research Windows did something in version 1607 that altered the way color is handled (according to some sources it could be a new way of handling ICC profiles). Nvidia then disabled dithering by default and there's no reliable way to re-enable it.
Dithering is a clever technique to "HIDE" color banding and artifacts by applying NOISE homogeneously over an image (it's also used in audio and video).
These two images have the exact same palette (same colors) but the one on the right has dithering applied to hide the color banding:
That's what's missing now and why we notice pixelation and color banding. They were ALWAYS there, but now we can see them clearly because there's no dithering. At least that's my theory.
Looking at some of my older pics, I can definitely see some form of dithering at play:
I believe it would be interesting to go back to an older version of Windows 10 AND use older NVidia drivers to see if dithering is back and how much of a difference it makes.
It is Nvidia then? thanks for digging deeper into it, it is good to know what might be the cause. Maybe i should switch to amd in the future if they dont have this issue.
It is Nvidia then? thanks for digging deeper into it, it is good to know what might be the cause. Maybe i should switch to amd in the future if they dont have this issue.
Pixelation and color banding have always been there. In the past, Nvidia had some form of dithering enabled by default to hide these imperfections. Windows and Nvidia changed some stuff and now dithering is disabled and there's no reliable way of turning it back on. AMD still has dithering enabled by default so this is not an issue for AMD GPUs.
So if this is the problem, (not saying it isn't cause it sounds good to me!) then why wouldn't a clean install of an older version of the driver (390.65 is the one I have) fix it? Or is there any other way to fix it? Could we get simmers to unite and bug the stew out of Nvidia until they put the dithering option back in?!
So if this is the problem, (not saying it isn't cause it sounds good to me!) then why wouldn't a clean install of an older version of the driver (390.65 is the one I have) fix it? Or is there any other way to fix it? Could we get simmers to unite and bug the stew out of Nvidia until they put the dithering option back in?!
^I second this.
@ZeeGee I have found a few threads online where many folks are asking NVIDIA to add Dithering options to the control panel. Hopefully it will be made so! 🤞
I'm wondering if NVIDIA removed Dithering at the same time as that dreaded Windows update back in Dec. Makes you wonder... 🤔
I think it's both an issue with nVidia drivers AND the way Windows handles ICC profiles and color management (from version 1607 onwards). My theory is that if one were to use an older version of Windows (prior to 1607) AND older nVidia drivers, there wouldn't be an issue. Has anyone tried it?
@infragreen So much awesomeness! I had a look at that tool. If anyone figures that out please post here. Or if any of those fixes on the other thread work. I had a look but it will take me some time to figure out. I want to try this if I can figure out how. "Just wanted to report that disabling fast startup and the WindowsColorSystem task solves the issue on my system, but only with the latest Nvidia driver (430.86)."
And a THREAD!! Please everyone go post and let Nvidia know we're here and we're loud!! I'm going to add a link to the first post so people can find it easily.
I think it's both an issue with nVidia drivers AND the way Windows handles ICC profiles and color management (from version 1607 onwards). My theory is that if one were to use an older version of Windows (prior to 1607) AND older nVidia drivers, there wouldn't be an issue. Has anyone tried it?
@Naus That makes sense. One of the first things I tried was to roll back Windows to when I first got my desktop. That is usually my fix for everything. However, Windows no longer gives you that option. It will roll back and clean everything up, but it keeps all the Windows updates instead of going back to the earlier version. My husband needed a new computer so we bought one with a gaming card hoping the Windows would be an earlier version but it was completely up to date when we got it. So I've not been able to figure out how to roll back Windows. I also looked to see if you could still buy a Windows 7 or 8 computer (and just keep it off the internet) but couldn't find that either.
I disabled fast start up - easy through a google search, and then I found these instructions for WindowsColorSystem task. Went into game and there is still pixilation and color banding there, in a hurry today so no time for pics. So later I'll try to add my older Nvidia driver to see if that helps along with the Windows fixes.
