Sims 4 – How to add your GPU to the GraphicsCards.sgr file

If you have a newish Mac and are having graphical issues whilst playing, or the game is freezing/crashing then adding your GPU to the game file may help.

Open the Config.log file in your Electronic Arts > The Sims 4 folder and check whether your card is found and supported:

If either of those values is 0 you should add your card to the database. We will be using the following information from the Config.log file to add the card:

Name (driver): Radeon Pro 560
Name (database): AMD Radeon R9 450 and 460 [Found: 1, Supported: 1]
Vendor: ATI
Chipset: Vendor: 1002, Device: 67ef, Board: 00000179, Chipset: 00c0

AMD/ATI and NVIDIA cards:

  1. Follow these instructions to access and copy/paste the relevant game files into your ConfigOverride folder.
  2. Open the GraphicsCards.sgr file with TextEdit. Don’t be overwhelmed by the amount of text in this file, it lists all supported and older unsupported GPUs and chips and is split into three clear sections, one for AMD/ATI, one for NVIDIA and one for Intel, in that order.
  3. Find the correct Vendor section for your GPU (use CMD + F for a quick search) and create a new line underneath the Vendor header: 
  4. Copy/Paste the line below into your newly created line. This is the line we will use as our basis for simple editing. It should now look something like this: 
  5. The numbers immediately after card are the Device ID of your GPU from the Chipset line in the Config.log file (see above).
  6. The description in the “” is the recognised name of your card from the Name (database) line in the Config.log file (see above). If this is not present you can use the name from the Name (driver) line.
  7. The $cardLevelUber $resolutionHigh indicates the default settings the game will use and the maximum it will allow. You can change Uber/High/Medium to your preferred maximum.
  8. After changing the details listed above it should look something like this (with your specific details of course):
  9. Close the file, it will save the edits automatically. Close the Config.log file then launch your game and quit at the Main Menu. Re-open the Config.log file and you should now see [Found: 1, Supported: 1] against the name of your card. If you still have a zero check the Device ID and name are correct. Sometimes you may have to change the name slightly to better reflect your card.

Intel chips:

  1. Follow these instructions to access and copy/paste the relevant game files into your ConfigOverride folder.
  2. Open the GraphicsCards.sgr file with TextEdit. Don’t be overwhelmed by the amount of text in this file, it lists all supported and older unsupported GPUs and chips and is split into three clear sections, one for AMD/ATI, one for NVIDIA and one for Intel, in that order.
  3. Find the Intel Vendor section (use CMD + F for a quick search) then scroll down the list until you can see the $cardLevelMedium $resolutionMedium section (Intel chips are typically set to Medium settings as they are lower spec. integrated cards. Forcing them to use higher settings can severely impact game performance.):
  4.  Insert a line under $cardLevelMedium $resolutionMedium:
  5. Copy/Paste the line below into your newly created line. This is the line we will use as our basis for simple editing. It should now look something like this:
  6. The numbers immediately after card are the Device ID of your chip from the Chipset line in the Config.log file (see above).
  7. The description in the “” is the recognised name of your card from the Name (database) line in the Config.log file (see above). If this is not present you can use the name from the Name (driver) line.
  8. After changing the details listed above it should look something like this (with your specific details of course):
  9. Close the file, it will save the edits automatically. Close the Config.log file then launch your game and quit at the Main Menu. Re-open the Config.log file and you should now see [Found: 1, Supported: 1] against the name of your chip. If you still have a zero check the Device ID and name are correct. Sometimes you may have to change the name slightly to better reflect your chip.