Windows 8.1 Pro Grey world, Lowest Settings, Compatibility makes game dim! [SOLVED]

Okay, so before I start, I would like to mentioned that I am VERY new here, like 5 min or so (at the moment of posting this), so I apologize if I am posting this in the wrong sections or if there are any solutions for this already. The thing is, I have searched the net all around for a solution for my combination of problems, but none of them work. So here it is.


First of all, for the past 3 years I have been playing the Base game + Pets expansion. ONLY those two games. Yes, they are torrented, I burnt them on a disk, been using them on Windows 7 without any issues. Never even needed any of the fixes from here. 
Now, last week I got myself a new computer with an Intel i3 - 2100 processor, a new NVIDIA GTX 750 graphics card and 8 GB of ram. I also installed Windows 8.1 Pro. I checked on various websites and I my system should be able to run the game on high settings or more. In addition, all of my components, including the OS supposedly are compatible with the Sims 3. All of my drivers etc. are updated to the latest, checked it more than once. Regardless, the following happened.

So after getting a pretty good update from my old computer I decided to install the games again. So I did. However, the moment I got into the game, the first thing that I got was a notification that my Graphics card could not be recognized, so the game was to set the settings on low/high...I don't remember which one of these two it was, but it didn't matter to me because the same thing happened before (on old system + old hardware) and all I needed to do was to change the settings to what I wanted and the game looked and worked fine. 
However this time around two things started happening which annoy the hell out of me.

1. The settings are stuck on lowest possible. No matter how many times I tried to set them up, when I restart the game as prompted to do, the settings would be reset to what they were before. I would also like to mention that "High Detail Lots" does not have a scroll option. It's is stuck on 1 and I cannot even try to change it because the slider is not visible. 

2. The game world, upon entering is grey. The only thing I can see are shapes and the menu letting me create or move in a household. I tried selecting a household and moving them in which worked and when I zoomed in on them the world appeared as normal. However, I don't want to have this issue to begin with.

Now, I tried to solve these problems in many ways, the only solutions being to run the game in compatibility mode for windows 7. BUT! If I do that, the game looks very dark and dim. Nothing I tried fixes this. I didn't try running in Windowed mode because playing the game like that is out of the question to begin with. I am tired and fed up with not being able to find a solution, mostly because nobody in the world who has posted a similar problem doesn't exactly have the same problem combination that I have. For most people turning on compatibility mode worked, but in my case if I do that the game is dark. For people with the dark screen problem, turning off compatibility mode worked, but If I did that, my game looks like crap. I have spend over 8h searching for a solution and I couldn't find one that solves everything. I am really starting to panic that I won't be able to play the game anymore normally, especially because I am definitely not able afford changing my components at this time again. I really need help!      


I am really sorry for the long and maybe raging post, but don't get me wrong. I am just mad that my computer is new and is able to run games such as Fallout 4 on medium or better, yet the Sims won't even let me change my settings. I am hoping the community here will be able to solve my problem. 

Hello! 

I will try to that today and I will post if anything helped!  Thank you!

Oh just a small update! Although I am already downloading the complete collection and all, I tried just now to install the base game again and start it without the pets expansion. And it works! No problems at all. Could that mean that the Pets expansion I have is causing the problems? O.o

Okay, so I downloaded the Complete collection from your post, I followed the instructions from your video and the game works!  Not only that, now I have everything!  I am sooo happy it's crazy!  Thank you so much!