@GraceyManor It looks like there's some color banding and pixilation on the skin and faces but I'm not sure if it's the photo or the game. Could you take a photo zoomed in on their faces?
@Naus and @InfraGreen I followed the instructions but it said to update your driver. Naus, you were saying that an older driver might work? Should I keep it on the latest update or try a clean reinstall of 390.65 again?
@GraceyManor It looks like there's some color banding and pixilation on the skin and faces but I'm not sure if it's the photo or the game. Could you take a photo zoomed in on their faces?
First sims I don’t have anymore they are on my old laptop which sadly died.But I can on my gaming desktop
@ZeeGee I commented on your other thread re this issue and just want to say thank you to everyone for their input on this issue I will be checking all those links out and forward the Nvidia online form to them so they are aware a lot of us are suffering over this.
I also wanted to explain to @Emily4331 that after all our efforts to save my digital game I finally uninstalled it from origin so I could concentrate more on my disc game but I did download steam as a test and played sims on there and found the steam S3 game was suffering the same bad sim graphics as I had been getting on the origin version of the game so whatever is at fault for me it spans the S3 game on both origin and steam..
@SPARKY1922 That's great, the more who fill out the form the better. (Also I installed the Origin version of Sims 3 on my husband's gaming PC and it looked the same.)
Can you boot up a base game, pause immediately, go to Goth and Andrews households and take close up pics of their faces and pixilated clothes to see how it compares? I do remember a time when my game had the issues you're talking about and I think a roll back from 1909 back to 1903 solved it, though it's been so long and I've been through a lot of different 'fixes' so not sure. But if you would post those pics here so we could see exactly what your game looks like that would help.
I feel like I have entered an alternate universe yet again as I just fired up steam to try and take some in game pics as you requested because i no longer have my game installed on Origin and I cannot find the game i downloaded and played last night anywhere????? so i have had to send a support ticket to steam to find out why a game I purchased and played last night is no longer there so i can only direct you back to this thread link when i posted some pics of my issue just before @Emily4331 started to try and help me..
Comments
You can see here two wallpapers. BOTH are using the SAME flat pattern. One has a ton of pixelation and the other one doesn't. The one on the left is a custom wallpaper I made with an UNCOMPRESSED multiplier. The one on the right is a base game pattern with a compressed multiplier, as most textures in the game are.
The JPEG compression added a little bit of color banding to my wall, but in the game there was none.
Here's a video so you can see the pixelation better: https://streamable.com/o54di5
Again, the compression of the video added a color banding that does NOT appear in my game.
So there's only two ways to fix this issue. Nvidia needs to adds back dithering to hide these compression artifacts OR we need to recreate every compressed texture in the game and import it as an UNCOMPRESSED PNG image.
I cannot believe how awful Maxis' multiplier (right) looks next to mine (left):
So yeah, pixelation is fixed with better, uncompressed multipliers.
There are some discussions about how to enable dithering via registry edits, but that's a massive pain, and it apparently often entails undoing the edits before shutdown and reapplying them after reboot, every single time. And it apparently doesn't work well in 1903 or later. There's an app that might help, but... no idea whether it's a legit tool or will bork people's systems, so I don't want to link it, or even try it myself without doing more reading.
Anyway, if anyone wants to try an older driver, you'll need to DDU the current driver first. Instructions:
https://crinrict.com/blog/2019/02/clean-re-install-of-graphics-drivers-with-display-driver-uninstaller-ddu.html
You can search for an older driver here:
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/drivers/
Dithering is a clever technique to "HIDE" color banding and artifacts by applying NOISE homogeneously over an image (it's also used in audio and video).
These two images have the exact same palette (same colors) but the one on the right has dithering applied to hide the color banding:
That's what's missing now and why we notice pixelation and color banding. They were ALWAYS there, but now we can see them clearly because there's no dithering. At least that's my theory.
Looking at some of my older pics, I can definitely see some form of dithering at play:
I believe it would be interesting to go back to an older version of Windows 10 AND use older NVidia drivers to see if dithering is back and how much of a difference it makes.
Pixelation and color banding have always been there. In the past, Nvidia had some form of dithering enabled by default to hide these imperfections. Windows and Nvidia changed some stuff and now dithering is disabled and there's no reliable way of turning it back on. AMD still has dithering enabled by default so this is not an issue for AMD GPUs.
1. There's a tool that, among other things, enables dithering on Nvidia cards: https://bitbucket.org/CalibrationTools/calibration-tools/src/master/
2. Same tool has been having problems since the 1903 update.
3. My brand new Nvidia thread about this nonsense (I linked to some of your pictures and posts, many thanks to everyone): https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/geforce-graphics-cards/5/395894/horrible-color-banding-texture-handling-and-dither/
outrun / blog / tunglr
^I second this.
@ZeeGee I have found a few threads online where many folks are asking NVIDIA to add Dithering options to the control panel. Hopefully it will be made so! 🤞
I'm wondering if NVIDIA removed Dithering at the same time as that dreaded Windows update back in Dec. Makes you wonder... 🤔
And a THREAD!! Please everyone go post and let Nvidia know we're here and we're loud!! I'm going to add a link to the first post so people can find it easily.
@emorrill Yes it does make you wonder! I'm so excited about this new info. Maybe there will be a resolution for this. Nice to see you here.
@Naus That makes sense. One of the first things I tried was to roll back Windows to when I first got my desktop. That is usually my fix for everything. However, Windows no longer gives you that option. It will roll back and clean everything up, but it keeps all the Windows updates instead of going back to the earlier version.
https://www.ghacks.net/2019/07/04/windows-10-version-1903-banding-on-gradients-issue/
Just for comparison, this is from my laptop with a Nvidia Ti.
And on my desktop.NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER
Just to compare.All updated to recent update.
https://graceymanorsims3.tumblr.com/
@Naus and @InfraGreen I followed the instructions but it said to update your driver. Naus, you were saying that an older driver might work? Should I keep it on the latest update or try a clean reinstall of 390.65 again?
First sims I don’t have anymore they are on my old laptop which sadly died.But I can on my gaming desktop
https://graceymanorsims3.tumblr.com/
These are the settings as well.
https://graceymanorsims3.tumblr.com/
Someone in the thread you made said we should fill this:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSewHJk1xP-C5elLBRCDLTLpNQZ9eiefrdZmUGP9hMCN6gKssA/viewform
I also wanted to explain to @Emily4331 that after all our efforts to save my digital game I finally uninstalled it from origin so I could concentrate more on my disc game but I did download steam as a test and played sims on there and found the steam S3 game was suffering the same bad sim graphics as I had been getting on the origin version of the game so whatever is at fault for me it spans the S3 game on both origin and steam..
Can you boot up a base game, pause immediately, go to Goth and Andrews households and take close up pics of their faces and pixilated clothes to see how it compares? I do remember a time when my game had the issues you're talking about and I think a roll back from 1909 back to 1903 solved it, though it's been so long and I've been through a lot of different 'fixes' so not sure. But if you would post those pics here so we could see exactly what your game looks like that would help.
See these post to see how best to show the pics:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17630421/#Comment_17630421
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17633799/#Comment_17633799
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17624889/#Comment_17624889
I feel like I have entered an alternate universe yet again as I just fired up steam to try and take some in game pics as you requested because i no longer have my game installed on Origin and I cannot find the game i downloaded and played last night anywhere????? so i have had to send a support ticket to steam to find out why a game I purchased and played last night is no longer there so i can only direct you back to this thread link when i posted some pics of my issue just before @Emily4331 started to try and help me..
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/971320/update-9-2-20-has-your-sims-3-game-been-affected-by-the-recent-pixilation-issues/p13
https://graceymanorsims3.tumblr.com/